Insadong, Hongik, and lots of food!!!

Since I didn't post anything yesterday, I have quite a bit of ground to cover.
When I went to Insadong, a very touristy area, the night of my last post, it didn't seem too different from any other shopping district I'd been to, but had a slightly artsier vibe. I treated myself to a dinner of street food.

These crispy fried doughballs were filled with a cinammon sugar concoction.
It dripped all over me, and I only noticed it after 15 minutes of walking around. :(

Mulitstory shopping complex with mostly handmade goods

A stand in the center with all sorts of goodies

Fish-shaped pastry with red bean filling

Korean corn-on-the-cob is a lot chewier than the American sort

The next day I went to the Seoul cartoon museum. Sadly most of the museum wasn't open yet. I did however get to see hundreds of mini Haechis. Haechi is the mascot of Seoul. He is visible all around Seoul, many times spotted on trashcans, reminding Seoulites to be good citizens and to not litter.

Haechi being a good citizen

Haechi with Koreans in traditional dress

The room of the mini Haechis!!!

My favorite, winter/Santa Haechi

There was also a claymation studio in which you could make your own figurine out of clay and create a short film.

Some sample clay figurines

Later I went with Justin and Tim to Hongik University, the "hip" area of Seoul. As with most places in Seoul, I got the feeling that it was a lot livelier at night. There was still plenty going on though.

Two ajummas with their cart

Manscaping anybody?

Copyright infringement maybe?
The German on written on the storefront was grammatically correct though.

Book cart yeah!

At the university, cadets of some sort unloading next to a sandy soccer field.

Devil child! Stay away from that sausage!

Everyone rushing to cross the street

More awesome grafitti

I also took Justin and Tim to Namdaemun market, where we tried a traditional Korean street food that was not to my liking.

Windows malfunction on the subway

WONderpants anybody?

The crowd at the market

Bunegi, stewed silkworm larvae.
The smell would be enough to scare most anyone away.

But not us! It had a beanlike texture, but didn't taste all that good.
We ended up discarding most of the cup.

Some delicious sundubu jjigae, uncurdled soybean paste stew

Later, it was back to Myeongdong for more street food.

The lights are quite beautiful at night

Mmmm. Chicken skewers

The next day started off with a planned bike trip near the Han river that turned into a trek. We couldn't find the bike rental place, but ended up having a good time anyway. We crossed the river and visited Techno Mart. Seven floors of cameras, phones, and other electronic devices, a floor of restaurants, and a 4D theater(moving seats and blown air added to the 3D movie experience) on the top floor.

The bridge we walked across. Probably lit up at night.

View from the middle of the bridge

Apartment complex. There were 10 or so identical buildings.

Shopping mall/church. You can see the steeple in the upper right.

The rainbow plaza of the Techno Mart

Colorful escalators!

The worst food I've had here. Cheapo mall food:
Bibimbap(mixed rice) with tuna. Bleh.

Found an arcade were we played a hammer game.
It was rather difficult since we couldn't read the instructions, but tons of fun.

Instead of a kiosk, you buy your movie tickets at one of these screens.
You even pick out your assigned seats. The instructions are in Korean,
but easy enough to understand. We tried it out just for grins.

For dinner, we went to a Korean barbeque restaurant. You know, the kind where you cook your own meat on a grill set into the table. Or rather, in our case, a waitress did it for us, since we're completely oblivious foreigners who couldn't possibly know how to grill meat.

The table laid out with plenty of banchan

Turning the coals

You wrap the meat in lettuce with the banchan and chili sauce or salt and oil,
and supposedly try to fit the whole thing in your mouth at once

Empty soju bottle. The stuff was a lot smoother than I had expected.

For dessert, on the streets of Myeongdong: a giant cream puff!

I've been having a great time here, but unfortunately due to all the walking I've been doing, I seem to have developed a bit of tendonitis in my foot. I've noticed this happens to me fairly regularly after I've done a lot of walking or running. Hopefully it'll get better soon.

Can you tell which one it is?

The right one. Swollen, red, and ouchy. Right at the base of my middle three toes.