Seoul: Food

Interrupt the usual dose of flaming with something nice: more belated pics of Seoul, this time of all the yummy yummy food we had there.

Our very first meal in Seoul.

Assorted grilled stuff. Got egg, got pork, got chicken, got beans. Very nice.

The food in Seoul is really nice; in fact, it is the second fave thing I look forward to everyday, after bed time in our nice cosy hotel. Sadly though, it is quite challenging to find food, or at least, local food.

On the first morning we woke up and started exploring the hotel vicinity. Just outside the hotel, we bypassed a whole street of food stores without eating anything cuz we weren't hungry yet. Big mistake. We got hungry awhile later and could not find a single food store after walking a few blocks. Thanks to some form of convoluted central planning, it seems the streets in Seoul are arranged thematically. We passed by whole streets selling handicrafts, jackets, plants but no luck with food. Eventually we reached the subway station and discovered we had walked 3 subway stops from our hotel.

We found a food store eventually and we encountered the next problem: language. We target stores that have english wordings on the outside [and thus an english menu], but these are few, especially for local local food. This store that we found had english words [yay!] but it seems they were only for show [boo!]. The shop auntie didn't understand a single bit of english. She did understand some Chinese though, so we managed to order some food in the end.


Yummy pork knuckle soup. The pork was really tender and juicy and it literally melts in your mouth. The soup base was flavourful and thick like gravy. This was easily the best dish I had for the whole journey. KM wasn't too impressed though; I think it's because he's a very conservative eater.


KM's cold noodle. He wasn't so lucky. Apparently auntie's chinese was even worse than mine; she understood noodle in chinese, but she ended up serving cold noodles. It's really quite nice but I think being up so early in the morning, walking an hour plus in the spiteful cold kinda makes appreciating cold noodles abit hard.

-

Language would continue to haunt us in our neverending quest for local food. There was this time we went into this local store out of desperation. We resorted to using Lonely Planet: pointing at the korean words in this food glossary section. It worked quite well: I got a nice stewed beef rice while KM finally got the hot noodles he craved for.

The irony is where English failed us, we can count of Chinese. Apparently alot of Korean food stores employ Chinese help, abit like how we employ Fillipinos, so on a couple of occasions, we could order through them.

-

We did capitulate once or twice. We had Burger King once. And Vietnamese food.


-

Another morning we had breakfast at this atas cafe. After we ordered the food at the counter, they gave us this coaster looking thing to bring back to the table.

KM hypothesized that it was just an elaborate token we use to collect our food from the counter when it is done. I felt that it would fly to the counter when our food was ready. Reality was a compromise: it started playing a monophonic tune and flashing lights.


KM had this weird alien-y green tea concoction. He lived to say it tasted weird.

-

I can't talk about Seoul food without talking about the donuts. The Seoul people love their donuts! Just beside our hotel was this three storey donut cafe: Doughnut Plant.

The donuts here are so-so lar. I think they appeal to a health-conscious crowd, using whole wheat bread for the donut so generally I think the place sucks.

Just a block away is a 3-storey Krispy Kreme and opposite that is Dunkin Donuts.

Basically hor, I think Dunkin Donuts and the Doughnut Plant live on the leftover crowd from Krispy Kreme. At any one time from 10 am to 10 pm, the queue at Krispy Kreme is super duper long; the only reason I am able to get my daily KK fix is because I live next to it. For some reason, after a certain time, they start giving out donuts. I haven't figured out the exact formula yet [it's not a simple buy one get one free concept], but on average I get at least one extra donut, and there was once I ended up buying 2 donuts and leaving the place with 5. Coolness.

-

Another bit of funny-ness. We were at this ginseng chicken restaurant. Seriously, you know you are allergic to alcohol, people put one small cup of clear yellow-ish liquid that is cold, you gulp it down in one second before anyone can react: you are asking for a very bad allergy reaction.

-

Last meal:

From Seoul: Food

Option T.

seoul: seodaemun prison

Abit overdue but here's some of the pics I took in Seoul. I start with the 3rd day lar cuz the first 2 days were mostly spent in-processing [very very long stories].


Here's me in my nice plushy new set of winter wear. Despite having been to the States during winter and considering myself a seasoned traveller, I think I must have been undone by my too low body fat composition; longjohn + tshirt + sweater + jacket + scarf failed to repel the Seoul cold and threatened to undermine my holiday. Never skim on the winter clothings folks. So I bought:
$80: fleece
$300: 2 in 1 jacket with fleece and a windbreaker
$30: nice gloves
Which really worked wonders. [digression: i used the super uber 2-in-1 jacket in singapore and i now face meetings in air-conditioned government offices and classrooms with confidence.]

We went to the Seodaemun prison after my winter shopping spree.

This is the hospital opposite the prison the moment we got out of the train station. SGH. Seoul General Hospital. Seriously speaking the other day I went to our SGH to visit a client. it's like you have to get past the chasm of never ending cars, and walk miles along the road to get to where you want to go. Bad hospital.

Park before the prison.



History lesson: Seodaemun Prison was built by the Japanese last time. So the Japanese and the Chinese were fighting over Korea which resulted in the Sino-Jap war of 1895 which the Japanese won. Apparently unlike the Chinese they were not just satisfied with regular tribute; they made many Koreans unhappy who started rebelling and so the Japanese had to built prisons like these all over the country to house these rebels which they caught. I think there's about 300 such prisons all over the country, most not in use liao, a couple still functions as a prison, and a couple more turned into tourist attractions like these [not really touristy though since local visitors outnumbered foreigners like 100:1].

Anywayz. So the place consists of wax figures re-enacting the torture scenes.

One of the many prison buildings. They all look the same though so take one take all liao. The Japanese built them though and you will note the functional simplicity of the design. Very interestingly hor. Dunnoe how the Japanese design the buildings: inside is way colder than outside. I think that's the most efficient torture ever. 30 minutes and I will confess to whatever you want me to confess liao.