Seoul, day 1!

I am in Seoul! So far I have taken the airport bus, taken the subway (yay subway!), and eaten. My friend took me to 눈나무집/Nunnamu Jip for 김치말이밥/rice in cold kimchi soup with sesame seeds and nori on top. The soup actually isn't spicy, but rather a little sweet and a little sour, with bits of crunchy kimchi in the middle of each bite. We also had galbi on the side, although it seemed kind of like ground meat shaped into a patty, with some ddeok that was lightly dusted with salt and pepper. It was very refreshing for the summer day, even if it wasn't too hot. Then again, compared to yesterday in Shanghai, anything would be not hot. On our way to the restaurant, I got distracted by a waffle stand in the subway station. My friend J seemed a bit puzzled by my obsession with waffles, and I tried explaining that I love waffles in Taiwan and haven't found many places in the Bay Area that do them the way I like.

Then when we got to Samcheongdon, it turned out that every single coffee house there—and there was a coffee house every other step—served waffles. Possibly my friend is still unimpressed, but I don't care. Waffles everywhere! AWESOME. (So far, I have mostly seen dessert waffles and no tuna waffles, but I did see a picture of a pancake with eggs on top, so there is hope. Not that I have anything against dessert waffles.) I will secretly pretend it is the influence of Coffee Prince and the Waffle Guy in it. The entire area is very cute; all small winding alleys and stairs leading up to more stores, many boutiques which I am sure are very expensive, and coffee shops galore! I think I will go there one weekend and just hop around coffee shops. Aside from the many stores serving waffles, I of course managed to find a place with macarons, my current obsession, and got orange chocolate, lemon, and wasabi (!). Verdict so far: I still like my place in Taiwan better, but the wasabi is really interesting. It almost tastes and smells like lemon at first until a tiny bit of the wasabi kicks in. There was also a place selling ddeok on a stick and a guy cooking sugar mixed with some powder that he would then shape into something like cookies. Sadly, I was already full so I didn't any.

Then Paris Baguette for breakfast for tomorrow! I think most of the good stuff was already gone by then, but since it's only a block or two away, I suspect I will be going there a lot.

Seoul so far reminds me a bit of both Taipei and Tokyo, except it is much larger feeling than Taipei. I am not sure if it is actually bigger, but I suspect there is more land here, because everything feels a bit further a part and less squashed together. Also, it's always odd for me to be in a city that feels like Taipei without all the subtropical plants around.