I couldn’t eat my lunch because it was alive and squirming as it was being cooked on the hot plate in front of me.

We had been enticed by the store display. It was a dish I had eaten in Seoul last time, at another restaurant.

We chose the one at the top right corner. The last time I ate this dish, it was also cooked in front of us, but the seafood was already nice and dead, neatly chopped up into unrecognisable, bite-size bits.

Not so this time.

The veges were brought out first:

Then the octopus came. At this point of time I didn’t know yet that it was still alive:

The moment it hit the hot plate, it started wriggling and squirming like crazy. It was horrible.

I can appreciate how this is done to maximise the freshness of the food, but I really don’t like seeing my lunch suffer for my sake. I prefer the killing to be done quickly and humanely.

Here’s the last picture I took before I couldn’t look anymore and had to turn away:

Kay took a video of the whole process but I don’t even want to look at the video. A few times, I turned back to face the table again because I thought the octopus must have died already but it was still squirming away.

It took about two minutes or so for it to stop squirming. That was when the lady chef started cutting it up with a pair of scissors, while it was still wriggling.

I felt quite sickened as I heard the scissors go snip snip snip and wondered what the poor octopus must be feeling.

Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy my lunch at all. Especially since it wasn’t at all tasty, compared to the previous one I had. Plus I don’t like half-cooked octopus/squid/cuttlefish, which is how the chef left it at, which I suppose is the way most people like it.

I don’t like seafood that is gooey and slimy. I prefer it overcooked and chewy, best if charred at the sides.

This was how the dish looked like after it was done:

I don’t ever want to eat this dish again.

Still on the subject of octopuses, we came across a hawker in Insadong (cultural, artistic district in Seoul) cooking slices of them on actual stones. This one looked delicious. But we didn’t buy any because we were already so full from the previous octopus dinner plus snacking on street food in Insadong.

Insadong is a great place for Korean street food. Go in the evening, say, 5+ or 6pm, because that’s when more stalls are set up.

In other news, I’m getting tired of the crazy cold so am wearing more layers when I go out, so I look more or less the same every day, all bundled up. I bought another (warmer) hat, those with flaps that hang over the ears, which helps quite a bit.

It snowed on Sunday night!

It was only a light snow, but still my first experience of falling snow, although I’ve played in the snow that was already there in an Australian mountain.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t cold when it was snowing because there was hardly any wind, so I was able to stand around and take photos.

A pretty snowflake fell on my arm!

Too bad it didn’t snow heavier. I would have liked to be covered in snow! For a while, anyway.

There’s this little shop near our apartment which calls itself “Shopping Center” and only opens at night (7pm – 11pm).

It’s become a bit of a joke to me and Kay because the first time we saw it in the day, it was closed. We saw the words “Shopping Center” on the signboard and were mildly interested because we thought it would be something nice to check out.

The next time we saw it open, we laughed. It’s just a tiny little shop selling souvenirs and Korean foodstuff.

It’s run by an elderly Chinese couple so we were able to communicate with them. They’re nice people, so we bought some seaweed snacks from them (24 packets in a bundle) but I don’t like it.

Random photo in the street:

Messy hat hair:

Kay will be admitted to the hospital today. Surgery is set for tomorrow and, if all goes well, he can be discharged by Thursday. I’ll be staying at the hospital with him throughout, where there’s no wi-fi the last time I checked, so I might not be able to blog. But will check with them again. Maybe they have a business center somewhere.

I’m actually quite looking forward to enjoying the heating in the hospital. Won’t be doing any sightseeing on my own so no cold for 2-3 days! =)

We were climbing up the steps at the subway station heading outside today when we saw a pair of riot police looking down at us.

The above photo shows the police from above and outside the station. I didn’t dare take a photo of them as we went up the steps cos I didn’t know what was going on then. (Actually, I still don’t.)

The moment we reached outside, we saw endless troops of them, all standing in formation along the street.

We were on our way to the War Memorial of Korea again because we didn’t manage to finish seeing everything the other day. The subway station is about two minutes’ walk from the War Memorial and the Korean Ministry of National Defense.

As we stood there gawking, there was suddenly some yelling and then a squad of policemen started running across the street. We couldn’t see anything interesting they might be running to, so we decided to walk down towards the National Defense building to see if anything was happening there.

Nothing much was up. Just large gatherings of press and police along the way.

They all seemed to be waiting for something but nothing happened while we were there.

Nothing directly outside the Defense Ministry, either. Just lots of police buses crowding the entire driveway.

I wanted to stay outside and wait in case something happened, but Kay wanted to go into the war museum. He said nothing was going to happen; they were just standing by in case something did happen.

