Saturday, June 19, 2004
Insadong and Troy
I saw "Troy" today with KiSook. You can read my review of it at the Level. I'm not going to get into it again here suffice to say that it was one of the better movies I'd ever seen. I REALLY appreciate it when the fight scenes are choreographed by someone that at least knows a little bit about hand-to-hand combat and not by some dancer (fuck Van Damme). As an aside, some of the best fight scenes are from "Best of the Best". Some of the most entertaining scenes are from "Lethal Weapon 4" and "Star Wars I: Phantom Menace".
Anyway, we met in Insadong, which is downtown Seoul. It was pretty cool. The theater was built vertically, like the ones in New York, which I appreciated. After living in New York, I find suburban movie theaters to be a ridiculous waste of space, but the popcorn makes up for it. We left the theater and went to eat. We had to walk down several alleyways to get there. Some of them were tiny, narrow, winding things that made me happy to be in. Others were a little wider ... and cars would drive down them while people were walking. You would just move out of the way and the car would drive past and then you went back to what you were doing. It was no big deal.
We went to a traditional Korean place and had this "nok-cha" meal of some sort. "Nok-cha" is green tea. They brought out lettuce and tea leaves, and you cook the beef on the table in front of us (there is a grill built into the tables at Korean restaurants) and put it in the tea leaves and lettuce with some rice, maybe some hot pepper, and maybe some of this unidentifiable sauce and eat it. Oh, and you sit on the floor on a cushion and you can't wear shoes. I love these places.
Then we walked around for a while and checked out some art galleries (they are EVERYWHERE in Insadong) and then went to a tea house. We had some green tea and then noticed something on the menu ...
LEMON SOJU! One of my all-time favorite drinks. We got a bottle of it and pounded it. A big bottle, which would probably fill 2 sake carafes, cost 4000 won ... about $3.60-ish. We could have drank more, but KiSook had to go to a housewarming party in Sangil-dong, so we took off. The best Lemon Soju in the world is still from Temple on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan, though. I can't wait to go there when I get back. I'll have to go late late late at night so that we can hang out after they close and talk about Korea.
Anyway, we met in Insadong, which is downtown Seoul. It was pretty cool. The theater was built vertically, like the ones in New York, which I appreciated. After living in New York, I find suburban movie theaters to be a ridiculous waste of space, but the popcorn makes up for it. We left the theater and went to eat. We had to walk down several alleyways to get there. Some of them were tiny, narrow, winding things that made me happy to be in. Others were a little wider ... and cars would drive down them while people were walking. You would just move out of the way and the car would drive past and then you went back to what you were doing. It was no big deal.
We went to a traditional Korean place and had this "nok-cha" meal of some sort. "Nok-cha" is green tea. They brought out lettuce and tea leaves, and you cook the beef on the table in front of us (there is a grill built into the tables at Korean restaurants) and put it in the tea leaves and lettuce with some rice, maybe some hot pepper, and maybe some of this unidentifiable sauce and eat it. Oh, and you sit on the floor on a cushion and you can't wear shoes. I love these places.
Then we walked around for a while and checked out some art galleries (they are EVERYWHERE in Insadong) and then went to a tea house. We had some green tea and then noticed something on the menu ...
LEMON SOJU! One of my all-time favorite drinks. We got a bottle of it and pounded it. A big bottle, which would probably fill 2 sake carafes, cost 4000 won ... about $3.60-ish. We could have drank more, but KiSook had to go to a housewarming party in Sangil-dong, so we took off. The best Lemon Soju in the world is still from Temple on St. Mark's Place in Manhattan, though. I can't wait to go there when I get back. I'll have to go late late late at night so that we can hang out after they close and talk about Korea.
