Costco in Daejeon

Yes! We finally made it to a Korean Costco. It was really cool! The one we visited is in a city called Daejeon, ~4th largest city in South Korea, about 20 minutes from Sejong. Our co-workers took us here after our other weekend adventures were winding down.

This massive, two-story Costco had a lot of similarities to the ones you would find in an American one. There is someone checking for memberships at the front entrance, open-warehouse layout, employees handing out samples, bakery with pumpkin pies, croissants, and muffins, plus piles of jackets and other clothes, household appliances, and very cheap hot dog meals ☺

View from the escalator of the first floor

Chilsung Cider (shown next to the Pepsi in the ad banner) is Korean Sprite

Same, long checkout lines ☺

Shout-out to Gay: they have our favorite popcorn! ☺

The main differences were in some of the products: designer handbags from Prada with price tags in the range of W 2,000,000 (~$1,700), gift boxes for sale with things like Spam and Korean red ginseng, and a much more extensive selection of fresh seafood.

We received these gift boxes from our employer for Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, and they had similar ones to this at Costco (also at supermarkets around town). 

Bonus canola oil too ☺

Korean Red Ginseng is a very popular gift

This Costco was also two stories, with food on 2F and everything else on 1F. The parking garage went as high as 4F and there were magnetic escalators that took you and your carts everywhere (similar what you saw in our HomePlus video). Another random difference, but imported beer is really expensive here. The Kirkland select "craft brew" pack was ~ W 58,000 which is about $50...

Dinner!

We were really excited to get pizza for dinner. Or at least, I was. Though I am enjoying the Korean food experiences I've been having, it is a lot of new flavors for me.. and by this time I had eaten acorn jelly, raw shrimp, bibimbap full of mystery veggies.. some familiarity was welcome for me.

Special menu items include a Bulgolgi (marinated steak) bake, clam chowder, and teriyaki chicken bowl. Unfortunately they didn't have any pepperoni pizza but we settled with two slices of cheese and a chicken bake to share and we were very full and happy ☺

Thanks for reading~
More to come soon!