Seoul Days 9-12
Sunday morning we slept in, which was pretty darn fun in and of itself. Then we went down to Suwan to meet David. Suwan is a suburb of Seoul. We were all pretty hungry when we arrived so we went to a Korean spicy food place. We had this chicken dish which was covered in super spicy red sauce, then the whole thing was topped with cheese and a few green peas. It was served with a bland rice soup. The rice soup was mostly to cool your mouth I think. It tasted like a hot and sweet buffalo sauce and was really good. I was excited to find an authentic Korean dish with cheese, because cheese really isn't big here (I don't know how we would survive Stacy!). Our big plan for the day was to walk the fortress wall at Suwan. It took us about two hours, but it was a really nice walk. All along the way there were cute little buildings and ponds, and even an archery range. I took lots of pictures. We were all very impressed by the archers. They all seemed to be hitting targets that were easily 200m away. Perhaps I am easily impressed, but that seemed pretty good to me! ;-) After the walk we went to dinner at a Korean barbeque place. Basically you order your meat, and then throw it on your own personal little grill until it is ready. We had mentioned the night before how much Layna and I like unagi, so david suggested eel. Layna and I figured--what the heck, we like eel so why not. Well, they sure brought us eel! They basically cut the heads off, coated them in sauce and thew them on a plate. So we chucked them on the grill and the David used the scissors to cut them up into bite sized chunks... that's when their spines started ozing out. Eel spines apparently look like gelatinous spaghetti noodles. Layna and I kind of looked at each other and looked at the eel. To honor a promise to Alicia we had ordered soju (vodka made from pine needles). So we toasted Alicia, downed our Soju and dug into our eel. We picked a good time to drink the soju, it made our eel spines go down easier. The whole thing was very, very, very chewy. Tasty, but really chewy. All three of us were kind of like--hmm, "chewy!" Then they brought a really good sauce--which made the chewy forgivable. I think next time we will order pork, but ya know what--now I can say I have eaten whole eel! After dinner we continued our soju experience by going to the "Batman Bar". Yes, that was its name. We had really good pomegrante soju there. In Korea you have to order food when you order at a bar, so we got a fish soup to go with it. Which was really good. Soju is seriously dangerous stuff, it has a high alcohol content and it is very, very smooth. It is also very, cheap. Our big bottle of pomegranted soju (about the size of a standard wine bottle) was 7,000 won (about $5).
Monday morning I went to Lotte with Layna. Lotte is a huge corporation that owns a mall/amusement park/cinema/bowling alley complex. It was pretty amazing how huge the thing was. We got lunch there and then I headed home to be slothful. I was pretty tired and I figure one day of slothiness isn't so bad! I figured I would spend the day experiencing Korean dramas...unfortunately we lost the remote to the television. Later after several hours of searching we found it packed away in a box. When Layna got home we went to get Mexican food, which was surprisingly good and authentic. Then she made a buddhist lantern from the extra materials they had given me at Bongeunsa. I bake two little brownie cakes when she finished correcting papers. I decided I wanted cake, so cake there was! Then of course we were up until 2am with sugar highs...but such is life.
Wednesday morning we woke up early... we were women with a mission! We wanted to experience a traditional Korean teahouse. We went back to Insadong to find Dawon teahouse! Which we found actually with a minimum of fuss considering how lost we got looking back on Saturday. Since they didn't open until 10:30, we went to the Buddhist stores next to Jogeysa temple and bought crepe paper so we can make more lanterns. When we got back to the tea house, they seated us at what appeared to be the "foreigner's table." It had a glass cover with a bunch of messages from people all over the world about how awesome Korea is. We added our own in three languages. Layna did English and Korean and I did Arabic and English. We only had one tiny post-it so we left off our Italian (Layna) and Spanish (me). Then our tea arrived! We had ordered a tea recommended by our guide book, it was pink and made from berries reported to have 5 flavors. We could only taste 4, but it was really good. We also got honey cakes to go with it. I snapped a few pictures there too, the tea house was really pretty and relaxing. Unfortunately we had to trek back to Daechi-dong so Elena could go to work and we could get lunch. For lunch we went to a dumpling restaurant and had the best dumplings I have ever eaten and a big bowl of ramen noodles. In the afternoon, since I was on my own, I decided to go to Seoul Forest. Seoul Forest is Seoul's answer to central park. It was really cool--but sorry NY had Seoul beat. Seoul Forest did have an area where they had Korean deer that you could feel which I liked. There was also a nice walk along the river Han and a wetlands garden that I trekked through. It was kind of entertaining that all through Seoul Forest they had piped in music. The songs were all 1950's nostalgia American songs being sung by Korean singers. It just struck me as really odd! For dinner last night we met Eun Jung, one of Layna's former Korean tutors who was living in Boston until recently. We went to an Italian restaurant, which was actually very good--but just like typical American italian food.
