Seoul, Korea: Day 3

I think I'm going to start writing in less detail, because this is taking way too long. But, for now, here's the wrap for Korea...

We didn't have much of an agenda on our last day in Seoul. After getting packed up and checking out, we went to a nearby Korean BBQ place to try "samgyeopsal" (grilled pork). Luckily, our second Korean BBQ experience was much better than our first; the waitress spoke excellent Chinese (yay!) and helped explain how to eat everything, and the food was yummy, too. Actually, it turns out that in general, Chinese goes a lot further than English in Korea. I'll have to remember that next time. After the meal, instead of getting candy or mints, we got free yogurt drinks (aka "yang le duo"). I love the yogurt drinks; I used to drink crates of them when I was a kid spending summers in Taiwan, so I was pretty happy about that.

We went walking around the neighboring area after eating; first to Shinsegae, a department store, and then to Namdaemun market (much like any other street market in Asia, with lots of yummy-smelling street food). Then, we hung out in the Myeungdong (downtown) area for awhile, just window shopping and marvelling at the hordes of shoppers.

I watched a street vendor guy make this fried potato strip thing, which I thought was pretty cool:


He managed to cut the potato in one long strip, so it was like a continuous potato chip. I guess it appealed to my inner geek, somehow.

Finally, we stopped by the Lotte department store, right by our hotel. We both love department store food courts in Taiwan, so we decided we had to see if Korean department stores were similar. Sure enough, the basement was filled with a huge variety of food stands. Not only that, they had a centralized ordering system, so that patrons could place an order, wait until their number came up, and then proceed to the appropriate place to pick up their food. I think the system cut down a lot on people loitering near the stands, and made everything more orderly.

We also briefly visited the "Temple of Heaven", before finally heading to the airport:


Anyway, it was a fun (albeit short) stay in Korea, and I look forward to going back again soon.