I'm back in Korea after a month in the states. Not really ready to teach students yet. Not even ready to do a post right now, but I need to get one in for August. I don't want this thing to be all passe cuz I missed a month. Right? Well, after a grueling 25 hour trip back to Korea with only 30 minutes of sleep before I had to wake up and board, I decided that I should probably take a trip out to the northeast coast of Korea to a coastal city called Seokcho. The route went something like this:
Friday, directly after work, I had planned to take a 2 and 1/2 hour bus to Injae. Injae is where my buddy Jason temporary lived until his flight back to the states. Injae is in Gangwon-do, the most beautiful province in Korea. Seriously! Check the pics below. Before I made it to the bus station to head out there, I decided it would be a grand idea to sit on my glasses. Broken. No...a run to the eyeglass store and they were good as...almost new. So, I had to rush to the bus stop. Made it! Get on the bus. Relax. Tried to sleep, but couldn't. Hopped off in Injae and I'm eating bbq with his boss and drinking soju. Here's what we were eating below:
Here is some makchang (막창) which is the....large intestine I believe. Of a pig....I believe. Very good here. This is the bbq place in the building of the bus station.
And here's the whole spread:
And below is pork meat with the bone cartilidge in it (find out the name later). Quite crunchy and very good. This is a pic of it before it was cooked:
Drinking and hell raising occurred on this night, and the next day Jason's girl came by and we headed out to Sokcho. Before we got there I got a great picture of Seoraksan right here:
Beautiful, eh? I've hiked that thing before. Took me 12 hours, and I thought I was going to die but I did it. And that's what's important...maybe. Hard. Very hard.
Not long after that shot, we ate what might have been the best meal I've ever had in my life. Below are the pictures of what we ate and I will have to ask my friend what they were again because I've never had this meal before.
Here's the spread. There's a type of jeon (전) in the middle next to the kimchi. All of these side dishes were pretty great.
Below are some kind of tofu cakes. They're in the above picture too. Really great.
This was not featured in the above picture, but this was kind of the main course. It's a tofu soup type of thing, and you could add some soy sauce to it if you liked. Personally, I thought it was great without anything added to it. Fantastic lunch.
Of course, you need some booze at the dinner table if you're gonna eat in this country, otherwise it's just not a fucking meal. Welcome to makolli world. Love this stuff.
After this, we headed to the beach, of which I don't have any pictures of, but that night we painted the town polka dots. Here is some amazing amazing food we ate, and a pic of the Sokcho bridge which featured a swarm of seagulls flying above. Really quite beautiful. It must have been the lights that attracted them. Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of the seagulls, but I do have some video I posted at the bottom of the post.
Okay, here's a bottle of makolli, which I think was the Gangwon-do variety. Each province of Korea has their own particular kinds of soju and makolli. This was Inje makolli (인제 막걸리).
Ahh!!!! Delicious. What we have in the middle is squid soondae (오징어 순대) which is basically stuffed squid, and it is fucking awesome. Above it is regular soondae which is basically a Korean sausage using pig intestines that they stuff. Sometimes it's not that great at the street stands, but here it was great. Below both is kimchi. Where would a Korean meal be without it.
The main course? Maybe, but it was some fantastic grilled fish. A definite variety, and I don't know the names of all of 'em. Maybe I can add that later. Sokcho is awesome. Everyone should go there RIGHT NOW!
And here's the finale. A video of the seagulls flying overhead:
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