Little Things

A little post about little things in Spring that made us happy, that wouldn't warrant a whole blog post but are nice enough to share.

Firstly, macarons and excellent drinks at our favourite little cafe, The Ark, not far from the underground market in Bupyeong.

...and it was all yellow (8)

Seoul Food | Salon de Mon Chou Chou

TREAT YO SELF part 2 continued with a trip to Bucheon for some sweet, sweet Crycheese burgers (I'm noticing a worrying burger trend with this weekend) before nipping off to Garosugil in the Seoul district of Gangnam. You may have heard of it. <eyerollemoji.jpg>

So, we got our fancy on (or, at least, our attempt at fancy) and tried to not look TOO out of place at Salon de Mon Chou Chou, a famous brand from Osaka, Japan.

Nicolette was sat opposite me, so expect more photos of her than myself or Nick.

It was very faux-chic, almost distressingly so for a country girl like me, in all its white and gold Rococo-esque splendour, filled with painfully trendy Gangnam-ites delicately sipping unusually-named teas and eating hugely expensive desserts.

Naturally, we Instagrammed the heck out of it.

東京 | Tokyo (4) - Mt Fuji and Squeenix

The early night beforehand had been because of our planned activity for day 4: Visiting Mt Fuji. We got up bright and early (ish) to head down to Shinjuku Bus Terminal, where the internet had assured me we could hop onto a bus to the Fujisan area, no reservations needed.

Thankfully, while the bus terminal itself was a little hard to find, the internet delivered, and we managed to secure tickets and comfortably doze our way through the couple of hours it took to get there. Ann-Marie and I were given designated seats in the "Woman Only" section of the coach. Interesting.

We were so lucky with the weather, the sky was as clear and sunny as anything.

 After a few attempts at trying to focus on the time-wasters we'd brought with us (alas, for some reason no book or games console could hold my attention or consciousness for more than maybe 10 mins) I nodded awake, looked out the window and saw:

Monstrous

It was so big. Far bigger than I'd imagined it would be. It almost looked like the backdrop to a stage production. The curtains that a group of tourists had gone around closing earlier because of the sun were now being anxiously flung open lest they lose a chance to snap a few pics. Ta, loves.

It's almost comically large.

혜화 와 낙산 | Naksan (again) & Filipino Market

A while ago, I'd read about a Filipino market that happens every Sunday in Hyehwa, selling food and sundries. I've been meaning to go for a while now, because I miss hearing Filipino being spoken on a regular basis, and I've been meaning to get some things like patis and sinigang sa sampalok mix so that I can a) spice up my cooking a bit, and b) let Nick try a few more Filipino foods considering he can't try my mum's cooking for quite a while.

So when our new (at the time, again I'm really behind on these posts) friend Ziggy offered to take us around, I was pretty stoked.

I will say, this has become a 'thing' now. Never expect to see a photo of Nick smiling while eating on this blog.

We settled at a stall selling hot food, very reminiscent of a Barrio Fiesta setup (i.e. I feel like I'm eating in my Tita's back garden under the table umbrella) and ordered a set meal of rice, ulam, and a spring roll. We also grabbed some bbq because oh my goodness.

Nick had menudo and I had pancit, and I think Ziggy had binagoongan but I'm not sure because I heard dinuguan so now that's all I can remember. Regardless, it was all really tasty and I'm pretty darn happy I went.

I was way too excited and ate too fast, so despite wanting both biko and banana Q, we ended up all just getting the banana (which was excellent, just the right amount of salty and sweet, but it's nothing compared to eating it with vanilla ice cream). While browsing the shops we all bought a big cup of iced coconut milk drink for about 1000 won each. Normally I'm not a huge coconut person, but this was SO GOOD. Now all I need to find is some gulaman. That green, green goodness.

I picked up a packet of bayleaves and peppercorns, to fill the gap that my adobo has been so sorely missing, and a sampalok mix packet, as well as some little bags of Mang Tomas. I wanted a bottle but nowhere seemed to have one, so I'll have to make do for now.

We moved on to a lovely cafe where we talked about films and a project we're currently working on (which I won't mention properly until it's left infancy and we've actually done something) and all sorts of things, before going to Baskin Robbins (when DON'T we go to BR?) because apparently it was Day 31 which is a regular special event whereupon when you make a purchase they upgrade you to the next size. Whaaaaat?! Turns out it's only for the large family packs, not your standard cones, but we were there so we bought ice cream anyway. Puss in Boots is EXCELLENT.

Then, what do you do when it's a nice day in Seoul and you're full to bursting with food? Of course, you climb a mountain. Of course. It was meant to be a nice tour around all the street art in Naksan but we turned it into location scouting mission and general hike of "how high can we climb?" with a directional sign promising us "amusement".

Turns out "amusement" leads us to a large open space, one of the many free outdoor gyms available all over Korea, and a great view of Seoul. Not bad, but not what I expected.

As appears to be quite common in SK, all of these high vantage points are great date spots, so I ended up with all my landscape photos looking like dramatic romance shots from k-dramas.

