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| Robert spent a racing 36 hours in Seoul, including stops at the city's new kimchi museum, and another featuring the country's decorative tteok sweet rice cakes. Within minutes of arrival, he met opera diva Sumi Jo, during a fitting at the country's leading haute couturier, Andre Kim. Name dropper… |
| We started our morning at the vast Yeongjong fish market, venturing into one of the numerous adjoining restaurants that prepare your purchase. The fish market is like an aquarium, with so many individual tanks handling the freshest of catches. Typically, kimchi came with the meal! Korea has got to be the world's only country where delicate raw fish sashimi is downed with a side plate of fiery fermented cabbage, and raw garlic cloves between bites. But if you've got a head cold, it's the perfect destination, and we loved the city's steaming saunas. |
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| Kimchi might easily be called the country's national dish, and it's served with literally everything. Made from fermented vegetable -- usually cabbage -- and seasoned typically with radishes, carrots, peppers, leeks, onion, garlic, ginger, and spicy with chillies, the Kimchi Field Museum is the perfect introduction to the country's national dish. Here you'll see not only examples of the earliest literature of the dish, but also demonstrations on the back terrace jangdokdae and its plethora of earthenware jars used for fermenting both kimchi, and other condiments, from soy sauce, to red bean and soy bean pastes. Actually, anything too smelly for the home interiors! You'll also find waxen models of hundreds of kimchi varieties from across the peninsula, including recipes from the hermit north. Some dishes, such as oisobagi (stuffed cucumber pickles) are not hot, and more like an eastern European cucumber. Bossam kimchi is an unlikely mix of pears, chestnuts and dates, wrapped in a cagbbage leaf and served in a bundle. If you can't get to the museum, buy the cdrom. www.kimchimuseum.or.kr |
| Other culinary highlights were the multi-coursed formal luncheon at SamcheongGak, which is actually a modern palace nestled in the vast confines of a perfectly coiffed forest-like park. Our best meal, above all, was the simple Samgyetang, or ginseng chicken soup. Although there are many eateries specializing in this dish, with Yeongyang Center (tel 02 -755-7139) often rated the finest. I was enchanted with the rustic village atmosphere of Tosokchon. It was reputedly the last prime ministers favorite. Tel 02-736 7444. Here a whole chicken is stuffed with rice, ginseng and jubube, and huge bowls of hot soup and boiled chicken are lashed out to each diner, accompanied with coarse salt. You are expected to nibble small, heat-searing raw garlic cloves throughout. Surprisingly, Koreans think of this as a summer dish, to induce sweating on the hottest of days. And speaking of jujube, Koreans serve a delicious array of teas made from sweet jam-like condiments: from citron, to quince to ginger. I cajoled an Asiana hostess to secret me a spare bottle of jujube tea at the end of my flight. Only afterwards did I discover it for sale at the wonderfully new Incheon airport. Here's another airport Bangkok's Suvarnabhoumi could have learned from… |
| Sofitel Seoul hosts one of the poshest bathhouses we've yet encountered. Besides the two dry saunas of varying degrees (and piped in television, for those addicted to Korea's internationally-popular soaps), the facilities also boast a wet sauna, and three separate soaking pools of varying degrees. The hottest was a skin numbing 48C /119F, the middle at 35C (or almost 100F) and a shivering, icy cold pool for the true masochist. As in Japan, sauna etiquette requires you to bathe before soaking. Actually, a rinse will do, then soak, and finally a true scrubbing and rinse before a final quick soak. (Always rinse well before soaking -- soap is never used in a soaking tub.) For an exhilarating experience, ask a masseuse to give you a scrub. He'll tightly wind a dry cloth around his hand and arm, then briskly remove every and all dry flake. And afterwards, another soak. Pure heaven. |
Finishing the day, was a performance of traditional Korean dance and music at the Chongdong theatre. Hour-long shows are held daily at 8 p.m., except in winter when they are held at 4 p.m., and seem as popular with the locals as it is with foreign tour groups.
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