The jacket was REQUIRED because it was very cold and snowing during my time there. Here's an image of Seoul at night during a beautiful snowfall. The tree in the foreground is covered in ice because there's a spray of water directed on it.....
And here's me on the walkway next to the river in downtown, Seoul during the snowfall. Apparently, this river has been an integral part of the city since ancient times and they "daylighted" it recently and created a nice walkway next to it.
I was there just a couple days before christmas, so the cafe's and bakeries were all filled with fancy pastries. The country is predominantly Buddhist, so they don't really celebrate christmas, but there were decorations around, and lots of christmas music (which I HATE). My friend told me that everyone eats Kentucky Fried Chicken on christmas day (in fact they take advance orders because they're so busy that day). I was quite confused, but he explained that they know they're "supposed" to eat turkey on Christmas (?) and KFC is the "closest" thing that's easily available.
We went to a nice Buddhist temple, also. Here's some of the many beautiful paintings on the outside of the temple:
And the impressive architecture and lots of fabric lanterns strung around the building. It was nice to visit this particular day/time because there was an actual ceremony going on and it was interesting to witness.
The best part of Seoul was, of course, the food! The first night I arrived, we some simple beef broth with tons of various "stuff" to flavor it with. Here's me very happy to not be eating greasy, spicy Bangladeshi rice!
And here's another view of my friend, Se-woong (on the right) and his friend (left) eating beef broth/noodle soup with tasty, mysterious sides. The big white bowl in the foreground and also the one Se-woong has his hand on contains a milky rice-based liquor. It wasn't super convenient to drink it out of a big cereal bowl, but when in Rome/Seoul.....
Here's a couple photos from the awesome BBQ we had (Korean BBQ is just called BBQ in Korea)--most all restaurants contain a grill at the table and you order what meat you want on it and they bring live coals to put in the grill. There's a snorkel to reduce the amount of smoke.....we chose pork belly (it had been many months since either of us had eaten pork) and it was AMAZING. The brown strips were pork skin that I tasted, but did not enjoy nearly as much.
Of course, many tasty, mysterious sides come with the BBQ including a fishy, spicy, garlicky dipping sauce (in the metal cup).
This last photo is a magical chicken soup and we apparently went to the "best" place in town to enjoy it. Every person gets their own (small) chicken that's stuffed with rice, a date, ginseng root and other things I couldn't identify. The broth is amazing, and they serve it with kimchee (of course--I LOVE that stuff!) and you dip your chicken in your own container of salt to flavor to your desires. A super dish to eat on a cold, wintry day!
I also participated in my first karaoke ever (sorry forgot to take photos)--thankfully it's so popular in Korea that you can rent a private room to sing for only yourself/your friends. I was PRETTY HORRIBLE, but it was fun to engage in one of the most popular forms of past-times...
No comments:
Post a Comment