Summer in SoKo

Last Saturday was a busy day of mainly playing. Sorry, no studying here. I decided to go check out the Free Market at the Children's Park on Saturday afternoon, where artists/craftspeople set up tables and sell all sorts of things, from jewelry to hand-painted shoes to artwork to...you get the point. The artists usually change from week to week (it's always held on Saturdays from 1-5pm), and everything is really good quality and often hand-made. But first...

I pass this restaurant when I go to Hongdae from the Sangsu metro station, which is easier to get to from my dorm and less crowded than Hongik station. Somehow the name is telling me to only come here as a last resort...

So many people on a cloudy day, but once you see all the great stuff, it's worth it to me. I scored a great handmade bag and a pair of handmade earrings. This place makes me want everything. The lady who made the earrings said my Korean was good because I told her all of them were beautiful and it was hard to choose in Korean. She was easy to please I think.

There's also great live music. This was a little jazz band who set up next to the playground part of the park. It sounds so incongruous, but it just works.

Anyone that I've talked to about Korea knows I love me some banana milk, but a new flavor is melon milk, which tastes like a melted Melona bar you can get here in Korea, which I also love. So if you like sweet melon flavor, give it a try.

After I brought home my haul, I went to meet up with my friend/classmate Maren and her 2 friends Lyza and Greta, all of whom are from Germany, and all of whom are among the most lovely people I've met anywhere. We decided to go around an area called Insadong, which is a more tranditional and touristy area, but still fun.

Errbody be out here!

One of my favorite things about places like Insadong is the random street art you'll see around. This just leads to some restaurants, but why can't it be beautiful?

A children's workshop in pottery. The potter was so patient with all the kids, so it was fun to watch.

I don't know what this is, but I like it. I think it's a restaurant, actually.

Inside a shopping center, there were lots of flowers and other art painted on the ground. This one was my favorite.

I don't know exactly why this is here, but it has to do with love (사랑 - sarang), and people have been putting little pink tags here with messages for a few years now, so it's kind of cute.

Maren, my classmate, is in the back, the short blond hair is Lyza (pronounced Lisa), and the girl in the grey shirt in front of her is Greta.

This man is selling 똥 빵 (ddong bbang), which translates to poo bread. The shape of the bread makes more sense now, doesn't it?

You know I had to try some poop bread. It was actually really delicious, with sweet red bean paste and black sesame seeds inside.

You don't pass wings painted on a window and not pose like this. You just don't.

We investigated the love tunnel thingy.

We took pictures in there, but it just led to shops we didn't want to go to. Oh well, now we know.

Our window was held shut by a spoon. Not sure how traditional that is, or if it just had to be MacGyvered like that.

The table behind ours was really cute, with letters and notes tucked under the glass top.

Top left - 삭혜 (shikhye, a sweet fermented rice drink); Top right - some summer fruit iced tea; Bottom two - 수정과 (su jeong gwa, cinnamon ginger punch). In the middle are some complimentary ddeok, or korean rice cake, but the waiter only brought us 3 when there were obviously 4 of us, so we weren't impressed.

I loved my drink the best and wish I could have it every day. This ddeok...not so much. Tasted and felt kind of like styrofoam.

I stopped to hear the street music, and then noticed at least a hundred or more policemen lining up behind him. Not sure why, but it was my cue to leave. That happened to me last year as well at Cheonggyecheon, and it still gives me the heebie-jeebies.

My friend/roommate Michelle has a favorite cafe she frequented last year to study in located in a cute neighborhood called Samcheongdong, which is surrounded by hanoks, traditional Korean houses, because it's right next to Bukchon Hanok Village - one of my favorite places I went last year. It's called Cafe Dodo, and when she took me there last week, it lived up to the hype.

Citrus herbal tea, homework, and a view of hanok rooftops. I like this.

The inside of the cafe was very quaint and rustic.

I guess they're stockpiling for a huge bonfire?

Later that evening, I met up with a group of ladies at the Seoul English Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a girls' night to eat Korean-style shabu shabu. We met up on the campus of Ehwa Women's University, since it was close by.

Not gonna lie, this campus is cuter than Sogang - sorry, not sorry.

