One Month in Korea - Part 11

In another life, before I was adopted, I had different name.  Park Nam Ho.  These traditional seals (도장) use Chinese characters, not the Korean alphabet, as they did in old school Korea.  Many adopted Koreans never know their "true" names because their Chinese characters get lost in the giving your child up shuffle.  It's not as easy as a one to one translation, there are often many Chinese character possibilities for one Korean word.  So I had to guess my characters our of the many possibilities for Nam (I chose south) and Ho (I chose tiger).  And the last name Park has just one possibility.  This concept of once having a different name is heavy and I don't know if it's registered fully in my brain.

I dug a little into the internet and found a guy that recommended this place in Insadong for getting a seal made.  Myung Sin Dang Brush Store 명신당필방 and I can recommend this place.  They were very nice and seemed like they knew what they were doing, I would later find out their credentials are the highest

I had already researched the characters I wanted to use and they agreed it was good

designing the style of the seal.  Jen also got one that says Yoo for her and her sister.

putting my name on the side of the granite seal bar.

whilst waiting I saw that the Obamas, the Queen of Spain, the Dutch King, and Queen Elizabeth all had seals made here.  Queen Elizabeth got just an owl, WTH.  At least the Obamas got their seals in Korean letters (which is a new trend in Korea, trying to not do or say things with Chinese origins).  For example now to say thank you you should say 고맙습니다 instead of 감사합니다 which I guess has Chinese roots.  And you'll see more and more seals with Korean letters instead of Chinese characters.

Forgot to buy flowers for your expensive garosugil date?  Say no more fam, just buy it from the vending machine outside of the parking garage, she will never know.  Also we went to the same ALand store 4 times during our month in Korea because someone had to keep looking at coats there.

huge dumplings at 강서면옥 Gangseomyeonok in Apgujeong.

their specialty is Pyongyang Mul Naengmyeon, North Korean style cold noodles.  All mul naengmyeon is North Korean cuz it came from Pyongyang so It's redundant to call it that.  Wikipedia says South Koreans don't use exclusively beef broth and sugar.

bibim naengmyun originated from another city in North Korea.  The water noodle version is better here but usually I prefer the non brother version.  This place was tasty.

Galbitang at Sariwon in Coex mall.

lack of bars in Korea.  This is the only place to get a casual drink it seems like in the Kosok bus terminal.  The style of establishment they copied is the sh!ttiest kind of establishment they could have copied which is sh!tty JFK airport generic bar and grill.

dinner with Jen's mom in Shinsaegae.  These things were good but too expensive.

afterwards we went along the vast vast corridors of the basement shopping area below the express bus terminal where a lot of it has transitioned to Christmas shops.  I was determined to find a real tree and not the ubiquitous fake trees.  We eventually did find one for like $10 and we got some little lights and had ourselves the smallest most Charlie Brownest xmas tree ever in our Airbnb.  Oh also at this point we moved to an airbnb in Yeonnandong for 2 weeks

that's supposed to be Jen and Jason.