Eat, Drink, and Be Married

Now that I'm back on US soil, I badly miss the amazing food I ate in Seoul. The great thing, too, is that most of these items were really cheap! Allow me to share a few gems that I did not include in previous posts ~


Jjam bbong with mussels. So much seafood! This place has a wall of fame similar to those places highlighted by Man v. Food, for those who eat the extra large extra spicy bowl within a time limit. You can see on the polaroids their sweaty faces and pepper stained mouths haha:

Black bean noodles with overeasy egg. Simple addition that takes it to another level:

Pyong-yang style stew with king size dumpling:

Fried pork cutlet and shrimp tempura in kimchi stew with rice cakes and mozzarella:

Shave ice with sweet squash, candied fried dates and injulmi rice cake. The ice had amazing soft texture. I had this in a quaint French district of Seoul, where 500 or so French reside. Only the best restaurants survive here because of the French-inspired passion for flavor, creativity and execution:

Though there are Paris Baguette stores in the US, many of the PB stores in Seoul are enormous and upscale looking, with about 5x the variety of pastries than the ones I saw in LA. This spread is only one of about 7 similar looking counters!

When it comes to churros or boyfriends, Seoul women choose churros. How can I compete with that??:

Jai, Leslie, the kids, Yun, and I went to Noryangjin Fish Market to eat crab. If you click on the pic below, you will see a glimpse of the enormity of the place. Fish stalls as far as the eye can see. It was awesome! And the restaurants upstairs cook whatever you purchase, so we bought blue crabs, large prawns, and ordered flatfish sashimi. Later, the servers gave us spicy stew to put any leftover sashimi into for the most amazing fish stew.

This is not food related, but just wanted to point out that for a mere $24,000, you too can have the latest and greatest LG smart tv. Yun and I got a little motion sick standing in front of it. It was pretty great.

Also non food related, but Koreans really do take care of their customers' dire needs. For example, if you go to the cinema and just happened to forget to wear socks that day, BOOM. Socks vending machine. And of course, the vendor company is "I Hate Monday." Yeah, I don't get it either.

My vacation in the motherland was fabulously good. I ate, drank, hiked, ate, took pictures, met friends, wore a sheephead towel, and ate. Alas, I did not meet my seoul mate, nor did I marry a Korean Air flight attendant (though I really really wanted to). Really. But I did meet someone who knows someone who might possibly know someone who knows a member of Girls' Generation. Not to name drop or anything.

Thanks for venturing with me on Koreander. See you next time!

Dragon Eggs, Fire, and Hal

For breakfast one day, we had to have waffles. There are so many waffle shops in Seoul, so we chose Beans Bins for its proximity to Myung Dong. It did not disappoint. The texture of the waffles was crispy, moist and chewy, and it was covered with toppings. As a bonus they gave Haagen Dazs on the side.

We were treated to another bonus at the waffle cafe. Educational bathroom signs! 

Another thing we simply had to experience was the Jjim Jil Bang, or steam room. But this was no ordinary steam room. This was Dragon Hill. This was a multi plex with 5 floors. You can stay here for 12 hours, any time of day. So people end up sleeping here after a rough day at work or getting hammered at bars. There's a main large room with heated floors:

I introduced James to the art of sheep head towel dressing. He asked why Koreans do this. I told him, "Because." That seemed to be good enough for him. They also sell these hard boiled black eggs, and I told him lots of Korean like to crack them on their heads. He asked why. He really does ask too many questions.

Dragon Hill has multiple smaller rooms with different features like jade energy or very hot rocks. Here, James is asleep on very hot rocks:

They even had an ice room. It was cold.

These are rock seats with elevated wedges for God knows what. This time it was me asking James why. Took him about an hour to relax that grimace:

3 hours of slothfulness naturally made us very hungry, so we went to get some Korean barbecue (again). This time it was beef ribs and marinated pork rib:

To cap off the fire theme night, we had cigars and whiskey at a place in Itaewon owned by a Turk named Hal. So of course he named the place Burn In Hal. We are both kinda spendthrifts, but it was a celebratory year for us (we both turned 40! uh, I mean 30!) so we splurged on the good stuff for one night. Yamazaki 18. For those of you who do not regard this as the good stuff, bear in mind that this is a significant level up from my usual Colt 45.

Yamazaki was like butter. And baby wallabies. And Menudo on ABC.