When we came out again from the museum four hours later, everything had cleared. And we didn’t hear of anything happening outside while we were inside.

Not that it’s a bad thing, right? We’re still safe and sound! =D

I have too many photos of the war memorial, which is kinda scary, so I’m gonna sit on it for a bit. Today, I’ll just post up random photos of stuff I took around Seoul.

Prettily-wrapped sandwiches at a cafe called A Twosome Place:

The sandwiches and herbal chicken salad are awesome!

The last time I came to Seoul, I didn’t bump into people who were acted as mobile tourist information booths. This time, we bumped into them twice, once out in the street and once in a subway station.

One night, in Itaewon, a district full of cafes with cuisines from all over the world, while we were looking for something and occasionally referring to our Lonely Planet guidebook, these two guys came up to us and said, “Tourist information. Can we help?”

I love that!

Coin-operated Internet access at the “business center” in our apartment, lol. It costs KRW500 (S$0.60) for 30 minutes. (We do have Internet in the room, which costs KRW10,000 (S$11.50) per week.)

Got my McDonald’s fix! Big Mac tastes the same as in Singapore. The Bulgogi burger is nice.

Ad in a Korean English newspaper. Want a six-pack, anyone?

Kraze Burger is a Korean burger chain and it’s good! The patties are thick and juicy. The one with garlic in it is great, better than the classic Kraze burger.

Sweet potato peddler:

We went to this famous Korean ginseng chicken restaurant supposedly favourited by presidents. It’s called Tosokchon and it’s a few minutes walk from Gyeongbokgung Subway Station (Exit 2).

It’s really good, that is, if you like ginseng chicken soup. This is the best I’ve had so far. The soup is thick and tasty, with a mildly pleasant herbal and ginseng aftertaste. I usually hate the glutinous rice stuffing in this dish but I liked this one for its sweetness. I don’t mean sugary sweet, but more like a very subtle sweetness that teases the tongue sporadically.

Don’t order the roast chicken if you ever eat there. It’s quite mediocre and a waste of good stomach space.

It must be the persimmon season in Korea now because you see them (and mini oranges) more than any other fruits right now.

There are two types of persimmons here. One is the regular big one we can buy in Singapore. Another is a longish apple-shaped one. They’re all sold in an overripe state, which is really mushy. I guess the Koreans like it that way.

I love it! The apple-shaped ones taste like chiku, really sweet and awesome, on the outer layer. Deeper inside, you get lots of the chewy gel-looking bits that most people like in persimmons.

Sorry, I don’t have a photo of the inside because both my hands were all full of the fruit by the time I started eating. :P

The groceries we’ve accumulated over the week:

I would have more but Kay is going for his surgery next week so we’ll be staying at the hospital for 2-3 days. Will collect more groceries once he’s out.

I love eating junk food at home as much as I love eating good food outside.

Luncheon meat sandwiches! I would eat that every other day if it weren’t so unhealthy!

The first time we ate that here, I was just gonna dump the meat into the microwave to heat it up a bit. Or even just eat it straight off the can. But Kay, being more hardworking than me when it comes to preparing food, insisted on pan-frying them.

It was an excellent decision. Crispy luncheon meat is awesome! Haven’t eaten such good luncheon meat since the Ma Ling ban in Singapore dunno how many donkey years ago.

Shall eat more luncheon meat while I’m here, crazy as it seems.

Wish I had more stomachs!

You’re going to think we’re nuts but Kay and I have been talking about visiting the Korean DMZ (demilitarized zone), which separates the two Koreas.

We had looked forward to it even before coming to Korea, before the current hostile situation between the two republics. So, it just didn’t cross our minds that, maybe, we shouldn’t be visiting the DMZ right now.

We read in the papers this morning an article reporting that tourists have started to cancel trips to South Korea.

Even then, it didn’t cross our minds that, maybe, we shouldn’t be visiting the DMZ right now.

What crossed our minds was that we should visit the DMZ tomorrow morning because Kay is finally done with all his hospital tests and consultations and we want to visit it before his surgery next week.

So when we got back to our apartment, we requested at the front desk for them to help us book a DMZ/Panmunjeom tour.

The concierge called the tour office for us on the spot, spoke for a couple of minutes in Korean over the phone, then hung up the phone and looked at us.

“You can’t go there now. It’s too dangerous for you.”

That was when it crossed our minds that, maybe, it’s not such a great idea to be visiting the DMZ right now.

I would, though, if the tour agencies were operating. I guess it’s hard for current generation Singaporeans to appreciate the gravity of the situation because we’ve never been faced with war in our lives.

Also, I think the mood in Seoul is still rather mild. Sure, there are frequent reports on the situation in the papers and on TV, but I am still getting the impression that Seoulites feel pretty safe, on the whole.

