stereotypical shock value korean food and noraebang post

I'm not a particularly big fan of seafood. Being from the American South, I prefer my seafood battered and deep-fried on the rare occasion that I eat any. However, as I've been popping in and out of South Korea since 2001, I've had plenty of occasions to eat a variety of seafood that is decidedly neither battered nor deep-fried. I now actually enjoy various fish products that I once would have found abhorrent, and I've even braved a variety of foods that even a year ago I would have refused to try. For many of my readers here in Korea this might be a typical reaction, and as such nothing in this post will come as much of a surprise. I'm posting this mainly for those of my readers who have never been to Korea, and never had such an experience.

We had another hwaeshik (회식) on Friday night. This time went much better than last time, as I insisted on taking the subway to our destination. This hwaeshik was a going away party for our intern, as it was her last day. (Sadly, this means I'm back to being the only chick in the department. Oi.) We went to 마차회집, a seafood restaurant in Mapo, which put a lot of effort into attractive displays of the various raw seafood products they served. I was also introduced to the Korean version of the Irish Car Bomb - a shot of soju in a glass of Hite. Oi. Anyhow, here are some photos and videos from the evening:

Toasting our former intern with Soju + Hite

Snail. I really do not like the texture.

Goldfish. Haha.

Sea Anemone. Again - not a fan of the texture; too crunchy.


I don't know enough about octopi nervous systems to understand how the legs continue wriggling after being disconnected from the body, but there they are. I even tried a piece, and it wasn't bad - although again, not a texture that I'm a particular fan of. And I was rather paranoid that it might suction itself onto the back of my throat. (I'd actually picked up a piece with my fingers, and it wrapped itself around my index finger and suctioned on, so I'd say that's a valid concern; I chomped it the instant it went into my mouth.)
True to hwaeshik form, we went to a noraebang (singing room) afterwards. You haven't lived until you've seen your coworkers boozily belt out The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

If not for sits...

As I'm trying to save money, I'm doing my best to keep the heat off in my apartment. For those of you who don't know much about Korea - in Korea, the heating systems are built into the floor. Floor heat is a wonderful thing, but boy does it knock your gas bill up. Thus far, I've been running it from about 4am-8am max, although it also hasn't gotten all that cold yet. Or at least I don't think so. Charlie, on the other hand, was apparently built for warmer weather. She is way more snuggly now than she is when it's warm out. If I'm at my desk, she's in my lap. If I'm in bed, she's under the covers, snuggled up tight against me. If I get up before the crack of dawn to turn on the floor heat, she abandons me as soon as it gets toasty down there. And if the floor heat's off and I'm not home, seated, or in bed... she sits on my laptop. I've caught her in the middle of writing a lengthy gibberish email to a friend, and surely she must spend some time checking out the lolcats:

Yeah. I think we may also have discovered why the Evil Blue Screen of Death has been popping up all of the sudden.

I am so bummed that I missed this!

Photo taken by my supervisor... who did not call me to tell me Darth Vader and 20 or so Storm Troopers were marching around Yeouido. Why were they there? No idea.

Seoul Station: Old, New, Steampunk, Peru

I had to run some errands down by Seoul Station today, and I decided to take the opportunity to do something I've been meaning to do for a while now: check out the old Seoul Station. It was built in 1925 during the Japanese occupation, and it's definitely different from most buildings in Korea. I *love* old train stations. (I'm still bummed that despite the rather eclectic collection of things my mother has had moved out to her land, the old train station from a neighboring community was not one of them. Sadly, it has since been torn down.) Anyway, I planned to take a few shots of the exterior. I'd had no idea that the restorations were complete and it had been opened to the public as an art museum. I'm not an art museum kind of girl (especially the "art" in this place, which was of rather dubious quality), but the fact that it's now open to the public meant I got to thoroughly explore the building.

Old steps down to the platform.

This was the only piece of art I liked - a steampunk robot drum kit!

The old station is located next to the new one, and the tracks are in essentially the same place they've been since the 1920s.

To give you a sense of their relative locations


Korean speaking Peruvians performing in Spanish in front of the station.
This is their website. They're on Daum, so I'm guessing they've been here a while.


And just for comparison, here's the inside of the all new Seoul Station.
To see my complete set of photos from both train stations, CLICK HERE.

Hill over Hongdae and other images

I didn't set my alarm when I went to sleep Friday night - I had no plans for Saturday, and according to the weather channel, the weather was supposed to be rainy and all around miserable. I have to admit that I was quite annoyed to open my eyes at 1pm to sunshine and clear blue skies. Often in Seoul there's sunshine and haze; clear blue skies, not so much. But, figuring I should enjoy the good photography weather while it lasted, I tossed on some clothes and headed out. I decided to climb to the top of the hill behind Hongdae. I've wanted to climb it ever since I first saw it, figuring that the views from up there would probably be pretty spectacular.

This is the hill I'm talking about, as seen from Exit 3 of Hongdae Station
Sadly, I don't recommend climbing this hill. There are a couple places along the way up where the brush clears enough to give you a halfway decent view and a slight chance at a good shot... but that nicely cleared park-like area? That belongs to the Korean military, and is totally fenced off.

As seen through a break in the brush

As seen through yet another break in the brush. There weren't too many of those. (This shot involved full zoom between two apartment buildings similar to those in the shot above.)

In contrast, you know they've got a kickass view.

I did find a couple of photogenic birds, though.
I hiked down the other side of the hill and walked down to the Han River. Got a couple of decent shots of Yeouido from the Mapo side.

Bridge from Mapo to Yeouido

Building 63

National Assembly

Russians love choco pies?

I've made several trips to Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union over the years, and I've never once seen a single choco pie. What is a choco pie, you ask? Here's your answer:

I've been coming to Korea every few years since 2001.... and I swear, it never fails: the instant a Korean learns that I've been to Russia they either ask me, "Is it true that Russians love choco pies?" or they tell me this as a fact: "Russians love choco pies." And yet, I've never seen a choco pie in Russia. I'm not saying that your typical Russian wouldn't enjoy a choco pie now and then if he had the opportunity, I'm just saying that I've never seen one over there. Apparently somebody at Orion even got current Russian puppet President, Dmitri Medvedev to play into the stereotype:
"Presidential Choco Pie"
This makes Medvedev the one and only Russian I've ever seen anywhere near a choco pie. I notice that he doesn't actually appear to be eating them. My coworkers are very strong proponents of the 'Russians love choco pies' theory. (One of them even sent me the above photo as proof.)
The other day someone brought in a box of choco pies for our department. I snagged one off the table, and happened to take a look at the wrapper before tearing into it - and I just about died laughing. Take a look:
Yes, that's a choco pie wearing a шапка ушанка,
with the Russian flag painted on it's cheek.
Rather disappointingly, their entire marketing campaign is not based solely on the myth that Russians love choco pies. They've got an entire international lineup:

(The one on the bottom had the choco pie etched with the continents to make a globe, but it's hard to see in this photo)

Hello, Perve.

To say that Seoul subways at rush hour are packed would be an understatement. As would any analogies involving sardines. The Seoul subway at rush hour defies all laws of nature, cramming far more people into each subway car that should actually fit. There are attendants at some of the busiest stations whose job is to push the mass of humanity just far enough into the train for the doors to squeeze shut. My commute takes me four stops and two trains. I only suffer the brunt of the squished and squashed subway madness between Dangsan and National Assembly. However, between those two stops, both morning and evening, I find myself literally wedged in so tightly between other people that I cannot move.

I haven't taken any subway at rush hour photos myself.
This one came from here.

In general, the Seoul subway is pretty safe. There is no way I would bring my big purse with its big, open top that doesn't zip shut on the Moscow subway or a Bishkek marshrutka; its contents would be liberated on my first trip. Theft isn't an issue on the Seoul subway. Perverts, however, are. Now I'll stick to my generalization that the subways are pretty safe, but human beings being what they are, in a city of 18 million, you're going to have some pervy folk on the subway who figure that being crammed in tightly next to someone is a legitimate excuse to cop a feel.

Now obviously, when you're pressed up directly against someone, there's going to be some inadvertent touching. You need to move your hands to scratch your shoulder? Take a kleenex out of your purse? Answer your phone? Basically, you move your hands, they're going to touch somebody. If you ride the Seoul subway regularly, you know this, you know what it feels like, and you tune it out. (In fact, I can only tolerate the crazy crowds by keeping my earbuds tightly plugged in and my ipod cranked; helps me zone out.)

So there I am, riding line #9 between Yeouido and Dangsan on my way home this evening, doing my best to zone out to the Diane Rehm show, when the train rolls in to National Assembly. Normally it gets super unbelievably crowded at this stop. This is where the over the top sardine analogies come into play. So many people get on the train at this point that once they're all on, I normally can't move an inch. And so it was tonight.

I was crammed in there, listening to the Diane Rehm show rather dully dissect aspects of Wall Street accountability, and debating whether or not it was worth it to try and fish my ipod out and change the channel, when a hand started massaging my ass.

Wait, what? Surely not. Surely it was someone trying to get his ipod out of his pocket. I did my best to inch forward, getting nowhere and earning a couple of dirty looks. The hand continued to feel around. I was definitely getting groped. I tried to whirl around, but I literally couldn't do more than turn my head, first one way, then the other. I was completely surrounded by men, all of whom (from what I could see) were staring blankly ahead, as if zoning out to whatever was blasting through their headphones. And I couldn't move, and the hand kept exploring. I wanted nothing more than to jam both my elbows back as hard as I should while shouting 하지 마! at the top of my lungs. But not knowing who the perpetrator was, I was likely to end up elbowing an innocent grandfather and wind up on YouTube as the subwaytard. (Referencing the bustard, for those who didn't catch that. Clips of foreigners behaving badly in public have a tendency to go viral quite rapidly here.)

From an ad, discouraging men from groping women on the Seoul subway.
Taken from here.

Luckily, National Assembly and Dangsan aren't too far apart, and we were about halfway between the two stops when Mr. Happyhands began exploring. Now, if you know anything about the Seoul subway at rush hour, you'll know that getting off the train is more like being swept along by a rip tide. Every day I see people pushed out of the train who are trying desperately to remain on it. The way out of the train car is not a good time to stop and turn around to look your attacker in the eye... even if he is following you out the fucking door, continuing to grab and squeeze. Yeah. As soon as I had enough room, I slammed my left arm backwards and gave him a good slap on the wrist (sadly, worth about as much as a metaphorical slap on the wrist), and the hand magically removed itself from my ass. By the time I was clear enough of the crush of people that I could actually turn around, there was no way of telling who it was. Fucker.