The most famous part of the campus, which is built into a hill and known as "Moses Parting the Red Sea", which leads to some classrooms built below.

Korean style shabu shabu - my favorite kind - comes with all sorts of vegetables and thinly shaved meat, which you dip for a short time in boiling broth and can dip in a flavorful sauce when it's cooked. But the magic is that the broth cooks down and the meat/veggies flavor it as you go, so after you eat all that, you put in dumplings and noodles or rice last and it soaks up the intensely flavored broth...mmm.

Afterwards, we stopped by a dessert cafe - they're seriously everywhere in Seoul - called C'lucy, which I have no clue how to pronounce. They have a deal where if it's after 9pm, everything's 40-50% off. This pleases me.

Different flavored macarons in a case, but the best part was...

...that it spun around. Don't know why, but it seemed to feel right.

My friend's chocolate cake on the left, my chocolate banana mousse cake in the middle, and my sweet potato steamed milk latte (no coffee) on the right. The last one was an experiment, and when I got my stuff, I wondered why something smelled like a potato, then I remembered it was my drink. It wasn't bad, but the potato-smell experience will probably stop me from getting it again.

On the way home that night, I passed by a movie theater in Sinchon and remembered our teacher told us something special was inside, so I went in to take a peep and saw...

Bumblebee from Transformers. Don't know how legit it is, but it looks pretty awesome and it's taller than me, so I'm gonna dub it cool.

치즈 리면 = Cheese Ramen. This is one case where the sum is way better than it's parts.

The view from the top floor of Arrupe Hall, where I take my culture class at Sogang University.

Michelle and I have been attending a language exchange meetup (where I met my other friends I went biking with before) for a couple of weeks now. Before her first time going there, she wanted to try a restaurant in a hanok, or a traditional korean house, nearby that she had seen on a Korean tv show. It was pretty tasty, different than you can find in a lot of places nearby, but kind of hard to find. I don't even know the name of the restaurant. Oops.

Bibimbap (mix vegetables and rice) with sea squirt (the orange stuff in the big bowl) and various side dishes and soup to the right.

We sat at the table just inside the open window on the right. The hanging thing on the far left is for catching rain, which spills into each descending part so that the water doesn't splash everywhere so much. You can't see much detail, but it had some beautiful carvings.

At that language exchange, we ended up talking with a Korean brother and sister the whole night, and have kept in contact with them. If you're ever in another city or country by yourself and want to meet people, I suggest finding credible groups about a topic you're interested in to join on meetup.com. I've loved it here in Seoul!

In class, we pretended to run stores and sell/buy things, so our cute 선생님 (teacher) made each of us credit cards with our name in Korean. The card number is the starting and ending dates of the program - adorable.

Studying for our first quiz at a dessert cafe in Edae called Pop Container together with my classmate Sarah.

You know I'm excited about some Oreo Bingsoo! Why? Because...

...just look at that. It's majestic.

We sat in big beanbag chairs and looked at all the crazy art on all the walls. Last year, it seemed only good-looking guys worked here (which makes sense, since Ehwa Women's University is close by), but this year I saw one lady working in the back.

I took some of my classmates to the Cheese Rice (치즈 밥) restaurant behind Sogang University for our lunch break one day. Before...

...and after! This one was Curry Short Rib cheese rice.

Marianne (Singapore), Kinga (Poland), Manon (France), Chin Ping (Singapore), Sarah (U.S.), and last, but not least...

Carrie (U.S.), who did not want her picture taken...sorry, it had to be done.

When walking back from the metro station behind the university, I pass by the back of the building where my language classes are. This year, I've noticed a light show on the stairs every night.

It's just curious to me because you can only see it on these little side streets behind the building, you can't see it from the campus unless you go into the building. You're a strange little campus, Sogang.

Is a "Wedding Taxi" a real thing? Anybody?

