Revisita-

Korea! (The good one. The bad one does not receive SkyTeam service). For those who missed the scintillation of 2010 in my life, I lived here! Well, not here, as we are in Seoul, but in Korea. It was nice to come back, though I was a little sad not to get the super spiffy passport lane this time (not having a visa anymore). After the flight from Hawaii, however, I was filled with magnanimity of spirit, and would say I was operating at only 50% of my top snark capabilities while waiting for the interminable movement of a number of state department cogs to grind us through passport inspection. The flight filled me with magnanimity, dear reader, because it was on an airline who, despite the language barrier, had totally mastered "business class."

LOOK AT ALL THIS BUSINESS

IT'S SO CLASSY

Along with the delightful legroom, I received my first taste of the homeland: GOCHUJANG!



Here it is, being served with lightly seared tuna bits, some champagne, and... some other stuff? Daikon and kimchi stuff? 

Stop getting distracted. GOCHUJAAAAAAANG!

That was the appetizer.

It was followed by food so complicated they gave me instructions. Plus, another tube o' gochujang!


Meat, mushrooms, rice, and some other stuff. In a bowl.







Bibimbap isn't actually that complicated, but I had been away a while, and I appreciated the reminder. The instructions, in case you are not into embiggening photos, go something like: put rice on top of the other things. Add gochujang to your heart's content. Eat that.

I mean, if you're really super into Doing Things Right, mix it all up so it's all equally distributed. Then eat it.

And people say cooking is hard.






Tragically, the later meal did not live up to its predecessor. This glistening lump is trying to be bulgogi chicken. Which is not really a thing, but it was nice of the airline to try. Anyway, it gave me a frightful flashback to the mealy mouthfuls I suffered as a passenger in economy. Once the shaking stopped, I was able to pull myself together enough to eat a cookie. Harrowing times, friends.

 Despite the disappointment of no longer being a be-visa'd visitor, immigration and collecting our gear were fairly trivial events, and kind Mr. Lee (one of... several in Korea), taxi conductor, took us to the CasaMia Hotel in Gangnam. Let it be known, one who wishes to return to this area of Seoul would do well to bear in mind NOT TO SING any song suspected of being the song of its people. Don't... don't dance, either.


Here's my room:

The hotel is run by Korean IKEA, CasaMia, and all the things in the rooms are produced by the furniture-maker. The whole neighborhood is super trendy in terms of design; it's home to the design institute of Seoul. The room was very nice, in a modern, slim-line, chic way. The best part was the part I almost completely failed to get a photo of, the chair on which my backpack is resting. It's a wing-back armchair with an ottoman. I like it. Some day I will have a chair like this again.

Ahem. Now on to pictures of the neighborhood!

Sign for the bathroom in the coffee shop across the street. That coffee shop kept weird hours, man. You couldn't even get in until 10:30, and it stayed open 'til the wee hours. On the bright side, if you came in its window of mystical opportunity, it would make you a fine latte, and sell you a delightfully squishy piece of blueberry tiramisu.

 Children's clothing store! Named after a tense! I will have thought this was funny because I like verbs!

 Look! Tiny clothes! Because the children are the future, and in Korea, they will have been perfect. 


Well, that took a darker, truth-to-power turn...




 
Just down the street from the hotel (one of several such streets, the hotel was in a warren of streets between Sinsa station and Apgujeong station) was an Italian place called, imaginatively, Wine and Pasta. Guess what we had! Go on, guess.

If you guessed meatballs and carbonara, then by God you're a good guesser! 

If you further guessed that the restaurant hooked us up with some delicious pudding, then this is getting a little freaky and you should look into that. But also you're right.

 So anyway, that's Gangnam, Day 1 Style.