The first thing I did once I got settled in the bay post-Burning Man was buy a bicycle. The hazy cloud of Burning Man idleness lingered quite a while after the event itself was finished. My broken netbook presently in repairs didn’t help matters much, but neither did my desire to do nothing more than walk around Berkeley barefoot, eat almond croissants daily and read books about Greek mythology instead of looking for a job. I needed something to jolt me awake, something fast and intense.

I decided to pick a point on the map, cycle to it in a day, then cycle back the next day. Realizing very quickly that spinning my finger and thrusting it at the map was landing me in parts of the state with more meth labs than cheap hotels, I instead decided to limit myself to finishing some place with a hostel, narrowing it down to three plausible locations. After eliminating those places booked up until July with recession-era honeymooners, I settled on one spot – Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel, 55 miles south of San Francisco.

I started out bright and early on Monday, October the 8^th, from a friend’s place in San Francisco. Put my shiny new black panniers on, packed them up, and got ready to ride by 8:26 AM (after successfully resisting an almond croissant pitstop). After riding down 19^th Avenue onto California Highway 1 for around 15 minutes, I was out of San Francisco and on the road.

Highway 1 makes California biking a breeze. The shoulders are wide, the scenery beautiful, and the highway itself is neither dangerous nor congested. But I didn’t know this as I was leaving San Francisco. And the first thing I hit was a roaring 3-4 lane highway jam-packed with cars speeding by so fast my bike shook underneath me. I cursed everyone who told me how nice Highway 1 is, cursed the cars who couldn’t hear me, and cursed myself for not just biking to a hostel at Fisherman’s Wharf.

And to top things off, I discovered that my lane was rapidly becoming… no longer a lane. Bordered by two converging 3-lane highways of cars all going at max speed, I soon saw my shoulder taper off into nothing – or, more specifically, into a grisly bike-and-several-cars pileup. I stopped for a moment. Two moments. Three. About 78 moments later, there came a momentary lull in the flood of these automotive phalanxes, just enough time for me to scramble awkwardly all over my bike and myself to get to the other side, praying I don’t trip in front of the white Subaru rapidly coming around the bend…

The rest of the morning was relatively problem-free and extremely picturesque, as the 1 follows, for almost its whole length, the cliffs above the California shoreline. I arrived in Half Moon Bay a half an hour under schedule at 12 PM, and stopped for butternut squash soup at a downtown restaurant. Congratulating myself on my good job, I figured I could take it leisurely from here on out, and arrive at the lighthouse by 4 PM just in time to grab dinner and use their hot tub.

So, soon after, when I followed a detour sign that led nowhere and popped me out by the beach, I struck up a conversation with another confused-looking dreadlocked biker nearby, “You following the detour sign too?” “Yea… crap.” He offered me some homemade jerky and explained that his load, which piled up and spilled over the front and back sides of his bicycle, was for a tour from Canada to Mexico, whereupon he would sell his cheapo hybrid bike and backpack further on down into Latin America. He was 55 days into his journey. I sat on my nice new bike and listened to his story. He asked me how far I had gone. “Uhh, from San Francisco. Since earlier today.”

After he introduced himself as Jono and told me he was riding down to Santa Cruz we agreed to ride together, though he was fatigued from a hangover and had just woken up a half an hour ago. I didn’t mind – I figured even with my afternoon laziness and the soup in my belly, I’d be able to beat this under-the-weather veteran at his own sport.

Within moments, I was scrambling. As, I think, is typical of any two guys who bike together, every increase in speed on the part of one appears – unconsciously, at least – as a challenge to the other’s cycling prowess. And soon, even if neither biker wishes it, they are pedaling as fast as they possibly can. After about 45 minutes of this, while I was convinced that he hadn’t broken a sweat, he turned to me and said, “Damn, you are kicking my ass.” Whereupon I realized we were kicking our own asses.

We made it to Pescadero, near Pigeon Point way under schedule, around 3 PM, largely thanks to our mutual one-upmanship. Moments after I saw the sign, I noticed Jono stopped on the side of the road up ahead (he had long since beat me) and I pulled over. “There’s a beached whale, here!” he told me. I had heard about this days ago but couldn’t imagine it would still be down there when I arrived. But lo and behold.

