///////////////////////

The Flying Pan - Blue

Those who know me well probably know that almost nothing – NOTHING – makes me happier than brunch. I just… I freaking love brunch. It combines so many of my favorite things; coffee, waking up late, not going to work, coffee, bacon, someone else cooking, coffee, and delicious breakfast fare. One of the hardest parts about living outside of the US, where brunch is an art form and I’m a connoisseur, is satisfying the need for a proper brunch. I feel like I’m on a constant quest to find some good brunch.

In Daegu our options are limited and we often wind up at Chris Do’s, a cute restaurant that offers a decent brunch but, like most western options in Korea, is always just a little off from what you are looking for. Our hopes were high for Seoul and we weren’t disappointed!

Look at that! This delicious rye pancake meal was served up at The Flying Pan Blue in Itaewon, Seoul (Itaewon Stations Exit 2, take the first left). We arrived on a Saturday morning and had to wait about 30 minutes which we spent browsing a local international food market. The menu had a lot of great options from mushroom crepes to eggs avocado. Our table ordered the brie and ham French toast, rye pancakes, and salmon eggs benedict. Everyone was full and happy by the end.

*Jen & Amanda with their Eggs Benedict and Brie and Ham French Toast

This place offered exactly what I was hoping for; a delicious western style breakfast menu with a big cup of coffee.

Plus, the interior is super cozy. The miss-matched flea market style is really well suited to its cool, below ground-level location in Itaewon. The staff all spoke great English and let us pay separately and the crowd ranged from fellow young ex-pats to locals to business men. Coming from California, where I think weekend brunch is really done right, I can say that this was the first spot in Korea to offer me dishes and an atmosphere reminiscent of San Diego’s fresh and experimental brunch plates. I couldn’t have been happier.

Jinhae Cherry Blossoms

This past Wednesday was election day and for public schools that meant a much appreciated mid-week day off. It happened to coincide with the peak of cherry blossom season as they are in full bloom all over the country. I traveled with two friends to the small, coastal town of Jinhae about 2 hours south of Daegu by train. 

Jinhae is famous for having the highest concentration of cherry blossoms in the world and holds a big festival every year. Unfortunately for us, Wednesday was a wet and gloomy day so it wasn’t ideal for photos but we wandered and enjoyed the trees nonetheless. And, naturally, it didn’t stop the hoards of couples visiting Jinhae from taking hundreds of self portraits beneath the trees. If you don’t have at least 200 photos on your smart phone, DSLR, and iPad you are clearly not doing it right. Oh, Korea.

Jinhae is a cute little town on the water and we took a stroll away from blossom-central for a bit to enjoy the view.

It even started to clear up for a bit, but once we decided it was time to head back and check out the trees the clouds made sure to roll back in. Nevertheless our seaside detour was well worth it as we found Korea’s COOLEST Family Mart:

For real.

Once at Yeojwa Stream (여좌천), the most popular spot to stroll beneath the blossoms, we were offered a beautiful sight. However it can be a bit difficult to enjoy the boardwalk or snap a picture or two when you are struggling to pass by mobile photo booths unwilling to move from their prime picture spot until they’ve captured every possible emotion and taking the perfect new image for their cyworld profile. I can’t imagine what it must have been like during the festival last weekend! Despite the grey skies failing to let those pink beauties pop to their full potential is was a really beautiful sight.

An impressive sight, a cute town, a nice day off with friends, and some tasty fair food made waking up on a day off to catch a 7am train well worth it.

*I’m fairly sure Bryan and Jen don’t read this.

Korea, Tourist style (Part II: Daegu & back to Seoul)

We took a late night KTX from Seoul to Daegu and made it to my place pretty late. We set out the next day to cram a full “Daegu experience” into one day, but stopped first for brunch downtown at my favorite breakfast spot, Chris Do’s. First stop was Seomun Market, Daegu’s biggest traditional market. The market is made up of lots of fishy smells, funny socks, and hundreds of stalls each devoted to a single product. Down each path there are numerous individual food vendors ready to serve up lunch for you to enjoy a midst busy shoppers. It’s actually a great place to pick up ingredients and household items for a good price and I’m surprised I haven’t been stopping here more often.

