Our Seoul and Tokyo Adventure: Day Five

After finding some elusive (at least in Suji) feta cheese for Bob's breakfast creation, Bob made us breakfast today, although he was a wee bit stressed about it, since Korean bacon ended up being completely different than the bacon we're used to (much thicker, unsmoked, and completely lacking in salt), and the feta was way less salty and had a much softer texture than usual. In the end, he needn't have worried because everyone enjoyed their breakfast. My dad did agree with Bob that the appearance of the dish left something to be desired (and in Bob's defence, he's not used to using so many eggs, since he usually just makes this for the two of us, so the different ingredients and cooking times kind of threw him off), but he said that the flavour was still delicious. My dad's solution to this disparity? Eating with his eyes closed:

(Okay, he didn't really spend the entire meal with his eyes closed, but I thought it made for a funny photo.) After a lazy morning, we all left the house--my mom had a lunch with some of her friends, so my dad, Bob, and I walked over to Suji Restaurant Town to have lunch out as well.

This time, we chose a rather rustically decorated restaurant

that put on a great shabu shabu buffet. Following my dad's system, we first selected meat and vegetables

and added them to the broth for round one of our buffet,

then went back to the buffet spread and chose seafood

for round two!

Although my dad stuck to shabu shabu, Bob and I couldn't resist trying some of the other items on offer, including sushi rolls and one of Bob's favourite Korean dishes, japchae, which is potato noodles and vegetables stir fried in a sesame-oil-based sauce.

Japchae can be really addictive--last time we were in Korea, Bob made the mistake of polishing off some japchae and commenting on how much he loved it at a big family outing, and one of my uncles instantly called over a waiter and got another enormous plate set right down in front of Bob. When Bob smiled to see that the group of us were going to have some more japchae, I leaned over and whispered, "My uncle got that plate for you, and you alone, and now everyone will be watching to see how much of it you eat! You better made a decent dent in the plate!" Of course Bob thought that wouldn't be a problem at all, since he loves japchae so much--until I told him that there were several substantial courses still to come in our fancy lunch, and to budget his tummy space! (After that, no matter how much he loved a particular dish, he kept his mouth shut. :-)) For dessert, we had some sweet punch and a few rice cakes.

While we appeared to be the only people who had walked to Restaurant Town, we were very happy to have an excuse to walk off some of our substantial lunch! We walked a different way home, passing through a sports park with a very familiar sight in the background (golf driving ranges).

A football team was practicing while we walked around the track, and Bob looked over a bit wistfully, resisting the urge to join in.

It wasn't until we left the track that we realised the players were from the local team!

Even though I'm used to Seoul's various urban landscapes, I'm still often struck by the otherworldly feeling that rows and rows of Korean apartments can't help but create.

We spent the rest of the day lazing around the house, and my mom made a special treat for dinner, scabbard chigae,

while my dad marked final exam papers from his course.

"What's the lettuce for?" I asked as I walked by. "It's to keep my energy up," my dad joked. The lettuce was actually part of our dinner,

since we used it to make ssam, little lettuce bundles filled with whatever meat or fish you're eating, whatever bits of ban chan that you want to add, and a nice dollop of ssam jang (soy bean paste for ssam). You won't find ssam on the menu in Korean restaurants, but if you ask for ssam, they should bring out lettuce and ssam jang so that you can start bundling away! The chigae was delicious

and since it was Christmas Eve, we had another round of Christmas cake to mark the occasion.

My parents don't usually decorate for Christmas, so we used one of their tall plants as a stand-in for a Christmas tree

and opened presents before we went to bed. I know this may strike some of you as odd, but when I was growing up, we always opened all of our presents on Christmas Eve!