We made fun of a mother and daughter who were posing in front of the whale “Smile for the picture, honey!” then proceeded to take our own callous snapshots in front of the hulking, dead mass. The smell, however, was atrocious – somewhere between rotting chicken and rotting fish. It was difficult to stick around long, though we made sure to scope out every angle of the 91-foot long beast and the stillborn white baby whale who was floating nearby the mother. We were not so intrepid as one spectator, who made a point to touch every angle he could find of both the mama whale and the baby.

Sufficiently brightened by the reality that we were both not dead whales and didn’t stink as bad as them, we set out for Pigeon Point. He said goodbye and continued down to Santa Cruz, his final destination. I lounged around the hostel, glad to be finished with my ride. But as I sniffed the air I noticed a hint of dead whale in the air. I asked one of the hostel residents if they smelled it as well. They didn’t. Then I realized – it was in clothes, my hair and my shoes, especially, for contact with the air and water the whale was bobbing in. And I had no other pair of shoes for my two night stay at the hostel

Then I thought of Jono and realized it could be far worse. Wherever you are, Jono, I hope that load of yours doesn’t smell too bad.

Also, though the upcoming posts are all about events that happened stateside, I am going to leave this site up as a reference for foreigners in Korea. Please refer to the sidebar on the right for some of the best posts that I have published since starting the site. There are neighborhood reviews that feature attractions, restaurants, art galleries, cafes, bars, clubs and more in neighborhoods like Apgujeong, Ewha, Samcheong, Hongdae and many other gems outside of the typical foreigner spots like Itaewon. There are features about key destinations in town, both those that are included in any travel book (like Gyeongbokgung Palace) and those that take some additional searching (like temple stays in Seoul and Ganghwa province). There are posts with information about life in Korea and teaching in public schools, as well as some humorous pieces like ad-libs with Korean students and a powerpoint game that is great for killing some time in your conversation class post-exams.

Upcoming posts will include:

• Burning Man
• Couchhopping USA
• Wwoof-woofing in California

And shortly, I will be starting a new blog featuring interviews of real people in real careers, intended to be a resource for job hunters who have no idea what the difference is between an assistant management consultant and an administrative human resources supervisor, and will also feature tips on job hunting and interviews as well as resources for pursuing the specific jobs featured on the site. The link and more information is forthcoming.

This post was originally published at Painting the Passports Brown.

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I’m sure you are all wondering what you have to look forward to upon your eventual return to America. So what have I accomplished since coming back — that is, if we are going to keep shut about that four letter word starting with a ‘j’? Well, in chronological order, I…

• Late August: Smoked cigars on a beach in New Jersey and ate nice meals on the largesse of my parents, grateful that I came home to America instead of defecting to North Korea (Well, someone’s got to teach Kim Jong-un English!).
• Early September: Came back out to California for the Burning Man festival, where I watched Disney movies, ate ice cream with my friends and played duck duck goose for a week in the desert (ha, yea right).

• Mid September: Eager to extend the Burning Man euphoria, I stayed on a mattress of Burner friends of mine for two weeks, barefooted unshaven around Berkeley, refused to check my e-mail and wore dusty playa clothes. But the counterculture novelty faded after being mistaken for a bum and the euphoria high-tailed it when my friends and I realized there were bedbugs all over the apartment.
• Spent one whole day washing everything I owned and walking around in trash bags to try not to recontaminate anything with bedbugs. Felt a paranoid psychosomatic itch for another week, and washed my meager belongings another three times. Lost a sandal, somewhere along the way.
• Early October: Moved into HiP House (a 55 person co-op in Berkeley), went down to Santa Barbara, went back into HiP House, then onto the floor of my friend’ s SF apartment, then into a pitch-black blood-red basement room at Castro House (another co-op), then onto another friend’s couch in SF, then into another windowless bunkbed basement room back in HiP house. All within less than a week and a half.
• Bought a bicycle and cycled down to Pescadero, where I stumbled upon a giant beached blue whale, 90 feet long. I somehow knew how he felt, washed ashore and unwanted in a strange land, although I was glad not to smell as godawful as him.
• Got to the Pigeon Point Hostel and realized I DID now smell like him. As did all of my clothes. And a sniffle I had that morning snowballed into heavy coughing and sneezing after the 55-mile ride, which left me stranded at Pigeon Point an extra day. At least it kept me from smelling myself.
• Mid-October: Went WWOOFing — volunteer organic farming in exchange for free room and board — at Dandelion Farms in Northern California. Missed my bus up and had to hitchhike with two drivers who both independently told me the closest town, Clearlake, was the “Capital of meth”. Ate squash and apples on the farm everyday for two weeks, built a mud hut, slept in an RV and got three splinters and 11 blisters, five of which opened up.

