I forgot to add this photo I took on the way back from the DMZ. It’s basically a food stand on a street corner in Seoul.

I also neglected the first thing I saw when I landed at Incheon Airport in Seoul. A lovely mural, probably from the Joseon Dynasty.

The first night, of course we had to have Korean barbecue. What surprised us was that they grilled the meat for us. When we do Korean BBQ in California, we do the grilling ourselves. Everything we had was incredible. Unfortunately, California doesn’t have the best beef. We more than made up for it in Korea and Japan.

Now onto the Myeongdong Street Market. Our hotel was very close to this, so I felt comfortable going there alone. Plus we had just been there for barbecue. My son and his buddy went to the Padres/Dodgers game and had a blast. I should point out that getting tickets to the game was very involved. You basically had to live in Korea or know a Korean in the U.S. My son lucked out after a lot of research and scored two tickets from a Korean guy living in the U.S. We ran into Americans at our hotel who flew over to Seoul thinking they could get tickets from scalpers. That must be illegal in Korea because they were out of luck.

As for me, I had fun looking at all the stuff in Myeongdong.

It was a little crowded, but not too much. I could move very freely.

This looked good, but I was too full after some chicken and a churro that had ice cream. I’m guessing some kind of syrup or honey makes them shiny like that?

The shrimp looked so good!

I think these are sausages that look like little hot dogs. Not sure what the stuff in the foreground is.

You’ll notice a lot of people wearing puffer jackets. I wore one, and I’m glad I did because it was in the 30s F. at night. Seoul actually gets snow sometimes. We were there in March, so didn’t get any snow.

Another candied fruit stall.

A cute sock kiosk.

A sporting goods store was there as well, No Padres hats, alas. I would guess a lot of Koreans are familiar with the Dodgers and Yankees.

Another surprise. There were no trash cans anywhere. I finally got desperate and asked one of the vendors if he could throw away my wrapper and he very nicely obliged. In fact, wherever we went there were no trashcans. Did Koreans take trash home with them? ‘Twas a mystery. And let me tell you, Seoul was very clean.

My biggest takeaway from Korea (and Japan) was that everyone was unfailingly polite. The hotel staff bent over backwards to accommodate us. The waitstaff were so nice, it was unbelievable. This was our experience everywhere we went. I still can’t get over it.

Great weekend, everyone!

{carole}