Seoul in 2010

According to a recent NY Times article, Seoul is one of 31 places you should visit in 2010. Good thing I got an early start by visiting in December/January. Here's the excerpt:

Forget Tokyo. Design aficionados are now heading to Seoul. They have been drawn by the Korean capital’s glammed-up cafes and restaurants, immaculate art galleries and monumental fashion palaces like the sprawling outpost of Milan’s 10 Corso Como and the widely noted Ann Demeulemeester store - an avant-garde Chia Pet covered in vegetation. And now Seoul, under its design-obsessed mayor, Oh Se-hoon, is the 2010 World Design Capital. The title, bestowed by a prominent council of industrial designers, means a year’s worth of design parties, exhibitions, conferences and other revelries. Most are still being planned (go to wdc2010.seoul.go.kr for updates). A highlight will no doubt be the third annual Seoul Design Fair (Sept. 17 to Oct. 7), the city’s answer to the design weeks in Milan and New York, which last year drew 2.5 million people and featured a cavalcade of events under two enormous inflatable structures set up at the city’s Olympic stadium.

I've gone to Seoul quite a bit this year and it gets nicer and nicer every time I go. There's tons to see, do and eat and Seoul is such a fun city to roam around in and public transportation makes it so easy. I'll share with you some of the areas my cousins and I visited this time around.

Cheonggyecheon Stream

It used to be an elevated freeway in the middle of the city, but five years ago they did a massive restoration project to create an urban, recreational space and to reestablish the running stream that had since dried out. My mom claims it was a major eyesore when the freeway was there, but now, it's a beautiful place to rest and relax in the middle of downtown Seoul. During the summer, it's packed with people cooling off, enjoying the cool breeze from the running stream. Even in the dead of winter, it was quite lovely.

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Gyeongbokgung is an old royal palace situated right in the middle of modern Seoul. It was first built in 1394 during the Joseon Dynasty, later destroyed by the Japanese in the early 20th century and is still being restored to its original form. It's very historic and is a lovely oasis from the hustle and bustle of the city right outside its walls.

Kimchi Field Museum (Coex Mall)

The Kimchi Field Museum is a really small museum that explains the history of kimchi and shows plastic displays of different types of kimchi. Kind of cute, but it would be really cool if they had Korean grandmas making kimchi there. Wishful thinking, huh? It would be very informative to someone who is new to Korean cuisine though.

Gangnam

The area around Gangnam subway station has a lot of restaurants, bars and cafes and is known for its nightlife. It's also now known as the "U-street" not for its shape, but because it allows "ubiquitous" access to the Internet and media. What's up with Koreans using American words or terms to refer to certain areas in Seoul? (Why, oh why, would you want to have a "Rodeo" Street in Apgujeong? Sorry for the digression.) Do you see the tall white LCD display thing next to Baskin Robbins? That's one of 22 media poles showing various images and ads facing the road side. There are constant multimedia images being projected on it.

If you walk up to these poles, you will see that there are ads on the top and at eye level, they have these touch screen that allows people to search maps, read the news and check transportation information. No fret, you don't have to know Korean to use these media poles, you can read the information in English, Chinese and Japanese. You can even play video games (my cousin Allen will appreciate this feature) and can also send yourself an email postcard, yes, these media poles even take pictures of you. I didn't get to verify it, but apparently, these media poles also provide free wifi. They are working on teleportation features for next year. I kid, I kid.

Myeongdong

Myeongdong is basically a shopping area, but there's tons of good eateries nearby. It's especially fun at night when street vendors come out in full force selling clothing, accessories and our favorite, street food. It's jammed pack at night and on the weekends.

Insadong

Insadong is known for its antiques, artwork and Korean crafts. I love the pottery here. The district is known for its traditional Korean cuisine as well.

Hangang Park

Hangang Park is a park right along the Han River where city dwellers can get some fresh air while walking, running or biking. They have basketball courts, soccer fields and several outdoor exercise equipment. For those that want to just enjoy the view, there are several restaurants and cafes set up along the river as well. During the summer, you'll even see some ferry boats and jet skiers. Here's a gorgeous sunset my mom and I saw one day while going on a walk.

I hope you enjoyed my recap of my Korea and Vietnam trip. I hope you guys get to visit Seoul for yourself soon along with the other 30 places to see in 2010.

Pete - guess which country is on the list?

Makchang - Seoul, Korea (Gangnam Station)

If you can read Korean, you will see that the sign clearly says Makchang, which means large intestines in Korean. Now, Jung and I decided to eat in Gangnam one day by ourselves and up until this point, we've either eaten at places I've tried before or places my mom or other family members have taken us to. This time we decided to just roam around and pick something on our own. There were literally rows and rows of restaurants on every street and somehow we ended up here ... by accident, of course.

We were walking down one of the BBQ alleys and couldn't really decide which one to try. They all looked the same. So we decided to base it on a place that looked pretty busy. Jung's been wanting to try to eat at a pojangmacha place, a tented restaurant where they sell drinks and grilled meats. We saw a tent with lots of people inside, didn't see the sign at all or care to look at it, and went in. In our defense, I would just like to point out that it was cold so we didn't look up at the sign and this picture was taken after our meal. =)

The lady brought out some side dishes. Some chives, kimchi and some doenjang paste and sesame seed oil and salt to dip the meat in. She asked what we wanted to order, I asked her what was good and she said the spicy pork and the grilled beef were the most popular dishes. So we ordered one of each. We looked around and observed the crowd amongst us and they were all young and looked to be enjoying the food. We patted ourselves on the back for picking a good place on our own.

Here's what came out. Jung and I both looked at each other and said, what the heck is this??? Then we looked outside the tent and saw the sign and realized where we were and then started cracking up.

Apparently, makchang gui (grilled large intestine) is a popular delicacy in the Daegu region of Korea and clearly other patrons of this restaurant were big fans. I'm not a very squeamish eater, but my imagination gets the best of me sometimes and when I start to visualize what part of the animal a particular dish is from, I get a little nervous. We could have just paid for our meal and left right there, but Jung and I decided to be good sports about it and try it.

I tried the spicy pork intestine first thinking, I bet I won't even taste anything because of the sauce. Wrong ... it was very chewy and the seasoning had a weird aftertaste, which didn't help my cause. So I tried the beef intestine instead. Chewy again but with pockets of fat that seemed to squirt out when you chewed. Umm ... this was going to be more difficult than I imagined.

In the end, we tried our best, but probably in the first time while we were in Seoul, we actually had leftovers. We also had some mae hwa soo, a plum wine, which was quite tasty. It's kind of on the sweet side, as you can gather from the floral motif, and reminded me of elderflower liquor.

We talked to my mom afterwards and told her what happened and she got a good laugh out of it. I told her we weren't the biggest fans of makchang, but she said that it can be really good if it's grilled till it's crispy. I think something was wrong with our grill because we couldn't get the pieces to char. We both had no idea so we ate it while it was still on the chewy side, but cooked - thank God.

I told Jung that this counted as my Andrew Zimmern moment of the trip and that I was off the hook for the rest of the trip. He's been on my case the whole time about trying bun daegi (cooked silk worm cocoons), but after this meal, he seemed to have dropped the issue all together, to my relief. Phew.