This is a sujaebi restaurant located to the east of Gyongbokkung in a pleasant neighborhood called Samcheonggak. Sujaebi is a kind of soup with something approaching a dumping in a salty broth. The dumplings are actually sort of torn haphazardly and thrown into the soup. I enjoy it, but after the fire upon spicy fire that is Korean cuisine, it seems a little underwhelming. My wife likes it, so it really is a matter of taste. I took my mother here when she visited back in 1999 and Jen and I went here before we left. It is a proverbial capstone for me. Another claim to fame of the restaurant is that it used to be Kim Dae Jung’s favorite restaurant when he was a student activist back in the 1960’s.
This is some of the finer green tea one can ever hope to drink. It is located, coincidentally enough, in the Tea Museum in Insadong. You can find a description of the place at http://english.tour2korea.com/03Sightseeing/TravelSpot/travelspot_read.asp?oid=2679&kosm=m3_8. Be sure to scroll to the bottom. Also, not coincidentally, it will be some of the most expensive tea you will ever drink.
This was our favorite food for quite some time, at a restaurant in Gangnam, down the street from where we lived. This is bibimbap, a traditional Korean food that everyone foists upon you when you first get to Korea. However, this is a particularly good variation, as it raw beef in there with a thousand different vegetables and a big dollop of red pepper paste (that sounds strange when I type red pepper paste instead of gochujang).
This picture is kind of melancholy, because it is the view from the Incheon International Airport in the Departures area. This was the last photograph I took of Korea. Jen and I are sitting, having a beer and watching the people come and go, about to fly to Seattle to visit my brother.
This is a dubious claim to say the least, but I uncovered these photographs while transferring some images over to my computer. These, and I cannot speak for my wife’s collection of photographs, represent the last of the images of Korea I have. Some of these might be recycled, but I thought it might be nice to post them again. I am hoping at one point it will be easier to look at these without feeling incredibly wistful for a time in the past, especially when the present is so good.
Korea gets under your skin and stays there. Maybe it never will leave, but the future is another story, something I will worry about later.