We Found Insadong.

So, we found Insadong (with Matt's help), and the rumours were true. It is a pretty cool place, full of fun shops and art and people.

Here we are checking out some scarves and enjoying the trhong of people. It's a pretty popular place it seems.

This is Jana with her new scarf:

They had lots of really cool antique-style paper with flowers and leaves pressed into it. I bought some at this shop:

Then Matt saw this arcade, where he is pretty sure was the first arcade at which he ever played Pump It Up. It's a landmark for him.

This is the coolest thing we saw at Insadong:

Here's a man making nizzle - I mean - noodles.

Look at those noodles fly! We knew we had to eat there, and we did. Here we are eating delicious noodles made by the noodle man in the window:

On our way out we saw these cute stone frogs. We hoped one or both might turn into a prince for Jana, but we didn't have any luck.

It's all for the best, I'm sure.

On the subway ride home I tripped over Jana's foot, since she always stands with one foot sticking waaaaaaaaaay out like a courtier with a pointed shoe to elongate his leg.

It was a fun day, nevertheless.

Where is Insadong?

Everyone has been talking about Insadong. "It's so fun!" "It's very cool." "It's an art district." "It has cobbled streets and is closed to car traffic; it's like being in Europe." "There are lots of cool things to buy at Insadong." Insadong.

Jana and I decided to go to Insadong. We followed the subway, we took the right exit... but we did not end up in Insadong. We saw some cool things, though, like these awesome drums:

And this flute shop:

And this restaurant with a crazy octopus pooting some red clouds out of its... self:

And this gate:

And these treat shops:


And these rice muffin things:

That we ate (yummy):

And the park where all the old men hang out:

Called Tapgol Park:

Because of the old Pagoda displayed there:

It was a rather pretty place:



And that pretty much took up our day, so we went home through this long hallway:

Fairwell to Pumpkins and Cherry-Berries

As all visits must, Cheryl's had come to an end. We bought a pumpkin cake from Paris Baguette the night before she left to celebrate our fun times we had together.

Cheryl (right) refused to appear in the pictures, but she enjoyed the cake with all of us. We chose the fresh pumpkin cake because it looked good and because we knew that we'd never find something like that in the States. For such a small cake, it was a little pricey, but candles, matches, and confetti were included, so we decided to use them in the festivities.

Here Jana and I are about to pull the pressurized confetti capsules:

Yay, confetti!


There were four candles, one for each of us.

The one that is still burning in the picture is Cheryl's.

After all the candles were blown out, we cut the cake and ate it. And it was good.

Good bye, Cheryl. Good bye, pumpkin cake... We miss you.

SamGyupSal

We went to a restaurant to eat Korean BBQ called samgyupsal (sorry, no Korean today, as I can't figure out how to switch the font on my keyboard without Matt being here hehe). The best way to describe it is "Korean bacon," although it is better than bacon. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture while we still had food, but you can see the last piece of it in this video.

Eating at a restaurant

Here is a picture of Jana and Cheryl demonstrating how to eat samgyupsal wrapped in greens.

Goofin' Around on a Sunday Afternoon (Feelin' Groovy)

One Sunday afternoon we decided to check out the view from the rooftop. Here's Jana, and isn't she just the cutest?

This picture of Cheryl could be an ad in a magazine:

For example:

Digital Pious is a real company. Their actual slogan is "The legend of life do one's best!" Pffft. I think they should hire me to do their advertising, as my slogan is much better. What do you guys think?

Separated at Birth?

Halloween at Lotte World

On October 31 Jana, Cheryl, Matt, and I went to Lotte World. As you know October 31 is Halloween. Halloween doesn't have much of a presence here in Korea, but what little it did have can be summed up by this bad-boy:

I know we look pretty scary (rather I look pretty scary, my sisters just look scared), but remember it is Halloween.

We got some tasty icecream and stood in front of the Lotte Castle, which is basically a rip-off of Cinderella's Castle in Disney Land.

Even Lotte World's logo is an imitation of Disney's castle. Check out the entrance ticket:

Yeah. On the plus side, however, Lotte World did not have any of the freaky hooded ones with their jumbo-sized heads.

We went on this ride:

Matt was too scared to go on this ride, but for good reason; I almost peed my pants.

See?

Then we stood in line for like a million hours for this ride called Atlantis Adventure (which was a crazy fun roller coaster). We didn't have anything better to do, so we took a pictures of ourselves. I decided to only include one of them, however, as you can only look at the four of us doing the same things for so long.

We saw this funny sign posted at this ride:

It says, "Foreigners like this ride, so keep it clean. Please."

We rode the monorail around the park. This is a picture taken from the monorail. It's a bit blurry, but it's kind of fun to see the Lotte Castle with its backdrop of sky scrapers.

It was starting to get dark so we decided to go home. At Jamsil Station there were lots of cheap clothing shops, so we bought a bunch of stuff. The solicitude for shopping is never satiated. ;)

Dong Dae Mun

On October 29th we spent the evening making plans for the following week. Here are Cheryl and Jana (respectively) as they get cozy for the rendezvous.


Yeah, I know; it doesn't look like much planning (or much of anything, for that matter) is going on, but we did indeed arrive at a concensus for the next day's activities: shopping.

The next morning (October 30th) we set out for Dong Dae Mun. Here we are leaving the apartment.


Dong Dae Mun is a mega huge shopping market that sells pretty much everything. I like to say, "You can buy everything you want here if you can actually find it." And that's no joke. We started in one of the many buildings that comprise Dong Dae Mun Market, and, after walking through the first floor only, we emerged four hours later and had exhausted our funds. Yes, this place really is that big.

Funds exhausted (except for a few thousand won), we went home. We were pretty hungry since we missed lunch, so we decided to pool our remaining resources together and buy some street food called 떡볶이 (ddukbokki). It's glutinous rice sticks in hot red pepper sauce. This particular 떡볶이 also had 오뎅 (o-dang), which is kind of like a fish hotdog. We liked it so much that Cheryl was about to burst into song about how tasty it was.

Okay, she wasn't really planning on bursting into song, but she was worried that her facial expression in the picture did not do justice to her kindly feelings towards the food, but rather expressed the opposite: derision and/or disgust. I merely implemented a little poetic liscence, but I stayed true to Cheryl's intent. And she really does look like she's about to break into song.

We arrived at home in time to meet Matt, who had just come home from work, for dinner. Then we went to Nam Dae Mun Market, which is much smaller than Dong Dae Mun, where I sniped a pair of earrings out from under Cheryl's nose. I realized it was a shafty thing to do, however, so I let her have them. They really were gorgeous earrings, though, and very much worth sniping. Sisters are better than earrings, though, so I didn't mind relinquishing them from my clutches. Actually, I just remembered, the earrings came from Myoung Dong, not Nam Dae Mun. Oh well, the story is still the same, so I'll just leave it here.

We bought some more things, mostly accessories and snacks (they had fresh peeled and quartered pineapple on a stick ~drool drool~), and then went home. We fulfilled our plan to shop.