• Late-October: Finally moved into a place in San Francisco, the Castro property of a sweet, friendly Filipino man in his fifties, who regaled me with stories about his eventful life before giving me the deadpan look of a military general: “So, you DO love to clean, right?”

• Early November: Gathered up all my scattered belongings, consisting of headphones and duffle bag full of socks and books at my one friend’s place in SF, two suitcases at my other friend’s place in Berkeley, a backpack at Castro, a bicycle and two panniers at HiP House, two jackets I still haven’t retrieved because they are still bedbugs-infested, and a sweater I lent a friend two months ago that she left in some random woman’s garage in Berkeley.
• Now: ??? But, at the very least, a few upcoming stateside stories to warm your hearts during Korea’s kimchi shortage…

This post was originally published at Painting the Passports Brown.

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5.) Learning how to use a fork again

4.) Getting funny stares when you give clerks things with two hands.

3.) Feeling like an alcoholic when you suggest getting wasted on a Tuesday night

2.) No “Handsome teacher” ego-boost in the hallway every day.

1.) Kimchi withdrawal

After the extremes of Hongdae’s titillating art scene, this blogger needed a little break and a trip out of the city. Heyri, only 35 minutes from Seoul, proves to be just the kind of get away you ought to treat yourself to if you want a nice trek in the countryside for a day with more cafes, restaurants and galleries than you can shake a stick at. And being outside of the city, you can actually find that stick, too!

Heyri is an art village right nearby Paju Book City and features a diverse array of artists and artworks, all Korean. Even without going into the galleries, however, Heyri proves to be a beautiful place, full of interesting architecture of a very modernist stripe that seems to just sprout out of the otherwise green and open grounds.

There are, in addition to the buildings and galleries, a number of more family oriented attractions, museums about Korea and Korean culture, and other sites of interest if you are looking for a little more than art. Featured above is the Toy Museum…

…here, the Hangul museum, a history of Korea’s written language…

…and the Museum of Musical Instruments, featuring musical instruments from around the world, several of which you can play on.

But we were looking for art, and the first place we stumbled across was this one — Flower Language, an exhibit about… flowers.

I’m more of a cactus guy myself.

The next gallery, a little closer to my heart, featured food. But did it have to be squid and grapes, my two least favorite foods, and both of which happen to look awful sitting next to each other?

At the TouchArt gallery, an exhibit called Wild Nature explored the colorful possibilities of life in nature with a series of paintings much like these two.

And at Gallery SoSo, an exhibit called “In the Ragged Mountains” explored mountain landscapes, craggy surfaces and the texture of a snow-covered peak viewed from various angles — the sculpture-cum-painting above was done on a small, carved out piece of wood.

The galleries, whatever one’s opinion on the art, made good use of the space, and out here in the countryside they had plenty of that to play around with. The small block on the left placed in contrast to the larger pictures (no, not Ian’s head) was itself an art work — a compact cluster of what looked like twisted adobe tiles, with nothing else but ‘Existence’ scrawled on the bottom of it, and fit in nicely with those larger, more diffuse and anarchic swaths of paint on their tan canvas.

Book house was one of the most interesting places to visit and to browse, with its two galleries and its three floors of art books, foreign novels, prints and more. It featured another exhibit on nature and flowers. Did I mention Heyri’s diversity?

The flower photographs of Kim Jung Man were among my most favorite, putting me in the mind of Georgia O’Keefe’s labia-inspired flower paintings. The impressions of these photographs is similar, subtly erotic — either that, or I think about sex way too often.

The flower photographs were on the basement floor — on the top floor of the same Book House was this spiritually-thick space featuring glossy, dark pictures of the sky with religious words like ‘forgiveness’ written on them and, in the basement, a series of books with “knowledge” written on them with large swords driven through each one, or resting on top.

The artist’s intention, according to the exhibition literature, was to reveal the religious/spiritual experience as something beyond the dictates and strictures of a system of knowledge. The exhibit, in any case, evoked a good deal of that religious/spiritual experience, especially through the ethereal choir melismas in the looping soundtrack that accompanies the art.

As much as I love art, this is by far my favorite spot in Heyri. Called the Music Space Camerata, it features a drop-dead gorgeous sound system and a classical/jazz DJ who will play most varieties of classical, operatic and instrumental music on request — each table features pencils and paper for making requests. It is a fantastic place to get a coffee in the mid-day and relax at until dinner, taking in the diversity of music that the cafe’s patrons — or you — will request. The only catch is the 10,000 won price, but this includes a drink, infinite refills (for coffee, at least), and as many muffins as you can eat.

And, once you make your way to dinner, a good, cheaper option is Lime Tree, a restaurant cafe which serves up amazing sandwiches for around 6-7,000, including smoked salmon, bulgolgi and cheese, and chicken and bacon. Mmmm

And, for dessert, check out the Chocolate Design Gallery:

The chocolate is the art here, and masterworks at that — they include a large diversity of truffles (below) as well as cakes, cookies, brownies, and so on.

Of course, no art trip would be complete without having something to ask that timeless question at “Is it art?” Such was the dispute over this strange installation, seen on the way out of Heyri. I personally thought it was put there intentionally, as art, and not just as some decrepit functional structure fallen into desuetude. But you be the judge — is it art?

How to get there:

Go to Hapjeong Station, Exit 2. There will be a bus stop right in front of you on the right. Take bus 2200 (it will be red). After about 45 minutes, you will arrive at the “Heyri” stop — a large black stele will mark the entrance. There is an information kiosk at entrance gate 4.

For Brown Passports very last neighborhood review, the next post will continuing the tour of Hongdae with cheap eats and a night out near Children’s Park!

This post was originally published at Painting the Passports Brown

Welcome to Hongdae — leave your inhibitions behind for this art tour extravaganza, because Hongdae can get a little messy. (I’m serious, though, don’t scroll down too fast if you are at work).

Hongdae’s art galleries are scattered all around the neighborhood (Hongik University being an art university),  and this post is going to approach it from both sides — from Hongik Station, line 2, out of exit 4, and from Sangsu Station, Line 6, exit 1. One of the first things you will stumble upon from the Hongik Uni exit after turning right, walking to the end of the street, and turning left, is the above concrete park, featuring the welcoming looking pair of faces at the top of the post and the lovely water fight featured just above.

Walk past a park and take a right down the street with a FamilyMart on it. This street is the artsy cafe road of the West side of Hongdae where you can find coffee, art, or sometimes both, as in the case of Ohoo, a gallery-cafe. In addition to having an interesting interior — a bit dark but certainly atmospheric — it features a small sample of work from local artists.

Some of the cafes you will find in the art have an artistic quality in their own right. Take, for example, the Berlin Kiss:

And, of course, as with most places in Hongdae, the ubiquitous fashion photography shoots of the Hongdae students are no less common on this side of town:

Now, time for some art. After walking for 4 blocks down the cafe street and turning left, you will eventually run into this majorly tall, concrete monster of a building, here pictured in a more manageable side:

The exhibit’s title was Hysteria and featured works by a number of Korean artists of diverse purpose, provenance, and provocation. Some seemed inspired by anime — Spirited Away and their anthropomorphic animals comes to mind:

Others by…. plumbing? Warning: it’s NSFW if you look at it long enough:

Still others by a more realistic touch — these are not photographs here but photorealistic paintings. At least one of which was inspired by drunken ajosshis:

Now, approaching from the Sangsu side of Hongdae (Sangsu St, line 6, exit 1), exit the station and turn around, then turn left down the road and walk for 4-5 blocks until you see a 7-11. Turn left down this street and you will see a fork in the road — keep right, go down two blocks and turn left (right after Gr8), then walk until you see this on your right:

