My Blog

We reach Seoul in about an hour.  Along the way, the bus was playing the movie Married to the Mafia.  Our guide is concerned for the 2 kids in our group who might find the movie too much. Anyway, this would be our final night in Korea.  There are tall buildings but on average, you will find more scrapers in Makati.  Along the way, we pass by Gyeongbokgung palace (hard to see due to walls), the statue of famed Admiral Yee Sun Shin, and his Turtleship.  Traffic seems like medium, which is good since that means we’re moving no matter what.  Our bus was stopped by a gyeongchalgwan (policeman), he asked our guide what is our business here but did not inspect further.  We also go around Seoul’s city hall.

Our dinner is early.  I think we stopped at the restaurant at around 5pm.  Would have preferred to eat later, but, hey it might as well be merienda dinner.  Our dinner is Samgyetang 蔘鷄湯 otherwise known as Ginseng Chicken Soup.  Our restaurant is beside a bank.  We stepped out and note how there are many ATMs operating in one branch alone.  The air is very cool and fairly clean.  True to space being of at a premium in Korea, the entrance and stairway is rather narrow.  The restaurant is at the 3rd floor.  The 2nd floor has nothing but a very small men’s toilet.  It’s got 2 doors.  There’s barely enough space to pee and wash hands.  Heck, I think this is the restaurant we went to in this Youtube video:

Samgyetang restaurant

There are restaurants and bakeries that offer foreign recipes.  One is just across the corner of the Samgyetang restaurant.  I can’t recall the name but it is familiar.  Anyway, we go up and enter the restaurant.  Some of these kinds of restaurants only serve nothing but one recipe.  As we sat, our soup is already ready to serve.  Though it’s spring, they serve it all year round.

The restaurant is much cleaner than the others such like it we’ve been through.  Ambience is excellent. You will notice big jars of preserved ginseng several years old.  The soup is boiling.  There is salt to flavor.  We also have ginseng wine.  I drink it.  It’s not sweet, but it’s still good.  Ryneth and Ruby, our felow travellers, pass on the wine, so I dunk it on the soup.  It’s a tough exercise from completely using your hands and just using the chopstick and spoon.  Some Koreans even mix their kimchi, making for a reddish concoction.  The chickens are young and you eat the whole thing.  It’s stuffed with glutinous rice, chestnuts, dates (jujube), and 1 year old ginseng.  I long imagined ginseng to taste kind of like ginger, but it’s actually on the bitter side.  The one-year old ginsengs stuffed are edible and soft.  Bitter, but not too much.

After dinner, we board the bus and head to Myeongdong district where we stay at the Seoul Royal Hotel.  Our friend Ryneth mentioned how she so much wanted to see some performance happening that day, or even watch Nanta or "Jump!".  There are catalogues, maps, information about the city, info on those two plays.  Reading about them, I wish we found a way to book and watch in advance.  Alas, perhaps next time.  If there is a next time.  Our guide, Irene, gives us the keycards to our room.  We and our companions agreed to come out at 6pm to walk around Myeongdong.  The rooms are a bit small.  A bit smaller than Best Western we stayed on our first night.  But we got a TV with access to the US Armed Forces Network, and a pretty hi-tech toilet seat with bidet.  Awesome!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.