Seoul, South Korea

I'm having internet trouble today, so hopefully it will keep long enough to post this. Today, we are packing up and moving out of Nisha's apt. She's almost fully packed, so it should be an easy move. After this, our trip starts tomorrow. We fly to Jejudo in the afternoon. We haven't planned much, including where to stay, so we'll see what happens.

I want to finish up posts about Seoul before we leave, but it feels like I haven't done the city much justice. It's a very interesting city with many different areas and a lot to see. I tried to pick something of interest every day and then go and do that and wander around that area. In this way, I saw the Bongeunsa Buddhist temple through a special tour they have for foreigners which was in English and included a tour, a tea ceremony with green and chrysanthemum tea, a meditation lesson from a monk (sidenote: he was hilarious, he told us that the monks drink a lot of tea and challenge each other on how much they can drink without going to the bathroom. He also invited us to challenge him anytime), and a lotus flower-making party (with petals made from different colored tissue paper). There, I met two girls who spoke English and also Korean who invited me to dinner at the Noryangjin fish market. Since I had no idea what that meant, I went along. Turns out it's a place where you can buy the fish and seafood straight out of the aquarium and they make it for you right there. Talk about fresh. It's not for the faint-hearted - we watched them kill and prepare it, but it was a really interesting experience and something I could never have done on my own.

Food: Before I begin this section, I'd just like to mention to my (vegetarian) parents and family that most of this stuff is not something you'd like to know about. So, please just don't read it. Otherwise, you'll get mad at us about it. For this reason, I didn't post any pictures of the food. You can look any of them up online for pics.

We have tried many really interesting and delicious things in Korea. Koreans really love to eat. At the fish market formerly mentioned, we had flat fish, which is exactly what it sounds like. They prepared it like sashimi and it was really good. We also got a few seafood items to try - sea cucumber, sea urchin, and "gaebul" which I'm not going to translate on here. Most of that stuff falls into the interesting category, but I was surprised to like sea cucumber which had a chewy/crunchy texture. We also got the octopus which continues to move after it's dead. I, the lucky guest, got the head and eyes. Yum. But that really is among the weirder items.

Really tasty things that we've had are samgyeopsal and bulgogi (korean bbq), kimchi jjigae, haemul pajeon, dakgalbi, naengmyeon, tteokbokki, jjimdak,samgyetang, bibimbap, and sujebi. A lot of these items are available in NYC or other big cities with Korean populations, because I've had quite a few of them before my trip. My favorite dish that I hadn't tried before was the jjimdak because it was such a good combination of the flavors of sweet potato and noodles and chicken that was so spicy but really flavorful. I love Korean food for its spiciness. Koreans are always worried that we won't be able to handle it. I guess they don't think Indian food is very spicy. Just today, Nisha and I had lunch at a place serving noodle soup with mussels and it came in 4 levels of spiciness. We got level 2 and it was burning our tongues off...yet, it was delicious. Also, Korean food comes out boiling hot. I had trouble with this at the beginning, but am now really used to it and hate the point when the soup becomes too cold. The other aspect of the food I really love is the banchan with kimchi and other flavorful side dishes. This means in every meal, you get to taste 4-5 different things and mix and match as you please. We've had some other strange stuff and we will probably continue that trend given where we're going but I think this is the best part of exploring another country.

Drink: You really can't talk about food in Korea without talking about drinking. Koreans tend to eat and drink together. They take their drinking pretty seriously (as you might have noticed from the fact that they drink makgeolli while hiking up a mountain). Makgeolli is a really tasty and very light drink. You don't feel drunk but it does hit hard after a few bowls (it's traditionally served in bowls). Soju is more commonly drunk with dinners, so we had it a couple times. Nisha really hates it, but I don't mind it so much. It's also very light-tasting despite being pretty strong, and maybe a little too sweet. We've also been drinking beer or maekju, which unsurprisingly is light, and tastes like bud or miller light back home. I don't really like their beer (which tastes like water) but we did manage to find a Korean stout which was dark but not heavy and a little sweet and compared to the other beers, pretty decent. Koreans tend to eat while drinking so we often ordered (or were required to order) pajeon, tofu/kimchi, or some other tasty snack. This is why I haven't really had any hangovers when we've gone out. I also tried ginseng liquor with the samgyetang (which is chicken stuffed with ginseng and other vegetables in a broth) which was vaguely medicinal. But since the whole meal tasted medicinal, it sort of went together.

Going out: We went out in Gangnam a lot, because this is where Nisha was staying, often to a hookah bar called Rainbow or to her local outdoor spot called Charlie's Pub. Both had rasta/Jamaican themes and were a little strange for being in Korea, but they were great. They love Bob Marley here. We went out in Itaewon once, but I was totally disgusted by it. A lot of drunk foreigners hooking up with Koreans. It felt like Times Square at 3am...before it was disneyfied. We went out in Sinchon/Hongdae to a cool bar called the Rock. We could've gone to more places there because it's a fun university area with lots of spots, but I was limping really badly so that was my fault. We also went to a couple cool makgeolli bars near Kongguk University which was a really lively area. Going out is fun here because people bounce from bar to bar or club to club and so you get to see many places. Unfortunately, we didn't do too much crazy partying because Nisha had to get up early on weekdays, but this was probably fortunate for me because it also put me on a good schedule to see the city's sights and I'm too old to go out like that anyway.

So, I discovered that I actually have two flickr accounts, so here's the link to my other one with photos of our hike to Mt. Bukhansan.