After a great sunset, we decided to go back down to the station, taking a route that we thought would be more scenic. It was, however it turned out to be the biggest detour, as we were blocked all along one side by what I can only assume was one of the big walls of Ye Olde Korea. The next opening would presumably be something ridiculous like Dongdaemun.

It wasn't, because it's big, old, and there's not enough room in Korea to be hemmed in by such arbitrary things as walls, so eventually a main road punched through, which we followed to a subway station.

We played around and took some photos of my new Aladdin leggings c/o Black Milk

FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON we really, really wanted McDonalds. Why. Why does anyone EVER want McDonalds. I promised myself I'd already eaten a load, so I'd just buy a pack of fries, so of course I ordered a McNuggets meal. OF COURSE.

Presumably that wasn't enough, because we then went to Cold Stone Creamery for dessert. I've heard about this franchise before, mainly just through people praising it, so I've been wanting to go for a while now. My bucket list of unhealthy eateries is now longer than my presumed lifespan if I visit them all.

Oh well. I'd rather live a short, happy life full of good food than a long, dreary life of celery.

Cold Stone Creamery is interesting in that, you choose your cone, you choose your ice cream flavour, and then a topping (or more if you want to pay extra) and they kind of...teppanyaki it up. That's an obscure analogy. They kind of scoop your super soft, gelato-esque ice cream onto a metal work surface, then add your toppings, and use two spatulas to combine it all, almost like making your own personalised flavour. It's so good, because this way you don't end up eating all of your toppings right at the start. By far, it's my favourite ice cream I've had since coming here.

Anyway, after all that, it was getting late, so I guess we decided to go home before we got stuck in the station with no choice but to eat even more food. Man, I love food.

You Are Here

When we heard that Talk To Me in Korean were opening a cafe, we were pretty excited. They've really helped us with our Korean studies, and taught us things that are really helpful in everyday life here. I'm pretty sure I use at least one thing from their lessons each and every day, so I really wanted to go there to show my support.

It's a joint endeavor with Eat Your Kimchi, which we're not big fans of, but plenty of people there were pretty excited to be there and coo over the EYK merch.

Blackboard menu pillar next to the till.

The interior is adorable (you'll have to google this, or take my word for it. I stupidly forgot to take many photos), with little feature walls in a bright colour with a solitary decoration (my particular favourites were the neon "you are here" signs in a handwritten font) and overall it had a bright, fresh feel that made it very appealing and welcoming.

It's definitely a great space for its main function: studying Korean, and meeting up with friends.

We met up with one of the people we met at the Korvia barbecue, seeing as we live so far apart it was nice to have a common destination and a comfortable place to just sit and chat. A lot of the cakes in the cafe are vegan and/or gluten free, and generally very healthy-sounding. I don't know about the taste though, because they have a price tag to match the enormous amount of effort put into making them.

We stuck to lemonades and milkshakes (Also, in my opinion, pretty expensive for an indie cafe. A similar, if not higher, price to our local Starbucks.) and took a seat in the airy upstairs area and chatted for a good hour or so. It's nice to catch up!

Cute letters and messages from visitors, as well as photos from (I'm assuming) opening day.

When we went to leave, we bought some of the Talk to Me in Korean books, seeing as Nick has a couple and they've been really VERY helpful in his learning. I bought a workbook and a vocabulary book, seeing as I would like to be able to say more than I like/there is/there isn't/I want to eat 'bossam' or 'samgyeopsal', hahaha. Nick also bought the Level 2 workbook, and I think because we spent so much we got a free gift! They gave us a set of 2 verb books, which was great as I'd been struggling to decide over that or the vocab book, so in the end, I got both!

It was a really lovely day, with lovely people and staff, in a lovely environment, so if you're into TTMiK or EYK you should definitely check it out at least once.

Seoul Food | Linus & SugarDaddy

I won't count my previous post as a Seoul Food entry, because I forgot to take down the names of ANY of the places we went to, haha. But they were great anyway.

In this post we went to TWO places, because apparently all I ever do in my spare time is eat a lot with a total disregard to my gently-expanding waistline.

This time, we were in Itaewon at Linus: supposedly the best American-style BBQ place in Korea. Not having been to any other American-style BBQ places in Korea, I'm not sure how high a praise this is, BUT it's right next to the US army base and is packed with Westerners, so it can't be all that bad.

We were running a bit late because of how long it takes us to get from school to Seoul, and this place is POPULAR. So there was no time to waste, and we let our friends order for us. The food, conveniently, arrived only a few minutes after we did, so that was some lucky timing!

The platters were around 25,000 won each, so we shared 3 between the 6 of us. Mine and Nick's consisted of some cute slider buns, mashed potato, slaw, beans, and a variety of slow-cooked pork. There are fries in the photo above because we mixed and matched the sides with each other to get a variety. THE FRIES WERE SO GREAT.

The buns were warm and soft, and a little greasy (which is gross, but I kind of like it, haha) and all of the sides were great! The meat was REALLY tender, too. Apparently the owner gets up at 5am every morning to get it all cooking, which is some incredible dedication to the cause.

