After attending a fun party on Saturday, Dad and Cheryl dropped me off at the LAX airport where I met Marcia, a friend from art school. We hopped on a red-eye flight for Seoul Korea. I was disappointed that I did not arrive early enough to get a window seat… I like to lean my pillow against the wall to sleep and of course I like to look out the window. A very nice Korean man sat down next to me and turned to me and asked if I would prefer his window seat to my middle seat. How nice is that? I hadn’t even said anything. Four movies and two meals later we arrived at 5:20 am and by 6:30 we had cleared customs, exchanged currency, stowed extra carry on luggage, and got maps and info. on the transportation to town. We hopped on a bus and went on an hour drive to the Namdaemun Market in the heart of Seoul. We bought gifts for friends, looked at all of the miscellaneous and unusual foods I don’t see back home. We tried a new funny fruit similar to a cherry but with a very fragile thin-rubbery skin and long ribbed seeds. An important tip, eat them right away, never carry them, as they quickly became puddly red soup with fruit lumps. I forgot the unusual name of the fruit. The market was filled with locals, I only saw a few maybe 3-5 tourists. Finding something to eat was an experience as it often is in my travels… They had little bowls with sample dishes covered with plastic wrap so you knew what the meal looked like, and sometimes what it costs; however, knowing what it was is another story. Marcia is from Indonesia and has a much broader taste palette than I. She eats pickled pigs feet and pigs ears… we saw lots of those on display at the market as well as big long beef tongues, spongy beef blood, and mushrooms of all types, some the size of dinner plates. My favorite to look at was the Ginseng roots in exotic jars. It is funny to see the marketing of the Ginseng they make the roots look like a sexy female body. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of this. After a lot of searching we settled on some noodles with vegetables and topped with a partially fried egg, and of course this being Korea it came with a variety of kim chee sp? (pickled, fermented and aged cabbage with chili sauce that is spicy and slightly sour) we also ordered a kim chee pancake. The food was fine, I liked the pancake best and I was very happy that I did not get sick…. I’m afraid my creativity and courage is limited to things I don’t stick in my mouth. Markets are not very clean and there are not really kitchens like we are used to back home. We found some art supply stores and I bought a beautiful and large watercolor brush and some colored pencils. We did not have much time so we hustled back to the airport to catch a nine-hour flight to Jakarta, Indonesia.
|  | 
|