It seems like it didn’t cross our Korean concierge’s mind, either, that maybe the DMZ is not a good tourist attraction to visit right now. He didn’t look at us incredulously and say, “Huh? You want to go to the DMZ now?”

I suppose it’s just as well. It’s already too cold in Seoul right now. I can’t imagine what it’ll be like up north. I am seriously gonna die from the cold; I hate it.

Okay, I’m not really gonna. I’ll step indoors to thaw out just before I keel over and die, I suppose.

According to my friends in Singapore, the world is now in an uproar over the exchange of artillery fire between North and South Korea on Tuesday. They want to know what it’s like in Seoul, getting an idea that I might be in danger.

You know what, I wouldn’t even have known of this border aggression had it not been for my friends getting all excitable on me.

Nothing has changed in Seoul, really. Everyone is still going about their daily business. The area I’m staying in is still as quiet as ever. And cold, of course. I think the biggest threat to my safety right now is the biting cold, which goes below zero degrees celsius at night.

Even if Seoulites were talking about an impending war, I wouldn’t know it, anyway. I only know two Korean phrases – “annyong haseyo” (hello/goodbye) and “kamsahamnida” (thank you).

I know less Korean than a respectable tourist ought to know.

I can imagine it’d be a lot more intense further up north but, in Seoul, I’m not getting any impression that anyone here is overly concerned about this little skirmish.

The most uproarious thing I’ve encountered in Seoul so far is this small local eatery full of soju-chugging Koreans yelling at the TV showing a soccer match between South Korea and the UAE.

This was on Tuesday night around 9 pm. The Korean diners roared whenever a goal seemed about to happen but didn’t, after which they immediately went back to their food and drinks, chatting casually among themselves, with only half an eye on the screen.

Everywhere else, everything is as I remember from my last trip. Old women are still peddling anything from fruits to wild ginseng in the streets. Youngsters are still sipping coffee relaxedly at coffee joints. Men and women clad in business suits are still forming queues in subway stations at rush hour.

The day after the first shelling took place, people were still acting the same. The first observation I made with regard to this incident was that all the newspapers (both Korean and English) had similar-looking front pages on Wednesday morning.

Kay pretending that he can read Korean:

Well, there was this other incident we encountered later in the afternoon which we thought might have been related but we couldn’t be sure, then.

We had gone to the War Memorial of Korea because Kay is a war enthusiast. (I mean in the sense of history and not that he likes to start wars or fight in them.) In fact he is so enthusiastic he’s practically insane, able to recognise and name every single military weapon and vehicle ever made during the World War II, among other equally insane capabilities.

Anyway, we went to this memorial, mostly to look at exhibits and videos of the Korean War, and we chanced upon a protest of sorts going on outside the building located opposite the memorial.

We now know that the building is the Korean Ministry of National Defense because we found the info on the tourist guide map from the memorial. But we didn’t know what was going on yesterday because it was all in Korean, the words and the speeches.

Now we’re more sure of it because after downloading the photos, we zoomed in to look at the placards, where we could see a familiar face:

But the demonstration was very contained and orderly. Someone would speak passionately into a loud-hailer and, occasionally, the masses would yell in unison and raise their flags or placards if they were holding one. Then it would go quiet as journalists crowded around to take videos or photos.

There were policemen stationed on both sides of the building, just 20 metres away from the action each way, presumably to deter violence or to contain it should any happen.

Nothing happened besides people speaking passionately. After about 10 minutes, I got bored since I couldn’t understand anything and left the main road’s pavement to go back into the memorial grounds.

So far, I’m not getting any impression that anything more crazy than this is going to happen in Seoul.

I took many photos at the war memorial. I don’t know if anyone would want to see photos of me posing with military aircraft, tanks, guns and missiles but I will show them anyway since I took loads of them.

But in another post!

Oh, by the way, South Korea lost 1-0 to the UAE. We had left the eatery before the match was over on Tuesday night but saw the results in the papers on Wednesday morning. I think it was a surprise outcome.

I wonder how the Seoulites who were still in the eatery had reacted when the match was irrevocably lost. They were pretty damned passionate every time there was a near-miss. I expect there would have been a huge hooha at the end of the match.

It’s now Thursday. Going out after posting this. Will keep my eyes peeled for more interesting happenings!

This is a notice stuck on the inside of the elevator at Ohmok-Gyo Co-op Residence, where I’m staying in Seoul.

Someone had taken the liberty to correct the English. =P

By the way, check out my Star Blog post this week about things I can’t live without.

I’m sure some of you already know some of the things I can’t live without. Go see if you’re right! ;)