Seoul's Markets: Dongdaemoon and Namdaemoon

As I write, snow is piling up on our hedges and rooftop like a perfect frosting, and I just got to watch the baby next door reach up for the fluffy flakes and giggle when she grabbed one.

I couldn’t help but think: Wow. Next year I’ll be showing my baby the wonder of snow.

Mommy-thought-of-the-day aside, I’ve got quite the foodie update for you.

Over the weekend, Joe and I explored two of Seoul’s markets: Dongdaemoon (East Gate) and Namdaemoon (South Gate), both of which mark outer edges of the old walled city of Seoul, before it was the modern metropolis it is now.


Dongdaemoon is incredible and gigantic, a winding market of alleyways covered by an arched frosted-glass ceiling. Lining the alleyway, stall after stall sells fabrics, blankets, decorative pillows, and hanboks (traditional Korean dresses like the one I wore in my Korean wedding ceremony, pictured here).

We got there around 5pm, before many of the stalls were even open. That’s right, if we were stocking up for a quilt-making fest, we’d be out of luck. Apparently much of Dongdaemoon is basically wholesale, and it’s open from around 8pm to 5am, when the buyers aren’t out running their own shops around the city.

After winding our way down half-darkened alleyways of stores, we discovered the most beautiful thing of all: the food stalls.


Wow.














The savory, nutty smell of frying bindae duk (pictured right) had my mouth watering. Bindae duk is a mungbean pancake, and I don’t know what a mungbean is, but it’s what that round machine is milling in the bottom left of the photo—you can see the dough-like result coming out the sides. At top right, there are rows of the final, fried result. Bindae duk is delicious—savory and nutty, as the smell suggests—but it is GREASY!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s the stall we really couldn’t resist:
















This woman was making fresh noodles right there in front of us! We sat down on the heated benches (don’t ask me how they are heated, but they are, and it actually helped a lot!) and ordered up some kal gooksu (knife noodle soup).

The woman plopped freshly-cut noodles into a giant metal vat and a few minutes later, voilà!



The. Best. Noodles. I’ve. Ever. Had.

There is truly nothing like sitting on a hot bench in freezing weather, eating the freshest possible, steaming noodle soup made right in front of you by sweet old women.

Namdaemoon Market isn’t as grand as it’s easterly neighbor—it’s also a market of alleyways and stalls, but it is smaller and has more tented restaurants (literally, restaurants made of clear tarps).

In Namdaemoon, though, I discovered my new favorite iteration of fried dough: hotteok (sounds like “hot duck”). It starts out as a sweet dough ball. The chef opens it up, fills the center with a dry mixture of (I’m guessing) brown sugar and cinnamon, and closes up the ball once more. Then it goes on a flat-top grill where the dough fries and the mixture inside melts into a gooey filling.

It comes out looking like a filled pancake, and it tastes (and smells) like heaven.

Continuing the food theme, Joe and I had to try one of Korea’s favorite trendy treats: the waffle. While Belgian waffles may seem like the purview of
brunch restaurants in the U.S., here, they belong in the coffee shops. And if you can believe it, coffee shops seem more prevalent in Seoul than any major U.S. city. At shops like Café Bene, you can get the normal waffles with fruit and whipped cream (like Joe’s, in the picture here)… or you can be brave and go for yogurt and syruped fruit (like mine)… OR you can go waffles and ice cream. Yum!


Café Bene claims to have “the best Brussels waffles in the world.” (That's right—the best Belgian waffle is apparently in Seoul at a chain coffee shop, Bene claims, not in Belgium.) As their slogan urges, you should come here yourself and taste the Bene different!


All of this exploring has us familiar with Seoul’s subway system, which, though extremely complicated (see map), is surprisingly easy. It’s even cleaner than D.C.’s metro, which is saying something.

There are some oddities, though—or rather, reminders that Korea is not a nation at peace. A cease-fire in 1953 meant the north and south weren’t actively fighting, but there was never a peace treaty, so they are technically still at war. Throughout the subway are these emergency kits the size of vending machines, complete with what looks like food and water rations and an oxygen tank. There are even some pubic-safety commercials on the TVs down there that role-play what to do in an attack.

Let's hope we never see a need for such things...

Week One

Countdown to move: -7 days

Seoul lessons so far: Cars don’t stop for pedestrians; signs in English don’t have to make sense (case in point: “INNOVATION BEAUTIFUL YOUR.” No idea.); the hot version of bibimbap (dolsot bibimbap), a rice and vegetable dish, is better than the cold version—and I already liked the cold version; many American goods are available here (Starbucks included), but it all costs more; the embassy keeps its heater up extremely high; and fourteen hours ahead is a big time difference to get used to.

One week in, it’s hard to know whether my sleepiness and difficulty sleeping are due to jet lag, pregnancy, or the really hard mattress in our bedroom (I can’t wait for our wonderful mattress to arrive sometime next month!!).

