Yesterday was the Seoul Friendship Fair near city hall. This was my third or fourth Friendship Fair, and I must say, it was the best one so far. In previous years, the event was a little chaotic and the international food selection wasn’t so international. This year, the food booths were down the entire street next to city hall, and extended to the Cheoggye Stream. There were at least 40 countries selling delicious traditional dishes. I was also impressed by the many garbage bags, covered seating, and volunteers helping out. This was one of the few times in Seoul where I looked around and really felt the sense of internationalism that Seoul wants to portray. The weather, food, and location were great. It was a perfect day. Mark your calendars for next year. If it was anything like this year’s it’ll be another great time.

I didn’t take too many pictures because it was one of those events where you either spend too much time photographing and not eating, or eating and not photographing.  I chose to eat!

Check out the entire album on Flickr.

I ate two of those mango cups, and surprisingly, they were sold at the Columbian booth!  Paraguay had some great carne empanadas!

The left picture are Lao textiles for sale, and to the right were popular Turkish kebabs.

a quickr pickr post

We arrived in Kangneung a little later than expected because Readon woke up late, and we were behind schedule by about two hours. One we arrived on the East coast, we made Seorak-san our main excursion for the day. Our first stop was some temple on the way to Yangyang. As you can see, I’m not good with remembering things.

[Check out the entire Flickr album HERE.]

After a short stop there, we made it to a small lighthouse on the coast. Lo and behold, what did we see along the path?!

A few years ago, a photographer snapped this photo of us at the Yangyang Salmon Festival, and it has been used ever since for advertisement for the festival.

We then took the backroads to some “famous” restaurant for lunch. By the looks of it, I’m on a dongdongju binge. By binge, I mean 2-3 cups.

Unfortunately, Ras didn’t fully understand what we were having for lunch. Cold noodle soup is actually one of the few Korean foods he dislikes. It tasted good, but I personally prefer hot soups too.

Outside the restaurant were beautiful rice fields. It’s harvest time.

I had forgotten my lens cap in the restaurant and ran back inside to retrieve it. While I was gone, Ras snapped this photo.

“Oh no! Raswan, watch out! The creepy serial killer in the back seat is about to slit your throat!!!!”

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