We grabbed the metro and went somewhere new to me, Duryu Park. I’m realizing that I have not been checking out enough of Daegu’s major attractions. Duryu park is home to our amusement park, Woobang Land, as well as a war memorial, art museum, amphitheater, and a lake. We walked around enjoying the scenery and the view of Daegu and stumbled upon a partially excavated tomb as well as some interesting statues and pathways. Eventually the cold started to get to us and we decided the time for outdoor activities was over and went back downtown to meet friends for dinner.

Most of my friends were unfortunately enjoying their vacations abroad but luckily some were still in town and we went out for jjimgalbi. In order for Phil to get the proper Daegu-night-out experience we stopped at Vinaroo for drink-in-a-bag, the farthest you will ever see 5,000won go for a cocktail, and then ended the night at one of my favorite bars, MF (which stands for “My Favorite”, imagine that). We had an early train back to Seoul the next morning so we said and early goodbye and Phil’s whirlwind Daegu experience ended. It was so nice having him in my Korean “hometown” that it just hasn’t felt the same here since he left. This visit really was far too short.

The next day we went back to Seoul and were supposed to spend that day with Phil’s parents but their tour had them scheduled to visit the snow that day so we were on our own. With Phil being exhausted from a week of overcoming jet lag and travelling non-stop, we weren’t too ambitious with our final full day. We were back in Myeongdong and decided to hunt out a hidden Jeonju style bibimbap restaurant apparently famous with Japanese tourists. The place really was packed with Japanese tourists, just as I had read it would be. The food was really good and the service was fantastic so if you are able to actually find the place I would definitely recommend it. We spent the afternoon wandering a hanok village near Myeongdong that was preparing for its New Year’s festivities. Another interestingly traditional site plopped right in the middle of bustling, modern Seoul.

In the evening we decided it was time for Phil to have some Korean BBQ IN Korea. We tried Nongoljip in Gangnam after reading it was a great bang for your buck type of place and I have to agree. The service here was great and the restaurant was really cozy. Heading to the other side of Gangnam we checked out Asia’s largest underground shopping center, COEX before calling it a night. 

On Sunday we checked out, walked around for a bit and grabbed lunch, just enjoying the day until we had to head to Seoul Station so Phil could grab the train to the airport. It was a really fun but really fast week and having Phil come and go like that has left me extremely homesick in a way I never thought I would be. I’ve never really been one to get homesick and geeze.. it really sucks. I am so happy Phil got to visit, even if for so short a time, and that I could show him a bit of my life in Daegu!!! 

Korea, Tourist style (Part I: Seoul)

Part II of my week off with Phil:

After our quick reunion in Hong Kong Phil came to spend the last few days of his vacation here in my temporary home, Korea! Phil was my first visitor from home and I was really looking forward to showing him what my life is like here in Daegu.

We took separate flights (him on his fancy Korean Air while I continued my journey in budget Chinese airlines) so he landed a few hours before I did. I prepped him with a metro pass, my Korean iPhone, and instruction on how to get from Incheon to where we were staying in Myeongdong, Seoul for the night. By the time I got there he had settled into our hotel and left pictures on my phone of the street food he had already discovered, haha. I hadn’t eated in hours and it was pretty late so we went the chicken + hof route and shared some spicy chicken where my pathetic attempt at ordering in Korean to impress the boyfriend ended up working pretty well and amusing the shop owner even more.

