My Friend Cecilia

Last Saturday, I met Robyn, a food blogger from New York, and my ex-student/friend/Korean kid sister Cecilia. We had a great time trying some of the signature Korean foods around Insadong: one of my favorite moments was when Robyn went: "Wait a minute, holy crap... there's a takeout place across the street from my workplace in New York that serves dumpling-rice-cake soup" (ddeok mandukuk)... "but this stuff is so good I didn't realize until just now I'm actually eating the same dish!" So good she didn't even recognize it. Yeh. Roboseyo knows from food.

But also, my former student/friend/Korean kid sister Cecilia was there, and basically, she's liquified cute. Despite the language gap, her outgoing character and her charm made the day more fun. The amazing thing about this is, as cute as her pictures are in the video...she's always like that, and in the most amazing achievement ever in Korean cuteness...it's completely unaffected. There's never a hint that she's putting on an act, and I don't think she is: this is just how she actually is.

So much fun. Watch the video. You'll fall in love, but you can't keep her. She's taken.

My camera has a continuous function, so that it just keeps taking shots every half second until I release the button, so often I take five or six pictures of something and choose the best. This time, I just kept it down, because she and my friend Evan were having so much fun with the camera.

Roboseyo's Bliss-out of the Week: Belle and Sebastian

Wow! Totally overwhelmed by all the commenting after my rant...not that I didn't expect it, but...

I would like to thank everyone posting for remaining respectful and presenting arguments rather than personal comments. Keep it up!

Here's your reward:

Lazy Line Painter Jane, by Belle and Sebastian. Love the guest-vocalist's voice. it's not the most all-out chained-to-the-ceiling fan bliss-out, but when the dude and the lady start singing together on the last chorus, it makes me happy.

My favorite B&S song.

Happier News: My Brother Sultan Kebab Opens in Jongno

Know this guy?

Sultan Kebab, the wonderful "My Brother" place, has opened a second location right next to Jonggak Station, nearly across the street from Tomatillo. Look on your right when you come out of Jonggak Station exit 1 and walk toward Gwanghwamun on the main street front.

On the second floor of the same building is my favorite Indian Restaurant, Durga.

Omar, the owner,
has some new items on the menu, too: the baguette sandwich was nice, with a good chewy baguette, the revani was sweet and just heavy enough.



The grand opening is Tuesday, so I lucked out finding them open on Sunday evening. They were so new that some of the menu items hadn't even been programmed into the cash register yet...but the food was all there, readers. All there.

Buddha's Birthday...a bit of video.

The Parade in Seoul


The cutest float: Thomas, the Buddhist Tank Engine


outside Bulguksa Temple...
huh?


a kid playing ssireum with his mom in one of the parks in Gyeongju. Cute. Sweet bippy I envy Gyeongju their expanses of green stuff. (It had rained the night before, so it was extra pretty.)

Tell me how much I rock...

I showed Fatman Seoul and a few others' a nice little Ddeokbokki place Toppoki poktokpi place on Wednesday, and Fatman Seoul was kind enough to write it up. Go read it here.

I rule.

I also got what amounts to a shopping list from Robyn, a food blogger from New York (The Girl Who Ate Everything), and made her a map on Google Maps of all the places you can find the different foods she wanted to try in downtown Seoul. She's free to share it with anyone she likes, and I'm going to share it with you.

Go forth. Enjoy. Some of these are repeats from the food map I gave Brian earlier, and shared on this site in January. Some of them are new.

View Robyn's Food List in a larger map