Day 2 in Seoul

I just couldn't bring myself to make another post after that adorable picture of the three of us!!! LOL! I just loved having that be the first thing I saw everytime I opened the blog!! I love that little girl!!

But I know that you probably want to hear about some more of our trip, and we have lots of pictures to share, so here goes...

After meeting our sweet pea, we decided to go explore some more palaces. After a 20 minute subway ride and a nice hike, we discovered that pretty much everything is closed on Mondays! Figures! So we headed back to Insadong since we had had so much fun shopping and eating there. We decided to try some more Korean food and found a restaurant that looked good and had some menu items that we would like to try.


Eating in Insadong
Its a good thing that the menus have pictures and English translations! We ordered bibimbap which is one of our favorite dishes to eat at home and also beef and mushroom bulgogi. The waiter first brought out soup which was a cold soup. I wasn't too sure about cold soup, but it had slices of cucumber in it with I think seaweed garnish and it was actually pretty good! It tasted kind of like cucumber water. Very refreshing. Then the waiter brought out about six small plates of side dishes which is typical of Korean meals. We gave each a try! There was marinated lettuce in a vinagrette dressing- I liked this. There was kimchi which I gave a try once again. There was another salad that looked a little like coleslaw, but I didn't like the dressing on it at all... very fishy. Then there were two green pancakes! We each took a little taste, but didn't care for them. They didn't have much taste actually. But the weirdest side dish looked like little shiny strips. The strips were sweet and chewy, but again... had a fishy taste. We tried to ask what they were, but even after the waiter pulled out his IPhone to translate, the best we got was "honey" and "starch syrup". Maybe they were hard honey strips? No idea! Then our main food came. The bulgogi was very good- its thinly sliced strips of beef marinated in a kind of sweet marinade, then grilled. This one had mushrooms in it too. You ate it with rice. The bibimbap was really good- it was served in a hot stone bowl. The best part was the rice that is on the bottom cooks against the hot stone bowl and gets crunchy. It was really good! The only thing that surprised me was the octopus on top! There were chopped up grilled octopus on top! Complete with little legs and tentacles! Now if you know me, I love fried calamari, but NO LEGS. It just gives me the creeps. BUT... being brave, I gave it a try. And guess what? It was really good! The octopus was very tender and didn't really have a lot of flavor. Jeff and I shared both of our meals. We even ate with chopsticks (well... until my hand cramped up and I gave up and grabbed the spoon! ha ha ha...) It was a delicious Korean meal.




























Korean dessert
After we left the restaurant, we started heading to the center of town where we had seen a river running through the middle of the city. On our way, we passed by a little cafe that advertised shaved ice. This is a popular dessert in Korea - we had seen signs for it in many places. Its basically shaved ice on the bottom, then topped with either fruit, ice cream, or sweet red beans. We again decided to be adventurous and try the red bean flake. It was a huge bowl that we shared. The shaved ice was on the bottom, then a scoop of red beans in a sweet sauce, then vanilla ice cream, then some weird brown powder, then I think some sweetened condensed milk that they pour over. It was good in a weird way! The flavor was great especially the sweet condensed milk and ice cream that would melt into the ice, but the red beans were... well... interesting. Not bad, just different. It was nice to try a traditional Korean dessert!




















Cheonggyecheon Stream
Right through the center of downtown is a stream that has been turned into a recreational area. It was very pretty! There are stepping stones and waterfalls throughout the stream and many families eating picnics or just sitting along the stream with their feet in the water. At night, the stream has water fountain light shows that shoot up. It was fun to walk this area!























































































After picking up some coffee and tiramisu at a coffee shop (Koreans LOVE their coffee... there is a coffee shop on every corner!! Here is a picture of Starbucks!) we headed back home... tired, but very happy!




This had been a great day!