Friday, January 30, 2009

Seoul Food

I’m still working through the many photos we took in Seoul and I figured, since I’m uploading while lunching, I’ll just share the Food and Restaurant photos and see how far that takes us.  Not too far, probably.  I don’t expect a snack on this flight, anyway. 

SO: Koreans love their food, and here is some foodness they were loving for me:

The delicious Hershey’s kisses that J’s foster-sister (?) hand-wrapped for us in a beautiful box covered with arcane pronouncements:

The delicious breaded pork cutlet waffle we enjoyed at the euphoneously-named “Donkas in the Waffle” shop down behind our hotel:

The delicious breakfast we had on the day that we insisted on something “western” and thought we could do better than pretzels - these are two offerings from Mr Donut, including a sweet-potato sesame old-fashioned that was pretty dang tasty!

The extremely delicious predicate to our lunch with the foster-sis and her daughter at the bulgoki place out in the gallery district near the big palace - this plate was fried on a gas grill till everything turned into a caramelized delight that none of us could stop eating:

The also extremely delicious dumplings that got hand-made for us no sooner than I’d ordered them at the Chinese place I had doubts about till I went inside just down the street from our hotel:

The cheerful lads who were working the honey-thread candy stand in Insadong, the arts and crafts street in Seoul - the honey is frozen in a disk and then spun out by hand into 16,000 thread-like filiments, coated with corn flour and wrapped around a sweet center.  This stuff is royally good and these guys put on a fun show when they make it for you. 

Out on the main drag, whatever that was called, here’s a lady shopping for her cabbages.  I tell ya, nobody shops for, cooks up, or appreciates the cabbage like your Korean folk. 

We didn’t dine here, but I guess if I wanted a Good Grief plate or some Concussive Football Injury nachos, this would have been the place for them:

Here’s one that was better before my flash card choked on it and lost the bottom of the image: a restaurant specializing in tentacled foodstuffs.  Outside, the cheerful squid and octo wave you on in with “thumbs” up and (now lost) foot-entacles curled around beneath them:

Just to prove we were there, here’s Kel, Zach and me (Z is waving his fan) with the Insadong Robot.  He’s a traditional Korean crafts robot, and he is here to party!

Finally, let it not be said that I failed to post any photos of Jesse.  Part of the package that came home with him was a pair of “Classic Pretty Shoes” (I swear I am not making this up) with a pokemon-like character inscribed inside.  These shoes are little plastic dealies and I’m not sure how comfortable or practical they would be for a child who could fit into them.  However, we never crossed that threshold.  Jesse’s pods are just to damn big for these shoes.

Well, let’s call that enough for now.  I’ve still got a handful of “weirdness” photos to share but I don’t want to wear you all out.  Seoul has been around for 1500 years or so; there’s no reason for me to feel compelled to blogpost all my photos of it within a six-week window.  Catch you next time then, good buddies!