a wasted Sunday

I took the subway out to Bundang, then walked 2.6 km out from Jeongja Station to the camping store I'd learned about. The final 100 or so meters of the walk were up a very steep hill, and I ended up smelling the camping store before I saw it. (New camping gear has a distinct smell.) Despite the wide selection I saw in one part of the store, there were apparently no backpacks or belt pouches on sale. What a shame. You'd think a camping store would carry such gear (and, in fact, I did see a backpack on a table on a lower floor... maybe it wasn't really for sale). The guys I talked to about the equipment seemed lazy and unwilling to help me, so I shrugged and left. That was a wasted pilgrimage.

A good percentage of the taxis in Bundang were actually Seoul-bound taxis, so I grabbed one and asked to be taken to Jamshil Station; I knew there was a HomePlus nearby, and I thought I might have a better chance of grabbing a small, simple backpack with a hip belt there. I reached HomePlus... and once again, nada. Another wasted trip.

Depressed, I took a final cab back to my place to buy some pancetta from my downstairs grocery so I could grind it up and add it to some ground pork to make Italian sausage... only to discover my grocery, despite selling pancetta for months, suddenly no longer sells it. Struck out again! What the fuck was going on?

Anyway, Monday afternoon, I'll check the grocery in the building where I work to see if it has pancetta. As for the belt pouches and/or little backpacks... I'll go visit Itaewon, where they have bag stores out the wazoo. I should've done that in the first place.