Called the Design Museum outside, it actually calls itself Cafe Around on the inside, and includes both a cafe space replete with tucked-away artworks and curios that give the place an exotic feel:

The view upon first entering tells all, with the enormous light-emitting metal balls hanging in a cluster from the ceiling, the antique furniture and diverse array of retro chairs scattered throughout the capacious warehouse-like space, and the Pluto writing table standing inexplicably in the midst of it all:

After grabbing a coffee and ogling the many interesting desserts featured there (i.e. banana toffee pancake; green tea banana pancake with mango, caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream), I trekked off to a free performance art happening at the Seokgyo Art Center in the middle of Hongdae. Unfortunately the festival it was part of is now finished (the 9th Korea Experimental Art Festival) but it happens annually so check it out the next time it comes around — and check out some of the other festivals Hongdae has regularly.

This was the first thing I saw upon walking onto the roof where the performance was taking place. Just a dude tying balloons to a stepladder, right? And…. a pair of eggs hanging pendulously from that stepladder, being cooked by a blowtorch, and, lookie there, a pile of porn on the floor below it all (NSFW alert!)

It may be hard to see without zooming in (don’t feel compelled to), but after tying the balloons onto the stepladder, the artist drew in black marker words like ‘ambition’ on magazine pages of porn, tied them to the balloons, and proceeded to release them into the wind to be carried off around Hongdae to whoever might stumble upon them.

Satisfaction, indeed. I just wish I was there when the unsuspecting passers-by found these enigmatic messages from the heavens.

And, on the subject of enigmas, here’s a bikini-and-freaky-mask dance party that followed the porn balloon performance! Free shots for the bemused and the befuddled alike!

(Special thanks to Seoul Selection for granting me use of their excellent maps)

If you want a gallery map of Hongdae to find your way around (and to check out places not reviewed in this post), check out Cafe Ohoo where they give out such maps for free. Directions to Ohoo are up above. Also, the Tourist Information Kiosk gives out excellent maps that focuses more on clubs and galleries than the map above.

Go wild! Next post, a rather tamer art excursion to Heyri Art Village

This post was originally published at Painting the Passports Brown

The surrounding are unspectacular, people and object alike. A smattering of apartment complex foliage, small stunted trees and a smudge of shrubbery, the flora equivalent of a pampered miniature dog. A matrix of grey concrete squares – underfoot, overhead, on support beams surrounding and scaling the walls of Posville up its 25 floors – not to mention the identically colored stone rectangles of the TechnoMart across the street. And the people, who could be the same crowd in front of any GS25, FamilyMart or 7/11 in Seoul. A group of always-drinking ajosshis with their bottles of makgeolli, paper cups and bowls of microwaved ramen, businessmen with soft drinks and cigarettes, boy and girl with iced coffees, and middle-aged women with Cass. Turquoise table, turquoise table, turquoise table and me, at green table typing – a curiosity, but one who, by virtue of his unique position, is as often as not undisturbed, left to his seclusion among drunks and revelers and talkers.

Today it rains – there is no large umbrella for my green table, so small beads of water, only a sprinkling right now, begin to gather on my laptop. Eventually I am forced to an umbrellaed turquoise table, where the spell is broken, and within five minutes I am confronted with a paper cup of makgeolli and a garrulous old man, well-spoken in English, who loves to go on at length about his job as a wine expert, salesman, and professor. He enjoys talking to me especially, for as a Californian I am familiar with the wine hotspots of America – Napa, Sonoma, etc – and the grapes on offer there. Generous and interesting, it’s impossible to shut him up; after a little resistance I thank him for the makgeolli and return to my typing, my makgeolli untouched in its cup.

I hear him, steadily getting drunker, crescendoing in speech, punctuating the air with words and gestures and occasionally letting loose one of those throat clearing syllabic screeches that seems the point of pride of so many Korean men his age. From the words I can make out, he is going on at length about different alcohols (“mikju… wine… makgeolli”) to another older man with an army veteran cap and a orange polo shirt, who talks sparingly. And, for a brief bit, I heard my name – the man, who calls himself Alexander Cho (“Alex for short”) had recently introduced himself to me. He, gesturing to me and sign spelling on a napkin, slowly articulates “Jer-min-ahrr-ee-oh. G-E-R-…”

That’s right, man, today Brown Passports is taking a chill out break in Gangnam at the hipp(i)est joint in town: Rainbow.

