Circles Around Dongdaemun

This morning I set off for Gate 19 to meet Nancy for a trip to Dongdaemun. BUT, the bus schedlues have changed, so my bus was 12 minutes later and I missed the connecting bus. So I walked from the school to the gate, rather than wait for the next bus. Nancy wasn't far behind me. Then we walked to the subway station. All the while I was keeping an eye out for the rice cakes with the sweet bean filling that is often sold in a street-side stand or in the subway stations.
Nancy had never been to Dongdaemun, so it was up to meto find the way. It was so easy I couldn't believe it. And we got to sit on the train, too. Then, there we were, looking around and taking it all in. We proceeded to the 5th floor, found buttons for her, pearls and beads and trim for me, and gobs and gobs of other stuff to feast our eyes on. The only other thing I wanted was Mettler machine embroidery thread. Actually, the brand wasn't important, but NOBODY had any, except some Gutterman varigated thread. So we checked other floors. No luck, just lace and stuffed bunny heads. No, we do not know why you would want to buy a bag of small stuffed bunny heads. Anyway, we decided to walk the perimeter of the buildings and see what those stalls had. No luck. More trims and rusty medical instruments. Ok, so we crossed the street to look there. No luck. We passed a Christian bookstore, actually lots of bookstores, in Korean, and hats, and trims, and umbrellas, and Christmas ornaments. FINALLY, we found a store selling embroidery thread in large spools. But, when I showed her my almost-empty spool of thread, she pantomimed that what I had (polyester) was stronger than what she had (rayon) and wouldn't sell it to me. She sent us back the way we had come, 100 meters. So, thinking we had missed something, we backtracked, and took a left at the Christmas ornaments. No luck there either, but there were a lot of food places. One had live eels ina tank, but we passed that one by. Finally we sat and had lunch. It must have been the Chicken Soup restaurant. That and side dishes were all that was on the menu, as far as we could tell. And the proprietress must have been a Jewish mother because she hovered over us, making sure our bowls were filled, showing us how to eat noodles with chop sticks, cutting up the chicken, encouraging us to eat more kimchi, etc. We did the best we could, mouths burning, and my nose running. She found that very amusing. Maybe if I had left it run, she'd have wiped it for me.
After that, we made our way home via the subway. I never did find any rice cakes.