Shinsegae Food Market is open

Out of curiosity, I trundled over to the Dogok Station area Saturday evening to see whether the new Shinsegae Food Market was open, and it was. I get the impression that, when Shinsegae rebranded itself from the initialism SSG, it left the SSG infrastructure largely in place. I should have put 2 and 2 together earlier: SSG is Shinsegae, so there shouldn't have been much for renovators to change or rearrange. And when I stepped into the food market, it felt about 60-70% the same. The sit-down dining areas are more numerous now; the sangucheria is a huge improvement over what had been there before, but most of the rest of the store looks and feels the way it had originally—except that, now, the beef is way more expensive. Previously, a 2-kilo package of LA galbi cost around W72,000, which was comparable to Korean Costco prices a few years ago. With the new makeover, LA galbi is now around W100,000 for 2 kilos.*

The new entrance looks mostly like the old entrance, but now, there's a sliding door in front of the revolving door.

This Japanese resto is new. If it's like a previous attempt, it'll eventually fizzle and die.

2.3 kg of LA galbi is rather expensive, though, at almost W100,000.

the Christmas spirit

I left Shinsegae to go to Home Plus in Jamshil to buy winter hats since I can't seem to find the winter hat that I've used for years. The Lotte World Tower is in Jamshil:

I took this shot (that "star" is a streetlight) when I went over to Home Plus in Jamshil.

This was a fruitful reconnoiter. I now know that I can again shop for European cheeses where I used to shop, but I'm wary that all the prices on groceries have been raised. Rebranding SSG as Shinsegae literally comes with a price, I guess.

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*For Americans thinking in dollars and pounds, that's about $15/lb. for short rib.