Autumn Fairytale

Once upon a time, 2 buddies decided to hike a mountain at the border of Seoul city limits. They assumed that a mountain within city limits would be small and take but an hour to climb at most. By the way, they were morons.

They soon noticed a bevy of outdoorsy polar wear stores at the entrance. 

"Ridiculous!" said Roy to James. "It's just like when I went snowboarding 15 years ago in Korea, and all these people would be wearing the most high end stuff, only to be found making pie wedges with their skis down bunny slopes." 

James noticed that he and Roy were the only ones wearing blue jeans, sneakers, t shirts and pretty much anything cotton. He also noticed hikers with pole sticks and snow gloves. They chuckled at how overboard the locals were, especially considering how level the terrain was.

Roy and James continued to enjoy their superior knowledge and the wondrous colors of fall.

1.5 hours later, they didn't quite enjoy themselves very much. They saw a sign that said 1.0 km to the peak. This peak could best be seen when tilting the head back until the roundish back of the skull touched the shoulder blade. They figured they would be up at the top in about 15 minutes. 15 minutes later, they saw a sign that said .9 km to the peak. "Oh ****," said Roy.

They saw a kid who had the right idea.

Fighting the urge to give up since they were only .9 km (or 20 hours) away, they plodded uphill. Apparently, whoever originally blazed the trail to the peak did not believe in wide zigzagging. No, that person believed that paths ought to be steep and laser straight. "Sure would be nice to have one of them pole sticks right about now," said James. 

Near the top, they encountered traffic.

Roy's legs were all jelly, and so he pretty much pulled himself up the rest of the way with his arms. A 68 year old grandmother easily whooshed past him, wearing neon K2 gear.

Finally reaching the top, Roy pretended to be exhausted, just for comic relief. I mean, really, who could get tired from climbing a city mountain?

With 40mph winds at the top, and temperatures at a balmy 37, James and Roy broke out their traditional Korean hiking snacks of kimbap rolls, boiled egg, and rice wine. They ate quickly with chattering teeth. "Sure would be nice to be wearing some high end polar gear right about now," said James.

Then it started raining.

The rocks became slippery. Roy's sneakers slid as he descended. He grabbed the metal, icy cold cable ropes to help slow him down. One local woman could be heard saying, "Yikes, he's not even wearing gloves!" Yes lady, I get it, the 30 or so Marmot and Arcteryx stores at the bottom should have given me a clue, but it didn't ok??

3 hours later, Roy and James made it to the bottom. The North Face store was the first to greet them. "Sure would be nice to have some weatherproof clothes right about now," said James.

Their ride home was filled with laughter and energetic recounts of the short 6 hour trek.

Later in the evening, they met with another friend named Jai. Jai liked barbecue. So did Roy and James. So they ate barbecue. Glorious wondrous barbecue. Pork belly. Extra thick non-frozen pork belly. The grill pan tilted so that the pork fat would flow away from the meat, preventing the boiling effect, but not before the juices would flow through the kimchee cooking at the bottom of the grill pan. God be praised!

With meat in their stomachs, they slept soundly that night, and never made fun of locals or their penchant for high end flair ever again.

The end.

Snacks, Snail Creams and Crushes

James and I took the short flight from Beijing to Seoul, and the first thing James said was, "The air smells so clean here!" I guess everything really is relative ..

After plopping our stuff into our tight hostel quarters, we went out to Myung-dong for food and fun. Myung-dong is one of many areas in Seoul where you can just get lost amidst stores, bars, cafes and lights. Everything is jam packed together and there is a constant electricity in the air.

Couples can be seen arm in arm en masse. It's rather sickening.. Put another way, why not me??
Ack, blasted auto-correct!

James could not get enough of the street food. Here you will find skewers of meat, roasted chestnuts, roasted squid, corndog/fry thingies, or fishcake stuffed with rice cake, or fried dough filled with gooey sweet filling:

In Myung-dong you will also find a gazillion skin care product stores. What's strange is that you will find the same brand store (for example, Nature Republic) about 20 meters from the first one, and then again. And yet again. Skin care is huge in Korea, and it's not just the women buying it up. Men can be seen buying and using BB cream, CC cream, and yes, Snail Cream. They boast of the hydrating qualities of snail secretion. I stocked up.

I found my crush, standing alone in Myung-dong, trying to endorse her product. I felt very shy around her. I wonder how she felt about me. We're still kind of in that awkward stage of not knowing what to say, but with time, I am sure we, too, will be strolling arm in arm with the masses in Myung-dong.