One thing I was looking forward to most was meeting up with my friend Choi Sunmi, who was my language exchange partner from last year. She graduated from college back in February and started a new job in April, so she works super long hours (12+) because she's one of the new employees. That's just how it goes here in the workplace. She had some time on Saturday, so we met up in Gangnam - yes, that Gangnam from the song - and walked around, sat and talked in a park, and went to a popular dessert cafe called 설빙, Seol Bing, which is famous for their desserts with soybean powder, which is currently all the rage. I promise it tastes better than it sounds - it gives it a nice nutty flavor. The patbingsoo was all right, but nothing spectacular. Not enough red bean paste, in my opinion. The real winner was the sandwich on the left, called 인절미 토스트, Injeolmi Toast. Basically, it reminded me of a grilled cheese sandwich, but instead of cheese, there was chewy sweet rice cake spread inside, the soybean powder and almonds on the top, and no butter on the toast. The toast was so crispy and the ddeok (rice cake) was so chewy...mmm...

Patbingsoo = pretty, but average. Injeolmi Toast = plain-looking, but awesome.

There is this meat-grilling restaurant nearby the guesthouse in Sinchon where I stayed before I moved into the dorms, and every morning I would see them butchering like half a cow in the shop. I didn't even see a name of the restaurant. It's in a side street nearby Sinchon station. Then, if I came back around lunch or dinnertime, I would see a line of people waiting to get in. It smelled awesome, and I always wanted to go in, but you just don't grill meat by yourself in Korea. Don't do it, it'll be ridiculously awkward.

I've been coveting this since I first saw it last summer.

However - this summer, I have plenty of friends who also like to eat, so I spent a day of eating with my friend Victor again. We lined up outside the place, and this kid from inside started pretending to shoot us with his gun, so we played along, and said hello and asked if the food was good in Korean. His mom tried to prompt him to answer in English, so it was a weird little bilingual exchange. Then he came out and played more with us while we waited.

So stinkin' adorable!

The smell of the meat grilling was Ah. Mazing. Nobody sits down (there's no chairs), so you stand around these barrels like you're homeless and grill your meat.

The ahjumma came and cut up the meat for us. It was pretty simple - only really good-quality meat, dipping sauces, peppers/pepper sauce, and we got sodas in glass bottles, which added to the ambiance.

Victor's showing off his meat-grilling prowess, his Coke at his side.

Random interjection: this was in the stall in the subway bathroom at Sinchon station. I was so tempted to push it, but since it was pretty busy at the time, I didn't want to do anything weird. Still wondering what "Saund" is.

For dinner, we headed to Hongdae to go to a legit Japanese ramen house. There wasn't any Korean sign on the outside (it's called Menyasan Daime, which I only saw on the chopsticks) so it was kind of hard to find, but if you look up the name, there are blogs with the directions.

In a small alley, so it's easy to miss, but that would be sad.

Lots of famous people have been here (though many signatures in other restaurants are forged), and one of my favorite bands, Busker Busker, came here and drew the cute little guitar on the bottom row 2nd from the right.

You had to separate the gyoza with your chopsticks...

...but so worth it. Best gyoza of my life, and they had 2 dipping sauces.

I got the Tsukemen, which is cold noodles that you dip in super-rich, hot, flavorful broth. It was perfect for summer.

Victor got the Black Ramen. That pork you see is charred with a blow-torch in the kitchen.

We ate it like we had never eaten before.

One night this weekend, I hung out in Children's Park to see some live music, and caught this show by a pretty good singing/rapping group.

Errbody was pretty into it.

Sunday evening, I met up with some girls from my class and we went to one of my favorite places, Cheonggyecheon.

The yellow ribbons on the fence are in a lot of places around Seoul. They are for the Sewol ferry disaster back in April. It's only been a few months since it happened and it's still very much in the forefront of people's minds here in Korea.

Yay! The weird unicorn horn at the beginning of Cheonggyecheon!

I love my blue waterfall.

I also love the openings between the concrete with the water and lights. I'm fascinated by very simple things.

It looks pretty when the water rushes by.

Blurry selca with my friend Marianne photobombing so well.

Sometimes my phone doesn't take as good of shots, but I kind of like that it did this to the lights under the water.

There was a laser light show projected onto mist with music in the background.

It was just a bunch of shapes at first.

Then came a flying dinosaur...

...in all it's glory

These computerized flowers were projected onto one of the walls, and apparently the flowers grow and change every day. I want to go back soon and see what they look like. I'll post more then.