Seoul, how you've aged usThree more hours left of our five hour delay.
Hardened our hearts; "teacher voice"
Give us our youth back!
A) Shaved Ice Sundaes. Also known as Patbingsu (a word I frequently mispronounce), Korea's shaved iced sundae is my biggest addiction. It's essentially a sundae where most of the icecream has been replaced by ice. If you're thinking of Italian ice, stop. Patbingsu is so different. They pour some sort of milk over the ice (sounds gross but it's not), then they add up to 5 different fresh fruit toppings - kiwi, strawberry, mango, banana, whatever, and top everything off with a scoop of ice cream or frozen yogurt. The most important ingredient, however, is the red bean. Red bean is a magical legume that replaces the many tablespoons of sugar and butter American desserts are so dependent on (I'm assuming the beans are healthy. please don't tell me if i'm wrong). Ok, so when you get your patbingsu, the first thing you do is mix everything together into a kind of icy porridge. It actually starts to look really gross but it's what you have to do to maximize the tastiness of each bite. Also I speak from experience when I say that you should never try to eat one by yourself. Your stomach will explode and you will die. Happened to a friend of a friend.
here. They have about twice the variety of donuts (melon, almond shavings, heart-shaped) and coolata flavors (greenteabanana). Click around on the website to see what I mean. It's fun. However, I specifically want to talk about one oven-fresh innovation Korean Dunks has going for it. It's called the "Chewisty" (a word I actually can only say with a korean accent "Cheweesty") and it harnesses the glutinous power of mochi to make the bread extra chewy. Nami and I discovered these in the Jeju airport on Sunday and we've averaged about 1.5 a day ever since. They come in fun shapes and flavors and bring light to our lives during an otherwise tedious day of SAT torture .
D) BBang. How do i even begin to recount my summer love affair with this food? I don't even like croissants or muffins that much but bbang is different. It comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some are painted in sugar glaze, others sprinkled with spongy bread crumbs; some are shaped like bear claws, others like balls or cubes; some are chewy like chewisty, others are filled with cream or red bean. It's like Dr. Seuss invented it. That 
whole wheat, 30-grain, 200% DV dietary fiber stuff doesn't exist here. Only bbang. Customs is going to tear open my bag to find me smuggling a whole bakery of it into the US.
And the melody, we think, sounds like the beginning of MGMT's Kids. So, there. Where subways don't go, buses do. The bus system is vast and unlike other cities, fast and reliable. Being a non-driver, I know my public transportation systems. DC - clean but limited; NY - extensive but dirty with frequent breakdowns; Boston - fails on all accounts; SF - please, you call that a public transportation system? Being from NY, having lived in DC, going to school in Cambridge, and moving to SF, I am an unbiased critic. In addition, the KTX trains race across the peninsula and the taxis are cheap! Airport limousine buses connect Seoul's two airports to all the bustling and hidden nooks and crannies of Seoul. We just took our first and second rides in them this past weekend. It was freaking awesome; we could only wish it was that easy to get home from Logan, JFK, or LaGuardia.
structures and mindsets. It's not about reducing greenhouse gases, stopping climate change, saving energy. It's about wasting less (food, energy, water, money). The practical side of sustainability really shines through -- for example, hot water for the washroom is controlled separately, by the user: you turn it on when you shower and turn it off afterwards; this way, hot water isn't running through the pipes 24/7. Most lights -- in public and private places --, revolving doors, and escalator are motion-sensored. The boiler rooms double as drying rooms. All appliances, including hand dryers in public restrooms, are unplugged when not in use. Utility bills are not included in the rent, but paid for separately by each tenant, directly to the utility company. And the garbage and recycling, oh my god. In order to dispose of "real garbage", you have to purchase special bags; these bags are small and specific to your neighborhood/district. They're not inexpensive, small, and sort of a hassle to get, so you end up trying to throw away less garbage. Recycling is free and you have to separate everything into Plastic, PET Bottles, Paper, Cardboard, Glass, Metal, and Compost. Compost is thrown away in a different area from the recycling and it's really gross (Jen does it), so you end up trying to waste less food. This is all mandatory, written into the city or national law: Genius.
here, she does. The meat is so good here. We never want to eat steak or hamburgers again. So many kinds of meat prepared in so many different ways - chicken, beef, pork -- it makes me want to curse the ground in which vegetables grow and roar, ME CARNIVORE ME EAT MEAT. Korean food is so flavorful and uses so many different flavors at once, Jen and I don't know how we're going to go back to American style Salt + sometimes Sour + Butter. It's a party in my mouth, folks, and y'all are invited. I'll leave Ice Cream/Shaved Ice, Bbang, Korean Tea, and Donuts to Jen; I know they hold a warm spot in her heart.
in huge plastic bottles that you can just carry around and swig out of and you walk to and fro. We love it. Koreans don't take advantage of this rule, as foreigners do when they visit (in touristy areas, Westerners are drunk off their asses, splashing booze everywhere, breaking bottles, littering), but it creates a nice, relaxing atmosphere in which to enjoy one's beverage. 
Seoul is currently the most interconnected city in the world, in terms of hi-speed internet access, and I know it. My iPhone picks up Wi-fi everywhere. It's quite lovely, given that I had to leave my precious 3g network behind.
