Last Tuesday was Amy's first visit to Seomyeon, a major outdoor shopping market with anything and everything you could ever want! We walked the streets, gawking at all the delicious street food, and Amy settled on some Korean style shrimp and 떡볶이! Amy is definitely the perfect guest in Korea, because she loves Korean food and will try almost anything!
She snapped a picture of this sign! Apparently Mr. Pizza has a love for women!
How many stores can you fit into one building?! With limited space, that is always the question in Seomyeon! Amy thought this was interesting!
Amy brought me 2 boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix, as I've been seriously craving cupcakes for the past 19 months, and the Korean cupcakes simply do not do it for me! Unfortunately, the frosting she brought was confiscated at the airport! DARN SECURITY! They probably ate it in the breakroom after they took it from her! Anyhow, we stopped into this fancy bakery and bought a cup-full of butter cream frosting for our cake! Talk about a heart attack in a cup!
It's been great having Amy here because I've been taking different routes than I usually do when we're walking around, which had ultimately landed us at new hidden gems, like this food-stand-style area, which was completely hidden from the street and filled with fish, veggies, meats of all sorts, old Koreans, and loads of character!
While we would have loved to have plopped down to order something from an ajuma, we had a tea date to get to! Truchen and Gill met us at our favorite coffee shop in Seomyeon, where we meet once a week for Tea and girl time! We changed our "Tea for Three" title to "Tea for Four" just for Amy, our VERY special guest for the night!
We were approached by a young Korean woman while we were siting at our table, sipping our delicious lattes and frappuccinos! She asked if one of us would kindly read something she had written for her radio show. I of course said, "Sure! What do you want me to say?!" I'm not exactly a shy person! The thing she had me read was soooo funny! I was supposed to be a girl calling in to ask if foreigners can apply for health insurance "because I'm lonely and want to see a doctor!" hahaha I went ahead and took the liberty of changing the script to: "My knees hurt because I walk so much and want to see a doctor!" I didn't want anyone recognizing my voice and thinking I needed to see a doctor for my loneliness! Talk about pathetic! So, listen for me on the radio! Not sure what channel though - darn!
After our coffee's were comfortably settled in our tummies, we took a taxi over to my favorite Shabu Shabu restaurant for a late dinner.
Shabu Shabu is prepared by dipping a really thin slice of meat or a piece of vegetable in this pot of boiling broth (spicy broth on the left and bone broth on the right). You swish the meat back and forth several times. The swishing sound is where the dish got its name. Apparenly Shabu-shabu directly translates to "swish-swish". A little piece of food history for ya!
You really have to be a sprout lover to like Shabu Shabu!
After eating dinner, Truchen, Amy and I all headed over to Lotte to take the elevator up to the 42nd floor of the hotel where we sat on the windowsill, chatting and enjoying the millions of lights below! A gorgeous view of the city was the perfect way to end our night in Seomyeon!
