Sucker for other people's junk.

As most of you know, I love second-hand stuff. I love perusing thrift shops and buying vintage clothes. Garments I have that cost me 50 cents are often more dear to me than things I buy brand-new. It's a type of recycling that I can really get behind.
So naturally, I would look for such stores in Korea. However, they don't seem to exist. Koreans, as we've mentioned, are notorious for wanting and buying things new. In fact, residential and commercial buildings aren't "built to last", as we'd say. This is because Korean businesses hardly ever last more than 10 years, if not less. An interesting thing about this country is that it is constantly giving itself a face-lift, while simultaneously retaining age-old customs. So it is not uncommon to see local businesses live and die after a couple months or even weeks. Even when you enjoy what they're selling!
So, we all know at the end of the month there are always new tenants. People move and cast away furnishings that they no longer want, which means...JACKPOT FOR US! One of my pasttimes here has been wandering around checking out the local apartment trash areas. This may sound dirty, but Koreans throw away perfectly good things!! So check out what I scored this month...



A cool framed picture of Jesus with some hangul on it.












A rocking chair and a classical guitar!












This chair is sooooo comfortable...we fight over who gets to sit in it!





A new dresser for Paul...in perfect condition!







God smiled on us this weekend. We started to find these things after a rather unfortunate incident involving a much-desired DVD player. We finally found one at a decent price (about $60), and the salespeople assured us it would play our American DVDs, but when we got it hooked up at home, we found that it only played Korean DVDs. So, we had to return it :( But then we happened upon some great free stuff! Perhaps we'll find a region-free DVD player in Seoul when we go there next month for the Lunar New Year weekend.