번데기! Scrumptious Silkworms and Swatties

There isn't much to say here. 번데기 (beondegi) is a popular Korean street food that is quite literally boiled silkworm chrysalises. Not something an American is used to eating. I ate one.

I only did it on a dare, and it wouldn't have happened if I hadn't met some friendly and lively French people at the hostel where I was staying the night before. We and I mostly lazed around the hostel and chatted all day, and then we decided to maybe go out and sightsee something before the sun set, so we set off for Changdeokgung, an ancient Joseon Dynasty palace. I've been before, in the summer, but in January after a recent snowfall, the place seemed quite different. It was tranquil, with fewer people around, and snow crunching beneath our feet.

In front of Changdeokgung in the winter with friends from France and Korea.

The linguistic situation was quite interesting with our group. Julie, Aurelie, and another Julie were traveling together, and Ludovic was joining them from China, where he'd been studying Chinese. Ludovic also asked his Korean friend to join us; she had been in the same program as him in China. She then brought along her cousin. (They were both very generous and treated us a lot that afternoon.)

So, there were four French people, two Koreans, and myself wandering around the ancient palace, switching continually between French, Chinese, and Korean. We caved to English when the other three languages didn't work. As someone who enjoys studying languages, I felt like all those years spent in classrooms and cramming vocabulary and grammar actually paid off. For once, I got to communicate with other people in their own primary language rather than mine, and I really enjoyed it, even though it was hard work.

Beondegi in a cup. From the Korea Blog.

After wandering around the palace, Julie said that she wanted to try silkworms. It was part of her carpe diem attitude while in Korea. So, she got a cupful of them from a street vendor and spent a good five minutes psyching herself up to spear one on a toothpick and pop it in her mouth. As soon as she did, she spit it out! But since there was still a lot left, I told Ludovic, "J'en mangerai un si tu fais le même!" (I'll eat one if you do, too!) We got little beondegi on toothpicks and counted to three, and then ate them!

Well, to my surprise, the little brown thing was juicy. Warm silkworm juice squirted out as soon as I bit into it, and it was a supremely unpleasant feeling. It didn't actually taste bad at first, kind of like some sort of roasted meat. But after I swallowed it, a bitter and nasty aftertaste was left on my tongue. I washed it down with some candy that Aurelie had. Ludovic also spit his out. And... that was that! I ate bugs, you guys. In Korea. With French people. Who speak Chinese. The things you can do while you're abroad...

Julie with her cup of silkworms. Ludovic looks on in interest...

Cathy and me. She interpreted the entire evening's program!

Some last things of note: that evening (the 19th), I attended an event for Swarthmore alumni held at the Lotte Hotel. Our college president was touring Asia and stopped by to talk to alumni, some prospective students, and mostly parents of students about the college's vision and some plans for the future. The event was nice because I saw a few old faces and also because the food was excellent! There were about a hundred people present, and I think I might have been the only non-Korean under 30. Ha! But it really was nice to see a bunch of Swatties together again, especially Cathy, a current Senior from whom I hadn't heard for several months. It reminded me that yes, I do miss college. Quite a bit sometimes. But it's also time for me to move on, stop the pining, and get to work on making a future for myself.

J Kwon and me.

Speaking of seeing Swatties, I forgot to mention earlier that I saw another friend, J Kwon, whom I hadn't seen in two years because he had to do his mandatory military service. We watched Cloud Atlas together (which was mind-blowingly good) and caught up on old times.

Now that I'm back in Seoul after all of that traveling, I look forward to reconnecting with other people! There are lots of old friends and peers in the city, and actually, four weeks is starting to look like not enough time to see them all!

Walking Around Seoul (Seoul Weekend pt. 5)

In front of Gwanghwamun (광화문), the largest gate of Gyeongbokgung (경복궁). Left to right: Katelyn, Christina, Cody, Jason, Adam, and Lauren. The fans some of us are holding were freebies we got from high school students for taking a brief survey about the environmental impact of eating meat. It was really humid, so the fans were an awesome surprise.

Saturday was a drizzly and rainy day, but fortunately the showers came in spurts, so my friends and I could walk from one historic site to another without much problem. Our first stop was Gyeongbokgung (경복궁), the largest of Seoul's Five Grand Palaces of the Joseon Dynasty (조선). It was first built in the 14th century and has been destroyed and restored several times since.

We actually didn't do much there except take photos on the outside. We didn't go in because we were planning on visiting another palace later that day, and one is enough, I think. On the way to the next palace, we briefly dropped by the National Folk Museum. There were some interesting outdoor displays to look at, but it seemed kind of small. I discovered later that we never even found the museum and had only wandered around the grounds beside it. Oh well!

Funny imitations of stone statues (spirit posts?) on the grounds of the National Folk Museum.

It took us a while to find the next palace; it was only a few blocks down the road, but we made some wrong turns and had to ask for directions at an information booth. On the plus side, our path took us around the edge of Bukchon/Samcheong-dong, which was a cute and fascinating neighborhood to walk around. It kind of felt like walking around hilly Berkeley, and I'd like to go back to explore it more.

Eventually, we made it to Changdeokgung (창덕궁; 궁/gung means "palace") and went inside. We got our timing wrong and missed the English tour and the tour of the Secret Garden in the back, but I figured that walking around it would still be worth it, so we did just that. And played Contact when it began to rain heavily and we were stuck under a gate.

Changdeokgung is famed for having been built into the topography of the land around it, rather than "imposing on nature". The result is a very pretty palace grounds that nevertheless got old quick. Next time I visit, I'll be sure to join the Secret Garden tour. After taking the inevitable tourist photo and the inevitable self-serious band shot, some of us split off to visit Gwangjang Market (광장 시장), South Korea's oldest traditional market.

My kiwi smoothie (키위 스무디)! With photobombers Jason and Katelyn in the background.

When we arrived at "Gwangjang Market", we were confused because we had actually gone to Sewoon Plaza instead, and that turned out to be arcade after arcade of fan stores, stereo stores, lamp stores... nothing but electric appliances! We found a cafe to sit and re-orient ourselves while downing delicious smoothies... and then walked one block over to find the real deal. Gwangjang Market: food, traditional clothes, convenience stores, and random touristy stuff all barely organized along covered streets, or arcades, and tons of loud Koreans everywhere! Although this market is on the tourist maps, it didn't seem like many foreigners were there. Maybe these dried fish scared them away, or the ahjummas making enormous bowls of kimchi, or incredibly dense crowds.


My friends and I quickly found the "street food" section, which was two short streets crammed with food stalls like mini open-air restaurants. It was insane; it smelled amazing; it was also really, really hot. We walked down the entire length of both streets -- it was actually much smaller than your typical Taiwanese night market (夜市) -- and grabbed some ddeokbokki (떡볶이), kimbap (김밥), and all types of fried savory pancakes (부침개), like pajeon (파전)!

Gwangjang Market's street food section! It smelled so good. So good.

I love street food, especially in Asian countries where it's fried, greasy, totally unhealthy, and has mysterious meat in it. This is something I'll take advantage of while I'm here, I think! So far, Taiwan still has the best in my opinion, but we'll see if that changes after a few months!

So that was Saturday morning and afternoon. After the street food smorgasbord, we went back to our hotel and chilled, meeting up later to visit one of Seoul's famous animal cafes! Reader be warned: you are about to see lots and lots of photos of the cutest dogs ever.

Buchimgae feast! It was about ten bucks per plate; we barely finished it, but Adam on the right definitely helped us power through.