Back to back weekends of visits!

Two of Annie’s girlfriends, I&M, hopped on flights from Seattle and the Bay Area for long weekend.  All the way here to Seoul.  Loaded with goodies along with some care packages and notes for her from the northwest.

“Active” adventures, far explorations or simple hikes are still not options, yet.  So it was again a weekend of random food discoveries around the neighborhood.  Searching for the elusive char siu bao, and yes, more fried chicken.

It started with the usual “follow reviews, totally un-google-translatable menu, type dinner”, and ended with waffles.  Hot crunchy waffles with ice cream.  She’s eyed this corner stall, also near our apartment, for a few weeks now.

Saturday morning began with brunch at Harris Coffee Park catching up with N, who just got back from the Seattle office.  He also passed us some Persian spices he stocked up on his trip.  It was a good time of conversation, and we all left stuffed.  The Big Breakfast was big, though the food didn’t feel Australian, as the place claimed to be.  The cakes in the display were the generic ones you see in Seoul, no lamingtons.

I&M met us in the afternoon after a morning exploring some sights on the northern part of the city.  We hung out and chatted.  After which, based on request, it was fried chicken time.  Time to try out yet another fried chicken stop!  It was tasty goodness.  Annie and I have decided that as much as we like the fried chicken, we’ll reserve eating it with others to avoid unhealthy indulgence.  Given the warm evening, fried chicken was followed by the classic summer cold dessert, bing su.

 

Char siu bao!  The next day repeated itself as a day of eating.  And we met with I&M to seek out dim sum.  We were all pleasantly surprised.  Even the har kau (steamed dumplings with shrimp) were meticulously made, and Annie claimed they were actually one of the best she’s ever had.

I&M also wanted to help me with my regular cleaning after our dim sum lunch.  My usual routine that took slightly over two hours was reduced to 40 minutes, with music and chatter filling the apartment.  Even after all the years of cleaning, one always notices different approaches.  Later on in the week, Annie and I would also discuss how we “swiffered” differently.  How do you swiffer the floor?  Perpendicularly as you walk forward?  Walk backward? Parallel in one long line across the room, then back?  Randomly back and forth?  How about when using a wet-swiffer?  The same pattern?  Do you step onto the wet trails or back away from them?

Annie proceeded to nap while the three of we went down to the corner cafe to chat.  And dinner, well, I think we all reached our limits for the weekend’s intake.  Soup ended up being giant cauldrons of ginseng chicken soup.  I’m not exaggerating, here’s a photo.

Not all days are blue sky days here.  Figuratively and literally speaking.  On the environmental topic, we’ve observed an easy indicator for us.  If we can’t see Lotte Tower, it’s bad.  An example photo below on a day PM2.5 went past 150.

Wishing our friends and loved ones blue sky days.