Me on the Qi Ranger's YouTube Channel!

Last weekend I took Steve the Qi Ranger for a spin around my beloved Hwanghak-dong for his "Your Neck of the Woods" series. It was super fun taking him around and we were able to catch lots of stuff that I didn't think we'd be able to see, like the dog meat market (which after only a few hours of being posted has already generated 18 comments, mostly talking about dog meat... not unsurprisingly) and the tallest shoes I've ever seen in my life.

 

  Biggest shoes ever!!

Steve hard at work... 

Another cool find... 

Steve and Jo enjoying their 칼국수

 Shamanist's house...

Men near my house, hard at work

You can explore 황학동, Hwanghak-dong, too! Come to Sindang Station, exits 1, 2, 11 or 12 and just head into the neighborhood. You'll never know what you'll find!!!

Changgyonggung: 창경궁

Sorry, kind of lazy today... just photos... this was my second trip here, the first can be found here.

I was told that the chinese characters on this house mean something to the effect of "communication building" ... aka, where the king had sex.

Burial place for the placenta of births in the palace...

Love love taking photos of this sun dial. Actually won a photo contest with similar photos from my old camera 2 years ago, but the file size was so small they couldn't accept the photo in the end.... :-(

Make a wish!

Fortress Wall Neighborhood: 이화동 Ehwa-dong

A few weekends ago, just before 장마 (rainy) season began, we took a newcomer to Seoul up for another day of exploration of the Seoul Fortress Wall that I blogged about a month or two ago now. Since I'd been before, we decided this time it would be a day more for photography since the yellow dust made my photos come out so miserably the first time around. 이화동 makes a great place to take photos, and to take the same route as me, you should start from Dongdaemun, going on the high road along the fortress wall which starts across the street from Dongdaemun gate.

First we walked up to 낙산공원, Naksan Park again and caught a few interesting sights on the way up.

Reads:
창고앞 주차금지
주차시빵구
Or, "Don't park here or we'll puncture your tires."
Don't mess with this guy...

The old falling down houses in this neighborhood always impress me the most. It's hard to believe you're in Seoul when walking through this neighborhood.

Finally, we got to Naksan park and decided to double back through the park and head down through 이화동 but before we left, we came across this little garden with a long history. It's called Hong Deok's Garden and it belonged to the caretaker of a prince many many years ago during the times of serious Chinese influence in Korea. The prince had to go to China for many years before he became King and he was able to take along a woman named Hong Deok as his caretaker. She kept a garden there and cooked him many wonderful meals, as when they returned to Korea, he gave her this garden so that she could continue to grow cabbage to make the kim chi he so dearly loved. And, now, still to this day, the garden is kept up to remember Hong Deok's beloved cooking.

Then, from there, we made our way further inside 이화동 and stumbled across a little part of town where many buildings have been painted. I've never heard of this place, but apparently it's on the tourist map because we passed quite a few Japanese here snapping photos before jumping back into their tour vans.

To follow the same course we did, start from Dongdaemun station and follow the high side of the fortress wall which starts across the street from Dongdaemun gate. Follow the trail up to Naksan Park. Then head down the stairs to the left toward 홍덕이밭  or Hong Deok's Garden. From there just wonder through the streets of 이화동 (Ehwa-dong) and see what discoveries you make! It is quite close to Daehakno, so you may want to stop over there too and check out the theater district too!

Mongolian, It's What's for Dinner!

Unsuspectingly mingled among the Russian restaurants in Dongdaemun's Russia Town, there also exists a huge Mongolian population with entire buildings dedicated to Mongolian operated businesses. Unsuspectingly, because Mongolia also uses the Cyrillic alphabet like Russia, so, to the untrained eye, the two are indistinguishable by only looking at the writing.

And so, with this little bit of info, we ventured into Russia Town and found ourselves in a tall building filled only with Mongolian businesses. Mostly hair dressers, cell phone vendors and travel agents on the upper floors, but the first two floors have restaurants and a Mongolian grocery store.

We settled into the shabbier of the two restaurants we found (usually the shabbier the better tasting in my experience) and we pointed at a few things on the menu that looked interesting. My two favorites were the noodles (see first photo) and the giant fried dumplings (see below). I didn't like the galbi in the last photo at all, but others did, so I don't know. The soup (above) was good, but paled in comparison to those amazing noodles and dumplings.

Next time you're in Dongdaemun, make sure to make your way into Russia/Mongolia town across the street from Good Morning City. You never know what surprises await you!!

Dongmyo

A few weeks ago, I was walking through the Dongmyo Flea Market and was startled to see Dongmyo, the shrine itself to be open. We wondered in to take some photos.

The Dongmyo, or by it's full name Donggwanwangmyo, was built to honor the Chinese general Guan Yu. One of two such shrines built in Seoul, the other called Gwanwangmyo If it seems strange that a shrine in Korea would be dedicated to a Chinese general, you need to remember that Korea was a tributary nation to China for centuries. It was built after the Ming dynasty assisted Korea to defend themselves against Japan in the Imjin war. It's not so much that Koreans really honor this guy, but it was probably more to just placate the Chinese at the time.

Here you can see the shrine area to Guan Yu. But, you can only see from the outside, you can't go in.

Dongmyo is a nice stop if you're in the area to check out the flea market. Probably not worth a trip on it's own as I mentioned in the flea market post.

Pyeongchang 2018!!!

If you haven't heard the news yet, here it is. Pyeongchang, aka, my home away from home from January to March for ski season, has just been selected to host the Olympics in 2018. It only took them 3 tries to do it, but over the past few years, huge additions have been made to the area, including a ski jump and a second resort next to our beloved Yongpyong, called Alpensia. While Alpensia isn't big, it's got a lot of advanced trails, not to mention lots and lots of accommodations for would-be visitors to the Olympics. We've stayed in two of the newly built accommodations (thanks to the boyfriend's friend's membership) staying at the Intercontinental hotel and the Holiday Inn Suites. Both amazing accommodations, yet basically empty because it's not next to the Yongpyong, the big mountain. 

Olympians can hope to ski on trails such as these at Yongpyong:

Rainbow 2

Rainbow 2 and 3

Rainbow 2

You can ski here too, if you're up to it! It's only a 2.5 hour drive from Seoul to get to the winter wonderland of Pyongchang, a part of Korea in it's own weather bubble. Snow still falls here in April while the rest of the country is celebrating spring and winter storms dump incredible amounts of snow on this little part of Korea.

Filipino Market in Seoul

You may or may not have heard, but every Sunday Filipinos all over Seoul get together and put on a market, selling products from the Philippines and Filipino food right in the middle of Hyehwa.

On the particular day that we visited, the Seoul Global Center had some information and health check services for Filipinos.

But, as I know nothing about the advantages of Filipino shampoo over Korean or American shampoo I focused in on the food to be had.

It seemed that most of it was fried stuff, but there are some non-fried options too.

This plate of food below cost $5,000 won all together. A lot more expencive than the Philippines I'm guessing, but still not a bad price, I think. There's some meat here, plus fried bananas, fried banana in crispy shell and... something else I don't remember.

The market opens every Sunday near Hyehwa station on line 4. Go out exit 1 and walk up to the intersection, about a 3 minute walk.