a day in Gangnam

Dan and I hung out in Gangnam all day yesterday going to cute tea houses, aromatic coffee shops and and tasty ethnic restaurants. Gangnam itself is a very rich and glitzy district of Seoul just south of the Han River. It's where you're most likely to find the highest concentration of BMWs, overpriced Officetels, and runway model-wannabes. In short, Gangnam is where it's at.

To begin our day we met up at Paris Croissant intending to get brunch, but changed our minds since eating a sandwich and salad (both tiny) there will set you back at least 9,000 won. And if you add a coffee your meal you're looking at another 4-5,000 won on top of that. So we decided to head somewhere else for lunch since there are way better restarants around that area with much more affordable fare. We ended up at this place called Pasha (I think) which is a Turkish kebab restaurant. We started off with a appetizer of something very similar to Greek tzatziki and an oven-baked bread that was very much akin to an inflated blowfish. For our meal we ordered two different styles of kebab, one of sliced beef covered in a yogurt and tomato sauce and the other of ground beef with tomato sauce. The meal also came with a simple potato soup and wedges of baked pita bread. Once our orders arrived there was so much food that the waitress had to combine the table next to ours and our own just to fit everything. Overall I thought the food was very good, though maybe not exactly like authentic Turkish kebabs, and I especially thought the yogurt dip was fantastic. Dan on the other hand has a more discerning and critical pallet than I and thought his kebab was only so so, especially since they didn't top it with real paneer and instead used simple mozzerella cheese. For shame. :)

the yogurt dip

blowfish bread

my entree

Dan's entree

After lunch we walked to The Face Shop so I could pick up some more pressed powder since they actually have one that doesn't make my skin looked caked with mud. I was surprised to find that simply by purchasing over 10,000 won worth of stuff I also earned a free pair of flowery pink flip-flops and some other various samples. Not a bad deal for about 14,000 won. After that Dan and I headed across the street so he could look in ABC Mart for some shoes that were, as he put it, "money". Unfortunately nothing there fit that description and we both left there empty handed.

my haul from The Face Shop

After the shoe store we went to this place called O'Sulloc Tea House which specializes in green tea-based drinks and desserts. Dan had this strawberry green tea pina-coloda-type smoothie concoction while I opted for a simple hot cup of green tea flavored with apple, which were both very tasty. I wanna go back there some time and try one of their desserts as well since all their cakes and ice cream treats looked really yummy (not to mention beautiful).

the tea house

Dan's foo-foo drink

my drink, simple yet elegant

Once we left there we went to a Starbucks across the street so that Dan could work on correcting some papers for his classes, which I also helped with too. We stayed there for a few hours and were able to finish up most of his work.

coffee time!

Gangnam Starbucks

By that time I was getting antsy from all the caffeine and because we had been sitting so long, so we left there and walked around the backstreets of Gangnam for a while. We came across the cute little park along a hillside that was decorated with stone walls and well-kept bushes. We wandered around there for a bit before deciding to head back to Dan's place so he could finish up grading and I could amuse myself by watching his downloaded copy of "The Devil Wears Prada", which is not half bad by the way. After that I went home.

a scary looking statue of a Chinaman we saw on our walk

random signage

Dan in the park looking like a trucker

Tonight Dan's supposed to come over after his classes and we're going to make Pad Thai since I was able to find rice noodles and Pad Thai sauce at that one foreign foods market in Itaewon. Today though I plan on going rollerblading for a bit and then maybe packing and sorting through my clothes. Other than that, not much else going on here. I think some friends and I are planning another trip to Gyeongju for this weekend, but that's still up in the air at this point.

And now, it's rollerblading time...