Four Days in Seoul.

Over the last few years, one of the countries in East Asia that has really piqued the interest of the rest of the world, thanks to the wild popularity of its high dramatic television shows, is Korea. Although I’m not quite a fan of the drama shows (I have a very low threshold for all the crying and melodrama and if you ask me, if you’ve seen them once, you’ve seen them all), I completely love the Korean food I was exposed to during my university days in Melbourne.

I tell you, a piping hot bowl of kim chee and pork ribs soup accompanied by steaming, fluffy white rice or a platter of paper thin beef slices sizzling on a hot, oily grill is heaven sent on a cold winter’s day. So of course I jumped at the opportunity to visit Korea and have my fill of authentic Korean food.

And I absolutely loved it. Everything- from the quaint little stores selling sparkly accessories of all sorts to food stalls lining the road hawkering the most delicious street food with its aromas wafting through the cold, thin air- was incredible. But enough with the talking- let me take you through Seoul, the way I saw and fell in love with it.

(I’m putting the rest of this post under a cut because I have about a zillion photos- you have been warned.)

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It was snowing when we got to Seoul and pretty much stayed that way for the first two days we were there.

The snowflakes that greeted us upon arrival at the hotel- incidentally the best shot I’ve got of the snow falling

We stayed in Insadong, a quaint neighbourhood with meandering alleys lined with traditional stores selling antiques and artwork.

The alley our hotel was on

An alley off Insadong-gil

Each day, as we walked through the quiet streets, it was almost too easy to believe that life could be just as breezy, calm and tranquil.

Cheonggyecheon Stream, a short walk from our hotel

Coffeeshops lining the stream

While I knew that Koreans loved their food, what certainly came as a surprise was how much they love coffee. Just about everywhere, there were literally coffeeshops every five steps we took.

And speaking of the food, Seoul is such a food paradise I tell you- provided you like your food spicy and/or chargrilled that is. Luckily for me, I adored them both ways for the streets of Seoul were completely lined with food stalls selling grilled finger food of all sorts.

An assorted of skewered snacks, mostly made out of rice cakes and sausages

The best dried chargrilled cuttlefish ever

The sweetest sweet potato fries and pancakes in the shape of fishes filled with red bean paste

Sweet potato fries again and other random street snacks

My favourite was definitely the dried chargrilled cuttlefish- smokey, chewy and very intensely flavoured- and the impossibly thin and sweet sticks of sweet potato fries.

A stick of potato chips

Huge disc of slightly burnt caramel crisp

Strawberries by the roadside

The one thing I simply had to try from the stalls were the sticks of potato chips everyone seemed to be eating. Deep fried and left to sit on a rack, I was gestured to pick a stick up and roll it in a dubious looking, MSG-laden mixture. For everything I was expecting it to be (crisp, hot and deliciously salty), that long spiral of potato chips (it’s actually an entire spiral) was disappointingly soggy and not that fantastic at all.

Vegetable rice burger at Lotteria

In Korea- or Seoul at least- what you’ll see practically everywhere are these fast food chains, Lotteria- sort of like what Macdonalds is to everywhere else in the world I suppose. Fast food really was the last thing I was gonna eat in Seoul but one bite of the vegetable rice burger my mum had been raving about from her previous trip completely blew me away. It was salty, greasy, had such texture and flavour from bits of corns in the rice patty and an incredibly delicious mayo sauce-  simply everything a burger should be.

Our Korean spread at a restaurant in Myeong-Dong

Our platter of ox’s tongue and beautiful beef slices up close

Also deserving a worthy mention was the one Korean spread we had (we ate street food and ice cream most of the trip). Apart from the mountain of food we ordered due to divided preferences, we simply had to have an old Korean favourite- chargrilled ox’s tongue. If you’ve never had ox’s tongue, you have no idea what you’re missing. Usually sliced paperthin and chargrilled till crisp, it simply just melts in your mouth. Completely worth the artery clogging you can seriously feel happening as you eat it- promise.

Ooh how could I forget my favourite place- Namdaemun Market.

A wide, hectic street filled with food stores, push carts and even make shift tables selling everything from socks to raw poultry. This was the one place for me which defined the heart and soul of Seoul- and I completely loved it.

Naedaemun market

Steamed buns right out of the steamer- there was such a long queue for this

The only vegetable/poultry seller in the market

Another favourite area of mine was Myeong-dong, a slightly more upmarket, orderly district lined with clothing boutiques, make up tons and tons of coffee places. It was just a complete sensory overload right from the second we stepped onto the street- sort of like a cross between Tokyo and Broadway in a very good, over the top way.

Myeong-don

A 3 storey high Krispy Kreme

An adorable Hello Kitty store in Myeong-dong

We really couldn’t go past visiting the palaces Korea is known for so off to Gyeongbokgung palace we went (which is thankfully an easy twenty minutes walk from the hotel).

The palace was situated in a huge, beautiful ground which I imagine would be so much more pictureous in spring or summer.

And of course, we couldn’t leave the area without sampling the food stalls conveniently located right outside the palace gate.

Candy floss

Meat and battered hot dog on sticks

Takoyaki- a Japanese dumpling made with batter and octopus

Sweet potato fries

Freshly grilled squid- soo good!

Chicken on stick- this was an incredibly combination of both salty and sweet flavours

They were all delicious- especially in the cold- but my favourites were definitely the chicken and the grilled squid which my very adventurous dad went for. The grilled squids were in fact so good we went back for seconds just before we left the palace grounds- you see where the gluttony comes from, can’t you?

So that’s about it for my trip (phew!). It’s hard to believe we were just there a week ago but it was such a good trip! So long, Seoul- till we meet again!

Posted by thecoffeesnob on February 21, 2010

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