Fall Colors

The weather was fine when leaving work today, which you can see in the blue sky. As I noticed the weather, I also noticed the fall colors, and pulled out my iPhone for a few shots. First up is the walkway headed to the front gate; the next two are on the sidewalk in front of the school, and the final shot is looking across Airport Highway with the centerlane busstop.



The bright yellow are ginkos, the others are mostly maple and maybe sycamore.

Star Time Mandu

A new mandu pocha--not really restaurant, not actually a covered wagon--opened in my neighborhood about a month ago, and I finally passed by at a time I was hungry and headed home.



For those unfamiliar, 만두 mandu are Korean stuffed dumplings, steamed usually, but sometimes fried. They come stuffed with a huge variety of ingredients, as you can see from the store sign: beef, pork, squid, fish paste, kimchi, potato salad, vegetables, spicy vegetables, noodles, etc, etc.



The name means "Star Time" or similar, and that's a cute little mandu offering to cook himself for you. I posted on this topic, suicide food, yonks ago, here and here.)

I had one order of galbi mandu, rib meat, and one of large shrimp, both quite tasty, as always served with soy sauce and radish kimchi. Remember to pull the tail bit off the shrimp!

Dinner in Dangsan

Had dinner with pal Adam by Dangsan station, junction of lines 2 and 9 that I traverse pretty regularly. As you can see above, the air quality was, um, good, and 0-차​ at the CU was immediately outside exit 4.
The 'four for man won (10,000 W)' has somehow spurred on a myriad of smaller Korean breweries, and gotten the chaebol into the game.


Here's the excellent spot we selected for dinner, between exits 2 and 3, which serves both pork and beef.


I've posted a couple hundred pictures of Korean BBQ, but I just love the thick samgyupsal, which gets crispy on the outside but stays juicy inside. And check out the panchan, egg custard out-of-shot:


Here's the 'Wall of Fame' of celebrity diners, and the outside ashtray, helpfully located just beneath the 'No Smoking' sign:


And finally a shot of the amazingly well-marbled, melt-in-your-mouth 꽃살 kkotsal, "flower meat", which was a bit pricy at 18,000 W per serving, one serving shown.

My Street Market

Some random pictures of my local street market, just a couple blocks straight out exit #6 Deungchon Sta. on line 9. Fruit and veg, of course, and seafood, lots of seafood:


The shrimp kept jumping out of the box:


What got me taking pictures was this machine, which I've never seen before, extruding some kind of sesame seed snack:


Lots of other snack choices, and foods:


Coffee shops are everywhere in Seoul nowadays.
Of course, you can buy just about anything in the street. I have bought several plants from the flower shop over the years:


Finally, empty stalls, a sad sign of these Covid times:

Old-ish Mural by Guro Digital Complex Station

Went to dinner last night with old pal Adam, and he located a good place for 0-차, and sent it to me on Kakao.


Guro Digital has a wonderful eating street, but this post is not about that.
No, it's about this:


This mural on a wall across from the CU, which is in a very new building. The wall and the mural, by contrast, not particularly new, and seem to depict life in Seoul in the eighties (?).


This area used to be a grimy manufacturing hub until new government came along and tore everything (well, a lot of things) down to convert it into a high-tech hub, a digital complex. In the background below, you can see one of the big blue-glass office buildings that now dominate the landscape.


Below is a photo of me and the "neon lights of Guro-gu" taken by Tanner back in 2011.

Chuseok at Emart, 2021

Spam, or other brands of spiced ham processed meat food product like "Ri-cham", are the most popular Chuseok gifts. Chuseok, of course, is the Korean Thanksgiving holiday, the mid-autumn festival, during which time people return to their hometown, and they do so bearing gifts. The center of the second set above flavored Dong Won tuna--olive and grape. Below is a row of "anshim" or rib meat, more tuna, and a variety of cooking oils.


Check out the price of those mushrooms: 13,000 W, about US$12 per 100 grams! Below, a dried anchovy, sardine and shrimp set, and a variety of red ginsing and garlic sets.


I was surprised to realize that I have only done one post similar to this during my whole time in the Seoul Patch, back in 2009. You can have a look to see how much inflation has occured since then: when it comes to high-priced mushrooms, the answer is, not much. But gift sets aren't just food. Here's body wash, shampoo and six tubes of toothpaste, and a sanitizing nod to the times we live in:

It's that time of year ...

Springtime! And election season!

Starting with election season.


School elections first.

March is also the time when flowers start to bloom here in The Big Big City, the earliest barbinger being the kenari, or golden bell, below the first blooms and then in full bloom:


But the cherry blossoms are probably everyone's favorites:



Next Wednesday is a major by-election, particularly for mayor of Seoul--the previous mayor, Park Won-soon, seoul's longest-serving mayor, committed suicide last July in a sexual harrassment scandal. The dozen or so mayor candidates are identified by number according to party, and use a few means of feet-on-the-ground canvassing:


Same intersection, different days:



You see, and mainly hear, a lot of these, too. Trucks with giant video screens and several volunteers singing and dancing while loudspeakers blare--at my intersection from 7 AM to 8 PM, non-stop:



Big, beautiful magnolia blossoms:


And, as April arrives, the azaleas are just beginning to show off: