The Girl Who Ate Everything

I don't have any photos of Korea, so this will have to do.

I've been waiting all week to say this: I'm going to South Korea next week! Seoul to be specific. The 7th Annual Tteok Fair, to be specific-er. Byyyeeee!

...Okay, not yet. Monday = Me + Korean Air = 14 hours of non stop flight goodness! (I've been on longer flights before, but not non-stop.) Dan of Seoul Eats and a map will be my guide for a week as he shows me tasty things and I stuff them into my mouth and keel over from gluttony. What's on the agenda? Um...I haven't had any time to plan things, but right now I'm going with RICE CAKES, weird pizza, fun street food, dumplings, tofu stew, socks (a friend told me to get socks, I'm just doing what she says!), everything from Millimeter/Milligram (or maybe half of everything), and lots of pastries?

Many thanks to Dan and the Institute of Traditional Korean Food for inviting me on this trip. (This is a Serious Eats-related trip, so I'll be blogging about it there.) I've never been to Seoul before and I don't know any Korean! LOOK AT HOW not PREPARED I AM! I'm hoping that everyone will be able to tell that I'm Chinese or American so I don't embarrass myself too much with rudimentary Korean that I will have to teach myself on the plane. Um.

In conclusion...do I have any readers in Seoul? I assumed not really, aside from Dan. If so, please speak up!

This entry originally took place on April 19 during my trip to Iceland from the 18 to 24. Check out other posts about Iceland.

Around 6 a.m. I was woken up by the sound of clinking glass. It sounded like Saturday "night" had finally ended and people were picking up the pieces, mostly in the form of beer bottles.

And with a flump of my head, I went back to sleep.

Greg, Diana, and I didn't stir until sometime after 2 p.m., which would've been a more acceptable time had we actually been up all night partying. That aforementioned veil of lethargy was actually more like a sedative-enhanced mallet-to-the-head of lethargy—but a much needed one, as none of us had slept that long in ages. Our bodies obviously leapt (and my "leapt" I mean "didn't move") at the chance to enter hibernation mode.

After reveling in the awesomeness of a good night's rest, we realized we didn't have much time to do stuff that would close within the next three hours. Like Kolaportið, the flea market that's only open on the weekends from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hustled over, we did.

Man, check out all this stuff I don't want!

Although I don't go to many flea markets, I'm pretty sure that Kolaportið was like most other flea markets. Tables overflowed with toys, clothes, records, books, and other bits and bobs that didn't really fit into any other category besides "stuff you would find at a flea market." What made this different from other flea markets was the section of seafood vendors, but I'll get to that later. First: some random products.

This entry originally took place on April 19 during my trip to Iceland from the 18 to 24. At the rate I'm going, you'll be reading about Iceland for the rest of the month. HOOYEAHuh fail. Check out other posts about Iceland.

Like a pearl from a giant mutant oyster.

As the sky appeared to uncloudify just a smidge, Greg and I took the opportunity to visit Perlan (The Pearl) as Diana chilled out in the hotel. The Pearl is a landmark building just outside the city center made of huge ass hot water storage tanks topped with an even huger ass glass dome that together contain a museum / restaurant / observation deck / shops / occasional CD market . We were just going for the chance to look over the city, not to eat on a rotating platform or learn about the Sagas (although we probably should've done the latter).

This is how I felt on Tuesday.

Oh hey! I got back from Seoul on Tuesday and felt a bit like the (probably) drunk couple in the photo above. Assuming they're really tired.

But after a few days of forcing myself to switch my internal clock by 13 hours, I think I'm back to normal, "normal" being "not going to bed until after 2 a.m." I am healed!

Seoul is awesome. If you wanna go to Asia and can't decide between Japan and China, go to South Korea! Ha. Just kidding; it's not a last resort. You should want to go because it's got lots of food, lots of beer, clean and cheap public transportation, lots of shopping, lots of food, and it's much more "The City That Never Sleeps" than NYC could ever be. It's a crazy place. I'll be writing more about it on Serious Eats (I hope to get more posts up next week), but I need to give a shout-out to some of the awesome Seoulites (or just-beyond-the-limits-of-Seoulites) I met during my trip, because without them, my visit would've been only 10% as awesome. They're entwined with my memories and initial impressions of the city. Let's take a look.

This entry originally took place on April 20. Yeah, I know I'm almost a month behind, but I was in Seoul last week, so that's my excuse. Check out other posts about Iceland.

You know that build-up of excitement when you're riding the monorail towards Disneyland and you see bits of impending joy—the castle spires, the tip of Matterhorn Mountain, the jerky motions of riders in the Autopia—and you continue to ride through the park, hovering above...and before you break out in full hyperventilation with the anticipation of touching your feet to Disney-owned ground, you're there? Assuming you like Disneyland, that is. (I should note that I haven't been to Disneyland for a while, but my choppy memory tells me it might have gone something like that.) Otherwise, just make up your own, "Omg omg omg are we there yet?" situation.

OMG you guyz.

That's kind of how I felt when our car pulled into the Blue Lagoon, one of the most famous attractions in Iceland. It's probably the only heated body of water I've ever been excited about lazily lying in. Because it's not just any heated body of water; it's geothermal seawater! It's full of minerals, silica, and algae! Which is good for the skin, or something! And then there's the otherworldly look of the water: milky white with a hint of blue.

BLAA LONITH, YOU GUYZ!!