In all honesty, the meat was lovely, but after several trips to Bodeans back in London I was expecting a whole lot more flavour from it. There were sauces, warmed like baby milk, available to pour on as we pleased, which was a nice touch, but I still felt like there was something missing.

Having said that, I've never had real US BBQ so maybe this is more like what Southern food is like! In my experience, many meals get localised for whatever country they're in (such as the Chinese food in England that tastes nothing like Chinese Chinese food, and the Korean Chinese food which is again very different to both!). Although by that logic this is Korean Style American Food. Who knows! It was very good, and the sides were commendable (I'd defo go back for some fries), but it's not my favourite place to eat at the moment.

Next stop was a Canadian bar not too far away (where the alien word "tipping" was seen on a wall ;p) for a fundraiser for a local Animal Shelter. I have a feeling fundraisers like this are a lot more important here, because there's generally a lot less funding for unwanted pets, and there's not enough room or money for all of them. I think there's actually a time limit for how long they can stay in any one shelter, and after that...I don't really want to think about it.

So yeah, this was a pretty important cause, and seeing as I don't have the space or money to give some poor cat or dog its forever home (yet), I was more than happy to try and help pay towards caring for them. I got to play Foosball, which I was a lot less awful at than I was originally expecting, but I DID manage to score an own goal.

There was a bake sale in one corner, a raffle in another, and some live music in a third. In all honesty? We were kind of weirded out by the first act we saw. A Western guy, singing in alternating Korean and English. Cool enough, but there was a definite air of Jack Black about him that wasn't working for any of our group, I don't think. This was bundled in with the confusing fact that he kept insulting the Westerners and chatting up the few Korean ladies in the room... maybe I just didn't get his humour but sadly Nick and I were pretty glad when one of his guitar strings broke and his set ended, to be replaced by a Canadian band playing Irish music. We felt quite Fus Ro Dah.

After a while, we headed up and out, back towards Linus and into Sugar Daddy. It's a really sweet little cake shop, and it was pretty quiet when we went. It's actually sort of directly above Linus, with an outside patio area to enjoy your cake in on a cool night. The interior is adorable, it pretty much just looks like a kitchen that happens to have a food display case in it. Pine shelves crammed with baking supplies, and cute 3-tier cake stands.

They have lots of interesting flavours, from standard red velvet, to a more exotic mint choco, and Nutella, which had a Ferrero Rocher pressed into the icing on top. There are some slices of cheesecakes and pies up for grabs too! I'm not too sure how varied the stock usually is, as we came pretty much right at the end of the day, and I feel like everything is baked freshly each day, maybe even different flavours each day. But, for a cafe, they had a good variety and a nice range of teas and coffees for reasonable prices, and the man running the place was lovely.

Seoul Food | CoffeeBay

I just wanted to dedicate a little post to CoffeeBay, a little cafe down the road from us. It's a small chain with several stores in a few different countries in Southeast Asia, but it's the service that makes me want to go there rather than the Starbucks or Angel-in-Us or Paris Baguette, all of which are actually a lot closer to our apartment.

The prices aren't much different to 'Bux et al, around 3-4000 won for a coffee in a variety of flavours, some cakes and sandwiches for 2-3000 each. Maybe a little cheaper, but hey. The food and drink itself is pretty nice. Nick and I usually go for a Chicken Focaccia where the chicken is a lot like Coronation Chicken. So good. They also have a squid-ink sandwich, and it's great. The portions are pretty good too, we tend to take a much more Korean style here and get one thing to share.

Chicken Focaccia

We first went with Nick's parents and probably were quite a nuisance. They don't speak much English and we can't speak much Korean (at the very least, our pronunciation leaves much to be desired), but they tried their hardest. From staff members coming round to our side of the counter so we could point to adverts and foods in the cooler, to people writing messages to us in Google Translate, they did their best to give us the best service they could.

After we'd had our feast, they brought over 4 boxes with no more explanation than a slightly embarrassed nod, smile and the word "service". This was before we found out that "service" is basically the Korean/Konglish term for a free gift or bonus as a thank you for shopping with a certain company or eatery. In the boxes were 4 lovely mugs that I could actually see up for sale and...well they weren't cheap! How lovely~

Red Velvet cake and Red Velvet lattes to share

Thanks to the lovely service that one time, we went back again a few weeks later for an after-school treat. The service was, again, great, but less fiddly now that we knew what to do and what we wanted.

They had a little whiteboard up which had a Facebook logo drawn onto it, so I looked up the suggested page and of course I liked it.

About 10 minutes later, this turned up:

A mini honey bread with whipped cream and salted caramel sauce. Whaaaat.

The owner basically tried to explain that it was a thanks for liking their page. How cute~
I'm sure there's other small cafes nearby that are similarly wonderful or cute, but this place has kind of stolen my heart. The music is good, the decor is clean and modern, and the atmosphere is very relaxing. Definitely a favourite. So there you go, good service and free gifts are the way to a customer's heart, apparently :p