Last of Seoul

Below are another 4 images of Seoul, to maybe summarise the last few days of my stay in Korea.
The one at the bottom of the 4 pictures was taken after a shopping trip in Dongdaemoon, the Korean fashion town where you have about 3 huge apartment stores with many floors in each, retail shopping mall houses and other shops and markets. I think we were walking just a short distance down the road to get something to eat but we saw about 3 of these stages, two of which were in use. We stopped for a little while to see these 5 girls doing dance routines to Korean pop music. On the other stage a guy was singing. In general it seems the Koreans like singing and dancing in public, well like karaoke as well. I guess a very Asian thing... But Dondaemoon is huge, or at least the shopping malls are huge! We only made it through one (in one afternoon), not trying to get lost. Each floor has loads of stalls, they are shops but all open kind of thing, and you can really get lost even on one floor, let alone on the other 10.

The second last picture was taken in the very centre of Seoul, well if there is such thing as a centre. It was the start of a long night out - a Saturday night and Hyunsun's birthday party which we started off with going for dinner with Byoungwon another one of Taey's friends who we had met before for a cinema visit (the new Michael Gondry film) and drinks. Seoul looks better at night when all the lights and signs are on, which they are during the day too, but you can see more the ugly buildings underneath and you can't at nighttime.

That almost seamlessly goes over into the next picture which shows the main birthday crew. After a few drinks and a few more friends we were the ones that went into one of those places where you can hire a room for karaoke. It has its own name in Korea but I can't remember what it's called. It was quite embarrassing, cause the owners took a picture of us because there was a non-Korean in the group. They also wanted me to write them a message on a piece of paper, so I put down my name and where I was from etc. All of Taey's friends could sing like they could be a contestant for Popstars, and I mean that not in a bad way! Needless to say, I felt a bit shy to sing, cause I can't sing at all. I need alcohol for that and I was drinking orange juice, so no chance there :)
After that just Dongwon, Jaeyoung, Taey and I went dancing. It was a house club that played really good music (normally not my thing), and also the first place with almost only non-Asians. I was really surprised cause the whole time in Seoul I must have only seen the odd non-Korean person, usually in a touristy place. But this club was full of them.
We then rejoined with the others who had eaten yet again in a restaurant, and we went for more drinks and of course more food! Until the morning hours. So my last picture is dedicated to a beautiful morning in Seoul, with amazing light. I think Taey and I made it back around 10 in the morning. If Taey wouldn't have stayed awake we would have gone past Paju for sure, while I was banging my head against the window cause I was half asleep, but could not get myself to stay awake. A wonder I didn't get a bump on my forehead...

beautiful morning in Seoul



b-day gang



Seoul at nighttime


dance routine

The food special!

Below you'll find a selection of food that I had when I was in South Korea. It is really just a selection cause I could have filled many pages of blog if I would have wanted to show everything. The hobby of Koreans is eat, so you can imagine how much food we had. Generally I really liked the food. They have a nice spice (as in heat) to their dishes, not too much and not too mild either. I did get used to eating fish for breakfast :) a habit I won't keep once back in Europe. In fact, those days seem already to be over cause I got to Tokyo last night, staying with German friends, so the Nutella and toast came out this morning!
But my favourites were probably bulgogi, jeon and the spicy squid as a side dish. Taey's mum made a really nice dish that had also squid in it, with vegetables in a dark more soy-like sauce, again with a good spice. I don't have a pic of that but that I found most tasty!

mandu

the dish on the left is mandu. Mandu are Korean dumplings and this particular one was samchungtong. I can't remember what the filling was, but it's Taey's favourite!

side dishes and jeon

jeon are all different type of korean pizza. very nice!












oh-jing-u-jut is a squid spicy pickle and myul-chi-bbok-um is small fish fried. The squid pickle was my favourute, but then I love squid anyway...

cha-dol-bae-gi & soon dae

cha-dol-bae-gi, wich is soft beef with thin spring onion. This is very nice and was one of the dishes we had in a restaurant when we went out with one of Taey's friends.



soon dae, which, I think, are the insides of a pig, but am not entirely sure. This specific dish is in North Korean style as the chef of the restaurant is North Korean.

bulgogi

this is bulgogi, probably the best known korean dish. pork or beef is being fried and either wrapped into salad leaves with other pickle or just eaten with sticky rice. Very nice!