The first few days, jet lag made night sleeping feel like an afternoon nap and naps feel like night sleep. Last Friday morning, I got out of bed around 3:30am and was surprised to find afternoon American news shows—Megyn Kelly, Tamryn Hall, Shepherd Smith—on our

television (and slightly less surprised to see Rick Perry dropped out of the GOP primary fight).

It was comforting to watch the (completely slanted) Fox News and MSNBC shows I used to watch in my office at U.S. News & World Report, but I have to say it’s even more comforting to stay in bed until at least 6am, which is about what I can do these days.

Other than checking in with the embassy and getting used to my new life on a U.S. military base, here’s what Joe and I have been up to:

Itaewon
Saturday morning, Joe got up ultra-early with me (it felt like afternoon to our bodies!) and convinced me to go on a 6am venture into the cold morning. We walked out the military base gates and wandered up streets lined with closed coffee shops, antique stores, and mini-marts (7-Eleven included, though I didn’t notice any Slurpee machines…). After a breath-stealing hill, we found ourselves in familiar territory: Itaewon, where an embassy colleague had taken us to dinner the night before.

Itaewon is designed for foreigners. There are restaurants with food from all over the world (Jordan, China, Belgium, Thailand, India, UK, Mexico, etc., etc.) and lots of shops. It’s the easiest place to go out nearby base, and probably the neighborhood I’ll know the best.

Oh, it’s also filled with bars and clubs that make it pretty seedy at night, we hear. And these bars and clubs are open until around 6 or 7 IN THE MORNING.

We made it into the neighborhood around 7am, and definitely saw some multi-cultural drunken stumbling. In the daylight.

We ducked into a 24-hour Korean hole-in-the-wall for some breakfast and discovered a similar crowd inside: groups of people with varying shades of skin, sharing soju to postpone hangover, and Korean women who were, well, definitely NOT women underneath the makeup and wig.

Ha. It was an entertaining morning.

Myeongdong (I think)

Later on Saturday, Joe and I went to a cultural event at the Lotte Hotel for the Lunar New Year. It was suited more for little kids (Joe compared it to an elementary school fair with booths of activities… the drum section was quite popular. And loud.), but we enjoyed wandering around half asleep.

To keep the wakefulness going, we spent the afternoon exploring a nearby neighborhood of shops—I believe it’s called Myeondong, but I honestly had no idea where I was.

The roads and alleyways were filled with tables of vendors selling gloves, shoes, fried squid, scarves, and roasted chestnuts, all surrounded by upscale shops with colorful signs all jutting out, fighting for our attention.

…And this is where I started documenting Korean signs in English that don't entirely make sense. Here are signs from three lingerie stores:

These two are from the same store. Yes, Lovely So Cute Pops Girl.

Seollal / Lunar New Year
This past weekend (a 4-day weekend from work!) marked the biggest holiday in Korea. Everyone on Facebook seemed to call it “Chinese New Year,” but China isn’t the only country that celebrates the beginning of a new lunar year.

The holiday is a time to see family and perform a bowing ceremony called Sebae (which involves the younger generation bowing to the older and receiving envelopes of money in return). The ritual is something I am used to celebrating with Joe’s U.S. family on January 1, so when I found out we’d be joining in with his Korean family for Seollal, I wasn’t too nervous about making a fool of myself… well, at least with the bowing.

Language? That's another matter.

Going in, I knew only one of Joe’s relatives who would be present spoke English, so I was in for a day of almost complete immersion. Ok, I was a little nervous.

Have you ever listened to Korean language? It’s beautiful, but it is HARD to pick out words if you don’t know the language. When I listen to French, Italian, or (especially) Spanish, I have a general idea of what’s going on. Not so with Korean.

But it turns out food is a universal language.

Joe’s grandmother (yes, she rubbed my little pregnant belly—see gratuitous belly pic from last week, at 16 weeks) fed us loads of Korean food (for breakfast—not normally my favorite time for spicy-savory), and Joe says I made a good impression just by eating and enjoying everything offered.

And, really, the pressure was on Joe, who had to translate quite a bit to include me in conversation.

But once the adults wandered out of the living room, the college-aged cousins came out of their shells: They speak English, too! Well, they are working on it, but they understand a lot more than I thought they could.

They were so sweet. Joe told me one of the cousins was calling me Unyi, which means older sister, and they both said they want to hang out with me more whenever they visit Seoul.

When we were all leaving, the younger cousin (freshman in college) whined to me, “I wish I had more time with you!!”

It’s amazing to move across the world yet still find family, and the accompanying acceptance just for existing.

Goodbye, D.C.

Countdown to packout: -6 days (DONE!)
Countdown to move: 1 day

It’s been four-and-a-half years since I drove across the country with everything I owned packed into my bright blue Saturn Ion. I had no job, no friends, and few connections in the D.C. area.

Within a month, I had all three.

Since then, this has become my home. It’s where most of my friends are, it’s where I met my husband, and it’s where I found the church community that has seen me through the ups and downs of a key phase of my life.

It's weird to think I'll start from scratch once again.

