Exploring Seoul with Ed and Eugene

One thing I learned about Seoul is that it's HUGE! There are so many unique and interesting areas to see that it's an impossible mission without some help. Luckily for me, I was able to connect with Ed and Eugene, two of my cousin Gloria's friends who were kind enough to show me around the city.

Eugene and Ed are in Seoul teaching english for the year and were kind enough to take a day to show me around a few popular spots in Seoul. We started off in Itaewon which is a popular area for a lot of foreigners since there's a lot of shopping and a wide variety of food. Just my luck, the day I went was one of the rainiest days of the past five years, so I spent most of the afternoon in a cafe blogging and watching Louis CK on youtube. When the rain let up slightly, I wandered out to meet Ed and Eugene and they took me to eat at an amazing gyro (sorry no pictures, I was too hungry to stop stuffing my face). These were slightly different than the Gyrocery variety in that had a much thinner type of pita (almost like a soft taco) and a few different ingredients.

 The rainy view from a cafe in Itaewon.

After getting a quick bite, we proceeded to the City Hall area to meet up with a couple of their friends, Aamer and Prasad, who were taking a break from grad school to travel. We wanted to at least pretend to learn something on our trip so went to a museum dedicated to the Korean General Yi Sun-shin.

I at least learned how to write my name.

After drying off learning a lot, we decided to get some really authentic Korean food...pizza! We went to a place popular place in Korea called Mister Pizza and in order to still get that Korean feel, we ordered the bulgogi pizza which wasn't half bad.

After dinner, we decided to head to Sinsa, which is known for some pretty cool bars and late night eats. We started off with some Japanese food and sake, then headed to a really intresting place that serves only fish cake on skewers. You sit at a rectangular table with fish cake skewers sitting in hot broth in the middle of the table. You just take as you like and add up the skewers at the end to determine what you owe. Definitely a new and fun experience.

Japanese thin sliced beef. 

Eugene, Aamer, and Ed.

The fish cake skewer place in Sinsa.

We ended that night, like I end most of my nights...dancing at a techno club. Those that know me know that this isn't really my scene. But those that really know me know that the dance floor is my second home. I learned so much in the afternoon at the museum that I decided to do some teaching on the dance floor. And by teaching, I mean gyrating awkwardly for a few hours while lasers and confetti hearts filled the air. Mission accomplished.