How To Make Samgyeopsal

For the three people that read this, I've got a few pics to put up this weekend.

Bukchon and More

Spent some time in Bukchon a couple weeks ago. Bukchon is located near Jongno 3 station and Kyongbuk Palace Station.

KyongbukPalace

Street

Another Street

Japanese Ramen Place

(Across the street from the museum of chicken art)

The Ramen

Better then 81 ramen in Itewan in my opinion, still looking for Kitsune Ramen.

Cool House

Chicken Art Museum
(Just follow the signs)
Telephone: 82-763-9995
Foreign: 82-2-763-9992

Exterior Shot

Admission is 3,000 won if I remember right. Fairly small museum but worth it just to say I went to the Chicken Museum.

Old Church

Another Street Shot

And Another


Tax Museum

This is located near the US Embassy and in the national tax office, just follow the signs.

Another small museum. About half of the museum is dedicated to distillation which was the interesting part for me. Admission is free.

Not just do the legal thing,
to do right thing!

Picture of a Ceramic Soju Still
Don't think I've ever seen ceramic stills before.

Here's the Real Thing

The Distillation Desplay

And here's a model of a modern distillery.

Recommend this one if you're in the area, it's a couple blocks away from Kyobo book store http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/index.laf so it might be something to do on the way to or from a trip to restock the library.

Home Plus

The Guy in the Pink is a Champion Wrestler
(Really)

Home Plus is a chain of Korean Department Stores, one of them is across the street from my apartment and the most convenient place to get groceries. They play this constantly on big screen televisons and over the intercom, silence is dead in Korea.

Radioactive Kimchi

Looks like they're going to do that comic about me after all. Damn, I'm smooth.

In other news, I ate some sort of sea snail for lunch today. I'm not sure what it was but it tasted alright.

Kimchi Museum

Went to the Kimchi Museum today. Took about twenty minutes to get through the whole thing.

Bunch of Kimchi Pots at the entrance

Chest for storing rice

Possibly another, smaller rice chest.

Mortars and Pestles

Grindstones

And more Kimchi Pots
(Note the porcelain pot in the center of the picture)

All in all it was a fun little trip, not sure I'd recommend going out of your way to visit it but it might be worth checking out if you're in the area.

Kimchi museum is located in the COEX mall.

Admission is 3,000 Won

Jja Jjang Myun

Jja Jjang Myun

I've finally managed to order something for delivery that isn't pizza and that something is Jja Jjang Myun. Before this week, the fact that it was a five minute walk to get something to eat prevented me from bothering but my innate laziness has triumphed.

On a more serious note, I've been eating this stuff since the third day I was in Korea and it's excellent. My Korean friends and coworkers were shocked the first time they saw me eat it because Americans are supposedly put off by the black sauce.

More Food

Fatman Seoul has a great guide to street eats in Korea that I'd recommend checking out.

The Fishbread is fairly good, bit too sweet for me. Haven't seen any of the savory kinds for sale in Incheon.

Haven't tried the filefish yet. Going to have to give it a try.

The squid strips are pretty good.

Haven't tried the chicken feet either, never see it for sale when I'm hungry and in the mood to try something new.

Ddeokpokki is good stuff but I'm not a fan of sundae, something about the texture really bothers me and the taste is nothing special.

Gotta agree with him about the gukmul, that stuff warms you right up.

Some things he didn't mention were the various forms of hotdog. Had a great one the other day that was wrapped in bacon, had a terrible one the other day that was dipped in sugar. I ordered a battered hotdog from a stand and he asked me if I wanted what I thought was salt on it. I said yes and he dredged it through a big pan of 'salt,' this thing was covered. Took a bite and I was shocked to find out that it was sugar. If you haven't tried a battered hotdog with catsup, mustard, and suger then count yourself lucky.

More info on bosintang here (including a recipe if you want to try it at home).

Bosintang

As the cafeteria is closed for the winter holiday and I still have to show up to work, I've been eating out a lot for the past couple of weeks. My meals have ranged from Ramyeon, to Jumakbap (Rice Ball).

Today I was in the mood for soup so I stopped in the first restaurant that had pictures of soup in the window.

The soup was a spicy soup filled with onions and a mystery meat that still had the skin attached to it. The meat was very tender and fatty with the same texture of very tender beef. The taste is hard to describe but it was quite good, a bit gamy but good.

I finished my meal and asked the lady what I'd just eaten, she informed me that it was called Bosintang and asked me if I had enjoyed it. I assured her that I did and returned to school.

On the short walk to school, I began wondering to myself why Bosintang sounded so familiar so I cornered the first two students I saw and asked them what it was.

For those that haven't guessed, Bosintang is dog meat soup. I had planned on trying dog meat while I was in Korea but I wanted to know what it was I was eating before hand so I could pay more attention to the flavors, as it is I payed more attention to the program on the television that showed how to make Kimchi.

I knew that there was at least one dog meat restaurant near my school, now I've found another.

Two Weigooks, one cup

Me and another guy bought a cup full of beondegi last night. It wasn't as horrifically bad as it was the last time I tried it but it's still not something that I would recommend ever trying. Got several pictures to put up. Till I do, how about the latest by South Korea's hottest band . . .