Morning of the 10th, Lunch etc.
I guess I left off with us eventually finding a restaurant. Do I want to backtrack and say anything about the wandering around? I guess so.
While we were looking for one we were in an area called Namdaemun. I thought that meant we were back in the place we'd gotten out of the cab and gotten on to the subway which would have made the original plan even more bizarre than it already was. But in fact that area was Dongdaemun, as DG correctly remembered. "Warren" is a good word to describe Namdaemun. Seemed like a good place to buy Guci bags and Adldas sweatsuits.
Now, lunch was Bulgoki. I think I was supposed to convince DG that what he really wanted was Kalbi, but that seemed a difficult assignment and I wasn't up to it.
Both are beef cooked on the table right in front of you. Bulgoki it's in a pan with a little water and a bunch of those long skinny mushrooms that come in bunches. Maybe some onions too. Kalbi is grilled, and then you put it on a leave of lettuce with bean paste, roll it up like a little burrito and eat it. If you're lucky you also get this other kind of leaf which has a slightly spicy flavor and is very good.
Anyway DG seemed quite sure that what he wanted was Bulgoki and when he got it seemed to be what he was expecting, and he was very pleased with the result, declaring it better than what one gets in the Korean restaurant near Penn Station (and near CUNY grad center). So I don't particularly regret not trying to convince him to have Kalbi instead, although I myself prefer it.
After lunch we headed accross the street to a big department store. DG wanted to make one attempt to find a teapot for his wife. We looked at the teapots but there was nothing appropriate. What was wanted was something Korean and Korean-style, not kitschy but not fancy. What was available was fancy and mostly Western-style: the stores target market was Koreans looking to conspicuously consume.
By this time I wanted some coffee so we headed to the Starbuck's another floor up. Normally I try to avoid Starbuck's but in Northeast Asia I'll make an exception. We drank our coffee in a very nice rooftop garden.
We still had about an hour before DG needed to be back at his hotel. Not enough time to figure out another major activity and undertake it, but given that, a lot of time to kill. We decided to stroll for a bit. DG picked a street that looked interesting and we strolled down it. When we got to a sort of clearing, we found ourselves back in the shadow of Seoul Tower and got a little frustrated. He wanted to know which way to walk so that our walk would be back towards the hotel. We talked to a stranger on the street and a woman in a hotel and in both cases had some difficulty conveying that we did not actually plan on making all of the two hour walk back to the hotel. But we did manage to get the requisite information and took off walking. After about 45 minutes it was time to get more serious about getting there and we were discussing a cab when I spotted the subway logo up ahead. So, subway back to the hotel, then DG got his shuttle bus to the airport, and I was on my own.
While we were looking for one we were in an area called Namdaemun. I thought that meant we were back in the place we'd gotten out of the cab and gotten on to the subway which would have made the original plan even more bizarre than it already was. But in fact that area was Dongdaemun, as DG correctly remembered. "Warren" is a good word to describe Namdaemun. Seemed like a good place to buy Guci bags and Adldas sweatsuits.
Now, lunch was Bulgoki. I think I was supposed to convince DG that what he really wanted was Kalbi, but that seemed a difficult assignment and I wasn't up to it.
Both are beef cooked on the table right in front of you. Bulgoki it's in a pan with a little water and a bunch of those long skinny mushrooms that come in bunches. Maybe some onions too. Kalbi is grilled, and then you put it on a leave of lettuce with bean paste, roll it up like a little burrito and eat it. If you're lucky you also get this other kind of leaf which has a slightly spicy flavor and is very good.
Anyway DG seemed quite sure that what he wanted was Bulgoki and when he got it seemed to be what he was expecting, and he was very pleased with the result, declaring it better than what one gets in the Korean restaurant near Penn Station (and near CUNY grad center). So I don't particularly regret not trying to convince him to have Kalbi instead, although I myself prefer it.
After lunch we headed accross the street to a big department store. DG wanted to make one attempt to find a teapot for his wife. We looked at the teapots but there was nothing appropriate. What was wanted was something Korean and Korean-style, not kitschy but not fancy. What was available was fancy and mostly Western-style: the stores target market was Koreans looking to conspicuously consume.
By this time I wanted some coffee so we headed to the Starbuck's another floor up. Normally I try to avoid Starbuck's but in Northeast Asia I'll make an exception. We drank our coffee in a very nice rooftop garden.
We still had about an hour before DG needed to be back at his hotel. Not enough time to figure out another major activity and undertake it, but given that, a lot of time to kill. We decided to stroll for a bit. DG picked a street that looked interesting and we strolled down it. When we got to a sort of clearing, we found ourselves back in the shadow of Seoul Tower and got a little frustrated. He wanted to know which way to walk so that our walk would be back towards the hotel. We talked to a stranger on the street and a woman in a hotel and in both cases had some difficulty conveying that we did not actually plan on making all of the two hour walk back to the hotel. But we did manage to get the requisite information and took off walking. After about 45 minutes it was time to get more serious about getting there and we were discussing a cab when I spotted the subway logo up ahead. So, subway back to the hotel, then DG got his shuttle bus to the airport, and I was on my own.
posted by GB at 8:50 PM
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