Rainbow is chill, wild, wide-open, cavernous, dark, light, colorful, moody, thumping with bass heavy techno, lounging with a few strummed reggae chords, utterly drunk and… well… never sober. The contrasts make for marvelous entertainment — there is no point in the night at which this place gets tired or old thanks to the wealth of live bands, late-night DJs, hookah flavors, nooks and crannies, psychedelic blankets and improvised jam-sessions. This is neither your hippy father’s club nor your rave-loving younger brother’s.

The requisite trippy-fishes, yellow submarines, Rolling Stones graffiti, travel photography and band posters greet you from the moment you walk into the club. And then, the light show, which is spread over the whole club, including a delightful little creek constructed right in front of the bar

Oooahh, far out man! The combination of candles, black lights, neon colored bucket drinks and hippy-spectrum light shows beaming wherever the eye wanders makes for very cool lounging. Really, is there any need to move around or get moving when y0u have your wine crate, your hookah, your booze and good company?

The range of hookah options makes this place a justifiably popular draw among many looking for some place to kick it on a chiller night, and the hookah is both generous and probably uniquely available in the beer-hall heavy Gangnam area. And, of course, there is really no other place to indulge in hookah but at Rainbow — its just too perfect a place not too. For those who don’t like to do their puffing in public, the many little caves and nooks scattered around provide plenty of subterranean smoking options and various places to explore.

Most importantly, the booze is cheap and plentiful. Behold, the almighty bucket!

While you sip on your potent punch, the DJ of the hour will blast whatever is appropriate for the moment — at 11 when I arrived, this was some heavy house with some crowd-pleasing remixes to get everyone energized and knocking back those buckets. The music began to mellow out, from indie dance music at 1 to Latin and World music at 2 to Bob Marley and various reggae classics around 3 AM.

But if you are still here at 3 AM, at the most ripe stage of drunken euphoria, who cares about what music the club is playing when you can play some music of your own?

Rainbow generously allows even those reckless 3 AM patrons to use the many instruments that are scattered around the bar, including the acoustic guitar featured above and the ubiquitous African drums of various shapes, sizes and timbres. So after you are finished with your umpteenth round of ‘Never Have I Ever’, pull a few of these guys together and lose yourself in a poly-rhythmic drum circle — or, perhaps more likely lose your beat in an drunken, arrhythmic one:

Or do a little of everything at once! Hookah, alcohol and African drums go together gloriously!

How to get there:

1.) Go to exit 6, Gangnam Station (line 2)

2.) Walk two blocks and turn left

3.) Walk down one block and turn right

4.) Rainbow will be another 2-3 blocks down the road, on your right
Check out next post for a special gallery tour of that ultimate hangout spot, Hongdae!

This post was originally published at Painting the Passports Brown.

For those hungry souls unfamiliar with the charms of Garosu-gil and pondering a nice, juicy burger right now (did I read your mind?) go to the previous post in this series to read all about the many restaurants on offer here. After that fantastic burger, its time for dessert!

Garosu-gil’s cafe offerings run the gamut from your chill, hip hangout places like Coffee Smith (above), which offers an excellent open air interior with plenty of space and seats, good music and cheap drinks, ranging from 3,000-5,000. For those of you put off by the considerable prices of Apgujeong’s lunch, dinner and nightlife choices, Garosu-gil is an excellent alternative, cheaper but no less classy.

Mug for Turtle, Cork for Rabbit is a case in point — this place features a cafe on its bottom floor with an array of delicious looking cupcakes and a wine and champagne bar on its upper floor, making it the perfect destination for both your afternoon coffee and your evening bottle of wine — or, for those who like to live a little more wildly, your afternoon bottle of wine and evening coffee. The prices are reasonable in both, and you can get glasses of wine for under 10,000 on the upper story.

