Great noodles

DC: Seafood noodle soup, at a place called, simply, Wonju Noodles, in the south-east of the city. You'll notice in this generous mix large dumplings, mussels, squid and clams. There is also small sea snails, a first for both of us, whose tough skin (I initially thought I'd tried to bite into a nut) softens quickly in the mouth and makes for an enjoyable chew. It was possibly the best meal we've tasted since our arrival in South Korea, with plenty of spicy heat. It was all very fresh and and had tons of flavour. It was so good we could have kept eating, though we had to decline the offer of more noodles by the owner, a friendly elderly gent who helpfully spoke a good deal of English, in order to continue our afternoon trek beyond Wonju's eastern river. Lana's seated on a thin cushion on the floor in traditional Korean style, the table being all of about one foot high.

Cafe society

Bach ... Rimbaud ... Covent Garden.

Culture clash

One of several small trucks that do the neighbourhood rounds selling fruit and vegetables to the numerous small restaurants. This one's flogging the spicy Korean staple radish. The trucks have loudspeakers mounted on their roofs, and a looping recorded sales pitch to lure the restaurateurs out for a look-see. This one sounded like Joe Strummer barking a Korean version of This is Radio Clash.

What is fish?

LO: So far we have eaten out a lot, but in the last couple of days we've done grocery shopping and started to cook at home a bit more. Shopping for food has actually been quite exciting not only because of the language barrier but also the different kinds of foods that we didn't encounter in U.S. supermarkets. Yesterday we bought what looked like American or European leeks, but once we got home we read the small-print label: "green onions". They are about 3 feet long! Each market also has huge kimchi sections where one can buy either pre-packaged kimchi, radishes, green beans, and other vegetables in hot pepper paste, or buy it at the special counters that resemble salad bars. Their hot pepper ko ch'i is incredibly good and we have been eating a lot of it.

There is loads of fish and seafood that at times seems to be almost too fresh. In fact, today we decided to fry up some fish without even knowing what kind of fish it is or the right way to prepare it. But hey, it's all a big adventure, so if you recognize the fish in the pictures, please let us know what we had for lunch.
We have decided to use just local Korean ingredients and not continue cooking only our Euro-American meals (chicken and potatoes now on the back burner, so to speak). Tonight, Dave has figured out how to make an excellent man doo guk (dumpling soup) with some frozen dumplings, those gigantic green onions and hot peppers, with green beans in hot pepper paste as a side dish. We cheated a little bit by using some Made in Israel Kosher Telma chicken stock (thanks Mom for sending it!). It was incredible!