Medicines and Mountains

Dad thought it would be fun to visit an oriental medicine market in Seoul, and Mom and I agreed so we three went. I saw a lot of things, not all of them pleasant (dog shanks and fish heads), but everything was definitely interesting.


I don't remember if we went to Seoul Tower on the same day as the oriental medicine market, but I think it was so I'm including them in the same post.

Classic shot of people foreground tower background:
I know I already have a picture of the sky urinals on my blog, but you can never have enough urinals. Any dude will vouch for that.
Instead of taking the bus down from the mountain, we rode the tram. It was pretty fun. It dropped us off at a strange location in Myeong Dong, however, so we had to walk around a bit before we found the subway station.
Before we found the station, however, we ran into this badboy:
So we investigated and found this:
A cartoon museum? How awesome is that?!

House and 'Hood

That's right: it's time to wake up the neighborhood (or at least your neighbor's hood). I've been meaning to get pictures of some of these places for a while now, but I don't always have a camera on me. However, thanks to visiters, the camera was ever-present in my ready hand.

If Waffle-Man had a single of his theme song, I think this would be on the cover:
Pay particular to the shop in the background. Yes, there is a store called Lullu Shop for Man, and it seems to stock predominantly female items. I'm not sure if it's just engrish or... well, I'll leave that up to you to decide.

This is my kitchen. I had just gone to the flower market the week before and picked up some snap dragons. I love snap dragons. Especially because you can use the flowers as dragons and snap at people with them. Maybe that's why they are called snap dragons. I'm a thinker.
This is an alley (suprisingly well-lit for what it is) that is fun to walk down. They have all kinds of dog soup restaurants back in there. We have yet (if ever) to try any of them.
Unfortunately it is a hazy day, but we had to take a nice picture of all of us for the Christmas card some time. We are on the roof of our apartment in our Sunday best. I wish I had done my hair differently, what with the promise/threat of the Christmas card and everything, but that's me; that is what I look like. No hair can change that. Tschüss.
The long anticipated rotisserie chicken van: the neighborhood just isn't the same when it's not parked at the corner.
Even the most exuberant vacationers require a little down time. During our down time, we watched the office and sang karaoke. Good times.
Technically this wicked -- excuse me-- wicker awesome dragon is neither in our house nor in our neighborhood, but it's so awesome and I didn't want to make a post just for it (it's not that awesome) that I decided to include it here.
Last but not least: our toilet. I'll post a video of its automations (gotta run it through its paces) later.

From Garbage to Garlands and Governers

As most outings in Seoul begin, this one began on the subway to Yeoido.
Yeoido is an island in the middle of the Han River in the middle of Seoul. I believe it used to be a landfill, but more recently it has been converted into a business park as well as a cherry blossom park. A cherry blossom festival is held here every year during the blossoms' peak. We were not fortunate enough to visit during the peak, but we were close.


I'm not sure exactly what this is, since it's not Christmas or anything, but we took a picture of it anyway because it's still cool (whatever it is):
This is the parliament building. Yep.

[insert pithy epilogical comment here]

They're Fighters.

Watch us eat the squirming octopuses.

Although dead, these squiggly octopus tentacles still wiggled and squirmed. They are a delicacy here in Korea. And yes, dear reader, they all still moved and we ate them. They were difficult to swallow because the suckers would attach to our mouths and wouldn't release until they were chewed on a bit. When we ordered them the lady at the restaurant was so excited for us that when she went to the tank in front of the restaurant to pick out the actual octopuses that we would be eating she brought them over to us so we could look at how nice, fresh, and uhhh... wiggly?... they were.

Delicious!

Noryangjin Fish Market

We went to the Noryangjin Fish Market on Tuesday. Going to the Fish Market is like going to an aquarium, but it's free admission and they don't mind if you reach into the tanks and eat the fish. Too bad more aquariums don't adopt this policy, eh? Hyahahaha.

The market is right on the Han River close to the 63 Building, which is the tallest building in Seoul. (It's the gold building behind us in the picture.) One of the coolest things about this building is that it changes between gold and silver depending on the angle of the sun light. There is also an observatory deck at the top, like many tall buildings, and they charge a premium to go up, but the view is spectacular.

This is the inside of the market. As you can see, there are many venders and a huge selection of fresh fish.



Unfortunately we did not get pictures of the giant octopuses sold by the tentacle. However, we did get to enjoy octopus at one of the restaurants on the second floor of the market.

Here we are at the restaurant, enjoying a wonderful sushi platter and side dishes of kimchi and broiled fish and garlic.
Mom was a little wary of the sushi, but I believe she did try some. I can't vouch for whether she enjoyed it or not, though.
And here finally is the octopus. Andrew was pretty excited to try it, especially since this particular octopus has an exciting characteristic. It is served so fresh that, though dead, the tenticles and suckers still have kinetic memory and thus move and squirm and suck all the way down your throat. Mom was thouroughly horrified at this example of a Korean delicassy. :)
Our final dish was the fish soup, which was really tasty. Matt and Andrew look like they are trying to will the soup to cook faster with their mental powers. Good luck, boys.