Almost...there...so very close...

This entry originally took place on April 21. I thought I could shove all this nature stuff in one post, but it was becoming too ginormous. So, two entries it is. Just to warn you, there's no food in this one, except for a brief mention of the semi-digested kind. Check out other posts about Iceland for more food stuff.

Peace out.

Seven hours there. Seven hours back. This was not a day for food, but a day for nature. All day. ...All...day...

But I didn't have to drive, so it was cool with me. Greg took the wheel as Diana rode shotgun and I splayed my girth across the back seat on our adventure to Jökulsárlón, a glacier lake near the southeast coast of Iceland. The road to Jökulsárlón was paved with varying expanses of vast nothingness, a few small towns, waterfalls, rocky shorelines, mountains, and minimal interaction with other humans.

Oh, and a brief moment when I threw up (for the first time in ages, due to car sickness at least) the orange juice and toast I had eaten for breakfast that morning. And got some of it on my wool coat because even though I had the foresight to clear out a plastic bag for a makeshift puke bucket, my nauseated mind wasn't able to aim correctly. And I only realized now that I have yet to bring that coat to the dry cleaner. [Don't worry, I got it cleaned since starting this post.]

But let's get back to more pleasant things.

A wee trickle in Mother Nature's bosom...or something.

First up was Seljalandsfoss. It may not look like much from far away—you know, your standard cool looking Icelandic waterfall...

Update (6/14/09): I'm closing comments; if you wanna say something about the event, go to Serious Eats or another online forum. I think it's reasonable to say that I don't want my blog to be a complaint center. And yes, you have reason to complain. But there's obviously nothing I can do about it. I was there; I heard the complaints on Saturday and I heard them last night, and today, and I think I'll be hearing about them for a while. Totally sucks that it ended up being a clusterfuck. Most people will never want to go to an event like this again, but some people will (we did get some messages from people who actually enjoyed themselves...sigh) and for them, next time will be better. And not at Shoreline Amphitheater.

Yay, I drew a fork.

Perhaps I should've asked this earlier, but is anyone in food blog land going to the Great American Food & Music Fest? Because...I am! In fact, the whole Serious Eats crew is flying to Mountain View, California, the weekend of June 13th to see the fruits of Ed's labors. The Serious Eats name isn't associated with the fest, but Ed cobbled together all the food purveyors, so he's very much in it. For the past few months we've been listening to his many, many...many phone calls to make this fest happen. It's a cool thing.

Check out posts on Serious Eats for more info. And if you're going, let me know. I don't know anything about Mountain View, nor do I know anyone who lives there. It'd also be good to have some fooding partners so I don't explode from trying to eat everything.

This entry originally took place on April 21, with part one here. It's not a very food-filled post, but it's got...NATURE...and things. But mostly nature. Check out other posts about Iceland for more food stuff.

A wee bit desolate.

On the road between Dyrhólaey and the main road that lead to more vast expanses of rocks, grass, waterfalls, and other natural things, we stopped on this road.

Car

And got out of the car.

Mountains and stuff.

To the other side of the car was this. MOUNTAINS! And damp soil goo.

FOOD...in Korea.

I know it's confusing that I've been writing about a week-long vacation in Iceland for the past month, but I've come to wonder how the hell anyone has time to blog when most of that time is taken up by work and sleep. ...And the other stuff in between, like when some friends and I watched Star Trek last night and afterward hung out at Gahm Mi Oak for almost three hours. Ooopssss.

And remember that in between going to Iceland and sitting on my butt (what I'm doing right now) I also went to Seoul? Yeah. I've been blogging about my trip to Korea on Serious Eats for the past few weeks, building up quite a list of posts in the process. If you don't check out Serious Eats every day (sob), here are some links to make your life easier:

Hyoja-dong Old Fashioned Tteokbokki
Photos from Seoul's 7th International Tteok Fair
Gallery of Rice Cakes from Seoul's 7th International Tteok Fair
Grand Prix from Mr. Pizza, Korean Pizza 'Made for Women'
Pizza Doughnut from Mister Donut
Pon de Ring Doughnuts from Mister Donut
Seafood Noodle Soup from Samcheong-dong Sujebi
Burgers from Lotteria
Fried Things on Sticks
Rice Cake and Dumpling Soup from Koong
Kalguksu from Myeongdong Gyoja

If I've learned anything from writing these posts and trying to grasp at the few memories I can actually extract out of my head, it's that I need to take way more notes. Or at least ones that are more descriptive than, "FAT MANDOO."

Alice + baby manatee + White Castle = Saturday night

"We should go to White Castle," I said. "Now."

It took about a split second for Veronica, Alice, and me to decide that, yes, we would celebrate Alice's last night as a resident of Brooklyn with a sack of sliders and some chicken rings on the side, among other foodstuffs that probably shouldn't be eaten at any time of the day, never mind after midnight.

Veronica and I were hanging out with Alice in her apartment the night before Alice would hop on a plane and move back to Los Angeles (sniff, sniff, SNIFF, SNIIIIFFF). How did White Castle enter the picture? While talking to Veronica about my burger blog editor status, of course:

"What do you think of White Castle's burgers?" she asked.

"I don't think I've been there in more than 15 years."

"There's a White Castle near the Graham Ave station that I meant to check out," Alice said, "but I never got around to it."

And that is how we decided: It was White Castle time.