And we’re off!

We’re leaving in 30 minutes.  We’ll be gone for seven days, starting in the western provinces, looping through Busan, and then coming up the eastern coast.  I’m not sure what internet access will be like, but I hope that when I get back, I’ll have caught up a bit on all that I want to write about, and I’ll have lots of posts ready. There’s so much that’s happened already that I haven’t had time to blog about! Like picking our fish and eating it raw at the Noryangjin Fish Market; making five kinds of kimchi with my mother; and tasting sweet bean soup at Seoul’s Second Best Place (that’s really the name of the restaurant).  Not to mention making delicate little flour-egg crepes for 구절판, gujeolpan, “Platter of Nine Delicacies,” with Diane’s great-aunt.

So I leave you with a photo of my sister’s favorite street food, 붕어빵, bungeobbang, or little goldfish-shaped pastries filled with sweet red beans.  Don’t their tails look so cute in the paper bag?  They have a very chewy, toothsome flavor, just barely sweet enough to hold the delicately sweeter beans.  I think they’re actually Japanese in origin, but they’re very beloved in Korea.  That’s why bungeobbang deserves its own Wikipedia entry!