The Chalice at the Palace

On Saturday (that's yesterday) we went to a Greek restaurant in Itaewon for lunch. The food was fabulously tasty. It was so tasty, in fact, that Cheryl tried to eat everybody else's food.

See? Look at her looming over Jana's chip. I don't understand why Jana is smiling. I think I would be crying.

Cheryl and I both ordered the tuna salad, Matt got the pork gyro, and Jana got the mussaka, which is most excellent (dude). We had a super appetizer which included four different kinds of spread for the house bread which was all very good. We stuffed ourselves full.


Then we went to Gyeong Bok Palace in Seoul (of course it's in Seoul; this blog isn't called "Love and Kimchi" for nothing). At the Gyeong Bok Station, we walked through this arch that is supposed to make you young forever. Look us up in twenty years and see if it worked.


The subway was pretty packed.

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

For Tony, Wherever He May Be

Or perhaps I should say, "Whoever He May Be"?

Socks for Prancing

My sisters Jana and Cheryl have come to visit me. So far we have seen the Paper Museum (they have the most expensive paper there in the world, just so you know), E-Mart, Myong Dong, and eaten at many delicious restaurants. The Pan Asia Paper Museum (which is the official name of the Paper Museum) is more of a store than a museum, but I don't really mind. It's the paper I come to buy rather than the paper I come to see, if you know what I mean.

That (above) is us on the subway (I'm a big fan of the Seoul subway; it's very easy to use, pretty clean, and gets you where you need to go, all with minimal effort expended) going to Myong Dong. Jana is about to fall over. Not planned. Seriously.

After we got to Myong Dong, we walked around and realized that there were lots of socks to buy. So we did. Buy lots of socks, that is. Cheryl already had some awesome socks, socks for prancing.

Check those babies out. You can even see them in the dark. Observe the picture to the left. We are in the dark, but Cheryl's socks are quite distinctive nevertheless. The best part about the prancing socks is that only one person here in Korea looked at them askance.


I love the fashion in Asia. Everyone who can put anything on is a winner.

We bought long socks, furry socks, legging socks, socks for pimping, socks for growing into (they said even a pregnant lady could wear them); yea, Socks for All Occassions.

Here we are partying.

When we had partied sufficiently we became hungry and decided to try out a barbecue place. We decided to go there because there were lots of people waiting to go in and so we figured that it must be good if people waited to go there. It was good.

There were some Japanese tourists who heard us order and decided to get the same thing. I guess they really liked the sound of "cider." They saw the bottles come out and were quite taken with them. I think they were disappointed when they found out that cider is only carbinated lemon-lime soda and not booze. They don't know it yet, but we did them a favour.

After dinner we bought some street food called "ho dduk," which is fried dough filled with cinnamon. They are most delicious.

And to finish off our Korean party day, we did what all good Koreans do: sang karaoke till we dropped.

3... 2... 1... PUMP!

A week and a half ago, I went to the Korean finals of the World Pump It Up Festival. Tiffany and I have played Pump It Up on and off (mostly off recently) for... oh, five years now. I'd seen videos of Pump tournaments, but I haven't had a chance to check out a “real” one until recently. So, I had a lot of fun going to this one.

It was pretty cool. They had a couple different tournaments: freestyle, men's technical and women's technical. There were two machines, and they were both being used at the same time. The freestyle competitors were pretty awesome. However, I was completely blown away by the technical competitions. Basically, for each stage of the competition, they picked out a song at random, and stuck with that for that stage of the competition, so they could compare scores. The women had Love is a Danger Zone, and the men had Beat of the War 2. The women were allowed to hang on to the bar, but the men couldn't. I couldn't believe my eyes when one of the guys got a 800+ combo on Beat of the War 2! It was incredible.

They were giving out prizes. I was hoping to get something, but I didn't win any prizes. I did get the official Pump It Up cheering inflatable thingies... they are basically long inflatable plastic things that people hit together when they cheer. It's a pretty common way to cheer at sporting events, or at concerts, or whatever here in Korea.

Before each round, the hosts would have everyone count down: 3... 2... 1... PUMP!

It's the Shizzle, fo' rizzle. yo.

Check out this awesome Noodle Bar we ran into at the Coex Mall.



Now all I need is some chashizzle to get me some nizzle.

Sumptuous Repast

Today for dinner we ordered pizza from Mr. Pizza. They make exceptionally delicious pizza, probably because it is made to appeal to the appetites of women (I believe that means more health conscious and less grease, but I'm not sure).

We ate all the pizza, but here's a picture of the box.


It's a little bit hard to see, but in the upper left hand corner of the box their slogan is written: "Made for Women." Note that "women" is circled. Yes, of all the pizza in all of Seoul, Mr. Pizza makes his pizza especially for women, bless his heart.

We were quite hungry, however, and could hardly wait for the pizza to be delivered. So, while we waited, I prepared a delightful spread of fruit and vegetables. Matt declared that it was so beautiful we ought to take a picture of it. And take a picture of it we did.


Aren't fruits and vegetables in their natural, unadulterated forms wonderful? God has truly given us a gift. Incidentally we discovered the best way to eat apples. First you slice them as in the picture. Then you slice an orange as in the picture. And then you take the apple and rub it all over the orange. The sweet juice from the orange delicately coats the apple. This procedure has a two-fold benefit: 1) it adds such a savoury taste and aroma to the apple as to tickle the tastebuds to tastiness; 2) the acidity of the orange keeps the apple from turning brown due to oxygen exposure. You may all use this in the future for all your fruit consumption needs.

The pizza finally came, and with it came pickles. Yep, that's right. Pickles. Koreans sure do love their pickling. Remember when SARS hit Asia a few years ago? Well, they say that it missed Korea because of the kimchi. I don't know why, but let that be a lesson to all of us: always eat your pickles.

Ahhh, the joys of eating! May my palate always remain ready.