This morning Elena had her Korean class, so slept in and meet her back at Omandu (the dumpling restaurant) for lunch. I had seen a dish on there I really wanted to try. It was full of those tasty rice cake things which they put in Dybokege. It was also covered in the same spicy red sauce, but it was full of tasty stir-fried seafood like shrimp, muscles and my new friend octopus (we have made our peace). We also got more dumplings which made me happy. For my last day I was going to do another walk, but my inner materialist got the better of me and I went back to Insadong, which I love and walked through the stores once more. I bought a few more small things. Then I went back to Little America, bought myself a crazy hat (the other ones were for other people), and a book! I found an English book store which made me happy and a I also found cheap peanutbutter. So I gave in a bought it. Then I met Layna back at Paris Baguette and helped her pick out a Cake for David's birthday, which is today. Tommorow we bid adieu to Seoul and head off to Tokyo for a few days. All in all, it has been awesome trip to Seoul. South Korea is defintely one of the neatest places I have been. I'm already hoping to back next year around the same time for another visit to South Korea and hopefully to add on a trip to Beijing. Next dispatch will probably be from Tokyo if I can get the interwebs. Otherwise I will catch up on the blogging back in D.C.
On a side note--Remember the whole car break-in incident? Well apparently a detective called my Dad. They found my cell phone and arrested the guy. Pity they didn't find the leather jacket or the airbags. I would like to at least beat the guy over the head with bags. More details on all that when I get back and can talk to the detective.
Monday morning I went to Lotte with Layna. Lotte is a huge corporation that owns a mall/amusement park/cinema/bowling alley complex. It was pretty amazing how huge the thing was. We got lunch there and then I headed home to be slothful. I was pretty tired and I figure one day of slothiness isn't so bad! I figured I would spend the day experiencing Korean dramas...unfortunately we lost the remote to the television. Later after several hours of searching we found it packed away in a box. When Layna got home we went to get Mexican food, which was surprisingly good and authentic. Then she made a buddhist lantern from the extra materials they had given me at Bongeunsa. I bake two little brownie cakes when she finished correcting papers. I decided I wanted cake, so cake there was! Then of course we were up until 2am with sugar highs...but such is life.
Wednesday morning we woke up early... we were women with a mission! We wanted to experience a traditional Korean teahouse. We went back to Insadong to find Dawon teahouse! Which we found actually with a minimum of fuss considering how lost we got looking back on Saturday. Since they didn't open until 10:30, we went to the Buddhist stores next to Jogeysa temple and bought crepe paper so we can make more lanterns. When we got back to the tea house, they seated us at what appeared to be the "foreigner's table." It had a glass cover with a bunch of messages from people all over the world about how awesome Korea is. We added our own in three languages. Layna did English and Korean and I did Arabic and English. We only had one tiny post-it so we left off our Italian (Layna) and Spanish (me). Then our tea arrived! We had ordered a tea recommended by our guide book, it was pink and made from berries reported to have 5 flavors. We could only taste 4, but it was really good. We also got honey cakes to go with it. I snapped a few pictures there too, the tea house was really pretty and relaxing. Unfortunately we had to trek back to Daechi-dong so Elena could go to work and we could get lunch. For lunch we went to a dumpling restaurant and had the best dumplings I have ever eaten and a big bowl of ramen noodles. In the afternoon, since I was on my own, I decided to go to Seoul Forest. Seoul Forest is Seoul's answer to central park. It was really cool--but sorry NY had Seoul beat. Seoul Forest did have an area where they had Korean deer that you could feel which I liked. There was also a nice walk along the river Han and a wetlands garden that I trekked through. It was kind of entertaining that all through Seoul Forest they had piped in music. The songs were all 1950's nostalgia American songs being sung by Korean singers. It just struck me as really odd! For dinner last night we met Eun Jung, one of Layna's former Korean tutors who was living in Boston until recently. We went to an Italian restaurant, which was actually very good--but just like typical American italian food.
This morning Elena had her Korean class, so slept in and meet her back at Omandu (the dumpling restaurant) for lunch. I had seen a dish on there I really wanted to try. It was full of those tasty rice cake things which they put in Dybokege. It was also covered in the same spicy red sauce, but it was full of tasty stir-fried seafood like shrimp, muscles and my new friend octopus (we have made our peace). We also got more dumplings which made me happy. For my last day I was going to do another walk, but my inner materialist got the better of me and I went back to Insadong, which I love and walked through the stores once more. I bought a few more small things. Then I went back to Little America, bought myself a crazy hat (the other ones were for other people), and a book! I found an English book store which made me happy and a I also found cheap peanutbutter. So I gave in a bought it. Then I met Layna back at Paris Baguette and helped her pick out a Cake for David's birthday, which is today. Tommorow we bid adieu to Seoul and head off to Tokyo for a few days. All in all, it has been awesome trip to Seoul. South Korea is defintely one of the neatest places I have been. I'm already hoping to back next year around the same time for another visit to South Korea and hopefully to add on a trip to Beijing. Next dispatch will probably be from Tokyo if I can get the interwebs. Otherwise I will catch up on the blogging back in D.C.
On a side note--Remember the whole car break-in incident? Well apparently a detective called my Dad. They found my cell phone and arrested the guy. Pity they didn't find the leather jacket or the airbags. I would like to at least beat the guy over the head with bags. More details on all that when I get back and can talk to the detective.