Last Days in Seoul

(This is posted months after the event so I probably won't remember most of it)

We left Korea in mid Februrary. For the last few weeks, we hung out with some friends and ate lots of cake and pizza and Korean food. We went to a teahouse in Insadong with little birds flying around, and a Brazilian barbecue place with lots of meat at songtan.

And in case anyone was wondering, we didn't do anything for Christmas or New Years - it was too cold to do anything anyway, we just stayed in our apartment for most of the time.














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Dano Festival Experience, Day 2

Day 2's events were jam packed.

First, since the lodging is near a lake, Aaron and I woke up and walked to the lake at around 7am. We just took a little walk and took some pictures of the lake. The lake almost reminded me of West Lake in Hangzhou, except a lot less people and less pagodas and temples. It was pretty peaceful and we did enjoy our walk a lot. There was also a temple (Gyeongpodae) on top of a little hill next to the lodging area so we walked up there and took a few pictures of the lake view.








Then at around 8 we met up with the rest of the foreigners and our guides, and the bus took us to breakfast, which was sundubu aka soft tofu. It was soft tofu stew in some water, and we had to mix flavors (such as soy sauce, or kimchi, or bean paste soup, etc into it. It looks like cottage cheese but it was actually pretty good.


After the breakfast we took a long and windy road to the mountains near the city. It took awhile and but finally we got there. First the guide explained about two shrines in the mountains, and then we took a little hike. First we hiked up to an area, and then we hiked down to another view point. The hike itself wasn't too bad, but sometimes the leaves made the ground slippery so I fell once unfortunately. But other than that, it was a decent hike. The views at the end were pretty good as well, lots of mountains right next to each other.











After the hike we took the bus again, and ended up at this little old village. A lot of the houses were abandoned, but there was still a lot of the farms still there, as well as a little old spring (that lived a few small frogs). It was pretty neat to see what the old Korean farm houses looked like. There was a little mini hike through the wooded area to see some really large rocks (Crane Rock) as well.






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Finally at the end, we had lunch. It was a pretty good lunch, and we had this interesting rice thing, where we got rice in stone pots, and we scraped and ate the rice in another bowl while hot water is poured into the stone pot to make a ricey drink. There were also tons of banchan, including fish, japchae noodles, tempura, tofu, seaweed, pancake, etc. We did fill up pretty well.





After that lunch the program was over so we all headed back to the bus terminal, where we took buses and finally got back to Anseong around 7. Click here to read more

Foreigners in Seoul, Spicy Rice Cake Festival, and Mystery Pills

So today is Saturday, so yes, another trip. This time we went back to Seoul.

We took this express bus, which cost a little bit more, but it was really nice and roomy. Across a row, there was one seat, aisle, and two seats. We could prop our legs up and lean back and everything. We had bought some steamed buns (two packages of them of four each for 6000 won only. Or about 4.50). They were pretty yummy.

We had TWO boxes of this for 4.50

At Seoul, first we went to the so-called foreigners' district, Itaewon. We didn't really do too much, other than check out a foreign food's market, where we found plain oatmeal(!), ricola, and some other random things like Indian curry mixes and nuts and spices. We checked out a phone store for me, but I wasn't sure yet so I'd think about it. Itaewon is interesting because it is full of foreigners everywhere, and the signs are mostly in English. I almost felt like we weren't in Korea anymore.

I think they are trying to imitate starbucks

Next we wanted to check out a "topokki" (I'd rather write dukbokki myself, but that's what the signs said, romantized Korean is so confusing) festival. Dukbokki is pretty much rice cakes in spicy red sauce. We got to the festival ok, didn't get lost, but wow was there a lot of people there! We didn't expect this many people, honestly. There was a line to get into the festival room, and then we waited in this superlong line for a bowl of dukbokki that we had to buy anyway. The dukbokki was alright but it was too spicy for me, and I've had lots of dukbokki before that wasn't. I think they made it super spicy. Anyway, the festival itself was ok, lots of vendors displaying and selling their foods, and a stage where there was dancing rice cakes and some break dancers. It was an okay event but not worth the long lines and the crowds, in my opinion.

line to get inside the room

and crowds inside the room

fancy rice cakes

dancing dukbokkis

and breakdancing...

aaron is a dork

too spicy dukbokki

So then we took a bus back home and didn't get back until 8 or so.


In other news, I had been slightly sickish the last two days. On Thursday I woke up with a horrible sore throat, but later in the day it was okay. And then yesterday I woke up again with a sore throat that was almost swollen and hard to swallow or breathe, but during the day the throat was better (still a bit sore but better) but later that night I felt really achy and cold, so I wrapped up in a blanket for awhile. Aaron went to a pharmacy yesterday to get me some medicine, and the Korean pharmacies are interesting. They gave him this packet of random pills, and we still don't know what exactly they are. I guess that people here must really trust the pharmacists a lot because they just take a cocktail of random pills without knowing anything about it. At least it did seem to help because I feel better today.

random cocktail of pills, oh joy!

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