Now, I know what you all are really reading this post for. And it’s not the “& coffee”:

Garosu-gil is one of the finest streets in town for finding amazing sweets and treats of every stripe, flavor, texture and fat content (see my post on Ewha for dessert options north of the river). Actually, that’s a lie; the only level of fat content on offer in Garosu-gil is “decadent”:

Goodevening Cupcake has cupcakes of all colors, ingredients, cultures, flavors and hairdos. All of them in cupcake solidarity, celebrating all the diversity that flour, sugar and egg can bring us, and ready to lay down their life for that admirable universal cupcake mission of… well… getting eaten! You can help them fulfill their life’s God-given mission by gobbling one of these badboys down for a mere 4,000 won.

If cupcakes aren’t your cup of tea and you long for a little something more than your standard flour/sugar/water confection, then try out some of Deux Creme’s marvellous tarts, jam-packed with some combination of fruits, nuts, creme, chocolate, meringue and utter deliciousness:

Sexy, huh? After all this cafe and dessert window-shopping, however, what I wanted was a place that would both give me the atmosphere, the quirky decor, and the expertly pressed coffee of a good cafe along with the rich, buttery, loveliness of a good cake, tart, or confection of any variety. Bloom and Goute turned out to be precisely the right place:

The menu of desserts ranging from tarts, cakes, and mousse to brownies, cookies and muffins and the full swath of connoisseurs coffee options is just part of the charm of this lovely cafe…

…but beyond the sweet selection, it’s also the best place nearby for charming, comfortable interiors full of tactful fake foliage that makes the place feel like an indoor secret garden with branching verandas, various nooks for tables, patrons and conversations, and an outdoor balcony that makes for perfect people watching high above the pedestrian streets of Garosu-gil. Or, in this case, equestrian streets (look in the center):

I guess the Ferrari was at the shop.

A little more food porn for your viewing pleasure:

Featured is my fantastic fig tart, rich, moist, fresh and full of fig flavor. Whether you gobble it down or savor the endless joy of fig and cake combined, his heavenly creation will set you back only 4,500, powdered sugar included.

Restaurants, cafes and dessert shops are not the only draw of Garosu-gil. For a little added consumer fun, the street is full of little boutiques, gallery spaces and novelty shops such as this one:

Bookbinders Design is a hipster word-lover’s dream, especially if he or she has a bit of cash at their disposal. Think the American Apparel of notebooks and stationary — you can find any writing supply your heart desires in more bright basic colors than you knew existed:

How to get there:

1.) Go to Sinsa Station, Line 3, and get out at exit 8

2.) Walk down 3 blocks and take a left. You will see a pedestrian street with many restaurants and cafes on it.

3.) Most of the places in this review can be found just by walking down this main street. The map below will help you to find most of them (forgive my scrawled notes on the paper). You can get to Good Evening Cupcake (not on the map) by turning left on the street after Mug for Rabbit, Cork for Turtle (4 blocks from the station, see map) It’s on the right.

All the other places are marked on the map, below, as well as several others. Enjoy!



(Special thanks to Seoul Selection for granting me use of their excellent maps)

Check out the next post for a psychedelic night out in Gangnam!

This post was originally published at Painting the Passports Brown.

Crammed with excellent eateries and cafes, it also serves up cuisine, coffee and confectioneries at prices far more reasonable than the nearby area of Apgujeong, which you can check out here here and here

Searching for lunch and brunch along Garosu-gil is a treat for the sheer variety you’ll find along one easy, strolling path. No need to search in vain over a whole neighborhood district with winding streets and identical-looking landmarks — here’ll you find that everything is easily laid out for your eating pleasure.

So let’s take a look at some of the many options you have here:

Navi 74 is a classy Chinese restaurant with good looking food, stylish preparation and a loungy, casual interior. (They also serve wine and coffee. You’ll find that EVERYWHERE along Garosu-gil serves wine and coffee, so this isn’t really as special as the sign makes it out to be):

Schoolfood is the closest thing you will find to gourmet riffs on the classical Korean cuisine of kimbap, tteokboki and various other Korean foods:

The variety is fantastic and above all cheap. Mari, which seem to be like kimbap rolls with a lot more variety, are their main draw, while also offering tteoboki, soups, noodle dishes and others. The prices are uniformly around 6,000-8,000 for a main dish:

And if you are looking for a hip, swinging lunch, School Food’s interior is as reminiscent of a Hongdae club as you are going to find in an affordable restaurant. The interior has flashy decorations, pumping dance music and, thankfully, enough restraint to make sure that all this doesn’t prevent you from having conversation with your dinner/lunch partner. As with many places in Garosu-gil, you can also eat al fresco near the front windows.

