Trip Summary and The Dateline Again?

This is the final post for this trip. For me, the flight to Hawaii was not the best. It was with Korean Air and so it had the same selection of movies and TV shows to watch. There is a pattern to these long flights. You are served a meal (this time I chose chicken, which was a pretty American meal – salad, chicken, rice, a roll and custard for dessert. Steve chose Bi-bim-bap which has become his favorite Korean food (I think it is because he can pronounce it). Bi-bim-bap is what we had when we came over, only then we didn’t know what it was or how to eat it. Now we learned that it is a bowl of a bunch of different things and rice on the side. You put the rice in and some of the sauce packets you are given and mix it up and eat it. I think he had kimchi rather than salad and the same dessert and roll.

On this flight we crossed the dateline again, only this time we left Japan on a Friday night and arrived here in HI on Friday morning before we left Japan. I still have trouble getting my head around that!

Looking back this has been an amazing trip and we have connected with some good friends along the way. In some ways it is not how I like to travel. I like to be in one place for longer. I feel sort of confused between Korea and Japan and the Philippines seems so long ago. We were not in any particular place long enough to meaningfully connect with people there. We did benefit from knowing people in each place who guided us and showed us things from a local perspective at least.

Here in Hawaii I am getting to meet several people that I have not seen for years. There are a few friends that I made while here living in HI from 1990-1993. There was also a friend who I have not seen since High School who is living here and that I reconnected with through Facebook!  It has been a good way to gradually return home. Tomorrow is the crazy night flight from Honolulu – Maui – Los Angeles – Austin. It will be good to be home.

Seoul, South Korea: the Food

I bet you, my wonderful readers have been worried about what happened to me and concerned that maybe South Korea is not safe. Good News!! We are fine!

I am sitting right now in the lobby of our hotel, writing this blog while waiting for a taxi to the airport and then a flight to Japan. I figured it would be a good use of my waiting time to try to remember and write down what has happened since I last wrote (July 5).  Today is the 12^th of July, so a lot has happened and most of it was pretty interesting.

I think that the best way to organize what I have done and seen is by topic rather than chronological. I will start with food. I was surprised that there were many types of Korean food that I enjoyed.

This first picture is of Steve and I with our friend Dan eating Korean BBQ. First you choose which meat you would like to eat and then they bring you lots of sides. In the middle of the table is a large grill and the meat is brought over and the waiter comes by and puts the meat on it, turns it over and cuts it into pieces. You can eat it sort of like a burrito, but with lettuce instead of a tortilla. So, you might have a piece of meat, a piece of garlic, some rice and some kimchi (fermented cabbage) rolled up in a lettuce leaf. You are supposed to pop it all in your mouth and eat it in one bite.

Korean BBQ is tasty. One of the main things that people eat is Pork Belly, which sounds bad, but it really means bacon. So, you are given thick strips of bacon to grill at the table.

Another popular type of food here is Chicken and Beer. There are restaurants that sell just Chicken and Beer. You get a whole pile of fried chicken and order beer to drink. It usually also comes with some radishes. The chicken comes in different flavors. We chose Original and Honey, but there was also Soy sauce and Spicy. It was delicious, but mainly because of the fried coating!  We had this twice.

Then there are many other traditional Korean restaurants. Steve enjoyed eating Bibimbap which is a collection of vegetables, rice, seaweed, tuna, egg that you mix together and eat. I liked Bulgogi which is very thin slices of beef that is usually eaten with rice. When you go to a restaurant like this the first thing that they do is bring you a large number of side dishes to share. I don’t know that I could tell you what they all are. There is always Kimchi. 

Usually there was also some other pickled radish. Sometimes there was onion or sliced garlic. Often there were unidentified greens (probably seaweed). Once there was a green onion pancake. It tasted like maybe it had rice flour cooked into it. Almost every time there was some sort of soup. In this picture you see sprouts in a soy broth, but we often had miso soup.

There were also many places to get more recognizable food. This was lunch for me one day. A chicken basil sandwich, half cob of corn, French fries, salad, sauce, pickles and mango aid.

Meals in Korea are served with chopsticks and a spoon. Forks and Knives are unusual.

Oh, yes, and there is the time that we went out to have ice cream for dessert. We used the pictures on the menu to help us decide what to order. Steve ordered a nice looking ice cream sundae which turned out to be an affogado (a scoop of vanilla ice cream with caramel topping served with a separate shot of espresso which you pour over the ice cream.  It was delicious. I ordered the sundae pictured next to it which looked to me like ice cream with chocolate sauce. It turned out that it was shaved ice piled on with a red sweet bean-adzuki bean, sprinkled with nuts, topped with a scoop of ice cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce and served with cream to pour over the ice. It was huge. The picture shows the two things we ordered. The menu did not show the size difference. The shave ice with beans and ice cream is a favorite summer dessert here and after that I often saw it pictured at different restaurants. I don't know about you, but I don't usually consider beans as dessert.