After I killed Bill, I sold my Seoul (Warning: tons of pictures)

Hi everyone. I'm back in America now, and it's great to be home with the family and friends. Still, before coming home I did some interesting things that I want to include on this blog for my self-indulgent pleasure and out of concern that you have nothing better to do while at work.

The last week in Japan, Manami and I went to dinner at Gonpachi. If you've seen the first Kill Bill, please take a moment to remember the part where Uma Thurman's character slices and dices what seems like hundreds of suited ninja types inside of a restaurant, severed body parts flying into the fountains and all that good stuff. Well Gonpachi is the restaurant who's interior design influenced the set design for that scene, arguably the coolest one in the 3+ hour epic. So here's some pics from that. There aren't any pics of the food, because the food was fairly standard- reasonably-priced, decently-portioned, albeit "safe" Japanese food. Good for foreigners who don't want to try anything too slimy.




After that little experience, I had a half-week of work and said goodbye to my teachers. By saying goodbye, I mean we all got
wasted together. Also, the adult students that I taught for part-time work took me out for dinner and drinks at a SE Asian restaurant. They said it was to prepare me for my trip. It was an extremely thoughtful gesture, and I had a great time with all of them. Here we are as seen through one of my student's cell-phone cameras. I forgot mine, unfortunately.


Then it was time to go to Korea. Manami and I spent 4 days and 3 nights in Seoul, marking the first time I'd ever funded a vacation on my own. If you like spicy food or are having problems with bowel movements, I suggest a trip to Seoul, because the food there will satiate both your cravings. We arrived at about 2 and immediately began a search for a good Korean lunch. Here's what we found.

Here we see the free appetizers consisting of kimchi cabbage and daikon, garlic mushrooms, some fish, and greens. You are served this kind of food at any Korean restaurant regardless of whether or not you want it, and it's always free. Pretty awesome.


In Japanese, this is called chige. It might be called something different in Korean, but I can't read that shit. It's basically a really hot bowl of spicy soup with a lot of tofu in it. This one also had some shrimp and clams in it. Delicious.


Bibinba (also Japanized Korean), this is a pretty common Korean food dish consisting of rice, various vegetables, and eggs that you stir around and push against the side until it gets perfectly burned. The stone bowl keeps it hot for what feels like hours.


Rounding off the meal with chijimi (no idea about that spelling), this is kind of the korean take on okonomiyaki or pizza if you will. We were scolded a little bit for pouring the sauce all over the dish instead of dipping it. Still, they brought us more when we asked for it.


All of the above food ran us about $20, including tax, and there's no tipping in Korea. So good, so cheap.

There was a free Nike Dunk exhibit just around the corner from the restaurant, so we stopped in there. It was small, but there was a cool part where you could design your own virtual dunk and print it out in sticker form. Here's the design I whipped up.

I'd sport em.

Just outside of our hotel was a restaurant that had this in the window.

Nothing more appetizing then fried chicken that looks like it's been sitting out for a few days. We decided to use the "pass" option on this restaurant, but given a little more time, we probably would have eaten there too. Apparently, fried chicken is pretty popular in Korea. We saw a few of these kinds of displays.

I thought Japanese people loved food, but I think the Koreans might have em beat. Everywhere you look are stalls selling food. Here's an example of one selling what looks like anything it could scrounge from the water.


And for the less daring, one selling chicken. I use the term "less daring" lightly, because this chicken was some of the spiciest I've ever eaten in my fucking life. And we got what the vendor labeled "kinda spicy chicken."


Our first ride on the Korean metro trains, which aren't nearly as clean and tranquil as their Japanese counterpart. They are, however, based on a much simpler layout than in Japan.

You also get a lot of the beggars on these trains, which you absolutely never see in Japan. Think blind men playing sad songs on harmonicas and other depressing shit like that.

We went to a place called Hongdae, which is a university area that had a ridiculous amount of bars, nightclubs, restaurants, shopping, etc.


Engrish exists outside of Japan, too!!



And just around the corner,



This area was pretty awesome because of the following-


That's 2 tequila shots that cost a total of $3.80, and no you don't tip in bars either. I guess this area is known for cheap tequila shots, and we took em up on that. You even get little snacks to accompany your shots.


What's great is unlike in Japan, these "complementary" snacks don't find their way onto your bill without you realizing it. There is no "Seating charge" either, so you can walk in, take a shot, eat a little snack, walk out, and no questions are asked.

The next day we decided to get a little culture and visit a couple temples. This sightseeing time was strictly limited due to Manami's unending desire to go shopping. But that's okay, I'm more into shopping and eating anyways.


This is one of the buddies I made while I was over there. He was a good guy. Didn't say much though.



Speaking of shopping, you can shop EVERYWHERE. On the streets, in the subway, even on the shitter. Okay, that's not true, but just about everywhere you look is someone selling something. There's tons of fake stuff everywhere too, from Bape to True Religion to the ubiquitous Louis Vuitton. If you want fake goods, Seoul has it. I used "ubiquitous" because mom asked me if I knew what that word meant.

And if you're looking for some treats to bring your blood sugar back up after all that shopping, check these out. (And sorry about that lame transition to get back to talking about food).
This was for sale in our nearest subway station. A waffle. $1. One topping was always apple jam, then you had your choice of whipped cream, chocolate, or strawberry. It was delicious. So cheap.


Then there were these things:


Made by these guys:


Dudes were totally funny. They had a whole routine where they explained what they were doing, interspersing both English and Japanese into their explanation. It was funny, and they had a good crowd going. They actually use honey and flower and then spin it around and it creates something like 16,000 really thin strands of the white stuff. This is then wrapped around various types of nuts. The ones we got (seen above) were filled with finely chopped peanuts. Pretty good stuff.

Pics of our Korean BBQ dinner. Good, but a little pricey.




Our third day there, it was rainy, so we went to Lotte World, a pretty massive 4-floor indoor theme park. The rides were fun, but the roller coaster rocked my head and made Manami and I both pretty dizzy. In line, we met some teenagers who offered Manami a little makeover. Here's the results.

Pretty cute, eh?

We headed back to our area of Myungdong and got dinner at a Korean sushi place. This was my favorite roll, featuring fried chicken and honey mustard sauce. It was like a Wendy's Chicken Sandwich in "sushi" form.


On our last day, we took a walk along a man-made river. Here's a crazy piece of art.


For our last meal, we had a pizza at a Korean place (Ok, so we were a little tired of having our tongues burned off by all the red stuff). It was awesome though. The place advertised it as a full-course meal, as the crust had potato-breaded shrimp for the appetizer, the pizza as the main course, and the crust was filled with a sweet potato mouse accompanied by apple jam. It was awesome.


Manami enjoying it.


And a final stop at "Cafe Baskin Robbins" where they had Ice cream fondue.


They also had their own take on the Cold Stone stuff. So good.


Okay, so I promise we did other stuff than eat....kinda. Well we shopped a lot, including a visit to the CoEX mall, the largest underground shopping center in Asia. We also went to a casino where I lost about $50 playing blackjack. Manami, however, couldn't be stopped on the roulette table and won like $70, more than doubling her money. She bought me a donut, but opted to spend the rest of her money on a fake Chloe purse. I don't really blame her.

Alright, so that's all for now. I'm going around SE Asia in a week, so don't give up on this blog just yet!!!
-ryan