Sweetshop Aki-ko opts for cartoon eye candy.

(From The Korea Herald)

By Matt Hodges Staff reporter People don't walk down Ehwa's sloping boulevards, they skip. Wedding shops and confetti-like snow and treacle-colored coffee houses point to a land made of gingerbread cooked up by Grimm himself. Unfortunately you can't eat this dreamland, though, because it's real.

Just ask the street-vendors. They sell bug-larvae, nuts and thick tentacles that not only look but smell real. Gut-wrenchingly so. But sweet can beat the street and if cutesy Japanese candies are up your alley grab a goodie bag, make an appointment with your dentist and head for Aki-ko, the newest gimmicky pic'n'mix shop to hit town.

Aki-ko, which could translate in Korean as "musical instrument- nose," is not a Korean word. It's Japanese. The eponymous cartoon heroine contrived to market the shop exists in a limbo world between Japanese anime and South Park (ie a cute girl sans nose, sporting John Lennon shades and rainbow-colored orthodontic braces on her orb-like head) as conceived by a Thai businessman mysteriously called Raymond. Confused? In Thailand there are already 20 stores and on Jan. 3 Aki-ko came to Seoul in anticipation of a whole franchise, including candies, clocks and mobile phone tassels. In cake-buying Korea the sweets are the star and together they point a sticky finger at the behind-the-scenes Willy Wonka who invents condensed Wrigley's gum (that you really can swallow), candy cheeseburgers and wasabi noodles.

One of the appeals here is the packaging. Differently weighted plastic pyramids of sweets ranging from 20 won to 50 won a gram allow customers - who are mostly female - to fill trays and stick their fingers in, well, a lot of different cakes at once.

"There's not a lot of sweets in each container," admits manager Seo Yoon-jong. "They work out more expensive than the larger packets, but customers can try a little bit of a lot of different candies." A brief glance around the store verified her business acumen, as female students giggled ...