andyhwaiting

When I first visited Korea many, many years ago, I as well as my mom had good memories of eating 냉면 (Naeng myeon, a cold noodle dish) at a restaurant located at the top of the Lotte Department Store. As you recall, restaurants usually occupy the top floors of department stores in Korea. Naeng myeun is probably one of the few Korean dishes that I actually really like. It uses buckwheat noodles and comes in a bowl of chill beef broth. In addition to the noodles there’s usually very thinly sliced pickled radish, beef, cucumbers, Asian pear, watermelon and an egg. I usually have it at home with only cucumbers and sometimes Asian pear. I eat it most often and almost exclusively during the summer since it’s a cold dish and it’s super refreshing to consume on a hot day. Naeng Myeon is so refreshing that Jessica from Girls’ Generation and Comedian Park Myung Soo sang a awesome duet about it. Watch it, it’s funny.^^ Having good Naeng myeon is all in the soup and it usually comes with...

While my mom and aunt were chilling out at the patio, I quickly made my way across Pyeonghwa Park and headed towards the long zig-zagging set of stairs leading to Haneul Park. Haneul Park is an elevated, hill top park that is built on what was once a landfill site for garbage.  It’s hard to believe they converted it into such a beautiful park which affords not only sites from within the park but also the ability to look down at the rest of Seoul from high up above.  “Haneul” in Korean is the word for “sky”, hence the need to climb all those stairs to get one step closer to the stars.  Considering how many stairs there were, the climb wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.  Everyone was moving at a leisurely pace up and down the stairs and at the end of every flight, there was a lookout area that you could stop and rest if  you needed to catch your breath.  It was amazing to see that there were some young women in high heels making their way up the ...