You know life is busy when the last post you made on your blog was the previous month’s favorites. I wrote a total of 38 pages for finals, right up till the day before Christmas Eve. Usually fall semesters end a week or so before Christmas Eve, but for some very un-Christmas-spirity reason my finals deadlines ran past Christmas. With utter determination, I managed to finish everything by the 23rd so I could spend Christmas Eve with my friends and Christmas with my family! My brother came home for the holidays so it was nice being able to spend the holidays with my whole family.
#. Fur – When the cold winter winds come to lash my face, all I want to do is bury myself in fur. I picked up this fur vest at Zara at the beginning of the month and have been sporting it everywhere. I like that it’s big, furry, and has decently sized pockets!
#. Musée d’Orsay exhibit – I was thrilled to hear that there was going to be another exhibit from the Musée d’Orsay in Seoul, because I thoroughly enjoyed the previous one that had been held in 2014 at the National Museum of Korea and my trip to the Musée d’Orsay itself in Paris. I was impressed with this exhibits curation and I’m contemplating going to see it again before it leaves Korea. I’d gone to see the 2014 exhibit a second time with no regrets, so perhaps I’ll do the same for this one!
#. Garlic Snowing pizza – If you appreciate garlic then you’ll definitely want to head over to Mad For Garlic while you’re in Korea and try their Garlic Snowing pizza. It’s their special garlic twist to the gorgonzola pizza topped with plenty of cheese and garlic. Surprisingly, the Garlic Snowing pizza has pineapple in it, but while I don’t like pineapple I don’t mind it so much in the Garlic Snowing pizza. Possibly because it doesn’t have quite as much pineapple in it as a Hawaiian pizza does.
#. Rice balls with wasabi – If you’re ever around Ewha Women’s University in Korea and you like wasabi, you must go to Ga-mi. My mom actually introduced me to Ga-mi as she had attended Ewha Women’s University back in the day and Ga-mi was around when she was going to school. Apparently they still have the same menu and they’re still going strong! I tried their spicy udon which was quite different from the normal udon, and their rice balls which were amazing! Not particularly because the rice balls themselves had some sort of secret ingredient, it was just a regular rice ball full of meat, but because they served it with soy sauce and wasabi! Generally rice balls tend to be served plain with either sautéed or marinated meat packed inside, but rarely with a sauce on the side. So while sushi with soy sauce and wasabi is a no-brainer for me, this was the first time I’d tried rice balls with soy sauce and wasabi. My verdict? An absolute winner!
#. First Starbucks in Korea – Back in high school, a misinformed friend told me that the first Starbucks in Korea was in Insadong (In-sah-dohng). Apparently she was mistaken, because I ran into this plaque inside the Starbucks at Ewha Women’s University stating that this one was the first Starbucks in Korea. The Starbucks at Insadong is still unique though, because their sign is written in Korean rather than in English. In any case, now I’ve been to both the first ever Starbucks at Pike Place Market, as well as the first Starbucks in Korea.
#. Brick Oven Pizza – Now, as I was preparing this favorites post I started to see a trend. I seem to like pizza a lot more than I’d like to admit. For those of you who jotted down the dalk-galbi-pizza that I introduced in my November favorites, scratch it out and take note of this one! I originally walked into Brick Oven Pizza in Gangnam on my own one night because I was craving pasta. The manager (or perhaps he was the owner) came over and began to persuade me that their specialty was pizza and he’d like to recommend me a pizza and a beer to go with it. Now, I’d already had their pizza before, but I was there alone so I hadn’t wanted to order an entire pan. The manager waved my concern away and said that he ordered a pizza and beer for himself all the time. It’s easy, he said, just take the leftovers home! Now, everybody knows that leftover pizza is never as good as a fresh pizza right out of the oven, but I relented and let him recommend me their Godfather pizza and a bottle of beer. Topped with pepperoni and spicy Italian sausage the Godfather pizza had me practically in raptures. If you like to add tabasco to your pizza, you must try the Godfather pizza as it beats putting tabasco on your pizza by a mile. Even the leftovers I took home tasted amazing after the pizza had cooled.
Your Turn ♥ How have the holidays been for you? What have been your favorites for this month?
