seoul - day seven (grandmother's house)

morelater...

seoul - day seven (namsan tower)

myeongdong at night

namsan tower + observatory tower

namsan tower

hearts locked, wishes wished

beautifully high places

seoul - day seven (food)

mist rising off street food

boonshik (street food)

drinking water from paper envelopes

clockwise - odeng (fishcake), soondae (blood sausage), ddukbooki (spicy rice cake)

seoul - day six

karaoke!

*intenseglare*

seoul - day five

seoul nightscape

abandoned mallscape

oh consumerism...

merry christmas

seoul - day four

samgyetang

ginseng soju shot (tosokchon)

kimchi, kakdoogi

ginseng makes beautiful flowers...

seoul - day three

Blood and Food

red bean porridge like blood

it was the solstice. my aunt says that on the solstice, koreans make/eat red bean porridge. but it used to be that they would make it to paint their doors and mantles red to keep the ghosts away on the shortest day of the year. kind of like passover.

doctors, dog flesh

we followed my grandmother out to her singing class. it takes place at a ritzy department store. she is a vip; her credit card gets us into the cafe on the top floor where we proceed to make a mess eating some baked goods (hot dogs wrapped in croissants!) we bought at the market below (we are chastised meekly). when my grandmother's class gets out, she comes and asks what we want to eat while we're in korea. i attempt to say dog stew (gae tang), am corrected (boshin tang), and looked at oddly. my aunt laughs at the thought of me asking around for boshin tang (apparently a manly thing to do). my grandmother tells about how my grandfather would wander their grounds until he caught a satisfactory dog (see previous photo). he would kill it, hang it up in the flower yard, and burn off its fur. he would invite his fellow doctor friends over (they loved this), and would sit together in the bloody flower patch, dipping slices of raw dog liver in sesame oil and slurping them up. he would then slice up the thigh meat and call over my grandmother. she would boil these strips lightly, add wild mint and bell peppers, and bring out the pan she least wanted to cook with again. over a fire outside, she would sautee the dog meat and vegetables. the doctors loved this. my grandmother told us this story (savage-like joy) wearing an ermine fur coat, brand name sunglasses perched on her powdered nose, long leather gloves jewel-studded.

paper garden

my sister is indeed seeing/likes a boy from church (29, indulgent, used to work in film) who recommended a cafe in apkujong. it took us an hour to find it, but finally, there were high white ceilings, paper trees hanging in the windows, beautiful young women evanescently skinny sipping iced(?) coffee and smoking just-as-thin cigarettes. they looked like they were made of animal bone (the cigarettes, my sister and i have remarked that they look a bit odd here). i order a risotto, the waiter asks if i'd like chicken or mushroom, he recommends the chicken, i agree, the risotto comes with chicken and mushroom and it is not a risotto. i forgive our waiter: it is still delicious. we stay at the cafe until the tables around us have switched clients three times, the sun has fallen, and it is cold as cold when we walk out.

if you invite blood to dinner

koreans believe in blood type personalities. the blood types (B, O, AB, A) all sit down to dinner. AB, being a bit spastic, gets up in the middle of eating to leave. O, being curious, follows him. A sits, still eating, worrying quietly that they both left because of him. B sits, focused on his own eating, unaware that anyone has left at all.

seoul - day one

twin dogs: they mountain-watch, home-tied.

dog: whatwhatWHAT?

me: ignore the camera. come eat this food.

winter time, these pines my grandfather planted.