Korean food

Top photo is Ben and Jiwon on our last nigt with them. We went out for a traditional Korea meal where you sat on the floor with a little table. The lady serving us went crackers with the side/dishes nibbles, so much so that there nearly wasn't enough room for the food! Jiwon translated the menu and we ended up with a smoked duck which was delicious and definitely the culinary highlight of the trip! Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of our first Korean meal (up in the mountain the first day) we had lots of pickles, some chicken to cook over a stove and some potato omlettes with bits of veg in. I even managed to not photograph our second which was buckwheat noodles in ice (yes actual ice) in a big dish served with hot pork that came on a wooden board. With this you could either have water or a kind of oxo drink (which Jam tried but I managed to avoid). I thought the combination of icey cold and warm might be too much for me to handle but it was oddly pleasant. Our next meal (on the evening of Ben & Jiwon's wedding) however I did manage to capture

Here is ben doing his best man & fire pose. We were brought large cermanic bowls with a little water in them and then this self contained griddle/BBQ was placed inside it on which to cook the meat. There were three different types we started with some thin stuff (which tasted really like bacon but it was beef) which once cooked you were supposed to tip lightly in some flavoured salt. The second and third were more substancial bits of meat marinated in different ways. I'm not that fond of beef myself so I had Doenjang jjigae (which was a soup with seafood & tofu in as well as rice).
Our next excursion into food came on the streets of Insadong (on which I will do a seperate post as it was that awesome). There was a great big queue for this street stall selling what looked to be donuts. On purchasing two we discovered they were a great dal more than donuts containing as they did a sweet nut oil (which took us by suprise on the first bite as it was molten)

Later on in the day after that taste of food heaven we were confronted by food hell. I picked the restuarant & we both opted for sea bass, mine was poached and Jam's was baked.. Here is what arrived

the poached one is in the foreground and next to it on the green dish was Jam's baked version. I quickly learned two things about Korean fish dishes. 1/ the fish is cooked as found with very little trimming alteration (scales, tail, head and bones present, check). 2/ That it is quite common for fish to be cooked in red pepper sauce which is as it sounds a sauce made of red peppers - chili can also be added and in this case I think a bit too much chili was added (I like spic food it just has to have a bit of flavour as well as the spice). Between the bones & spice we didn't get much, however thanks to the Korean tradition of providing you with nibbles as well as your food we didn't go hungry (assorted white dishes other side of Jam). That night we decided to play it safe ordering dishes we recognised from the food court of a shopping mall. Here is James enjoying his

and here is a close up of my soup, can you spot the bits of tofu, mmmm lovely tofu!

Ahh that's better. We also enjoyed a very nice curry at that food court (here is me with mine)

On the whole the food was good and we didn't feel the need to seek out western restaurants every night, which was awesome!

The wedding of Ben and Jiwon

So being the main reason we went to Korea a couple of days after we flew out was the wedding of Ben and Jiwon. The bride looked spectacular in an English style traditional gown:

(it fitted her perfectly and the back was gorgeous)

the groom looked equally dashing

Both set of parents looked lovely and very proud

and the best man well....

Jam got an email the day before the ceremony asking that as well as doing the announcements in English would he mind wearing Korean dress? (borrowed off the best woman's husband, so they matched). I think he rose to the challenge beautifully. Here are the 4 of us just after the ceremony.

Happily I managed to get hold of a butterfly dress, its more beautiful in the flesh but as pictures are all I have here is a close up of me larking about with Phoebe's (Ben's nieces) abandoned headband

Although my dress was lovely I was definitely outdressed (fittingly by the bride in her second outfit) 

(isn't it lovely, matches the flowers perfectly, it looked so delicate on her, perfect). So raise your glasses of wine, mugs of tea, whichever is closest to Ben & Jiwon

The temple (but not of doom)

So the day after we flew into Korea Ben hired a car and we headed off to look at the north side (not the real north but a bit closer than Seoul). The car journey out there took about 2 hours but the scenery was really interesting all the way. When we got there we caught a ferry across to the island.

When we got to the ot other side the landscape looked like all rock with trees perching on the top of it.

Round the beach there was this big concrete barrier on which people had stood piles of rocks (seemed like a similar feeling to a cairn (Pronunciation: \ˈkern\

Etymology: Middle English (Scots) carne, from Scottish Gaelic carn; akin to Old Irish & Welsh carn cairn Date: 15th century: a heap of stones piled up as a memorial or as a landmark.

Anyway the towers of rocks continued all the way from the shore (pointy rocks) to the river (smooth rocks). Also by the river (aswell as many black silk spinning catapillas) we found this 

explanation:

So princess & a snake. We carried on walking up the slope

 and finally arrived at the temple 

There were some beautiful black butterflies flying around the flowers at the summit (the result of all those caterpillars perhaps but they were just too quick for my camera and didn't seem to want to settle on anything. Still the Buddhas were waiting at the top for us. It was a fantastic day and even though we were tired from the flight I wouldn't have missed it for the world. 

What to wear to the wedding?

Jam's best friend is called Ben. They've been best friends for some years having gone travelling together when they were footlose and fancy free. This year however Ben gets married to his girlfriend Gywan who is Korean. So guess where they are getting married? Yup Korea, and the best bit is that we are going! The flights are booked but there are two things I'm having problems with 1. sorting out accomodation and 2. finding a dress. The accomodation problem I think is nearly solved. First of all we got the area wrong (too far south so we had to go back into Seoul to get anywhere). The second was what kind of accomodation we wanted. In Korea the hotels are really expensive and the hostels full of what i would ter 'proper' harded travellers. As I am not a hardened traveller (and this is our first break away together) I wanted to stay somewhere a bit luxurious. It seems the answer to our accomodation problems lies in a sector of the hotel sector known as 'love hostels'. Korean families tend to stay living together till the children are quite old so these places are where the kids take their boyfriends/girlfriends and have all sorts of things like jacuzzi's in the room and heart shaped mattresses (cute or tacky you decide). To me that sounds like a crazy adventure!. The second issue is gonna take a bit longer to resolve. I've decided I want a butterfly dress. They are exotic and colourful and lets face it very beautiful. Inspired by the late (and great) Alexander McQueen who designed this beauty.

 

with of course matching shoes

 This would be fairly ideal (designed by Luly Yang) however it seems to be in a museum, so poss not an option...

 On the more realistic side of things I found this

Perfect I thought, nice shape & pretty. Then two things happened. I looked at the close up of the print and suddenly didn't like it so much. Nice from far away but for me its all in the detail.

and I saw this

Its made by Ted Baker and new it cost £200! I thought no way at about this point but then two things became clear. Firstly here is a close up of the print, I burn, I yearn, I pine...

Second you actually can't buy it anymore, so I guess I should try and get one second hand for less than the £200 I wouldn't have paid. Just under 70 days / 2 months to sort this one!