I’m in Seoul for four days while Ben is home at the Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference. I could live here — there’s lovely outdoor space in the city, plenty of yummy veggie food, an excellent subway system, and not much smog! Now, if I can only find good thai food…<\/p>\n
-=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n
Baskin Robbins has a poster up for “ice cream fondue.” They give you a pot of chocolate and then an assortment of ice cream balls n’ stuff to dip into it. Sounds like a great idea to me! Coming soon to a cold stone party near you…<\/p>\n
-=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n
Baskin Robbins and Dunkin Donuts are both “hipster” posh-ish brands here. With upholstered cushy cafe-style seating. Weird.<\/p>\n
-=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n
Seoul has done a very good job balancing green space with city-space. Many hills and small mountains around the city are left as open space, right up next to high-density mixed-use housing and shopping developments. The rivers all seem to have running\/biking paths or little parks along their banks, and I really wish I had more time to explore it all!<\/p>\n
Stacy did make sure we had time for one little mountain hike; I really enjoyed my brief visit to 9 Dragon Mountain<\/a>. It exemplified this excellent mixed-use; the mountain backed up on several neighborhoods<\/a> full of high-density apartment\/condo buildings (with retail on the ground level), and yet there was even a farm at the base of one part of the mountain — fresh produce for the neighborhood, and even conveniently available for hikers<\/a>. Awesome.<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n You know the shaved-ice-fresh-fruit-fro-yo dish we love at Gelayo Gusto? Well, here, it’s so omnipresent that KFC and Burger King serve it. Seriously.<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n Dippin’ dots for $2! Yays! That’s what it used to cost when i was in high school.<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n Crocs do not seem to be a thing here. Just in case you were wondering.<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n Korean sounds like Japanese to my very untrained ear. Also, the phrase for thank you is too darned long. I just say it really quickly so they don’t notice I’m screwing it up in the middle.<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n COEX = biggest underground mall in Asia…which I think pretty much makes it the biggest underground mall in the solar system. GEEZ it’s huge.<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n I can get from my hotel all the way into my office building (via the subway) without going outside. That’s kinda creepy. I mean, this is a Class M planet, \u00a0right? The surface isn’t a poisonous wasteland, yet…<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n Bread Talk has been superceded by “Paris Baguette” here. It’s not as good. But Merry would still be happy, there’s bread product available for purchase about every 50 feet!<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n I just had the best chap jae of my life. I took a photo<\/a> of it, it was so good. (And I do not usually photograph my food.) Apparently, Stacy called the (vegetarian buffet!<\/a>) restaurant in advance to request that they make it for the buffet line tonight because she knows it’s my favorite! I had approximately one stomach-full of it. My rugae are distended. HURTS SO GOOD.<\/p>\n -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=-<\/p>\n Incheon International Airport is officially the nicest, cleanest airport I have ever been to (with the n.b. that I haven’t been to Tokyo or Dubai). Lines were minimal, wait-times super-short, everything labeled very clearly, plenty of convenient services, decent & plentiful food choices, and incredibly clean restrooms. The buildings themselves are light and airy, but not noisy or echo-y (are you listening, SFO International Terminal?!?), and are very simple to navigate. I am both impressed and embarrassed at the state of our local airports (oh LAX, when will you join us in the 21st century?).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m in Seoul for four days while Ben is home at the Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference. I could live here — there’s lovely outdoor space in the city, plenty of yummy veggie food, an excellent subway system, and not much smog! Now, if I can only find good thai food… -=:=\u2013=:=\u2013=:=- Baskin Robbins has a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lavendrome.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}