Korean Costco Membership

In a land where most things are not familiar, it’s been really awesome to just step into the Costco with our $35 annual membership and just step right into a simulated North American world. There are some familiar things here like movies, McDonalds, and clothing stores around Seoul, but nothing is exactly the same as home. You can even find close enough replacements to most foods or meals at the local E-Mart. But, none of this compares to the treasures awaiting us at the hugest Costco I have ever seen. I never even really went to Costco, or “Price Club” back at home. My family went sometimes, but I rarely needed stuff in bulk and it was just a big trip to take off all the way to Bayers Lake from the South end.

We headed just two subway stops away to Costco. Yeah, two subway stops and a short walk and we’re there. It’s crazy huge inside and packed with Koreans. Most big department stores here are the opposite of home. The store levels are underground and there’s about five levels of parking from the ground level up. We took the moving sidewalk ramp down two floors. There were the huge bins of clothes, massive aisles of bulk everything and the huge shopping carts. We browsed around and headed up another ramp to the food floor. Ahhhh. So awesome. They have everything. We got our rotisserie chickens there for Thanksgiving. They have grapes from home (the grapes here are different and taste just like grape candy), French fries from Cavendish farms in PEI, mussels, Baileys for Christmas, the bakery, tons of cheese, Eggo waffles, and so much other good stuff.

So far we’ve been back a lot. It’s awesome to go and get all the essentials like fries, cheese, and bacon. Plus we can grab stuff for the other teachers, but most have memberships. The good treats are stuff like avocados to make guacamole and the big muffins they have. They have the wicked Costco pizza on the other side of the check-outs and cheap soft serve ice cream too. The only weird thing is the big plate of ketchup, mustard and onions that is free. All the Koreans get to mix and eat as a side dish. It smells weird and mostly looks like dog barf.