This was my first time doing the tourist thing in Seoul, as my previous trip up was dedicated to shopping, so we started the day with the closest and most obvious attraction, Namsan Tower. Just a short walk from our hotel in Myeongdong was the cable car at the base of Namsan Mountian, which for 8,000won offered a roundtrip ride to the base of the tower. Below the tower there are great paths and rest areas to relax and enjoy the scenery from atop Namasn. At the base of the tower there are a few restaurants and cafes as well as the Teddy Bear Museum (I’m not sure why…) but we decided to make for the main attraction and took the ride up to the viewing platform atop the tower. It was a bit cloudy that day so we couldn’t see quite as far as you might on a clear day but the view was impressive none the less… Seoul is mindbogglingly enormous. Back at the bottom of the tower we walked by all of the locks couples leave locked the the fences and read the English ones, which ranged from really adorable to super funny.

After braving the cold atop Namsan we stopped for some kimchi jjigae (김치찌개) which warmed us up really nicely. Our next stop was one of the major palaces in Seoul, Gyeongbok-gung (경복궁). The palace is massive and really beautiful and we got to witness the changing of the guards. One of the most interesting things about this site, though, is that it is right int he middle of the busy metropolis. After the palace we visited Cheonggyecheon, a stream once covered by a road but now renewed as a public recreation and art space in the middle of the city. 

We then made our way to Hongdae to fulfill one of my shameful wishes… Since coming to Korea I have started… (I don’t know how this happened!) watching… Korean dramas. A secret no more. Anyway, my favorite drama was called Coffee Prince and the shooting location is now a full-fledged coffee shop open to visitors so I just had to check it out. Drink prices are super inflated but tasty and it was worth the experience. For dinner we shared ddeokbokki (떡볶이) and spicy kimbap (김밥) at a snack stall in the busier section of Hongdae and then relaxed, sharing  a bottle of wine, at a cafe until it was time for us to grab our bags and catch the train to Daegu. Wow, after writing this out it seems we did a lot more than we thought! I guess I will have to save the rest for another post!

Hop to Hong Kong

After 5 months apart Philip and I got to take a fantastic one week vacation together. First I had to spend a whole day in transit to Hong Kong. Despite it being only a few hours away by plane I booked my flight a bit too late and had to layover in Shanghai for… 7 hours. My advice: if you can avoid a long layover at Shanghai PuDong airport, do. It’s a pretty boring place. But it was all worth it because landing in Hong Kong, one of my favorite cities, and getting to see Phil for the first time in ages was fantastic.

Sunday we went to his cousin Robin’s wedding at the Four Seasons which was super swank. Seriously, I have never felt more nervous holding a glass of red wine… and having a red wine in hand is how I reach equilibrium. The hall had an amazing view of the harbour, the decorations were gorgeous, the live band was really nice, and the food was (naturally) amazing. The couple looked to happy and everyone seemed to be really pleased. 

This is my third time going to HK with Phil so sightseeing-wise we’ve pretty much killed it. This trip was all about relaxing and doing the two things Hong Kong is best for: shopping and eating. We had a really great time doing both :) with lots of coffee breaks in between. Phil had maybe a little too much fun updating his wardrobe and I probably had a little too much fun indulging in dimsum and egg waffles (WE FOUND CHOCOLATE ONES AT TST!). I think that’s what vacation should be, though.

As it was so close to Chinese New Year we caught the first day of the fair, enjoying the sunny weather, the hilarious vendors, and all of the beautiful flower and fruit stalls. A woman handed me some pamphlets, a packet of red envelopes, and an adorable red paper fish and told me “This is for you, it’s free, we’re Catholic.” I was really enjoying the warm weather, taking a break away from Korea’s negative temperatures for a few days. 

We spend an evening on the harbor grabbing a drink at one of the many waterfront bars near Tsim Sha Tsui. Again, the nice weather made this even more enjoyable and the holiday lights on all of the buildings reflecting off the harbor were extra nice. 

Our quick trip to Hong Kong was the perfect start to our short week together which we ended in Korea, but that’s for the next post! Soon I think I will put together a post of my favorite things to do/see in Hong Kong since this short visit didn’t give me much to touch upon.