Nathan's Treat

When we met up with our friend Nathan (a few posts back) we arranged to meet up for food and drinks, because our schedules very rarely allow for us to hang out together.

So, on the Friday, we headed out into Seoul after school and dug in. Nathan directed us through some quieter parts of Hongdae to what turned out to be an incredible bossam restaurant not too far from the You Are Here cafe. It's one of those places that looks very small, homely, and impenetrable for foreigners, but serves incredible food like your Nan would make. (At least, my Nan. If she'd been brought up Korean, I suppose.)

Nathan kindly (not sure that's the right word. "Irresponsibly" is probably better) taught us how to make and drink somaek a portmanteau of the Korean words soju and maekju, "vodka" and beer respectively. (Still not sure how to classify soju. Rice wine? Spirits? Death/Happiness in a green bottle?)  You can guess what you do with the two drinks.

All of my photos from this trip out are taken from Nick because I think my phone must have died before I had a chance to take any pictures. That or I was genuinely just too busy eating.

Anyway, Nathan showed us a few techniques that can be used for optimum amalgamation of the two drinks, which usually involve being violent and dangerous with your metal chopsticks.

We ended up in Wolhyang for a second round, for some makgeolli tasting and some of their fun and delicious food. Nathan wanted to talk a bit longer than our train allowed, so he paid for us to take a taxi (so nice!). Why didn't Cinderella think of that? I'm glad taxis are a lot cheaper here than at home, otherwise I'd feel really guilty! We finished up with ice cream from a convenience store nearby and ended up having a bit of a laugh with the poor young guy having to man the graveyard shift in a quiet part of Hongdae on his own.

Ahhh, too much laughing. It's good~

Post-Christmas Rush

UPDATE: I've just found this tucked away in my drafts more than a month after I'd written it. I don't know why I never posted it!

It feels like I haven't posted anything in ages, but I've realised that actually it's only been about 2 weeks so now I a) don't feel bad but also b) am quite horrified at how quickly time feels like it's going by. It's been a busy 2-3 weeks though, so I hope you'll let me off.

So, the weekend after Christmas we finally had a chance to meet up with our Orientation friends. What cruelty is this, giving us friends then making them live in all different corners of the country?

We met up with Cherie, who had to come via Seoul anyway, and got on the train to Hongseong. What we didn't realise, is that Hongseong is actually REALLY FAR AWAY. Also, the fact that we'd be buying proper train tickets, not paying with our subway cards. (Maybe everyone else knew this, but I didn't, haha)

The result was us buying tickets for a train that was ages away, and not getting reserved seats because a) it's the super busy winter period on a weekend and b) we didn't think it'd be that long of a journey. Oops. (I seem to be really enjoying lettered lists today, sorry)

2 or 3 hours later, and several hours late, we finally reached Justin's place (after an exciting, frosty walk in possibly the most remote place I've been to in Korea so far, although that's not saying much)

We ate food and tried to make gummy bear soju (red was great, green...not so much), and mug cakes (which we ended up being too full to eat) and generally made the most of the toasty ondol. We ended up staying the night and heading back very early the next morning before the sun was even up.

5 Rounds

So, in this post absolutely ages ago, we met our friend 정현 (now more commonly known as Nathan!) and hadn't really managed to meet up since then. With busy and conflicting schedules, it was hard to do anything other than ping a Kakao message back and forth every now and again.

BUT THEN WE MANAGED!

Such happiness. We met up for my current food obsession: 삼겹살. So, Nathan found us a good place and we pretty much gorged ourselves silly. Too good. There was also the obligatory soju (common in all social gatherings, especially when BBQ is involved!

I love it, mainly because you get all the joy of a freshly cooked chunk of meat (the picture above is before we chopped it up with the provided scissors), in a nice and cool, fresh leaf of lettuce, and a really great spicy sauce that's not too hot and a little nutty. You wrap it all up in the leaf like a sort of healthy (ish) burrito and stuff the whole thing in your mouth. And try not to burn your tongue.

There's no grace here. I used to try and bite at it, being super-conscious of table manners, but it turns out that generally the Korean way is to eat it whole. Makes sense, seeing as my method ended up in juices running everywhere, gochu sauce all down my face and overall a whole lot more mess than the originally rude-seeming all-in-one method.

Nick and his hyung

So, as we learnt in my previous post about school bonding, there's very often several more rounds after the main feast. (Apparently, upon reflection, I also told you about the Korean BBQ. Sorry. Try some and you'll understand why, I guess.)

True to form, we moved on to another social staple: Chicken and Hof. Hof being draft beers. I'm not a beer person, like, at all normally, but Korean beer is much milder, sweeter, and generally a lot less "oh god why is this bread mouldy" tasting.

"Is that man pooping?" | Seoul's Trick Eye Museum

In the name of the moon... and cutting off your ear for love~!

So, quite a while ago now, f(x)'s Amber posted a series of photos to her instagram from the Trick Eye Museum in Hongdae, Seoul. When we found out we would be meeting up with some lovely Korvia recruits in Hongdae, we took the opportunity to head off to the museum first.

Being completely unaccustomed to Korea's odd street labelling system (or lack thereof), combined with the fact we didn't have our usual option of Google Maps to fall back on (all hail the Googly Overlords), it took us quite a long time to find. The museum itself is in a basement, so the entrance at surface level is only really big enough for a staircase. I think we wandered all over the place in completely the wrong direction before finding it pretty much right where we started. Sigh.