For Thanksgiving this past year, Joel and I took a trip to Seoul. I cannot believe we haven't visited Korea until now! It's SO CLOSE and probably the cheapest place to fly from Japan. There's a lot of rivalry and competition between Korea and Japan so we were able to observe many of the areas in which they are trying to top one another. One thing Korea has over Japan is their train/metro system. Holy cow, it was awesome! Clean, fast, efficient, and fairly easy to figure out as foreigners.
 |
| Just waiting for the train... it was FREEZING the whole time we were there so we stayed bundled up! |
 |
| We found an amazing French inspired bakery/restaurant for breakfast and had home cooked goodness! Joel ordered the homemade sage sausage which was out of this world good! And of course he goes for his eggs over easy. |
 |
| I had hash browns, bacon, a fried egg over hard and a homemade buttermilk pancake with REAL butter and REAL syrup. |
 |
| Joel also ordered the German pancake cooked inside a cast iron skillet. It had a custard-y texture on the inside and was so good that words CANNOT do it justice. |
 |
| We explored the city for a while and discovered the juxtaposition of the old mixed in with the new just like in Japan. (like that, Mr. Diller??) :) |
 |
| This cool canal goes on for miles! |
 |
| My ears were getting so cold I HAD to have a hat. And I HAD to have this one. :) |
 |
| Cool, LOL. |
 |
| Guarding the palace |
 |
| We wanted to go somewhere authentic for lunch so we found this hole in the wall fish shop that had fantastic kimchi and other sides. Cass is the local beer - it was OK. |
 |
| Fried to perfection - just watch out for bones!!! |
 |
| This is Bibimbap. Token Korean food and all around good stuff (Joel poured the sauce over top of it after we took the picture). |
 |
| Tofu soup |
 |
| We share everything, but there was still so much food! All the sides alone fill you up! Korea definitely has unique flavors that are very distinct from Japan. I think we could get used to eating kimchi... |
 |
| That evening, we went to Nanta, a cooking/dance/music/martial arts/comedy show. It was the most unique thing we have EVER SEEN. And even though it was in Korean, we didn't need any translations to follow along. It was hilarious and the actors are SO TALENTED!!! |
 |
| Illegal picture of the stage. Didn't realize there were no cameras allowed until later. |
 |
| Seriously. Words cannot describe how cool and unique and so far out there this show was. Every single scene was very different yet it somehow all congealed into one story line, LOL. They got audience participation for some portions, had these crazy long drum solos with kitchen utensils, and even performed some magic tricks. It is simply one of those things you have to see to believe. We did hear Nanta made it to Broadway... so, maybe it's coming to a theater near you soon. :) |
 |
| For dinner, we got another huge meal. I don't even know what all the things we ate were, but you'd better believe they were all amazing! You can see in the background that the guests receive covers to protect their clothes and pursues from the mess we all make by using the grill. So nice and thoughtful of the restaurant. |
 |
| We cooked everything the way we liked it and ate and ate and ate. One of the most memorable dishes we had (that we somehow failed to photograph!) was raw ground beef upon which they cracked a raw egg. Joel and I briefly discussed the potential deadly dangers of consuming it, but threw caution to the wind and devoured the whole thing. Worth it. |
More to come on the next post!
