today peter and i went to page one because i needed to pick up the lonely planet guide for seoul as i'll be heading there for a trip in a few weeks. well, as we approached the shop we saw that they had a nice selection of english books outside the shop on sale for 99 nt(about 3 bucks u.s.). i wasn't really expecting to find anything, but looked anyway. mixed in with the suzanne sommers weight loss books was vaughn oliver: visceral pleasures by rick poynor. it's a nice hardback book chock full of gorgeous illustrations he did for 4ad and elsewhere. there is even some student work in it. really cool, and the illustrations are large and beautiful. it makes me want to dig out all the 4ad cds i have and give them a spin.

after purchasing this we went inside the shop and i picked up the overpriced lonely planet. i'm not the biggest fan of this publication, but i use it regardless. the information on photography is rather general and not all that helpful. slide film is allegedly not that common. ok, but if i want some where would i go to look for it? and no mention of 120 or other film sizes at all. not a single mention of toy shops anywhere. no mention of flea markets either*. maybe they don't exist, but i thought i had heard about them before. hmm. maybe one day someone will make a guide book for all the things i'm interested in. if anyone has any suggestions on things to see and do in seoul(especially toy shops, flea markets, etc.) i'd love to hear them.


* on further inspection, i found the hwanghak-dong flea market on one of the maps. the flea market is in the index under h. silly me thinking it should be listed under f for flea.