Galbi! Marinated pork, beef or chicken lovingly barbecued at your table by a gentle ajumma. We've already gone out for pork galbi twice and chicken galbi twice as well. There has been some exciting developments in chicken galbi in the last few years (or maybe we just never knew about this) but you can add noodles and cheese to the stir fry as well. I could never have it cheeseless again. So good.
Home Plus! In Suwon we were spoiled because we lived 5 minutes from a Home Plus and we probably went there 5 times a week as a social outing. There's not always a lot to do in Suwon! When we got here and needed to pick up some things for our apartment we promptly found the closest Home Plusuh in Jamsil (25 minutes or so away), but I have to say the layout wasn't quite as nice as I remembered and the prices were ridiculous. We'll be back... but after pay day!
Hot Tracks stationary (and other random foolishness) store! We found this on our first afternoon and also visited three other favorites that same day: Quiznos (LOVE!!!!), The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and the Kyobo book store, which has a large selection of English books. We used to travel for close to 2 hours to visit these places and now they're a 10 minute walk away. It's going to be a different kind of year!
Mr. Pizza! I love love LOVE Mr. Pizza and when we pulled up to our apartment for the first time I was very happy to see that one of their restaurants across the road from our place. Dangerously convenient. On our first night we ordered the classic "Mr. Pizza special" and requested 5 packages of garlic sauce, my favorite and most-missed condiment.
Myeongdong!! This shopping area has a ridiculous 10,000 or so shops and restaurants. Of course there have been some changes over the years- actually, my 2 favorite clothing stores (the dirt-cheap Myeongdong Department Store and Salvation Paradiso above the old Kosney) are missing, but The Gap, Forever 21, Zara and a 4-story H&M have all moved in and I certainly approve of these additions. We just window shopped on our visit, but that will only last for so long :P
The wanker in the above photo is holding a Remix, a cooler with 10% alcohol that tastes like cough medicine. Love!
Dakbokki! Rice cakes shaped like pasta and stir fried in a spicy sauce... yum. One of the first Korean foods that I really liked and we got to have some again on Tuesday night. We bought them from an ajumma at a street cart, just the way we like 'em.
Speaking of street food, we've also had hottoks (pancakes filled with brown sugar and nuts), chicken on a stick, and waffles this week. Actually, there's a waffle lady really close to our apartment so I have a feeling we'll be enjoying this often. For $1 she fills the waffle with frosting and then your choice of chocolate, caramel, apple, kiwi, blueberry or strawberry filling.
Chinese food! Well, not real Chinese food... the American-style stuff. We really missed this when we were in Taiwan. We went back to Ho Lee Chow's in Itaewon yesterday for sweet and sour chicken and noodles. So delicious, and there were ads in the restaurant for other Ho Lee Chow locations that seem to be even closer to our place than the Itaewon location. Win! After our meal we went back to another old favorite, the Hannam Supermarket, to buy some over-priced black market sour cream and then we went for dinner and a concert in Hongdae, a favorite bar district and the birthplace of the horse head. Which is still on sale, by the way!Basically, it's nice to be back! There's still a few places that we're itching to visit, like a favorite Thai place in Songtan, a beloved galbi restaurant in Suwon, and shopping in Dongdaemun. And we'll do our best to get back to the Jeju sexy park, but no promises :P
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