.....Continued The shopkeeper introduces me to many of his pieces - " This is an old Japanese piece." he said, pointing to a pot. "And this?" I asked. "That is a new piece from China, I got it in Beijing last week." he replied. I was pointing to a very old looking paper and wooden lamp. " This is a very old chinese piece." The shopkeeper kindly informed me. His hand was pointing to a silk hat, whose once bright colours, were now dull with age. Back on Insadong, we glide through the slow moving river of people, eyeing what is on either side of the street and are struck all of a sudden by a change in the style of the architecture. We were now in the famed Mary's Alley, the name of the old part (and really the whole) of the street, before the name Insadong was officially sanctioned. Incidentally, the name Insadong stretches back to the Chosun dynastic period. In those days the street was much narrower than it is today.

Calligraphy Shop Window Display.

Arts and Crafts Shop Window Display.

Back then the street was littered with famous cabinetmakers and their well made furniture and crafts, traditional wood and rice paper houses and Chajib (tea houses). the street was also peppered with administrative offices, that oversaw the 'goings on' in the area. Some of these administrative offices still exist today. The traditional architecture has largely disappeared now, but many old looking pre-WWII erections still stand, some looking rather like the buildings that align A'dam's Prinzengracht, with their brick exteriors and large vertically rectangular windows. Also noticeable are the signs written in archaic fonts and in chinese calligraphy, also lamps and eaves litter the roof tops, some sporting confucianist motifs.

Because of the proximity of Insadong to the Main Buddhist Temple of Chogesa. It is possible to see many Monks on any visit to Insadong.

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