Tag Archives: Seoul

Happy December!

Ah! We are already well into the first weekend in December. Yikes! That means only 21 days left until Christmas.

Saturday afternoon we headed down to Seoul for Mrs. B’s work Christmas party. We made reservations at a nearby hotel, so that we could take the rest of the day and night to finish up our Christmas gift shopping.

We ate a nice meal with Mrs. B’s co-workers that consisted of a nice dinner buffet spread. We had a fabulous time chatting with everyone and getting to put some faces with the voice that had been on the other end of the line. You must to know that when any sort of party is planned in Korea, karaoke is an absolute must. What a sight to see! Many of Mrs. B’s co-workers had excellent voices! Mr. B hid from the microphone, saying that he had already flexed his pipes and filled his quota already this year.

While we were there a Korean women working the party at the restaurant approached Mrs. B wanting to see the back of her haircut. After chatting for only a brief moment she immediately grabbed her side and kept saying how thin and tall she was. This led right into the question, “how often do you go to the bathroom?”. Baffled we both had to have had this look on our faces, did she really just ask that?? Mrs. B, trying not to laugh and be rude, answered the best way possible, “I think as much as a normal person goes”. Something’s like this experience truly remind us were not in the US anymore…it’s Korea.. there is no personal or private questions here. She continued well into the next 10 minutes with probing questions about eating habits and using the bathroom. Yikes!

After the party we headed to our hotel, checked in, dropped off our overnight bags, caught a cab and started our shopping adventures. The first stop was to the Namdaemun marketplace where Mrs. B’s had visited the weekend prior. Mrs. B was super excited to share the experience again with someone new.

We haggled, shopped and met some very interesting characters, ha ha ha! You have to check out the photos if you haven’t already done so.

After the marketplace we headed off to Hello Kitty to pick up A good friends daughter something little. Mrs. B was in absolute hello kitty heaven!

Walking back to the marketplace we came across a street vendor selling egg bread known as, Gyeran Bbang 계란 빵, that Mrs. B had been looking for. It was soo yummy! With the cooler weather setting in you will find more and more of these warm treats being served up by the street vendors. So how can we describe Gyeran Bbang? Well, it sort of reminds you of french toast but with more egg. There is a slight sweet taste to this street snack but it’s very light. Yey! Another item to cross of her Korea to do list.

We decided to try to hail a cab to head back to the hotel to drop off our bags. We weren’t very successful at first we decided to take a break after being totally passed over by various impatient Koreans. We spotted Holly’s Coffee. The beans were pretty strong, just enough to pep us up and go back outside and give it a go again.

Much better this time. We got a cab! We headed back to the hotel and dropped off the bags. While Mrs. B waited on Mr. B, she played around with her camera and took various shots of the Seoul tower at night. We had a breathtaking view from our hotel of the tower light up.

The Greek souvlaki restaurant, known as Santorini is located in the alley behind Hamilton Hotel. Santorini is just a tiny piece of Greece located in the middle of Seoul. The owner is Greek and offers a traditional Greek menu.

Mr. B ordered the pork souvlaki (YUM!) and Mrs. B ordered the Moussaka. Appetizers cost between 8,000 to 15,000 Won, meat souvlaki dishes cost around 18,000 to 20,000.

Contact: 02-790-3474

Directions: From the Itaewon subway station exit #1, Look for KFC on your right, Make a right, walk uphill and make a left at Bliss. While walking keep looking for Santorini on your left, it’s located on the 2nd floor. It’s very easy to locate!

After dinner we were both pretty beat from the adventurous day. We originally had plans to grab some drinks at the various pubs and eat “the most amazing hot dogs ever”. However, our bodies suggested otherwise.

We walked back to the hotel. Along the way we saw some very interesting advertisements. Yes! Only acceptable in a foreign country, Ha ha! Check out our attached photos to see what we talking about.

We got back to the hotel and had to snap some cheesy Christmas photos in the hotel lobby. You know, just because! Besides, the lobby was decorated so beautifully and we Bee’s decided not to have a tree this year because we were not going be home to actually enjoy and admire it.

Lying in bed we started to talk about the holidays and how different it would be this year because we were both abroad. Mr. B is quite used to being away from family. Mrs. B on the other hand has never had these experiences. With that being said Mrs. B decided that Christmas does not have to mean a trillion lights and over-organized parties, or spending until your wallet cries out (unless, of course, you want to…that’s fine too). No, Christmas and the holidays should be about starting your own sort of traditions, your own ways of celebrating the way you want and that includes with the people you want to celebrate it with. It should be the time of year when you give everyone an extra hug, or tip the waiters more than usual, or spend quality time with your loved ones and close friends during the weekends, just because! Whatever you end up doing during the holiday season, do it with joy in your heart and everyone around you will brighter because they are in the presence of a joyful person.

Happy December everyone!

Namdaemun Market

Today was a bit overcast and gloomy, however that wasn’t going to stop me from getting out and about. It’s Saturday! Our weekends have been pretty jam-packed lately. I only have a few more days to get my act together before needing to ship out family and friends Christmas gifts.

I woke up, met my friend, and we headed to Namdaemun. This was the first time that either of us had the opportunity to check the place out, so we were both really excited for a new adventure!

For those of you who may not know what Namdaemun is, it’s Korea’s largest and oldest wholesale marketplace that spans over 10 acres. It’s located near downtown Seoul and is filled with over 1,000 vendors, stalls, and retailers. This place has everything! You can find adult/children clothing, shoes, material, cook-ware, fruits, vegetables, flowers, toys, jewelry, purses, cosmetic items, the list is just endless.

Namdaemun is a great place to work your bargaining techniques! After moving to Korean we learned very quickly that Koreans want and expect you to bargain for a good price. We scored some pretty awesomely priced items after working our skills. Word to the wise, don’t give up.. if you find something you like and the price just isn’t right after trying to bargain, walk away. We were really lucky in finding exactly what we were after at various places for better prices.

There are plenty of places to eat within the marketplace. We actually stumbled into an alley-way that had many options. We opted for soup to warm us up. Many of the restaurant owners would try to get us to come in and eat what they were serving by saying, “We have English and picture menu”. HA-HA! What a riot! We both settled on 육개장 yook-gae-jang, Korean spicy beef soup. Yum! Major emphasis on the spice part as well. Of course the meal was served with a few traditional sides and bop (rice).

We wondered our way around the marketplace for hours. It was starting to get dark so we both decided to call it a day and catch the train back home. We had a blast! I think you will too if you get a chance to check the marketplace out.

Happy shopping!

Directions to Namdaemun by Subway: We took line 1 to Chang-dong where we transfered to line 4 and got off at Hoehyeon Station. Follow the signs to exit 5 – Namdaemun Market it will bring you out right at an entrance into the market area. Simple!

We Need To Share…

Most of our family and close friends have already seen the video and now we want to share it with the rest of our blog friends. Mrs. B is still working her way through video editing. This is her first attempt (please be kind) but feel free to let us know what you think!

The video is from our experience attending the 2011 Lotus Lantern Festival held annually in Seoul. We hope that you enjoy!

If you haven’t already done so, please feel free to check out the pictures from the festival back in a previous blog posting.

Sushi, Sashimi, on Saturday -Oh My!

Today we woke up to one of the most beautiful days since summer had begun in Korea. Nearly no humidity, sun not scorching, and NO RAIN. The statement of NO rain is pretty big in its self.

We Bees had another hectic week. This time we both suffered an unfortunate visit with food poisoning. We will let the surprising culprit remain anonymous from our blog. Maybe eventually they will redeem themselves…in a year or so?

We set out with the only intention of scoring some good grub. Along the way we took a bit of a detour to stop at Bukhansan National Park and visit Jinkwansa Temple and take in the sights and play with the camera. Jinkwansa Temple is well-known for temple stays. On a side note, we will be blogging about our temple stay experience in a few weeks at another well-known temple here in Korea.

Now onto the good stuff, sushi! After a few days of eating plain white rice and plain jane toast for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, one finds themself wanting and craving something different and flavorful! Sushi!

Recently we were let in on a little best kept secret that goes by the name of Fuji Restaurant. We were delighted to finally get to check this place out and like we said it could not have come at a better time.

Fuji’s menu features an assortment of roll’s and sashimi. the rolls had names such as the Caterpillar, HOT Night, Crunch, Alps Mountain, and Las Vegas. There were plenty of others but we are not going to spend time typing them all out. Plus we don’t want to give too much away if you go and check out for yourselves. Sashimi menu options are tuna, white tuna, salmon, tempura, and udon.

Sushi or sashimi more of your partners thing? No worries, Fuji’s menu also features dishes like Bibimbap, fish cutlet, rice, fried dumplings, salads, bulgogi, etc.

We Bees shared a combo of eel, tuna, salmon, shrimp, the green dragon roll, crunch roll, and crazy roll. For dessert we each had mochi ice cream. Final verdict, we LOVED the food! The prices were much better than what we would have paid in the states.

After dinner we messed around with the camera some more but of course all good things must come to an end…RAIN! Luckily it was just a passing shower and it went as fast as it came.

Please feel free to view our pictures from our Saturday and let some comments.

We hope you enjoy the rest of your week!

Sunday Cruising

The weather in Northern South Korea has been perfect! It has been in the upper 60’s lower 70’s, not to hot but not too cold. Today after church we decided to take advantage of the weather and head out on the bikes. We ended up riding a little over 11 miles along the river bank that hugs the city of Dongducheon.

The river really reminds us a lot of where we both grew up and it made us sad when we both said to each other “now why can’t our hometown do something like this?” The river walk has a paved path meant for walking, running, biking, or skating that you can take all the way to Seoul. Yes, that would be a insanely long trip but the option of doing it is there.

We are told that during the monsoon season months we will see this area flood and the walks will not be accessible. We wanted to make sure we enjoyed it while we could and snap some pictures to share with everyone.

Seoul’s Buddhist Street Festival

This weekend marks the two-thousand-255th anniversary of Buddha’s birth. Located on the main street in front of the Jogyesa Temple, we checked out the Buddhist street festival. This festival featured over 100 booths set up to demonstrate ceremonial tea-making and ceremonial bowing (a special breathing method used by Buddhist nuns).

The best part about this event was that most everything offered was FREE! We were totally taken back at how much stuff there was to do, sample, and see all for FREE! There were also designated translators for foreigners who were at the festival and were struggling to understand or communicate what was was going on.

We made lotus flowers, sampled traditional teas, tried various temple foods, got to try on traditional Korean hanbok clothing and have our picture taken, had our face painted with a lotus flower, went inside the beautiful Jogyesa temple, got our last name written in Hangeul the Korean alphabet, and checked out various stage performances.

When we were getting ready to leave we came across the Tibetan monks making a sand mandala. This sand mandala contained various colors of sand that are made from crushed gypsum (white), yellow ochre, red sandstone, charcoal, and a mixture of charcoal and gypsum (blue). Don’t worry we snapped pictures to show you what we are talking about.

Seoul’s Friendship Festival and Lotus Lantern Parade

We had an AMAZING time at the Friendship Festival at the Seoul Plaza, Mugyo-dong! The festival is just a small piece of the action going on in this bustling city in the beginning of May. We found out in doing a bit of research that the festivals going on this week are 9 days and are spread out over 8 different surrounding areas. We think it is awesome that the city does this yearly and we would have loved to have experienced every part of the festival but unfortunately we were only there for the weekend with an event packed schedule.

We lucked out with the weather because it was forecasted to rain the entire weekend we were booked to stay in Seoul. However the weather turned out to be gorgeous the two days we were there!

The festival featured booths from 60 different countries all coming together to celebrate global unity and diversity. Each booth had regional crafts, traditional foods, and native performances. We snapped some pictures to share our experience with you all.

Onto the foods…the foods were delicious! Most countries wanted you to try a sample of the foods being offered thus enticing you to buy the foods. The foods being served ranged from hot dogs at the United Kingdom stand, pastries from France, joojeh sandwiches from Iran, Mythos beer from Greece, Turkish ice-cream from Turkey, bratwurst and Krombacher from Germany, or Larry’s favorite Norway serving up your choice of smoked or grilled salmon sandwiches. Basically we shopped, took in the sights, and ate ourselves around the world that afternoon. MmmMmmmMmmm!!

If you are ever in Seoul during the month of May we highly recommend that you head downtown and see what it is all about.

After spending the entire day at the Friendship Festival we decided to check out a café by the name of Artisée and rest out feet until it was time to head up the street where the Lotus Lantern parade would take place. We snapped a few pictures of the Café really enjoyed the green tea latte, coffee, and cappuccino.

Once the sun started to go down we decided we better go and find our spots for the Lotus Lantern parade. We heard that you need to stake out prime parade real-estate…we quickly found on that this is no joke! The parade ran from Dongdaemun Gate to the street in front of Jogyesa Temple. At first we were smushed in a large group of people hardly being able to see above some other foreigner’s heads and trying to take pictures and video by holding the camera up over the crowd. Luckily we were able to worm our way up to the front where we were able to see and take pictures of everything.

One of the best things we love about Korean’s is their willingness to come up to foreigners and try to explain what is going on at a festival or what something is. We learned that the Buddhist believe the lighting of a lotus-shaped lantern symbolizes the devotion to preform good deeds and that it lights up the dark parts of the world that are filled with such agony. We also learned that the lantern-lighting practice was developed by the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties and is still preserved by public demonstrations such as this parade. This year the city really tried to incorporate bringing foreigners into the mix by offering lantern making events, tasting temple dishes, and making your own rubbings of a Buddhist shape.

The parade reminded us of a much grander scale of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in the United States. The parade featured more than 1000,000 massive, illuminated lanterns in various shapes of lotus flowers, elephants, dragons, fruits, and much more. We were so awe-struck getting a chance to take in these orbs of lighted lanterns bob and sway down the entire Jongno Street.
The lanterns are carefully hand crafted with materials such as silk or paper and represent health, longevity, or bountiful harvest. The parade lasted a little over 2 hours and 30 minutes.

After the parade the Hoehyang Hanmadang post-parade celebration kicked off. The event was held at the Jonggak Intersection and started roughly at 9:30PM until about 11:00PM. It was crazy because as soon as the parade ended they lifted up the tape holding people back from entering the Lotus lantern parade route and people rushed to grab a seat in front of the two large screen TV’s and stage. We knew there was a post-parade event scheduled but we had no idea that we were in the right location to quick grab a spot up front.

The post-parade celebration was just as fantastic as the parade! We got to experience all sorts of traditional and modern Korean dancing and singing. To end the night there was a Korean time-honored traditional circle dance known as a ‘ganggangsullae’ dance, this is where everyone holds hands to dance and sing amongst the flying flower petals (check out the pictures). We loved getting to experience this huge crowd of people all singing and holding hands dancing around in formed circles. After the dance the burning of written seowon (wishes and resolutions) were released from the lanterns of hope. This is a ceremony in which 100,000 wish lanterns are let loose into the sky.

Sarah’s Trip to Dream Forest in Seoul

My traveling buddies and I decided to check out another green park called Dream Forest located in northern Seoul. This Park is the 4th largest in the city before Seoul Forest, Olympic Park, and World Cup Park. The park was built on the land, 660,000m2 in size where Dreamland was previously located. This park is beautiful because it is surrounded by thick dense forest mountains of Byeoksan and Opesan. The park is now known for the cherry blossom paths in the spring (as shown in the pictures) or the maple tree forests in the fall.

The park features a nice array of things to do such as, Wolyeongi (the moon reflecting pond), the Wolgwang falls (moonlight falls), a 49.7m tall park observatory, Arts center, Concert Hall, Museum of Art, Restaurants, Botanical Garden, Deer Garden, Changyeongwigung Ancestral Shrine, an iris garden, Water play parks, and playground. A great place for adults and children to relax!

I took some video of the children playing at the playground on this interesting play set. It was pretty comical! 

I got to try another Korean snack today for the first time thanks to my new traveling buddy! She introduced me to a triangle-shaped rice packet wrapped in edible seaweed 삼각김밥 known as Samgakkimbap or samgak kimbap. The shape is designed to keep the seaweed fresh by putting two thin sheets of plastic between it. The concept is awesome however I still need to get down unwrapping it carefully so that I do not rip the seaweed before getting to eat it. We had tuna and it was really tasty! The best part is you can pick these little guys up for about 700 or 800 won (that’s roughly 70 or 80 cents!). You can check out the pictures for yourself! Do you think you would try one?

Getting to Dream forest was rather easy too! We took line one to the Seokgye Station where we got off and followed exit 7 to get outside where we took bus #14 for 10 minutes and arrived at the park!

I’ve mentioned to friends on the phone about some of the vendors that try to sell you things when you are on the train. They hop on and roll through just as the doors are getting ready to close. On my last ride there was a woman who was used very aggressive sales techniques to sell packs of gum. She would place the gum on your lap or in your purse even when you told her “A-ni-e-yo” (meaning no in Korean). Sometimes there are socks, melons, super glue, you name it… On the way home on this trip I was able to capture a man dressed very nicely trying to sell toothpaste. Unfortunately for him no one in our car was buying or seemed interested. As soon as he moved on to the next car to sell in popped a women selling Oksusu (Roasted Corn). People were buying this up like crazy. Some purchased yellow ears of corn or Indian corn and munched away or saved in a plastic bag. What really surprised me was that in the states we typically use Indian corn as fall décor not to eat….hmmm… Guess the toothpaste guy needs to look into the Oksusu (corn) peddling business.

Our Weekend Buzzing Around Seoul

Of course we had to check out Itaewon while we were spending our weekend in Seoul. Yes, yes, we know that Itaewon is a major tourist section of the city catering directly to foreigners. We do respect this section of the city for that purpose and know that it is not a true representation of Korea. However it was close to our hotel and we wanted to go see what it was really all about.

Itaewon’s shopping area is 1.4 km in length, it stretches from the U.S. 8th Army Base eastwards towards Hannam-dong and has over 1,000 different little stores. The area is known for its night life scene with many bars and nightclubs to choose from. We noticed there are many street vendors selling shirts, jackets, and caps, scarfs, food, etc. trying to capture the late night buyer’s fancy.

While in Itaewon we checked out a few Irish pubs, grabbed a bite to eat, and strolled along the main street as well as some tucked away alleys, checked out various street vendors and little shops. We snapped a few pictures of the places that we were near or checked out and though we would share with all of you.

First stop Buddha’s Belly for dinner. It was Friday night and we were starving! We started out trying to find a restaurant called the Maple Leaf restaurant that was said to serve traditional Korean food (we are sure more Americanized) but after walking around and around for 20 minutes we figured it must have went out of business. Our bellies finally did the talking and screamed feed me when we were standing out in front of a place called Buddha’s Belly. Buddha’s Belly is located just above Ushmania restaurant (2nd floor) 673 Itaewon 2 Dong, Seoul, Korea; it’s located in the Hamilton Hotel Alley. In this area you can also find Indian, Italian, Korean, American, French, Greek and other nice ethnic foods.

The menu is Thai and the chef is actually from Thailand. We still noted a bit of Korean flair in the dishes we ordered but were really impressed with the overall meal.

We didn’t capture any pictures to share as the atmosphere consists of a smaller private sized dimly lit room. The décor had a sexy-sleek appeal to it.  The entrees are rather reasonably priced and cost on average 12,000-18,000 won. The service was really speedy and we enjoyed that because we were both starving!

We started off with some chicken skewers that had a peanut dipping sauce. We both ordered dishes of Pad-See-Ew and a glass of wine. Each dish at Buddha’s Belly Thai restaurant is accompanied by pots of wet and dry hot chilies and Thai fish sauce so you can season your food to taste.

Overall we both agreed that we would go back to this place if we had to.

After dinner we went grabbed a coffee at Paris Baguette (The Korean comparison to Starbucks – well if Starbucks served up tons of delicious baked goods) due to the fact that Buddha’s Belly doesn’t serve coffee on the menu. We then continued to Stoll the alley’s and found ourselves in front of the Wolfhound Irish Pub.

The Wolfhound Irish Pub is located in another small alley down from the Gecko’s Terrace. Sorry bloggers we don’t have the address to provide on this one. We will continue to research for a more direct location. We were able to capture a few pictures of the place for others reference.

We enjoyed the Irish Pub atmosphere. It didn’t feel like we were still in South Korea while inside. The crowd consisted of military, teachers, and tourist in the area. The bar has two levels and features a selection of draft beer as well as mixed drinks and foods.

We enjoyed ourselves, had some drinks and decided to continue checking out what else Itaewon had to offer.

We found ourselves at Baby Guinness and Sam Ryan’s Sports Bar and a hot dog vendor (mmmmm…that tasted more like Kielbasa) before we decided to call it a night.

The next day we headed to Gyeongbok Palace. The palace was one of the first places that Larry got to check out when he first moved to Korea. He was really eager to share the experience with me so we thought with the beautiful weather this weekend we should take a tour and snap some pictures along the way. The address to go see the Palace for yourself is Seoul-si Jongno-gu Sejong-ro 1-1.

The term “Gyeongbokgung” means palace greatly blessed by Heaven. We took an English speaking tour lead by a Korean college student. We captured the beginning intro of the tour for you to try to hear some of the facts she provided us with.

The palace was actually constructed in 1395, but was destroyed in the 1500’s during the Japanese invasion. However in the late 1800’s into the 1900’s the palace was completely restored. We couldn’t even imagine living here as a King and Queen the grounds are absolutely massive! Consisting of more than 300 buildings, 6000 rooms, and more than 4 million square feet and sits in one of the busiest sections of Seoul.

When we arrived to Gyeongbok Palace we entered in the gate (Kwangha-mun) protecting the palace from Seoul. We were able to get a picture with the guards that stand there.

Another interesting fact that we learned was that Sejong the Great was the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, and ruled from 1418 – 1450 during this time he created the 28 letter system of the Korean Hangul alphabet. Today however the Korean alphabet consists of 24 letters.

Overall we had an amazing time with a very good tour of the palace.

After walking the palace we decided to needed to hail a cab and head to N Seoul Tower. N Seoul Tower is also known as Namsan Tower because it’s located on Namsan Mountain at Seoul-si Yongsan-gu Yongsandong 2-ga San 1-3. Private automobiles have been stopped from entering the mountain since the year 2005 so that they could more easily preserve the area. You really have three ways to get up to the tower and each does involve some form of walking. One, take a cab or bus but note that you can only go up so far with the cab or bus and then you will get dropped off and have to walk up a pretty steep paved road. Two, take the cable car up from the bottom of the mountain. Please note you will have to climb steps up from the cable car drop off point to get to the tower. Whatever you decide we think it’s worth it while you are visiting or living in Seoul.

N Seoul Tower stands 237 meters high, standing atop 243-meter Mt Namsan. It was remodeled in 2005, and has a rotating Western-style restaurant on top that we plan to possibly check out at night next time we visit.

Below is what each floor consists of:

1st Floor

– Olive Young (supermarket / convenience store)

– Coffee Shop

– Eatery with indoor and outdoor seating

– Food Court

– Gift Shop

– Ticket Counter

 

2nd Floor

– Viewing Platform

– Restaurant (relatively inexpensive with great view)

Basement

– Elevator Entrance

– Tous Les Jour (bakery)

– Ticket Counter

– Exhibition Area

 

Observatory Gallery

(360m altitude, reached by express elevator)

1/F : Hancook Restaurant

2/F : Sky Cafe

3/F : Observatory platform

4/F : Observatory platform

5/F : N Grill by Vips (revolving restaurant)

Tickets to get inside of Seoul tower observatory for two adults cost us 14,000 won.

We snapped pictures of the locks and tiles at N Seoul Tower. The locks are “Locks of love” and can be found on the fence outside of the tower. They symbolize lovers’ promise that they will never separate. The message tiles of love inside are something you could purchase to write a little love note on and then it is displayed on a wall within the tower.

The last day we were there we checked out Myeongdong still located within seoul for some shopping.

Myungdong is a selection of shops, like Zara, UniQlo, Forever21, ABC Mart but also features all sorts of street vendors selling shoes, scarfs, jewelry, food, etc.

We enjoyed some green tea ice cream and found a vendor who sells King’s Beard Candy. We were able to quick capture the vendor making the candy and bought some to try after we had heard great things about it. Final consensus….we LOVED it!

We can only describe King’s beard candy as a small fuzzy white sweet treat with a chewy inside and a crispy outer layer that just melts in your mouth. It’s so fun to watch the vendor create 16.000 honey strings in two minutes! They act as they are doing it too counting in English as well as Korean. Next time we see this vendor we will try to capture better video because it is really entertaining!

The last night we were there we decided to go back to Itaewon and check out Zelen’s for dinner. Zelen’s is a Bulgarian restaurant owned and operated by Bulgarians. The location yet another strange place – the same alley we were in when at Buddha’s Belly. It’s the alley right behind the Hamilton Hotel.  The address is the second floor, 116-14 Itaewon-dong, Yongsan District.

Talk about amazing food! We had no idea this place was going to be this fantastic! Get ready…you know we are going to rave about it in our blog now. In the land of red pepper paste and kimchi it’s nice to experience something different once and awhile.

Once you take the steps up to Zelen’s from the alley you open the door into the second floor restaurant where you quickly see a garden-esque room that is candlelit and features an open kitchen where you can see the chefs preparing the delish dishes.

The menu is quite extensive and it’s great because the meals are detailed and named in both English and Korean. We had a chance to grab the owner Mikhal Ashminov and ask him what he recommended. We were so pleased that we had done so because he turned our decisions to the stuffed peppers that were amazing.

We ordered stuffed mushrooms and the stuffed peppers for appetizers to our meals. (You can view all of our meal and pictures of the restaurant within this blog)

Larry’s main course was pork tenderloin stuffed with smoked Gouda, green onions, bacon and tangy pickles. The dish was plenty big and we think next time we will order this dish and another and split it up to try something new.

Sarah’s main course was the vegetarian moussaka. The dish was oven-baked layers of vegetables and cheese topped with homemade yogurt. The dish really reminded us of almost a shepherd’s pie but meatless. The dish was served alongside a small rustic salad, for 14,000 won.

We were so pleased with both of our dishes that we both agreed that we will be taking friends back there for dinner.

After we ate dinner at Zelen’s we headed to the Cheonggyecheon River Walk . We learned that this river walk is fairly new to the city. It was constructed in 2005 where previously it was just concrete roadways running through the center of Seoul. The address for the river walk is, 31, Taepyeongno 1-ga, Jung-gu, Seoul

One word for this place…calming! Once you are on the river walk path you slowly forget that you are located in the center of a huge bustling city. The walk features small waterfalls, various colors of lighting, stepping stones to cross from one side of the walk to the other, and amply amounts of greenery. We loved that we got to check this place out at night because the last time Larry visited he said it was during the day and people were everywhere!

We met three young Korean adults that were trying to snap a picture together but were not achieving the shot they wanted. We took notice of this and asked if they wanted us to get a shot of them so that they could all be in the picture together. They graciously accepted and kept thanking us! We asked if they would mind returning the favor so that we could also have a shot of the two of us. Of course they replied they were glad to do so. (Feel free to check out our various pictures of experiencing the Cheonggyecheon River Walk).

Once we got back home we looked through all the pictures we snapped and kept talking about how much fun we had on our weekend adventures.

If anyone else has suggestions on places to see or eat at please feel free to share with us!