Priceless

After a busy day of family visits, I spent Tuesday in comfort. I slept in and spent the day with Junghae (정혜) who works part-time. My cousins, Dong-hee (동희) and Sangnim (상님) came over for lunch. The original plan was to go out, but my aunt wanted to make Naeng-myun (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naengmyeon). 

What was truly special was that she wanted to make it the way my grandmother's longtime caretaker use to make it who was an excellent cook. She used kimchi broth and included pork slices. So my aunt prepared the pork as well as mungbean pancakes, called bindaetteok (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindaetteok). She made the pancakes for 3 hours on Sunday night as she thought I would want to eat comfort food. Truly priceless and special! A collage of the lunch below:

My 2nd aunt stopped by as well and we chatted for awhile. The plan was for us girls to enjoy the afternoon in the city, but we ended up hanging around the apartment and chatting. My cousin Taelim (태림) came and picked us up late afternoon and we started driving around the city. We went to the center of the city and just chatted the whole way. We finally decided to walk around Bukcheon (북촌), a charming area - we did the walking tour through the old-fashioned houses and passed by cute shops. Here are a few pictures of the sunset stroll:

Afterwards, we drove by the Blue House, the presidential residence and made our way to Skyway - a park famous for couple walks. We were trying to kill time for our cousin Taesu (태수) who was still at work. A few pictures below:

We met him in Ahnguk (안국) where we had dinner. We had stuffed squid which was made to look like sausage, oysters, and drank makgeolli (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makgeolli). 

Instead of returning home to their respective families, my cousins decided we should go to Gangnam to drink and eat some more. For some odd reason, there were 24 hour hair salons everywhere - so I said we should all get drunken haircuts! My cousin explained since so many women work in this neighborhood and party here, that's why there are so many hair salons. Here's a picture of us drinking soju and sake in the dark booth of an Izakaya restaurant:

We chatted the night away sharing memorable and funny stories. I forget how wonderfully witty and sharp sense of humor my family has - it can be tough keeping up when Korean is your 2nd language. Nonetheless, the whole day was leisurely, comfortable, and wonderfully priceless!