For my 27th birday, I tried to do something rather grown up. I invited several friends out for a wonderful dinner to a Brazillian style steak house called Mercados, near Agpujeong Stn. in Seoul. While the meal was brilliant, I was slightly more that disappointed by the number of people who caanceled at the last minute leaving our party much smaller than I had anticipated. It's hard not to take these things personally, but in retrospect, it was a Friday night and many people lived over an hour away from the restaurant. However, I was really happy to celebrate and eat some amazingly delicious steak with my two lovely co-teachers He Ji & Hey Jin, and my great friends, Dara, Silvia and Lindsay.
Throwing up the double peace signs to show our pleasure with the very good steak and sangria, Dara, Hey Jin and I are very sattisfied customers. As a self proclaimed foodie, I find it hard to find good steak in this country that does not have to be prepared by myself while sitting uncomfortable on the floor and using scisors as my primary utensil. Mercados required non of the work and rather invited us to put all of out effort into eating well. The servers walked around with giant scewers of differently prepared steak and would cut and serve you as much as you wanted!!!! AMAZING!
By the end of our second pitcher of sangria and an uncountable number of meat serving, we fairly had to roll our way out of the restaurant. We then went and established ourselves at a little Japanese style bistro which had an outdoor terrace. It was quite lovely and warm still and we stayed there for quite a while before attempting to go out dancing. Unfortunately the bar I chose was really aweful! I guess you can't win 'em all! It was still a good way to celebrate my b-day. 
In the past little while I've been inspired to be a bit more adventurous in my tiny kitchen. I have become quite accomplished at cooking with a little electric stove top, no oven and a mini fridge. I guess you could call it college style gourmande living. I was in E-Mart last week and I bought myself some ground pork with the intention of trying my hand at homemade hamburgers. Unfortunately, when it came own to cooking them, I was unable to find any buns worth eating... What I did find was a whole wheat, raising, sunflower sead, baguette at Paris Baguette ( I was rather shocked as they generally have shit bread).
I thought to myself, 'What could I do to compliment this bread? I know! I'll make a meatball sub!!' I'll be brief and say that is exactly what I did. I first glazed and sauted some onions and mushrooms. Then I made the meatballs with the ground pork, chopped onion, 1 piece of finely chopped toast for breadcrumbs, 1 egg, 1 spoon of spicy mustard, salt, pepper, mixed herbs, and a dash of clove and nutmeg. Then I mixed it all up, rolled them into balls and cooked them in a bit of olive oil in a frying pan. Then I cut my bread lengthwise, loaded it up with ketchup, mayo, mustard, halved cherry tomatos, lettuce, orange chedar (unfortunately processed), then topped the cheese with the halved meat balls and the sauted veggies. Smush it alllll together, cut in half and serve hot! VOILA!!! I will call it the mid-week-meatball-madness-extravagaza-dinner-sandwich! Did I mention it was FABULOUS!
Summer days have returned to Seoul and although they bring extreme heat and alternately downpouring monsoon rains, there are still plenty of good times to be had in between. After a long time away from that general area, I went back for a visit to Insa-dong recently with my friend Lindsay (who is unfortunately going back to Canada; another victim of a dreadful Hagwon!!) It was strange, but I liked it even more after having been here for the past 2 years, because all of the gifts and knick knacks for sale seemed so much more culturally relevant and I understood their significance and relative importance to Korean culture. In fact, after I have moved into my new appartment, I want to go back and buy new dishes and decorations there.
The Korean aesthetic is very interesting, almost eclectic, but very beautiful at the same time.It's hard to grasp. For all that this city is so crazy and concrete, they seem to favor white, bright, natural woods and fibres and green in their interiors. I guess it's an attempt to find a respite from the ungly, chaotic, grey exteriors of most of the building here. I think the interiors present a much clearer sense of the history and the aesthetic of the culture that the exteriors of the buildings or the (aparent lack of any individualism or personality in the architectural design.)
That is why spaces like the 'Ssamzie Market' are so interesting to me both architecturally and socially. It is a public space which is at the same time very private because it has not only a personable feel to it, but an individual touch which shows both an abundance of creativity and individualism; two things which are often hard to come by in Seoul. It is also a space which has been reclaimed by the people in a way as all the walls are covered with graffiti and personal messages from visitors from all over the planet. I think creatively engaging spaces like this are so important in any culture, but especially in Korea where there are very few places to be publicly creative and individual.
Another space that I greatly appreciate is the design cafe: MMMG, Millimeter Milligram Inc. I think that it is one of the truely cool places that I have been to in a while. It is not trying to be trendy but is acheiving maximum trendiness by virtue of the fact that the company sells excellent quality environmentally conscious goods and also boasts extremely good food, coffee and interior design. All in a fairly intimate environment in a building which does not invite overt attention. It one of those places that most people walk by, but once you go in, you will go back frequently. This is me enjoying a butter, berry scone and an iced coffee. The thing that continues to surprise me about Korea and Seoul in particular is that it is a city which opens it's hidden charms and softer side slowly but surely. It can be such a harsh, rough and difficult place to live. Not because it is violent, it certainly isn't, but because people are so focused on living their own lives and acheiving greatness int heir own ways, that people rarely stop to enjoy, and even rarer still stop to help others and be thoughtful towards others. I find this somewhat paradoxical considering the number of self proclaimed Christians you see everywhere. It is NOT a very charitable, compassionate, or understanding place to live for foreigners or anyone who cannot afford to keep up with the Jones'. But there are these small places to escape the chaos and the competitive lifestyle that drives this city, and those are the places to be. Especially in the summer, where life should be about slowing down, relaxing and taking time to smaell the effing flowers.