In case all this doesn’t leave you with enough Asian cuisine choices, check out Oriental Spoon, which boosts Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Japanese and Chinese. Quite the resume, eh? And, if that isn’t fusion-y enough for you, check out the name of the restaurant right next to it, on the left.

O’taco Burger — now if that isn’t the ultimate fusion, I am not sure what is. O’taco Burger, predictably, serves Tacos and Burgers, as well as other kindred fast food like sandwiches and and fries.

Many of the above places are open for brunch and have some brunch options. But if you want a real, full-blown Apgujeong-style brunch, this is the place for you — Le Brunchie. Though I am no expert, I am reasonably sure this means “The Brunch” in either French or Korench (what an awful coinage… sorry…). And that is, indeed, what it serves. As any good snobbish French brunch place ought, Le Brunchie takes the classic brunch menu and makes it haughtier-than-thou with a little special touch. For example, the eggs benedict with pumpkin compote, or the pancakes with figs (which is as glorious as it sounds). All the major brunch items are represented — French Toast, actual Belgian waffles, quiche, and so on.

On the opposite extreme of the scale of culinary refinement is King Kong steaks, where you can get some big, hulking, kick ass steaks, just as the name suggests. These steaks will scale skyscrapers, swat down planes, and capture helpless maidens. Keep a close eye on your date here:

Sognare, a Italian restaurant with your standard fare of Italian food, rounds out Garosu-gil with just about every ethnic food typically represented on eclectic multi-national streets such as these. Can you think of anything else?

…German food! Down a side street several blocks up from the Sinsa Station, Deli Heinzberg pops up out of nowhere, beckoning you into its German deli sanctums with its meats and cheeses and all sorts of greasy hedonistic delights so rarely experienced out here in Korea:

The restaurant itself looks exactly as if a typical, modern German deli filled with olive oils, breads, cheeses, and meats had been taken over by an alien superpower populated entirely by segmented steel sphere creatures whose brains emitted light and who enjoyed hanging from ceilings without moving.

Right… And they also sell cheese! And meat! Treat yourself — cuz you probably don’t even know what cheddar tastes like any more out here, do you?

And as for lunch and brunch offerings, look at all the possibilities! Panini’s, pizza’s, bratwurst, hamburgers, meatballs, salads, desserts, crepes!

This was the restaurant of choice for this tour — it was impossible to pass up such an irresistible menu full of so many things that can only be dreamed of while abroad. I was tempted at first to opt for the most extravagantly debaucherous item on the menu just to get my fill while I could. That’s right, The Frankenstein, Triple Decker:

“Will you rise above, or will you crumble before its Succulency?” I eventually decided that I would, indeed, probably crumble before its Succulency, and instead decided I was “ready to rumble” with the Dracula:

And what a delicious rumbling I was in for! The burger was packed with cheese, nicely cooked meat, great fresh buns and onions and crispy bacon with a spicy, tangy relish sauce and a bit of a dijon mayonnaise sauce that all-in-all turned out incredible, especially for the cheap price of 8,500 won.

The restaurant boasts plenty of delicious options, all of which were said to be amazing — included here are the “Lord of the Onion Rings” burger and a bratwurst panini with cheddar and pepperoni. Oooohhh….

How to get there:

1.) Go to Sinsa Station, Line 3, and get out at exit 8

2.) Walk down 3 blocks and take a left. You will see a pedestrian street with many restaurants and cafes on it.

3.) Most of the places in this review can be found just by walking down this main street. The map below will help you to find most of them (forgive my scrawled notes on the paper). As you notice, King Kong Steak is several blocks up from the station, on a street on the right. You can get to Deli Heinzburg (not on the map) by turning left on the street after Mug for Rabbit, Cork for Turtle (4 blocks from the station, see map) then going one block down. It’s on the left corner.

(Special thanks to Seoul Selection for granting me use of their excellent maps)

In the next post, I look for desserts and cafes in the area, finding some excellent tarts, cupcakes, and a random man riding a horse down the center of the road!

This post was originally published at Painting the Passports Brown.