Seoul Kiss (Good-bye)

This could be a street scene along Sambong-ro.
Hard to tell for sure as street-naming in Seoul does not follow American street-naming conventions,
as streets change names at intersections and side streets perpendicular to the main street get the sane name as the main street.

Last half-day in Seoul.  And I got to say:  what a great city.  I wish I had spent more time here than one full and two partial days I scheduled.  I didn't know.  Why didn't somebody tell me?

This is a series of random observations on my way out of town.  First of all, the cleanliness.

Seoul is a very clean city.  There is no litter anywhere.  But just try and find a trash can.  How does a city stay so clean when there is like, two trash cans, on the streets of a city of several million.  Las Vegas does not have nearly enough trash cans and we pay the price in litter everywhere.  Not Seoul. 

Second observation.  This is fast food in Seoul:

Street food.  I hardly saw any fast food.  There was a Burger King near my hotel.

Home of the whopper, you say?  Not just any Whopper.  This one is Home of the Bulgogi Whopper.  I had to try one.  The city does have all the international coffee chains (Starbucks, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf), and the donut franchises (Dunkin, Krispy Kreme), but I did not see a McDonald's or a Wendy's or any of the bland pizza chains.  I did see a Tim Horton's.  And a Jimmy John's.  But this is not a fast food town.

I did wander over to Gwanghwamun to pay a last visit to King Sejong:

But there was a political demonstration of some sort happening:

Lots of South Korean and U.S. flags being waved.  But amplified voices that sounded really really angry, which is rarely a good scene.  The crowd even held placards with an English language slogan familiar to many of us:  Stop the Steal.  I am guessing had to do with recent events whereby the South Korean president declared martial law and then was impeached by the legislature, unanimously I believe.  But I don't know.  I just that when a U.S. tourist sees a political demonstration in a foreign country:  get away from it.

And where did I get away to?  Lunch!

This was an outlet of the same Korean restaurant at which I ate in the upscale shopping mall in Dongdaemun Design Plaza.  With the untranslatable name.  This is basically a Korean diner, serving the Korean equivalent of diner food.  So what did I have?

In the orange dish are the Korean essentials:  kim chi and picked Korean radish.  The radish was excellent.  The kim chi?  It's an acquired taste that I am still in the process of acquiring.  This was a bit on the fresh side as it has not fermented into full funkiness yet.  In the red basket, deep-fried seaweed rolls.  Filled with rice.  The main course was pork cutlet, known to you eaters of Japanese food as tonkatsu.  Only this was tonkatsu with a twist.  And the twist was a bit of Wisconsin.  Gooey melty cheese!  Almost like a pork parmigiana, only with tonkatsu sauce and not marinara.  And in the front was a cole slaw with a dressing that tasted a lot like Marzetti's.  And Marzetti's is the best slaw dressing in the world.

What's my final verdict on Seoul?  I want to come back.  This is not really a sightseeing city, although there are sights to see.  It's more an "absorb the atmosphere" city.  And there's more to absorb.  Off to my next destination.