After an insanely efficient packout last Wednesday—in five hours, four men packed our entire house and loaded it into three different shipments (storage, air, and sea)—Joe and I have spent as much quality time with people we love as possible. There were lunches, dinners, coffee dates, home-cooked meals (thanks, Makis!), and a goodbye party with several of our dear friends.

It will be sad not to be close enough to pop over to the Jacobys’ house or join Jamie at the latest D.C. foodie event or lose to Kate at Tara’s poker nights. I’ll miss seeing my church small group every Thursday night, too.

I also had to say goodbye to my little bright blue car, the one I got right after returning from a year in Malawi. The car that was my one companion on the long road from California to Washington, D.C.

(<--Loaded up and ready to drive cross-country in 2007)

When we sold it, Joe told me, "Say goodbye to your youth and freedom!"

I realized he was right. I've grown up a lot since I got that little car seven years ago, but now that I'm selling it, I truly am at the tail end of my young adulthood. Ahead in 2012: motherhood and turning 30.

Goodbye, youth and freedom.

But over the next two years, Joe and I will explore new places (like the gorgeous Jeju Island), learn new things (Korean language, for starters), make new friends, build new church community, and—best of all—welcome a new person into our family.

Every new beginning requires goodbyes, and I know a full life waits on the other end of tomorrow’s 14-hour flight.

Almost Ready...

Countdown to packout: 2 days
Countdown to move: 9 days

We’re actually moving!

Ok, to be honest, that hasn’t hit me yet. My focus has been so entirely on our task checklist that I can’t even begin to prepare to actually LIVE IN SEOUL. It doesn’t seem real yet that I’m leaving the friends, church community, house, and city we have grown to love and rely on over the past four-and-a-half years.

It seems like I should be emotionally processing this more than I am, but… I suppose I’ll have a week in a Chinatown hotel to savor D.C. and a 14-hour flight to think about our life ahead.

What I’m really focused on now is our quickly-diminishing task list…

I’ve taken all our pictures and clocks off the wall so I can putty and retouch the paint for our future renters (if you know of anyone looking in Arlington, here’s the ad!). And I sorted through clothes and hair products and lotions to give or throw away—something I’ve been meaning to do for years, anyway.

And biggest of all: I got all the large baby stuff I need to ship over! BIG sigh of relief! I won’t be visiting Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby in the foreseeable future, and I am OK with that. I’m beginning to think baby supplies are a consumerist racket… but what am I going to do, not buy a stroller or a baby swing? Oh, well.

I’ll be honest, what I’ve REALLY been focused on these days is the fact that my belly is pooching out—and that’s not just a big lunch! The best part of all is that the queasiness of my first trimester is basically gone (I’m happy to welcome trimester #2!). I still have FAR less energy than I’m used to, but even that is improving.

Just in time to say goodbye to D.C. and hello to Seoul.

Whirlwind

Countdown to packout: 13 days
Countdown to move: 20 days

Our passports and visas are in order, our packout scheduled, our property manager hired. A new crib, pack-n-play, and high chair sit boxed in our spare room, ready to ship.

But I’ve discovered my new nemesis: the stroller.

A few months ago, Joe and I learned we’re moving to Seoul, South Korea, in January for his new job with the State Department’s Foreign Service. About a month later, we found out our little family will grow to three while we’re there!

So, yes, I’m 3 months pregnant, nauseated, and exhausted, but I’m also thrilled about the two life changes charging my way (and I hear the nausea-and-exhaustion phase is almost over!).

I finished my job as a reporter at U.S. News & World Report before Christmas so that after a relaxing holiday, I could focus all my (limited) energy on the task at hand: buy the maternity clothes I’ll need throughout, and get the baby stuff that’s too big to send to our APO box in Seoul.

A new mom already working at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul warned me it’s best to buy our big baby items here to ship over with our household effects on packout day, since everything in Korea will likely be double or triple the price.

So I’m left with two weeks. I’ve made headway, but who knew there were so many different stroller and car seat options? Not me.

Stressful? Yes—I spent two hours in the Babies R Us stroller section yesterday, and made harried calls for mom advice to my sister Brandy and friend Kristi Stofer.

Worth it? Absolutely. On Tuesday, I had an ultrasound, and our little lime-sized Kimchi actually looks like a tiny human now, not just a blob. And the baby kept kicking off the side and sliding back, a little jumping bean!

While I listened to the heartbeat, I kept thinking: Oh my goodness, there’s someone GROWING in there!! I never realized pregnancy would be this bizarre and incredible. It’s definitely a reminder to me of how in control God is, that my body can grow a completely new person along with an entire life-support system. It feels like I could easily eat the wrong thing, lift the wrong thing, or just do the wrong thing by accident and screw this up, but the baby keeps growing (and I’m praying that continues)!

Also, the Foreign Service lifestyle is really appealing to me. If all goes as planned, we’ll get to move countries every couple years, learn languages (I need to impress the in-laws with Korean skills!), meet interesting people and explore the world together.

So, yeah, the whirlwind of life at the moment is worth it—will be worth it.

As long as I can just choose a stroller...