Insadong, Seoul

We've switched over to an iMac this year and I've been working on importing and organizing all of our photographs from the past ten years.  It's a big task but it's been fun going through old photos!  Now that the photos are organized, I can see that we have way more photos from 2011 (in just the past eight months) than in any other year yet.  Having this blog has given me a reason to take more photographs that I normally would and of things that I typically wouldn't have photographed in the past.  As a result, we have an amazing photo record of our life this year and will in the years to come as well.

I have more photos than I can count and while organizing them all, I've come across many that I really like and almost forgot that I had taken!  Back in April I took a trip to Seoul with a friend and we hit up the Hangang Spring Flower Festival, the Dongdaemun Fabric Market, and Insadong.  I never published the Insadong photos in a blog post so I thought I'd revisit it today.

Insadong is an arts and antiques district in Seoul.  It has one main street (a 1/2 mile long) running through it with countless small alleys branching off of it.  There is a great variety of shopping here.  Along with artwork and antiques, you will also find handicrafts, art supplies, frame shops, stationary stores, pottery and porcelain shops, book stores, a few clothing shops, and traditional souvenir shops.  Insadong also has lots of restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, and tea houses.  The best places for food and drinks are hidden in the little side alleys!  The main street is closed to traffic on weekends making it more crowded with visitors and street vendors during that time.

My friend and I walked down many little alleys looking for a place to eat and settled at this little restaurant.  There are so many alleys and restaurants in Insadong that it would be difficult to find again!

There are a lot of little side dishes in a typical Korean meal.

Seafood 'pancakes' are (in my opinion) delicious and worth trying while in Korea.  It's a layer of green onions topped with seafood (usually including shrimp, squid and octopus), covered with some sort of batter and cooked.  One is always more than enough for two (or more) people to share.

A little disturbing to look at and a little difficult to eat but this fish was really tasty!

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‎"The slower you go, the more you see."

~Author Unknown