So, I can't say "agua" here to get water, huh? (By Bob)

Before I get started debriefing on the day's exploration, we wanted to thank everyone for their emails and blog comments -- hearing from all of you makes it feel like you are here with us and makes the experience that much more rich and less isolated.  Thank you all.

Now on to the blogging...

These days are days of distraction until Monday when we get to pick up Bo for good, so we've been keeping busy by sampling the local fare.  We've been pretty adventurous, going to various local restaurants that clearly do not cater to tourists.  Some have English subtitles on their menus and the wait staff speaks some English, but in others we have been in over our heads.  Everyone is really nice though and go out of their way to help.  

For example:

We decided we wanted to have mapo (dumplings) last night and found a hole in the wall place that looked popular but ended up having absolutely no English on the menu. There were a few pictures on the wall, but we couldn't match the captions with what was on the menu.  We asked the waiter for help, but he did not speak English and just kept saying "Peek" (this makes more sense later).  So we pointed at some dumplings and some round, scallop looking food in a chili sauce that the people next to us were eating.  They brought it out in a flash and it was delicious -- absolutely awesome -- and CHEAP.  The whole meal was about five dollars.  The dumplings were very much like gyoza that you get at Trader Joe's (only about 10 times better) and the scallop looking things were made of rice and had the consistency of gnocci.

While we were finishing, an older woman came over from the kitchen, "What you say American?".  Colleen and I look at each other, look back at her, smile and say "Good!"  -- thumbs up.  She looks puzzled, shakes her head, thinks on the situation for a moment and decides that she needs to rearrange her sentence.  "In American, What you say?" and points to the gnocci-like dish.  We say, "ohhhh...", discuss it for a minute or two (we have NOTHING remotely like that in the states) and can only come up with "Gnocci is the closest but it's Italian".  She asks us to write it down and then shares it with the other staff.  For the next 10 minutes they are all running around saying "gnocci" and laughing their heads off.  She returns, and again points to a picture on the menu that looks like sausage and repeats "In American, what you say?".  So we try, "Sausage" which she instantly rejects because "Sausage, beef.  No peek."  "Peek?" -- we question her and eventually find out through various miming efforts (including Bob flapping his arms and clucking like a chicken) that "peek" is "pig".  She debated us for a full 10 minutes on whether or not sausage could be made from pork.  We never came to an agreement. Very funny stuff.

Overall, we are enjoying the food although we've needed a few breaks to get something familiar.  One of the best parts of exploring for food is seeing all of the back streets and the different displays in front of the restaurants.  Some have all of their seafood swimming around 

in tanks out front.  Some have staff outside to steer you into their restaurants.  

Today we also took the metro to an enormous indoor market called "Doosa".  There were nine floors of vendors in a maze of storefronts and departments.  We ended up buying some pjs for Bo that were made in Korea, Colleen got a few tops and we went to see the new James Bond movie (good stuff).  

Back at the hotel now and we are beat.  Tomorrow we plan to see a museum and do some shopping in a more traditional area of the city. Then we are meeting some friends of friends to have dinner in the middle of Seoul.  We'll report out more later...