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We all piled into their van--Mr. Kim, Mrs. Choi, and Ryan in front, Carla, Deborah, Ms. Yang, Joe, and Tom in back--and headed to their apartment on the northwestern outskirts of Seoul. It doesn't seem that people in Korea use child car seats, which was initially very strange and scary for us, but by this time we had gotten used to it. Thankfully a car seat never became necessary! On our drive it became clear that the population density on the outskirts and in the suburbs is just as high as it is in the center of Seoul. The commercial buildings are festooned with advertisements [Image 64], but we found Hangul, the Korean written language [LINK], to be so beautiful and novel that we enjoyed seeing the ads.
Mr. Kim and Mrs. Choi live in a massive high-rise apartment block. Their building was a bit plain-looking on the outside, but the interior of their apartment was gorgeous, clean, tranquil, pleasant, and comfortable [Image 65]. We had plenty of time to visit with Mr. Kim, thanks to Ms. Yang's translating, while Mrs. Choi prepared lunch with the help of a neighbor. We ate lunch seated on the floor around a low table in the middle of the living room, a lunch that was simple yet delicious and very aesthetically pleasing, as all good Korean meals are. One of our favorite dishes prepared by Mrs. Choi consisted of julienned slices of steamed egg, watercress, cucumber, tofu, radish, and crab arrayed around a bowl of roe [Image 69] and served with sesame leaves and laver, which is seaweed that has been seasoned, rolled flat, and dried. A sesame leaf and sheet of laver are filled with the ingredients, rolled up, and dipped into soy sauce for a delicious taste treat (as you can tell from the photos and the narrative, Tom is pretty amazed with the Korean manner of cooking, presenting, and eating food!). Mrs. Choi also served us wonderful little morsels that she called "vegetable rice fists" that consisted of rice, finely chopped veggies, and ground beef rolled into oblong balls and topped with a dollop of gochujang paste. They were arranged very carefully around slices of fresh apple and were a delight to behold and to munch! Our lunch also included water kimchi and savory beef bulgogi, along with fresh grapes, cherry tomatoes, and little sausages, which were added mostly for Joe's benefit. In addition to the orange juice that was served, Mr. Kim also broke out some of his homemade wine, which was stored in a Jack Daniels bottle [Image 71, lower left corner] and was a wonderful sweet elixir with an enticing bouquet of plums and raisins. We ate to our hearts' content and truly enjoyed their company!
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