Too old for teen movies

Today I went to watch New Moon, the new movie from the Twilight series... Grrrr!! I should definitely accept my age and get over the teen movies. This is seriously getting painful.

However, besides most of the movie, the evening was lots of fun. I went with one of my colleagues and a friend of hers and really had a great time!! Thanks girls! :)

Yet one more post about rice cakes

In one of my previous posts I mentioned receiving a box with the yummiest rice cakes ever. As the box came with an address, I decided to follow it up together with Bruno. We had indications from one of our korean colleagues and a map, so we thought it will be easy. Well, nothing is easy when written in korean. Our first mistake was taking the wrong subway exit, followed by roaming around and around and around... til arriving back at the same subway station, getting in (yes, we had to tap again), and getting out on the right exit. Eventually, we reached the place... and, yes, it definitely was worth it!!





As the place is really famous, many of the cakes were sold out. This actually proved to be a blessing as we didn't have to choose and just tried them all. Trust me, otherwise we would still be there with me trying to make up my mind (me with a lot of choices is a bad idea).

After the rice cakes tasting, we went to an area called Insadong. The main touristic attraction is a street full of traditional tea and coffee shops, and lots of small stores selling antiques, art supplies, souvenirs.









Check out the korean starbucks:



There is also some multilevel gallery that looks pretty nice:





We called it a night after having a really tasty dinner at a traditional korean restaurant:

Men deodorant

Just remembered a funny story that i wanted to write about a few weeks back, but never got around to do it. One day my portuguese friend asked me if i can help him find men deodorant. He told me that he's been looking for it for some time, but didn't manage to spot it anywhere... So, as a highly experienced cosmetics shopper, I immediately offered my services. We went to a Watson store and thought it should be fairly easy to find it. Well.. think again. We kept on looking and looking, but nothing. In the men section, they had everything ranging from all sorts of body emulsions to foot deodorants... everything except regular body deodorant. Eventually, we gave up searching on our ones and decided to take advantage of the shop assistant's english proficiency. So, Bruno picked up a women deodorant and asked the guy whether they also have it for men. Now it comes the interesting part. The seller, with a look of shock on his face, replied "Men don't use it in Korea". I think me and my friend were very rude cause we just burst into laughter just in front of him...

As a disclaimer, i need to say that this story is only based on the aforementioned experience, and i did not get any other confirmation. Moreover, my friend eventually found men deodorant in some other store from a more foreigners friendly area of seoul.

La vie en rose

For quite some time I noticed this cute moto scooter parked in front of my building. Two days back, when coming back from my yoga class, i decided to take some photos and post them on the blog (unfortunately the photos are quite bad and fail to capture the glamor :P). Notice that the helmet is just left unsecured on the scooter. The day after, when passing by the same place, the helmet was still there and I showed my surprise that it wasn't stolen over night. One of my colleagues laughed and replied that one possible reason is that no man would ever steal it... it has to be a woman.. guess he's got a point...

Don't miss the gloves. I love them!!

The sweetest thing

I think it's time for my to talk about my greatest korean discoveries: rice cakes.

There are just unlimited sorts of rice cakes, ranging from unsweetened ones, which are not necessarily meant as a dessert, to the amazingly tasteful sweet ones, which almost beat any chocolate i've ever eaten. A few days back i received a box full with the yummiest rice cakes ever (photos below). There were more to start with, but some got sacrificed on the way to my office. That was a very long 10 minutes walk.. resisting the temptation.. "Eat me, eat me, eat me"...





What i most like about rice cakes is the soft, kinda jelly but not really jelly, partially sticky feeling u have when chewing them. It feels like the unbaked dough i loved to eat when i was little.

Below are my favorite rice cakes from the usual range (not considering the fancy ones i got in the box). By usual, i mean those that u can literally find at any street corner, u don't have to get them in specialized shops:

- Second place: - sweet rice cake with red bean filling. To me this is a lot like the japanesse mochi (guess koreans would kill me if they read this :D).



- First place : unsweetened rice cake, no filling, red bean powder on the outside. I love the outside powder (first row in the photo). It's just so yummi!!

Living in an overpopulated city

Seoul is a highly populated city. According to wikipedia:
With a population of over 10 million, it is one of the world's largest cities. The Seoul National Capital Area, which includes the major port city of Incheon and most of Gyeonggi-do, has 24.5 million inhabitants, and is the world's second largest metropolitan area. Almost half of South Korea's population live in the Seoul National Capital Area, and nearly a quarter in Seoul itself, making it the country's foremost economic, political, and cultural center.Seoul has an area of 605.25 sq km.

You really become aware of this when using the public transportation. At ANY given hour, buses and subway are crowded. At peak hours, traveling on the subway requires surviving skills. Beware of traveling with acquaintances you don't really like cause the relationship is going to reach new levels of intimacy. I think it's opportune for first dates as public display of affection is a must. Guess the only place that beats this is Tokyo.

Also, the streets are always, always full of people. It's very difficult to find a less populated area. Funny, but one of the few places i found to be less crowded is the National Museum :P. At the beginning of my stay here, I was surprised by the multitude of eating places. Where do they all get customers from? Well, now i know better, no need to worry about the growth of the korean restaurant industry!

The thing is that, besides the overly crowded subway, i don't find the high number of people upsetting at all... They are all well-behaved, obey the laws and make things go smoothly :).

What's wrong??

I sincerely think there is something wrong with the world. Really!! Today I got a shocking email from one of my dearest friends in Romania, Lavi. She has been my desk mate for 12 years, ever since first grade til the end of high school. Just imagine sharing the desk with the same person for 12 years, meeting every day, sharing everything.. we did become family. Back in our childhood, Lavi used to go to her grandmother's town, which was different from the town we both lived in. There, she had a very close childhood friend, a very pretty, kind girl that I met a few times. For me, in my stupid childish mind, she was kind of the competition.. the other best friend.. Goodness, I do feel small thinking of it now. Well, the shocking news I was mentioning in the beginning is about this other girl. She died of cancer!!! How can it be??!! She was my age!! I just can't get her image out of my mind! How can this happen?

While writing this I kept on thinking that maybe i got it all wrong, maybe all these did not happen.. so i went and read again Lavi's email.. no, i was not wrong...