Peter Green

It's very much a Mongol costume, perhaps more so from what the men were wearing. The female costumes were a little more elaborate for the performance than what you'd normally see. Having said that, the Northern tribes share a lot of common traditions, and many of those were brought together by the Mongols in their heyday, so I'd expect similarities. But we checked and the group was out of Ulaan Bator. That's a place I should get back to.

Oct 12 – the remains of the day When we’d been in Korea before (back in the late 90’s) we hadn’t spent much time south of the river. Then it had been about the cultural sites, and cheap shopping at Itaewon, Namdaemun, and Dongdaemun. So, seeing as we were staying in the south, it seemed like a worthwhile idea to ditch the girl with Jason and explore this brave new world. The first thing that stands out is the grid. The streets run at right angles, broad, with clear subdivisions, and sparkling new architecture. One of the new sites is the Centre For The Performing Arts. The building is instantly recognizable as a wide brimmed Korean hat (at least to Jason and me). Once you step through the water bridge and approach it up the hill, you’re in a different world. A quiet world of clean lines and hushed voices (even the children playing in the kids zone weren’t loud). Kiosks, umbrellas, and tables are set out in the plazas, and people are quietly taking their cappuccinos and espressos, nibbling on their sandwhiches. It almost feels like I’m in one of those science fiction movies, but I thought all of those were shot in Shanghai? Anways, there are galleries, museums for musical instruments, and plenty of performing halls. If you want to see traditional Korean performances, this is the place to be on the weekends. And if you have an interest in traditional Korean instruments, then come here. The kayageum in particular is an instrument I’ve always been fond of. A “zither” would be the proper descriptor, I suspect, but it’s best to consider it as a precursor to the Japanese koto. As we were ambling, I heard a really odd sound, similar to a didjeridoo in some ways, and vary familiar. On the back side of the centre, an orchestra was in rehearsal. “It’s Korean,” says Yoonhi. “Mongols,” say I. “They’ve been doing that throat singing thing.” And so we sat and listened for half an hour as they practiced their pieces. You never know what you’ll stumble across in Seoul. We strolled back, past the English language Arirang studios and down towards Nambu terminal, taking in the upscale cafes and kim bap shacks that exist so easily next to each other. To be honest, I was more interested in the gim bap joint. We stopped in and picked up some dinner for the girl. We know she won’t say no to gim bap. Gim bap places are pretty much identical to a sandwich shop back in the West. All the ingredients are trayed out at hand, the prep surface is handy, and you’ve got sauces ready in squeeze bottles to get things done. You just work with seaweed and rice as your canvass, as opposed to bread and butter. Now, our aim, seeing as how Serena was home with Jason, was to get in some kop chang. And Jason, like Serena, is not a kop chang fan (to each their own, say I). Just down the hill from the Nambu Terminal are three kop chang places considered very good by Seoul standards. Of these, the first two are the original shop and it’s expansion restaurant (hence “kop chang II”). The third is, as expected, the vulture, who will try to profit off any overflow from the original. We couldn’t make it into the first shop, so we went to II. It’s all the same kitchen, anyways, for these two. Some may consider this an acquired taste, but I must say, once acquired, it tends to stick with you. Kop chang are the entrails and nasty bits of the cow. We started with the appetizer of cold raw liver, and cold raw entrails. The entrails, in particular, have a good snap to them as you crunch in, and there’s something about eating raw cubes of liver that just makes me want to rise from the dead. With this we have cabbage, fresh chives, big cloves of spicy garlic, ddean jang, and dipping sauces of sesame, garlic and salt (bottom right) and another of soy, chilis, garlic, and other stuff I’d have to ask Yoonhi about. And before you start grilling, it’s a good idea to put on an apron. Actually, most Korean grilling joints will have aprons to protect your clothes. Some will even provide jackets for your jackets, to avoid the grease splatters. The other condiment, of course, is soju. You can use beer (meakju) to clean things out a bit, but soju is the best way to reconstitute your palate between bites. The kop chang here is grilled down in a mess of body parts, onion, spring onion, and potato (the potato will extract some of the stink of the entrails). There are three types for grilling: yang – one type of the stomach (not to be mixed up with “yang” for sheep); kop chang – the large entrail; and makchang. this is the near perfect drinking food…..where did those other bottles come from? And a good finish for this is bokkum bap….with some more drinks. Next: icha – the second phase

Doddie, Better your feet than mine! (but I'm glad Billy had fun at Coex). Serena's been visiting with acquaintances her age she met in Vancouver in the summer, so we took the opportunity to get out to Garak Market to gorge on crabs today. I'll bore everyone with pages of it later when the chronology fits. But, while there, we found this for Sheena! Frish from the waffle grill!

October 12 – Food Exhibitionists – Part 2 We do caution you, the following post contains scenes of graphic food. Once fed, we headed for the other half of the show – the Korean Food Awards. This consisted of three areas – two of which we won’t pay much attention to; the stage where they were doing decorating demos, and the table settings. It’s the third one we’re going to spend some saliva on – the competition dishes. Now, I have no clear idea what all of these are, so feel free to jump in. They’re not really traditional, as this competition is clearly about making things look good, but I’m okay with that. I made two passes, once with video, and the second time with the still. So let’s pull out a subsample (about one in four) of what was on display……. Candied fruit of some kind. Meat rolls. This looked to me like peanut brittle. Nothing too fancy about this, but it’s pretty. This is sort of what we’ve been eating for days now. I watched one of these clams make a break for it, pushing itself off the boat with its foot, only to be quickly captured and returned to its companions. “Never get off the boat”. It’s hard to see, but each of the glasses seen under the plates contains live fish. Seafood wrapped in kimchi. Crabs, crabs, crabs! Is this a snapper? I like the dead look of the carved vegetable over the eyeball. Crab marinated in soy. This is what we had with Doddie in Icheon. Isn’t that pretty? And so is this. There were a lot of “rolled things” in the competition. Stuffed quail, or at least “small birds”. Three colour noodles in broth. Gom tang is the broth from boiling bones down to a milky white. A steamboat – shinsollo – palace food. There’s some yukkhwe down in the right corner – raw marinated beef. One of my favourites. Pumpkin blossom. This one the chef was there and could tell me what it was. Rice cake with pine nuts. Meat rolled around ginko nuts. More rolls and stuff on sticks. And this was an intriguing fish. Blackened on the outside, but almost raw in the flesh. And little stuffed veggies. I think I’ve already mentioned my mushroom fetish, haven’t I? There, that’s a condensed version of the floor. At this point we were pretty much exhausted from all of this food, and felt it was time to do something else. Next: dinner

October 12 – Food Exhibitionists – Part 1 On the subway the day before, we’d spotted a sign for the Seoul International Food Expo and Korean Food Awards. How odd that such a thing should draw my attention, I know. We’d had Jason call them up so we could figure out where it was, and then navigated a cabbie over to the AT Building. There we found the event in full swing. The triffids were out in full force. If you thought that was overkill for a bar opening (Oct 11), then these events are way over the top. The floor was broken into the Expo and the Food Awards. We concentrated on the left side of the hall first, which was the Expo. This could be broken down into demonstrations (of which there weren’t many, I’m sorry to say) and food displays; food products; kitchen and restaurant products (which I love to geek over); and places to eat. They had some demonstration areas, like this one, where the kids are making rice cakes, pressing the ddeok to place the design (the ddeok tojang – ddeok chop). There were a number of people out from the cultural centres, said centres always carrying a good proportion of food studies. If you wanted to see a lot of kimchi, you came to the right place (I’ll leave it to the truly obsessive out there to name them all). Plus there’s gimbap and lots of other stuff. Andong had it’s own display, showing off old royal cuisine. I won’t put up all the pictures, but they’re too pretty not to show some. (bibim guksu – noodles ready to be mixed up) (Geonji Guksu – more festive looking noodles, but with broth) Andong itself is an interesting place, as they’ve developed quickly since the 1990’s, while at the same time bleeding their population off to Seoul. The place gets bigger and smaller at the same time. (This looks like a ssum – little cabbage cups with stuff in them to pop in your mouth.) To try and stem that, they/ve been very actively promoting it as a centre for culture (and tourism) – based in large part on the traditions of Silla. Decorated bean curd; divots cut in the curd, and then the spices and other flavours painstakingly placed. Salmon fillets with the smell of perilla about them. Fish peaking out from under a duvet of gochujang based sauce, garlic, and spring onions. (grilled meat on shredded green onion and cabbage) Meanwhile, as I engaged in food porn, over in the food products Yoonhi found the candied ginseng that we like so much, so a couple of boxes of that are now in our suitcases. Shrimp fry for making kimchi (and other things). And there was no shortage of soju and other fun stuff. And all sorts of bean pastes (we won’t try to count the variations). And those little fishies, those little fishies we love to eat. These were the standard version, caught in nets. These other ones, though, were caught differently, in a manner such that they didn’t thrash and damage the scales. As expected, they were a heckuva lot more expensive ($80 to $150 a box). Like most of Asia, Koreans love putting things in bottles. Either the old mason jar approach, or nicely packaged as a refreshing beverage, such as this one that promoted itself as a blend of “five flavours”. Serena had to get her picture taken. Notice in her hand she’s got a cup. This was full of the little anchovies (myulchi). She’d keep going back and replenishing her stock, but the vendors were too polite to stop her. Another display showed standard Korean foods with their calorie levers, from those intended for infants (porridges and broths), through adulthood (the good part), and finally back to the easily chewed and digested (at least I have something to look forward to!). On the equipment side, I was having a lot of fun. There were knives, stone serving pieces, porcelain serving pieces, and what may be the biggest selection of table top indoor grills known to man. If there was one piece of equipment that was everywhere, it was the grill, either separate, or built into a countertop. And with the grills were numerous machines for cleaning them. With the marinades on a lot of the Korean meats, you get burning fairly readily, so when you run a restaurant you have to be prepared to swap out grills fairly often. So, you’d better either buy a nearby storehouse for clean grills, or have a machine to scour them. I was lusting after this set of carving tools for decorating stuff (“and when are you actually going to use it?” says someone whom I won’t mention). And there were several booths selling “happy call” buttons. Need your waitstaff, then just buzz them. These were imbedded rice pressure cookers. You’d put your ingredients in, then drop them in and seal them. Yoonhi and Serena were both impressed by the carbon (“charcoal”) furniture. In addition to the cookware, they had couches and beds that were heated, so you could sleep all cuddly. I was more impressed by the cookware, which will radiate an good, even heat, but it was way to heavy to consider taking home by air. And if I bought a place here, I’d never cook at home…….. That was enough to get us started. Somebody was getting hungry, and after hungry comes cranky (these are the guys that didn’t make it into the 7 Dwarves A Team), so it was time to get some food in us. About 1/3 of the floor space had been put aside to vendors selling their regional specialties, and we walked through the offerings, with an eye to getting Yoonhi fed quickly. Of the stands, about four were Turkish, selling shwarmas, breads, and such like, which I suspect is where the “international” part of the exhibition’s title came from. We settled on a place doing ssukmyun at Gyeongnam Yangsansi Yundonggyun Hanbangneng Onssukmyun (say that fast five times, I dare you). The ssuk gives the noodles (which they were making there) a green colour, like the darker celadon. Chopped gim (seaweed) and some mu (daikon) along with the ubiquitous egg and the evil red sauce. For the princess they did up a version without the gochujang, as certain people are still too wimpy to take proper flavours. Even dumbed down for her, she still hardly ate any, but rather spent her time watching the break dancing competition underway on the stage beside us. I always look for good breakdancing when I’m at a food exhibition, don’t you? But, back to the eating, the owners insisted I try the ssuk makeoli (fermented rice – very low alcohol content) and gave me a cup. A little chalky on the palate, but pleasant enough to clear the hotter tastes from my mouth. It’s always the case (at least for me in Korea) that once I’ve settled in to eat one thing, I see another that I’d really like to try, but I don’t have enough room for both. Right across from us was a kkot bab place (flower rice). This was prettier than even anything I’d seen in Thailand. But I was sated. Full from the noodles, tired on my feet from walking the exhibition, and ready for a rest. Nah, you know me. Next: more food porn

Hey, don't fret. This is what threads are for! We just got back from Cookin' Nanta and then beers at Platinum. A great show. Yoonhi's now scared of what sort of mess I'm going to make in the kitchen when we get home. Here's the trick for booking! Get a Korean friend (or a concierge or whoever) to book the tickets for you online. That's the only way to prebook. Or, show up at the ticket office 1 hour before, and there's a very good chance that there'll be open seats. Tour operators are block booking seats (primarily for the Japanese), and these get released just before. If you want to be chosen to go up on stage, sit on the aisles. And be prepared to fend off flying things. Cheers, Peter

Thanks, Milgwimper! This one was a mystery. But, what would we do with poison ivy???? Cheers, Peter

Oct 11 – Back in Seoul The bus ride was uneventful, which is a good thing. A smooth one hour back to the station out on the east side, and then we did a quick tour of the Techno Mart, as Serena was in search of games. Well, Techno Mart was a bit of a bust. Floor after floor of camera equipment (some videos, but primarily stills), a smattering of movies and games but none of interest to the girl, especially when she came to understand that the games would probably be in Korean, the usual cell phone counters, and graphic boards and such like. The stopover was only saved by two items. One: some really good looking fridges. These were beautiful, with lower freezer sections, sleek finishes, and all sorts of flashy controls. You can network these, and have internet screens for access, internal scans for inventory, expiry dates. Way cool. Gone are the days when the Korean appliances were second to the ones you’d pick up on the base at Yongsan. And, with the fridges were the kimchi fridges. These things, the size and shape of a small chest freezer, will keep the kimchi at an even temperature and humidity during the ferment, replacing the old George Romero method of putting them in the ground until it’s time for them to raise themselves. Second: we’ve got the parking lot girls. These young ladies, in the most tasteful of latex miniskirts and knee high boots, bob and weave and dance through the parking instructions for cars coming in, and still with a little bow as you go by. I could watch them all day (or until Yoonhi whacks me on the side of the head). The Green Line (no relation to my family tree) got us back home from there, and we came back through the lobby, past the table of menus, and up the elevator. When I’ve been elsewhere, particularly Europe, I’m always struck by the proliferation of posters and flyers for rather, well, personal services. Here, it’s food. There’s the table especially laid out in the lobby, but there were also flyers taped in the elevators, and stuff getting slid under the doors. These people are serious. (I particularly liked the yellow bunny menu – which said “You love me?” on its tummy. It’s a Chinese restaurant, which means noodles). Home and washed, it was time for dinner. Tonight it was mapo jib over in Dogokdong near Maebongyok (Maebong station). I think I’ve got that right. Yoonhi’s sleeping, and it’d be worth my life to wake her up for this. This was down the alleyway (golmok) or rather the eating alley (mokja golmok). As you can guess, the specialty is pork. Charcoal bbq’d pork rib specialty. As usual, the panchan is out in a flash, and we could start getting some nibbles started. Mulkimchi of sliced Korean radish (mu) to keep us busy. The pork comes out in the marinade, and there’s a helping of garlic that’ll be roasted with it. Korean marinating is wet. Very wet. And there’s ddeanjang (bean paste) to have with the meat. The meat’s a good cut, none of this thin-sliced stuff I’d been used to in North America, and the cloves of garlic go into a little foil cup for roasting (we love roasted garlic). (Sorry for this shot, but I was getting blurry). As usual, we go running with scissors and snip the meat into bite-sized pieces once almost cooked (it’ll finish as we prep the wraps for ssum). The perilla (there, I’m using it) and lettuce enfold the meat, spring onion, ddeangjang, garlic, and pork, you pop it in your mouth, and move onto the next one. The chigae was a good broth worked up with kim chi, and then dressed up with some chunks of pig blood. The staff were wondering if I’d eat it! Hah! Once we’d slowed down on the pork ssum, we called in some mungbean nengmyun (cold noodles). This we used to make up individual servings of bi bim nengmyun (mixed up nengmyun). Just like bi bim bap. And dessert was those sweet little grains of fermented rice in sugar water – sikkae. This place was packed by the time we were getting ready to leave. Jason remembers it from when it was a hole in the wall, and really beaten up, but they’ve had a lot of renovation work done in the last year. The kitchen looked good, new stainless steel everywhere (although the wiring always makes me wish I was wearing rubber bum boots). We did a stroll up the alley. I’m almost tempted to take a short vacation and just try and eat one of these. Even that is fairly ambitious. Serena did her part though, ordering up more chocolate gelato across the street. It was getting late for the girl (even with her gelato sugar buzz on), so we sent her and Yoonhi back home (okay, it was getting late for Yoonhi, too) and Jason and I headed over to Rodea Drive in Apgujeong. As you can guess from the name, this one of the posher parts of town. You pay more to eat and drink here, just because of where you are. On the bright side, that tends to raise the overall quality, and draws in the crowds. And, as trendy is everything you see more experimenting with stuff, and less adherence to tradition. Our purpose here was to try the fruit soju. For this we headed down into Café Ahn, also known as AFS – “alcohol fruit soju” – which does sound kind of redundant, but what the heck. The décor is …..eclectic. It was broken off into quadrants, each with its own style, and some Austin Powers’ 1960s cushions in the middle. As soon as we were sat two plates of appetizers came out, one deep fried mandu (dumpling), and the other – frankly – unidentifiable. We think it was marinated seafood bits. But we weren’t here for food…..well, not this food. What we did want to try (and remember, you have to order food with your drinks, “anju”) was the snails - golbaengyi. These were served mixed up in noodles and kimchi. Tough little guys, with a very distinctive flavour. But, the star of the show (and our very raison d’etre) was the apple soju. This comes out in a big bowl with lots of ice. What it doesn’t come out with is lots of soju. Really, it’s seen as more of a lady’s drink, but we don’t put up with such condescension to the fairer sex. So we ordered two more bottles of soju and dumped them in. That was about right. Rather than a cup, you’re served from hollowed out apples. It’s a nice touch, but you get really tempted to eat your cup at some point when the soju triggers the munchies. All of this of course led to an interesting evening. We caught up on old movies, and new movies that I need to see. And, of course, on food plans for the next couple of weeks. Lots of food plans.

Sheena, My reference tools have woken up, and yup, we've already had some hoddeok. That was at Seoroksan. The rate I'm going at, we may not see those pictures for weeks. What's the name of the fish with red beans stuffed inside? I'm drawing a blank on that one. Cheers, Peter

Having rushed out in the rain to pull in the chairs from the patio, I'd put the temperature at "%% cold". The wind's died down, though, and visibility is back up. This is the first bad day in Seoul. Otherwise it's been in the mid20's centigrade most days, and only in the teens at night. However, cold weather just makes hot food taste better, say I.

Well, it had to happen. Our first really rainy day here in Seoul. I should be getting the family up for an outing, but I don't see the need for speed right now. Maybe it'll be the Rodin collection today. Yoonhi was talking about that last night, although it's not like her to be interested in Godzilla's enemies. This afternoon I've an appointment at the Cordon Bleu. It'll be interesting to compare the established school here in Korea with the brand new facility in Bangkok that we saw last month. And this evening it's Nanta! Korea's famous cooking/acrobatic/dance show. Getting tickets has been a pain, as you have to book online, and when you go to book, you need your Korean citizen's number. Jason's a returned Korean, which gets him almost all the rights of a citizen (but no voting, and he doesn't get to do military service), but he has a different prefix on his number, so the booking doesn't work. We tried going to the office, but they said "go online". We told them we couldn't book as we weren't Korean, they said "get your tour operator to book". We told them we didn't have a tour operator, and they said "goodbye". We finally got some Korean friends here (Yoonhi met them in Vancouver in the summer, and they've two girls Serena's age) to book us the tickets, so we're set for 8p.m. tonight. I've seen clips of the performance on Chinese TV, and it looks hilarious. Hmmmm.....maybe I should bring the chairs in out of the rain?...

October 11 Thursday Refreshed from a (relatively) early night, we went to Icheon to see Doddie and Billy for a traditional meal. The bus ride was an easy matter, only an hour from station to station, and then we took advantage of our meeting spot – Dunkin Donuts – to have a cup of coffee. Black coffee, that is. And a proper sized pour. Traditionally, the Koreans serve instant, and they portion it out in thimble sized cups. Weak instant. I am not a fan of Korean coffee shops (tabang). Dunkin’ may not be the best coffee in the world, but it’ll do the job. Doddie and Billy showed up, and it was instant recognition all around. Okay, maybe I don’t really blend in in Icheon….. We dropped in at the same place that Doddie had taken Jason True – Sonmok Nadul Hae - a traditional Korean meal restaurant, with a lovely assortment of panchan, chigae, and main dishes. Doddie’s already described it before in her ssalbap thread, but let me use up some space here for the photos. First, the array of dishes is huge. A normal Korean meal might have six or eight panchan, but here you end up with 25 or more plates of stuff on the table. Just to get all of those out there and positioned would, you think, take ages. This is the really fun part. They wheel your table setting out as a huge wooden tray. Ideally two people (but we saw one waitress do it) fit the tray to the table and then just slide it into place. So, what’d we have? I won’t try to cover everything, but the fermented crabs were really good. Crab is always so good, but so much of a pain to eat. Here it’s easy. You just put the body into your mouth and bite down. The raw/fermented meat then just oozes out into your mouth, like you’ve bitten into a large pustule. There was comforting chigae of golden beegee (stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive), which is a byproduct of making tofu. In the West, this is what gets used in making veggie burgers. And there was some roast pork to be taken with the lettuce and perilla/sesame leaves - I was looking at this on Wikipedia, and even though the Koreans call it sesame leaf, it’s actually a member of the mint genus. Whatever, I love the taste of it fresh. And the pickled seaweed (miyok) was excellent, with that sunimono flavour. So, too, were the mushrooms (but not in a sunimono way). And there was fish, thin and robust. I think this was a mackerel, as it had a good oil level in the meat. The kim chi was fine, but the spinach and gim (seaweed sheets) took Serena’s attention, while Billy went for the shredded beef, soaked in soy. And the rice was, of course, just the way it should be. A lighter rice, and almost translucent. Icheon is one of the key agricultural zones in Korea, famous for their beef, their orchards (peaches!), chilis, and especially for their rice (but for more on this, check out Doddie’s thread). Unfortunately, I’m missing the Icheon Rice Festival by a week. I have full faith that Doddie will cover it, and this should be a lot of fun. While the food was good, Doddie and Billy were the best part of the meal. It’s a lot of fun getting together with her, and going over our guilty sins – like taking pictures of everything that happens in our kitchens, and of spending way too much time in egullet. She’s got amazing enthusiasm for everything she does. Not that we left Yoonhi out (I do have a sense of self preservation). When you live overseas, there are always common experiences that make for good table sharing over food. Serena was in bookworm mode at the start, but she warmed up as time went by, and she and Billy were enjoying themselves, looking at rocks, and starting to think of trouble they could get into by the end of the meal. After lunch we stopped in at one of the ceramic places nearby. Icheon is also famous for its pottery, and hosts an every-other-year ceramic expo (and check out Doodie’ thread here). Yoonhi’s sister phoned us during the day, and when she heard we were in Icheon, her immediate reaction was “that’s the place for pottery”. The exhibit next to the restaurant had some very elegant pieces. The Su An Ceramic Research Centre, with the founder’s pedigree on display outside, listing where he graduated from, and what prizes he’d won. I’m always partial to the cracelature of celadon, and that green colour that’s really hard to describe (so I won’t). There was one theme of carp spiraling in a school up a slender wine bottle that I really took to, but Yoonhi had some words to say about packing. Oh well. We returned to town to the bus station, as Doddie had a meeting she needed to be at, and then we three Greens did a bit of a stroll up the walking street (no vehicle access) that runs through town. Koreans are really, really good at getting people to come into their stores. We’d only just stepped onto the street when a loud speaker starting speaking to us. We saw it was a guy at the cash register of the 99 cent store, with a headset on speaking into a mike non-stop. “C’mon in! Hey, you in the red shirt, get in here! That lady in the blue top has already picked up five things!” Kind of extroverted. We came out of there with a new rice scoop (chugok), some spatulas, and a little hand grater. You never know when these things’ll come in handy. I’ve been told that this is the transliteration of “Cologne” (or the German “Koln” – where’s my umlaut?). It just comes out rather unfortunate here.. Korea does a land-sale business in flowers. Whenever there’s a new shop, you have to pack the entryway with these things. Tripod mounted, or just leaned against the doorsills, they look like triffids decked out for the debutantes ball. I was pretty good about keeping the camera holstered for much of this, but all it took was the first butcher’s shop on the avenue to get me going. The heads are on proud display here (someori). They’re also advertising ribs (kalbi), and feet (chokbal). Here they’re advertising gift sets of meat. Tripe, tripe, glorious tripe. Here there are two of the four types. What a wonderful animal the cow is to have so many stomachs. This looks like a whole stomach, which is something I should ruminate over. And blood. Great when congealed and taken like jello in soup. (I can’t really ever recall trying real Jello in a soup. I wonder what that would be like?). Bundles of garlic for sale on the pavement, the stems dried out. Fresh clams (over on the right front). Boy, do I miss clams. And those mini conches that you winkle the meat out of. There’s a bag of baby octopi up at the back, and crabs up on the left. Shrimp fry, and more stuff that doesn’t go to waste in this country. Bracken fern (gosari), lotus roots, and what we think may be bellflower root and potato stems (in the back). Two old guys were having soju and sashimi, and asked me to join them for a cup. You’re never without friends if you drink soju. Plus, it’s healthy for you! And then there are the famous chilis of Icheon (and the not so famous carrots, aubergine, and cucumbers – but they’re still good), and there’s a package of those tubby mushrooms that just make me think of Japanese cartoons. I love mushrooms. I am always willing to take photos of fungus of any sort (okay, no pictures of my toes, I promise). And that’s algae bundled up like a witches scalp in the styrofoam. Beans in the blue bowl, I do believe. Pig’s feet for sale, all cooked up and ready for a gnawing, and spring onion pancake (pacheon) on the tray. And we found some roasted barley for making boricha. We were out of this back home, so we picked up a kilo. Plus they had roasted corn for oksusucha (more “tea”). I know, I know, you can’t technically call it tea if it didn’t come from a tea plant, but we’ve got tradition on our side here (and we’ll call them sesame leaves – kkaenip – even if they’re not from sesame plants). These little nests were shredded dried chili. They looked too good to pass up, so I grabbed a handful. I’m drawing a firm “I don’t know” from Yoonhi regarding these three things. There was an old lady around the corner from the bori guy selling these. Dried flowers, the middle one may be chrysanthemum, as it says “suk”. Anyone want to jump in? And then there’s gochugaru – crushed red chili. All sorts of different consistencies and grades. This is how you get those wonderful reds in the chigaes that just can’t be recreated back home. There was more seafood, muscles and clams with sacks of ice on top, the water dripping down onto the pavement below. And behind the shells were pretty little octopii, orange now, instead of the purply-red. And more of the fruits of the sea to keep everyone happy (at least me). Pears. Korean pears. These are seriously addictive. We used to buy boxes every year when the season was in, but then they stopped carrying them where we lived, as the price had become so high that we were the only ones eating them. Refrigerate, and then peel them to reveal that white crispiness that drips sweetness as you crunch in……Korean women are experts at peeling fruit. Give one a knife, and she’ll have the skin flayed perfectly in seconds…..it makes me nervous at times……. Finally it was time to think about getting back to Seoul to meet up with Jason for dinner. The buses leave regularly, so it’s never a long wait. Serena spotted some shoestring potatoes, so we sprang for a cupful for her for the ride. Surprise. Deep fried yam. Cold, and hard enough that I could probably use them to nail together a back porch. She was not amused.

Yup! Yoonhi finally read through what I've been writing, and slapped me silly over that. And I think we drove past another Incheon pm the way back from Seoraksan. I'll just play dumb white guy. I'm a natural.

You should be okay for just frying them. Try cooking the corn lightly first, then put it in the patties. The moisture in the patty should keep things under control, as you need dry heat to pop.

I suspect it's part of the "if we can't move the stock anywhere else, then ship it to the ME". They were just what Jason wanted, but Yoonhi almost didn't let me bring them as she doesn't consider Pringles to be potato chips (being pressed and molded dehydrated potato dust). Hey, we're reading this stuff now - dried potatos, vegetable oil, rice flour, wheat starch, maltodextrine, emulsifier e471, sugar, natural and artificial ketsup flavour, autolyzed yeast extract, acidity regulator, dextrose, salt, flavour enhancer MSG, garlic powder, onion powder, colour, paprika extract, spice (dried cloves and clove oil), and more flavour enhancer (disodium glunyoate). Sounds good. It must be healthy. She wins. It's a "potato snack", not technically potato chips, as chips have to be "slices of something". She is willing to concede that, technically, it could still be considered food. I'm getting off topic again, aren't I?

Thanks, Doddie! We were just there today, but our feet were wearing out so we didn't do the Toy exhibit (and Yoonhi's a little delicate after last night's binge at a hojangmacha). Serena was......well, let's say "unhappy" about this. There's also a Robotics Expo (which we did do) in there too, so it'll be a good day for you guys. Cheers, Peter

Hi, Faine, I'm not certain what baiju is. If it's Korean, I'll find out. The Japanese shochu is very similar, although slightly stronger (soju is only around 20%). I'll devote some comments soon to soju. Cheers, Peter

Sheena, how can you question the benefits of pork fat? I'm shocked! I've got Jason and Yoonhi on the lookout in the department stores. I have complete faith that we're going to find an add for deep fat fryers saying that they're "fresh and healthy". And thanks, Phila! I wasn't able to place the spiders, but now that I've got a name, I can bring it up in conversation with my nephew like I know what I'm talking about. We're off back to Coex to satiate Serena's need for shopping and video games. Peter

Thanks, everyone. My apologies on how slow the posting has been on my side, but we've been having way too much fun here. I'm noticing that my posting rate is inversely proportional to the square of the number of family members around. Here's a quick synopsis: October 8-10 we've now got covered. October 11 (coming soon I hope) Incheon October 12-13 back in Seoul October 13-14 the East Coast October 14-15 Seoraksan October 15-17 we're back in Seoul In answer to the waistline question.....I'd like to think we were staying trim, but Jason was in work yesterday, and the comment was "Man, you've put on weight!" "Yeah, yeah, my uncle Peter is in town". Last night was incredibly good beef - hanu - marbled like a good Carrera villa. And then it seemed like we had a good reason to mix soju and yogurt..... As Yoonhi says, it's easy to understand now why so many of our Korean friends are retiring back in Seoul. I wonder if there's a Betty Ford clinic here........

man, this is your typical Seou l night out.... It' s gong to hurt tomorrow.... No, wait, it hurts now

Ketsup flavour! But I brought those from the Middle East for my nephew to try out on his friends who haven't seen these.

October 10 Wednesday I should’ve brought more coffee. It was 1 p.m. in the afternoon, and not a creature was stirring, just only the mouse. The pig and the cows were still zonked out, but I’d put in a couple of hours trying to catch up on writing. By 2 p.m. there was some movement, although it was painful to watch. And by 3ish we were out the door and off for lunch. Our desitination was Nolboo Family Duck. This is a chain of restaurants, each doing something different. This is quite a different tack from the usual places, as you’d expect. You can recognize the places by the maniacal goateed face with the odd hat. Once you’ve been to one place, you see him everywhere, leering at you from the hoardings. On the way here, walking through the mall from the underground, we’d passed one of their restaurants doing soondae, and another doing bibimbap (mixed up rice). As the days passed, he would laugh at me from all across town, every time with something different to tempt me with. The place is oddly located (at least for me) sort of out in the middle of nothing, across from the express bus terminal (near the Marriott) and on top of a parking arcade (which brought it uphill to street level) and its shopping arcade - but once you step inside it looks great, and had won the 2001 design award for Seoul restaurants (I do know how to read a plaque, you know). Clean lines, an upstairs and downstairs, lots of dark wood, and a wonderful façade of medicine chest drawers to remind you that what you were eating (and drinking) was healthy. Everything in Korea is healthy for you. Trust them. Chicken, pork, beef, soju, beer, rice, veggies, donuts, it all has the stamp of approval as being good for you. Why are these guys so rail thin? Koreans don’t hide their beverages. Any place you go into is likely to have a fridge somewhere in line of sight with the goods for viewing. Here you’ll notice that the king of beverages – beer – has been demoted to the bottom shelf. Soft drinks rank slightly above, soju holds down the middle ground, and the variants hold the high ground. I’d held a firm respect for soju in the past. Anything that can cause me that much pain deserves respect. But, like the other evening, I was captivated by the variety of alternatives, with sweeter, fruit based flavours. These are more like fruit wines, and can be quite addictive. We went for a bottle of Bok Bun Cha, a blackberry wine. Blackberry has become extremely popular in Korea since it was decided that it was healthy for you. Plus, it didn’t hurt that, at the World Championship Poker games in Vegas a couple of years ago, the winner was chowing down regularly on bowls of blueberries. Gambling benefits aside, blueberries have become extremely popular based on the health thing, and, this being Korea, that means they’re going into booze. I found it wasn’t too bad, a bit like Vimto, but not something I had to be in a rush to have again soon. My preference has to be for the pear based drinks. Our panchan was good if not really spectacular. The white radish (mu) was memorable, with a “water” that tasted of salt, a slight horseradish/wasabi/mustard trace, vinegar, and sugar. The other kimchis were normal, mu kimchi, cucumber kimchi, pickled cucumbers, salad with mayonnaise (Koreans love to load up their salads with mayo), and pickled garlic. But, you don’t go to a restaurant for panchan. We came here because it was Jason’s favourite duck anywhere. Our other nephew, Clark, was here a year ago, and he raved about this bird, too. Myself, I’m fond of a good duck (and you can see the China thread for more than you want to see of ducks) and I was looking forward to this. The bird is roasted for four hours in a double clay pot; stuffed with rice and a variety of wonderful things (which we’ll talk about soon) and sprinkled with pine needles to get the smell right. It comes out a glowing brown, rather than the crisp golden of a Beijing duck, and it’s soft. A bird like this, you don’t eat it up all at one time. We peeled back the skin and flesh to reveal the glutinous rice that had been stuffed inside. This was supplemented with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, pine nuts, and chestnut. As I was coming to understand about Korea, health in cooking is very important. Or, at the very least, you should believe what you’re doing is healthy. I don’t take much convincing, myself. But they had also added some ginseng, some figs, and a bark that had a texture like burdock root, but was very bitter. We called over the expert wait staff (20 something, barely) and asked, and they went into a meltdown. They called over someone older (22 something), and he advised us that it was “that Chinese herbal thing you put in the rice”. We were much older and wiser for that. But forget about such distractions. This is a great duck. The meat is soft, pulling away from the bones (and there’s a large metal spittoon for the remnants to go into), and the flavour of the bird is permeated by the stuffing, while the same holds in reverse for the rice, steeped in the rich gaminess of my favourite waterfowl. There was more panchan brought around as time went by. A nice sunimon style salad of thin rice noodles topped with a salsa of chilis and green onion, and broccoli with a healthy pile of gochujang to go with it. To wrap things up they brought out a drink of sugar and cinnamon, with the sweetest grains of rice floating in the liquid – soojongha. (And I forgot to take a picture). Clark remembers his grandmother (Yoonhi’s mom) keeping the rice for this jarred out in the back, soaking up sugar water, and he would sneak out and grab extra rice for his dessert. And we finished with lychees stuffed with pineapple. Lunch out of the way, we did the mall. This was a study in contrast. At first we did the traditional Korean underground station mall. This can be translated out to “young women’s clothing”. That’s it. We may have seen four or five places that did something else, but they weren’t common. And this goes on for, well, it felt to me like eternity. At least there were occasional restaurants to break the monotony. These malls, attached clinging to the corridors off of the subways like cholesterol from your arteries, are all about traffic. I’m always confused about how such places sell enough to stay in business, even with the average Korean female buying a new wardrobe every season. But, with the sheer volume of people flooding through, you’re almost guaranteed to make some sales every day. Heck, we bought stuff – sun visors and hair bands for Serena. Finally we broke clear and made it back into the upscale section – Shinsaegae Department Store and its environs. There we immediately fell into a food floor, which is always a good thing. In prime place was a large amount of roots and barks and dried mushrooms. All things that will do you good (gotta remember your health). And there were stands selling ice creams and kim bap and, and, and…… With the “mountain goods” on hand, Yoonhi took it as an opportunity to try and figure out what the bark was that they’d used in the duck, but to little luck. This was going to remain a mystery, at least until we could get back with some of our Korean friends back home (and they’ll just tell us it’s “the Chinese medicine thing you put in rice”). I insisted on dragging Yoonhi into the grocery section proper, to show her the marbling on the beef. She wasn’t quite as enthused as I’d been, but did admit it looked really good. I would love to get some of this in yukke (raw beef). We wandered about a little bit more, taking in the multicultural aspects of modern Korea – the coffee shops, Italian gelato joints…….and then we stumbled upon Krispy Kreme. We had to stop in. And, yes, they still give away free samples, hot from the assembly line. As we bit into ours and felt them evaportate in our mouths, Jason and I were pretty sure they’re just a lightly bonded fat in the shape of a donut. There’s no other way they could be this light. Given that they were advertising hardbodies at one of the fitness studios in conjunction with the donuts, and given that there must be a “health” angle here somewhere, we ordered a dozen to take home. We’ll feel better for it, I know. But the effects of the night before, although not as obtrusive, were still haunting the edges of our existence. We’d debated catching a movie, but decided to hold off for now, as I’d probably just go to sleep. But, having dumped the donuts and some other shopping at home, we headed out to do an Itaewon run. As much as the rest of Korea has changed, Itaewon still looked the same. It’s good to know some things are destined to stay dingy and run down, and the strip looked just as I remembered from a decade ago. We picked up some candied ginseng, argued with a vendor who knew better than we did how old Serena must be, checked out hockey jerseys for Jason’s team (the new ones don’t come with removable crests, darn it) and then got out of Dodge. And then it was dinner. Chuncheon Dak Kalbi, one of Jason’s regular spots, across the street from one of his prior residences in taechidong near the Hanti subway station (‘yok’). The ajima (“auntie” is the easiest translation) running the place was happy to see Jason, and went into full interrogation mode, cheerfully grilling him on who we were and where we were from. Her chicken came out coated in the marinade of hot pepper, with lots of sweet potato, ddeok, cabbage, and sesame leaves in the pot. As this was going to be way too evil for certain little girls, we ordered here the old stand-by: omurice. She wasn’t thrilled. Serena is definitely not an omelet and rice sort of girl, which is a shame, as the dish looks very good (and would feed way more than one little girl). But, her issues with food are her problem. The chicken cooked up, with active stirring on Jason’s part, and we dug in with the appropriate level of abandon. The chicken was yielding, soft like a good gung pao chicken, but this had that brutality of Korean gochujang about it that just works your mouth way, way up. A good glowing burn that builds as you eat more and more. We dropped in some noodles – jolmyun. These are the stretchy ones, that have an elastic band texture to them. You have to pull and tug, as they desperately try to hang onto the food. And, finally, we had to bokkum the remnants to get our rice the way we wanted it, with the flavour of the chicken and the remnant broth worked through. I should make a comment here (you know you can’t stop me). As you drive down any major street in Korea, you’ll be impressed by the number of restaurants lining the street. It’ll seem like you’re never more than five or six steps to food where ever you stop. Okay. Sound good? Now go into the street just behind, the one running parallel. Everything is beer, soju, whiskey, and food. The only relent will be the small 7-11 type marts, but their main purpose is to sell food and drink, too. Miles of food. Everywhere you go in Korea (South that is) you’ll find these back up streets. They service the business of the front streets, either as a place for lunch, or as delivery of food. At lunch time and early evening you’ll see trays and stacked metal containers of food racing across the streets into the main buildings. We dropped in on one place to get the girl her gelato (now, there’s a Korean treat, eh?). Chocolate chocolate was her choice. Myself, I was holding my appetite for something crispier. Along with all those restaurants we mentioned, there were also the carts. These’ll take up position at the street entrance. And, oddly, there’ll often be more than one of them, but all selling the same thing. What we were after here were sausages made by wrapping seaweed (gim) around the noodles, rice, and offal stuffing that would usually go inside of soondae - gim mari. These are then crispy fried. After frying, the sausage is cut up and served with ddeok bokki (which is good enough to eat on its own) – a stew of rice cake (ddeok) and gochujang. All tidily served in a nice plastic dish with plastic wrap, you hunt down your tidbits with a skewer. Ambling back down the street to the car, we took in the other shops. Lots of chicken in this area, besides the Chunchong Dak Kalbi and its vultures, there was fried and grilled chicken, fast chicken, and slow chicken. But there was also a lot of pig on hand, and beer. Lots of beer. One place, the Cool Hof, was advertising the coldest beer in town, and we could see chilled kegs on the talbes inside. However, as tempting as it might be, it was a work day for Jason the next day, and he needed to be in reasonable shape. So, instead of heading home at 2, we were back at the cheerful hour of midnight. Besides, we had more beer to drink at home (Sapporo) and there was one last treat to eat.

Oooooh, it's 4:30 a.m. Can I just have the headache now and get it over with?

MilgW, More pictures tomorrow, I promise! We just spent the last couple of nights on the East Coast and Seoraksan, and I could sneak away while the rest of them are hungover to get some writing done over kimchi chigae and dongdonju (unfortunately, I burped and gave away what I had been up to to Yoonhi). Once I can get the photos up, and the links loaded, we're back in business. Except now, my nephew has a bunch of his friends that thing we really need to go out for beers and chicken. Cheers, peter

Doddie, I never mind you stepping in, as I know I won't get Yoonhi to post recipes, and I'm too old and lazy to sniggle them out of her. Post more, and then I can try (all our Korean cookbooks are in Korean. I can read them, but darned if I can understand them). Cheers, Peter