A Trip to Seoul for our Souls

Sorry! I really could not help but use the pun. And it's a good one too...we certainly got a taste and viewing of many things we have not been able to here in lovely Gangwondo.

As soon as we arrived you better believe we rushed off to Itaewon ( the foreigner district) and gorged ourselves on Indian food at a fabulous restaurant called Chakkra. We left our shoes on, drank out of glass cups, spoke English to the waiter, and ate ourselves silly. Really this was a grand meal. Vegetable coconut curry, samosas, red bean curry, basmati rice with saffron...wow!

The next morn we went to the Flying Pan for breakfast. Michael and I had a sandwich that sort of resembled a vegetable panini with roasted veggies, salad, and cream of zucchini soup. Perfect. Here we are enjoying it all.



After breakfast we went to several international markets where we loaded up on chickpeas, lentils, coconut milk, tumeric, curry power, masala, cloves, fenugreek, cardamon, oatmeal, oregano, basil, avocados, and several other things among them Annie's organic Mac and Cheese for emergency situations.


Saturday eve we went to buy guitars at the most overwhelming music store I have ever been too. Literally thousands of guitars everywhere. How to choose? For me I tired to get the cheapest guitar that didn't sound too awful bad...I did okay. Michael got a great guitar too for a really sweet price. We left, our heads spinning, and went out for dinner. Being in Seoul and all we figured we wouldn't eat Korean food too much, but do you know what we had for dinner...bibimbap...:-)

After dinner we took a taxi to see the last half of the Seoul drum festival, which was fabulous. We got there late and thought the show was almost over. We sat through some jazz featuring what we guessed was a child prodigy playing drums. We thought that might be it but fortunately we were able to catch another hour of amazing drumming. My favorite was the last act. There was a crazy drummer with three drumsticks in each hand to bang six different drums at the same time. Then he was joined by two more awesome drummers, followed by dancers, shooting fire, and splashes of water on the drums that shot up in the air as he pounded them. I will do my very best to post a recording Michael took of this part of the show!!!!


Here, as you would obviously expect, is Gandalf, who gave us courage to find as many chickpeas as we could, and defeat the evil Sauron...anyway I think that's what he said.


And here my friends is the three story, very sheik, very posh and stylin': Dunkin'Donuts. Yes...three floors filled with techno music, modern decor, and donuts.



And now why don't you go...


Stay tuned for part two.