Recently in korea Category

Sunday, September 17, 2006
after much tracking w/google earth, i was finally able to find minae's hometown, youngtong. it took me two hours to figure out where she lived, and the only clues i had to go on was the bus route from the samsung research institute i used to take two summers ago and the path from minae's aunt's place i used to take when i drove us around this summer. anyway, check it out below!

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within this map is everything from where we first met (cafe gahm), where we saw i-robot,
to the best gimbab nara (sushi-like rolls) resteraunt in the world according to minae's mom.
i've put some numbers up where i took some pictures: 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
korean dunkin donuts is awesome... their eateries are nice and clean, all sorts of donuts are readily accessible, and they have about 15 kinds of donuts you won't find in the states. they really ought to import some of their ideas back here in the US...

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what to order? (that's minae's friend hyemi next to her)
Friday, August 18, 2006
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we met up with some of minae's undergrad friends over at coex mall. here's yunjung
Thursday, August 17, 2006
in some business district in seoul, minae, minkyung and i went to an indian resteraunt to chow down on some vindaloo and makhani. apparently indian food is really expensive in korea and considered "high class cuisine," which is ironic since everything in india (especially food) is really cheap. anyway, on a somewhat funny note, our waiter looked exactly like my eldest brother, pete. check out the third photo...

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minae's older sis, minkyung
Monday, August 14, 2006
august 14th, 2006 marks the second year that minae and i started to date. i can't believe it's already been two years, and just like last year, we decided to retrace our day by going back some of our favorite places in the city of young-tong. since we first met in the neighborhood where minae lives, we decided to walk there...

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here i am being dorky.
Monday, August 14, 2006
the very first place that minae and i met was at this cafe called "gahm," which is the chinese character for "feeling." my friend soojin and i, along with minae's sister, minkyung, were waiting for minae to come out and meet us. as the story goes, we hit off quite well and here we are, happily engaged!

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a coaster with the cafe's name on it... i hope this place doesn't close down anytime soon...
Monday, August 14, 2006
one of the best resteraunt's we went to was this chain called eric's new york steakhouse. this place makes one of the best steaks i've eaten anywhere, and since food is relatively cheap in korea, the price wasn't that bad either (maybe about $20/person, no tip or taxes needed).

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a block away from cafe gahm is eric's steakhouse

Monday, August 7, 2006
me and minae's family took a road trip to the east coast of korea. it's a mountainous area, so we naturally headed toward one. the place we stayed at was right on the coast, but we drove about 60 kilometers southwest to a large mountain called odae mountain (오대산), which is 1.563 km tall. it's been ridiculously hot in korea, so we decided not to walk up the mountain, but instead found a nice stream to play in. it's surprising how clear mountain streams are. below are some pics:

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minae et moi
Monday, July 11, 2005
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everland is incredibly pretty at night. it's so surreal and almost like being in a fairy tale,
minus the scary antagonists

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here's one of the tulip lamps, up close
Saturday, July 2, 2005
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you see a ton of these statues around jeju
(not this one, but typically made from lava stone)
Friday, July 1, 2005

the headquarters for the o'sulloc cafe (see june 26th post) is in jeju island, where they have miles and miles of fields just for growing green tea. they housed a small museum as a tribute to this yummy plant, and, of course, on of their cafes itself.

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lots and lots of green tea

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ice cream all gone!
Thursday, June 30, 2005

(must use internet explorer to see)
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

the night before i left korea, seungjin, minae, and i dropped by the good ole heavenly sauna down the street from minae's house. i went to this one at least twice last year, and another one close by as well.

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not so happy :(

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sort of happy~

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too happy!

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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

jeju island, day 3... our tour group stops by "miniworld," a tourist site completely unrelated to the culture and history of jeju island where they put up scaled-down models of the world's largest building. in all honesty, it wasn't all that interesting, but we did get to sport new trendy $2 raincoats~ blue for boy, pink for girl!

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Monday, June 27, 2005
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kyobo added this mosaic art installation since the last time i went...
Sunday, June 26, 2005

this is a relatively new cafe that opened up - want something made from green tea? you name it, they've got it... green tea ice cream, green tea cheesecake, green tea smoothies, and, of course, green tea..

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green tea cheesecake!

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맛있어!!

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green tea ice cream!

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맛있냐??
Saturday, June 25, 2005

one of my favorite resteraunts ^^ take exit 6 gangnam stn, go up two blocks, turn left - it's right across from red mango. i first went there with soojin after getting hammered the night before, so you can imagine how good it was :p

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... or just call that number to find directions :p

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believe me... it tastes much better than it looks :p
Friday, June 24, 2005
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i still think he looks older than me haha
Thursday, June 23, 2005
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the water was clearly too cold for me :p
Wednesday, June 22, 2005

korea has a lot of these food carts where they sell pretty much the same kinds of food you see in these pictures. we got a pretty sizeable portion for only 3500W ($3.50)... so cheap! (and so yummy!!)

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