Our Seoul and Tokyo Adventure: Day Four

My dad went on his regular Sunday mountain hiking outing (25% hiking, 75% sitting in a restaurant eating, drinking, and chatting) with his friend today, and my mom had some shopping to do in Suji, so Bob and I decided to spend today in Seoul. I seem to have genetically acquired my dad's ability to fall asleep on the bus and wake up just before it's time to get off, so I had a nice morning nap on our way into the city. By the time we arrived in downtown Seoul, it was lunchtime, so we headed into the Lotte Department Store in search of food. On our way down into the food basement, we passed this Christmas tree and obediently took a photo:

The Lotte food court is how we both dream every shopping centre food court would be: with an amazing array of shops selling cheap, fresh food (much of it healthy!), you walk around and choose what you want, buy food tickets at a central cashier, take your ticket to the shop of your choice, and eat your freshly prepared food in a nicely designed eating area complete with self-serve complimentary filtered water. (No one had pop with their lunch and I don't even think you can buy pop in the food court.) The biggest problem with the Lotte food court is that there are too many choices, and Bob and I walked around twice before deciding to share an order of fancy California rolls (currently a trendy variation on traditional Korean gim bap--sushi rolls with cooked fillings)

and a favourite staple of ours, bi bim bap: rice topped with mixed vegetables, a fried egg, and go chu jang (hot red pepper paste) that you mix up yourself (the go chu jang is under the egg).

(Bob likes way more go chu jang than I do, so I ate my part of the bi bim bap before passing the bowl to him so he could add a scorching amount of additional go chu jang to bring the dish up to his standards.) For dessert, we shared a freshly made sweet-red-bean pastry from this shop just outside the food court:

With go-chu-jang-flushed cheeks, we left Lotte and started walking toward Insadong, a lively, artsy area known for galleries, tea houses, and traditional craft shops. Along the way, we marvelled at the clever optical illusion that covered two sides of this building,

and were treated to some traditional music and dance on the Cheonggyecheon path.

Practically the first thing we noticed in Insadong was this man and his "Free hugs" sign, something that we would see more of today and later on in our trip. We didn't hug the signholders, but amongst all the strange looks, there were a few hug-takers. Little did we know that there's an entire "Free hugs" movement!

We decided to have tea in Insadong, and chose Yetchatjip (Old Tea House) for our treat. Up some rickety stairs, we found a charmingly cluttered spot that offered many delicious herbal and fruit teas.

Teashops in Seoul aren't cheap, and each cup of tea cost the same as the bi bim bap we had for lunch (6,000 Won, or about CAD$6.50), but the tea was fantastic, and tea shops always throw in a few traditional sweets along with your order. Bob had hot plum tea (at the top of the photo), and we enjoyed our treats of puffed rice cakes (right) and sweet, sticky rice cakes (left).

I had hot quince tea that was amazingly balanced between sweet and sour!

We weren't just here for the tea and snacks though; beyond its quality teas and old-timey atmosphere, Yetchatjip is known for something else (look carefully behind me):

Tiny birds fly freely around the tea shop as you enjoy your tea, chirping and (in my case) sending rushes of air past your head as they fly from perch to perch.

This little guy even jumped down onto our table to have a look at our rice cakes! If I hadn't moved the plate, he would have helped himself to the swirly cakes directly in front of him.

On our way out, Bob made a new friend in the entranceway to the tea shop.

It was quite difficult to get Bob to leave his new friend, who chirped as we walked away.

We passed more free hugs

and this funny "wanted" sign, which I later realised was an ad for the nearby wooden doll museum.

We entered one of our favourite places in Insadong, the Ssamziegil complex, which takes the concept of a gil (street) to an artsy new level, with open-air walkways that spiral up to a rooftop restaurant area. The seventy or so small shops in the complex are all interesting, selling crafts, one-of-a-kind products, and other goods in keeping with an indie aesthetic.

This "inside-out" Dalgi (Strawberry) character is a new addition to the complex since we were last here in 2006,

as is this rather frantic jumble of Dalgi and friends:

We window-shopped for a while, gazing at the beautiful traditional Korean pillows (silk cases filled with buckwheat husks which are then covered with plain, washable pillowcases)

and the creative window displays (like this shoe shop which featured live fish),

also waiting outside some of the more crowded shops before we could squeeze in for a peek.

I'm not sure if this pay phone still worked, but I liked its bright orange colour together with the ugly doll and the child playing with the phone.

The courtyard was full of an amazing smell and when we followed our noses, we found some men selling traditional Korean snacks made from puffed rice and grains.

Good for you and tasty too, these treats were selling as quickly as the men could bring out new flats and expertly cut intersecting lines across each giant square to produce new bite-size pieces.

In keeping with the arts and crafts theme of the building, the courtyard Christmas tree was pretty and charming, with its message in Korean script: "O, merry Christmas!"

Many of the decorations were lovely, and the more we walked around, the more I noticed.

I especially liked the way this wreath incorporated the traditional Korean dress, han bok, into its design.

This animal didn't look like he was having a nice winter holiday!

Our wanderings in Insadong were made even nicer today because the main street is closed to traffic on weekends--I didn't realise until today that I hadn't been here on a weekend before, and the atmosphere is much nicer with street stalls and pedestrians everywhere.

We passed more traditional shops

and looked in at the various food stalls as we walked. This stall had the biggest queue by far--the aroma of sweet pastry dough was pretty intoxicating.

Different types of dried and freshly grilled fish are a popular snack, as are roasted chestnuts and corn.

I never did figure out what these guys were selling, but apparently they had been on tv and their gimmick was that they sang while they prepared the food. They sold a lot of boxes of their treats while I watched, but I must admit that I took this photo when the two "piggies" made their way to the front to get a better look.

We were walking away from Insadong when I stopped in my tracks and had to take a picture of this very strange sign on a doorway. What could it possibly mean, I wondered?

I forgot about the sign until it came time to write this post, and not really thinking that anything would come of it, I Googled "doctor fish book café," and was absolutely stunned to learn what the sign was advertising. Apparently, people like to go to a café for "doctor fish" treatment. I know, that doesn't explain much, but bear with me. Basically, you go to a café, order a drink and a snack, browse through the books and magazines, and wait for your number to be called. When you're up, you take off your shoes and socks, and wash your feet. (Still with me?) After your feet are clean, you dip them into a special pool filled with "doctor fish," a breed of small fish that eat the dead skin off your feet! (Yes, you read correctly.) Apparently you can feel the fish nibbling away at you! While the "doctor fish" treatment is meant to be quite popular at spas in Korea and Japan, I'd like to know what crazy person first came up with the idea to mix doctor fish and café culture--it doesn't really sound like it should work, but apparently it does, especially as a good date activity! Anyway, we didn't know any of this at the time, so we couldn't be tempted by the delights of doctor fish. We continued walking toward Myeongdong, a busy pedestrian area filled with shops and restaurants, and passed Namsan Tower (sorry, it's been given the new, embarrassingly "hip" name of N'Seoul Tower, but I still think of it by its old-school name), which was unusually visible on Namsan (south mountain) this evening (it's usually enveloped in a haze of pollution).

More shiny lights, on office buildings

and churches,

helped prepare us for the onslaught of lights that fill Myeongdong. Here's Bob amongst the crowds:

After a bit more browsing,

our tummies told us it was time for dinner, and Bob had another round of his favourite (bi bim neng myun), while I ordered a delicious seafood udon dinner:

After we ate, we walked around the very lively streets for a bit longer, but Seoul's consumer energy finally tired us out and we caught our bus back to Suji around nine o'clock, happy to be heading to our own relatively quiet bit of suburbia.