Saturday

Today we made our long-awaited first family trip to downtown Daegu. It was, in a word, stimulating.

Transport was smooth. A three minute cab ride to Yongsan Station and a 20 minute ride on the subway, with one transfer, took us to Jungangno Station and the heart of downtown.

We first hit up Kyobo Books and bought some reading material (at a fairly decent price considering English books are all imported) and then made our way to the main shopping district. There were probably 10 million people shopping in a six block radius. At least. Maybe more.

Carmen had a successful afternoon. She has the prototypical Asian figure, and every piece of clothing in any store we visited fit her perfectly. I, on the other hand, had a more difficult go of things. I found several shops I liked, but the t-shirts fit like some kind of leotard, and I basically looked like Renton from Trainspotting. We found that in the private, specialty shops there's only one size of every piece of clothing, so if it doesn't fit you're out of luck. But I still got a Mitch Albom book and Keith Richards scarf.

Visually, downtown was everything we'd pictured of an Asian metropolis. Bright lights, huge signs, endless crowds and raw meat. Add deafening hip-hop beats coming from every store and you've got six hours of culture that will last a lifetime. Too much culture at one time can be overwhelming though, so we played it safe and had burgers for lunch.

I sort of wish I was shopping today with Brad Pitt, because he would have garnered less attention than Cate. If we stopped for three seconds, hoards of people would crowd around and gawk, point, touch and take photos. Not an exaggeration. Really. It's hard enough steering a stroller through a tiny clothing store, but when everyone in the store stands in your way taking pictures and trying to hold your baby, it's basically impossible. No-one shops when we enter a shop, they just swarm around our oblivious one year-old daughter. She is a phenomenon. Example: "May I take a picture of your baby. She is just so beautiful, I just can't resist it."

Don't believe me? Here's just a few of her fans:


The pinnacle of my day, a visit to the Adidas Concept Store, was spoiled by Cate stealing all the attention . . . and service of the employees: