Some Videos

Candy being made with hardened honey and cornstarch. They made some 2000 strands out of a single piece of honey. It was then stuffed with sugared almonds and then stuffed into my mouth. They had quite the show going on. In the middle of tons of screaming fans all wearing red and singing various songs. I, oddly enough, was not beaten up. One song that they adopted is actually the old Eric Cantona song people sang when he was playing for Manchester United.Sun Young and I walking through Insadong. Insadong is the area that the Japanese took to using as the housing neighborhood for the aristocracy. It is full of art in the form of masks, ceramics and laqcuerware for the most part. Tons of back alleys and no street signs make this neighborhood a little difficult to navigate. Definitely my favorite part of town so far.

As a parting note a 5 year old girl rode up to me on her scooter to let me know that I looked Chinese to her. And of course, everyone was very worried that the food was too spicy for me.

Some Pictures

Insadong, some food, a whole lot of monkfish, etc:

We went to Sun Young's favorite place today. A little hole in the wall with a 2 item menu. Either mixed seafood, or monkfish served up in a thick sauce of red chilis with bean sprouts and greens. We got the monkfish. It was pretty much every part of the fish: bones, skin, connective tissue and all. It also came peppered with small balls that were some kind of seafood. When you give them a strong crunch they squirt out a very earthy tasting liquid. Served with spicy mustard paste, soy and the usual hot day banchans of chilled kimchi soup (best yet) and radish kimchi. If you finish everything and you're still hungry they will make fried rice for you using the inevitable leftover sauce. Awesome meal.

Some blood sausage stuffed with rice noodles. Holds together just like all pork sausage.

Dokbuki at the street market eaten with toothpicks. Under $2 American. Way better than anywhere else so far. The cylindrical things are rice cakes. The thin flat pieces are fish cakes generally made out of pollack. The weird textured bits are tempura veggies and squid.

Insadong shopping mall.

Lots of art, traditional and new style. Particularly awesome Lacquerware jewelry boxes and various ceramics.

A crane fishing in a little creek in the middle of downtown. Only wildlife I've seen so far.

Oddly enough there were fish all over the place.

The same river only several hundred meters upstream. Right smack dab in the middle of town.

Me doing my Korean girl shot in front of Korea's most famous general. Why's he so famous? He beat the Japanese.

This man invented Hangul.

Here we are surrounded by about 70,000 people at one of three locations where they showed the Korea Uruguay soccer match. About 150,000 people total were out at these places. We got to see some of Korea's most famous actors, singers and other personalities. The G20 building is to the right (not in this picture).

I will be posting some videos shortly, and more words.

BBQ

Here it is, a picture of my airline korean comfort food. You can see a smattering of my pea gravel scrambled eggs and the rice that reminded me of eating at a crappy mexican restaurant in the states.

So after our long drive and gift exchange we went out for some serious bbq. Sun Young's brother and sister deliberated over where we should go for the entire hour+ car ride over. "Can he use chopsticks? Is he so tired he doesn't even care? Does he want to go to Burger King?" So we ended up at a place outside of Seoul that specialized in traditional korean bbq.

The restaurant reminded me of small town American bbq joints. It was bordered on all sides by stacks of fire wood, and most of the restaurant was outdoors. When we walked in they rang a large bell to announce our arrival. The bbq itself was like an open air version of the American style I am familiar with. There was a stack of wood to one side that was slowly smoldering, and on the other the meat being prepared for the customer. All this was uncovered, however, making the smoke flavor much more subtle. Each table had a circular metal centerpiece to cook the pieces of meat that were to come.

Along the servers came, first with many banchan, then with coals and a grill top to fit over the metal circle and finally bbq'd pork belly and neck.

The banchan, or sidedishes, were as follows: lettuce and very large leaves of what looked like shiso, raw peppers with chili paste, soy bean powder (for dipping meat into), mustard sauce for the same, raw garlic and onions, kimchi, and enormous rounds of pickled diakon.

So we sat grilling our meat and nibbling on our banchan. Once the meat was good and caramelized (everyone was quite attentive towards the meat) I was shown to take little bits of this and that and put it in a leaf or diakon round and stuff it in my face. Of course there were certain things that I was not to put with other things but did so unknowingly to the amusement of my dining partners.

It was all quite delicious and somewhat surreal to be eating at a place that reminded me of a hole in the wall in bumb**ck Texas. I was definitely the only white boy there, and definitely stared at by everyone.

Arriving in Seoul

On the plane yesterday I had the illustrious pleasure of eating bibimbap airline style. This consisted of soy ground beef, tiny pellets of scrambled eggs and what looked and tasted like mexi rice. There were also pickled carrots and mushrooms. All served with a packet of gochujang, soy sauce and a roll with butter.
Pictures will appear once I figure out how to get them from point A to point B.

After the flight I grabbed my bags and exited to the concourse via exit D. There I found about a hundred people staring at me waiting for someone else. Sun Young had not arrived yet so I wondered around a little. This prompted several airport employees to ask me if I was in Seoul for Tae Kwon Doe, Hapkido or to teach english. I laughed and they looked at me as though I had insulted their mother. A few minutes later Sun Young found me and we met her sister and brother outside the terminal.
We drove through Incheon and through Seoul from one end to the other. On the outskirts of Seoul there are stacks of 30 story apartment buildings in every direction; enough to house some million or more people. The highway we took traveled through Seoul parallel to the Han river. Bridges of all kinds criss-cross the Han and are decorated in various ways, each with its own story.
The apartment is pretty interesting, but that will be left for another post. I gave brother and sister the bounty of gifts I brought over, and they gave me some gifts as well. These were, for the most part, three kinds of jipo. Jipo is generally flattened dried seafood (mainly white fish) that is then further preserved with a type of sweet and salty syrup. The end product is similar to jerky. It is a favorite of mine meant to be grilled and eaten while drinking beers. I got some fried white fish which was almost like a fish cracker. Also got about 3 pounds of dried squid jipo which are approximately 2 feet long. I am quite excited to try this.
The third jipo I am eating right now is the more traditional white fish style and goes quite well with the bottle of hite sitting next to it. Now, back to my jipo...

Next couple posts will include my first few awesome meals, a trip to the grocery store with two lovely ladies in high heals, and an open air market full of lukewarm meat in 85 degree weather. Hope you like them.

So it begins

Hi,

My name is Matt Dwyer. About a year ago I met a South Korean girl named Sun Young Ji while working at restaurant in Seattle called Brasa. We had an amazing relationship for three months then her student visa ran out. Back to Seoul she went and we promised to keep in touch and one day meet again. This Tuesday at 8:30 am I leave to see her in Seoul. I will be there for three months so we can see if we really have a future together. She's amazing, I'm in love and I'm pretty sure she is the one.

I haven't met her mother, her father and stepmother don't even know I exist and I speak a very limited amount of korean. Shoot I haven't even been anywhere in asia before. There will be many firsts for me in the next three months. i.e. Food adventures, bathouses, being the only white person within a ten block radius, and a veritable cultural faux pas blooper reel.

And now the clock ticks. I hope you all enjoy, and thanks for reading.