As I left the lobby of the hotel in Daegu, I could have sworn I heard a cat meowing. There was a girl fiddling with her cell phone, so I figured it was just a sound from a cell phone game. I walked out and turned the corner, and there was this stunningly gorgeous cat. It had the “should I investigate or run?” look on its face, but it stayed still long enough for me to get out my camera and take some pictures. Then the cat took off, but it didn’t matter; my day was complete at that point.
I exchanged my ticket for an earlier departure (8:25 AM instead of 12:26 PM), which costs ₩400. The ticket agent took ₩1,300 off the price. From what I gather, he thought I was a senior citizen and gave me the old folks discount. I didn’t have enough Korean to explain it to him, so I just took the money.
Back in Seoul, I took some time out to relax and do the laundry at the co-op. Laundromats are hard to find in Seoul, so I was very happy that this place has a washer and dryer.
I went out later looking for lunch, and ended up at a fried chicken place. The chicken is only lightly breaded, so it’s not a grease bomb like Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was served with a side of cabbage topped with catsup and mayonnaise. (Nearly everything gets served with catsup here. Go figure.)
I also took these pictures of the area. The first one is in Russian. Apparently, there’s a reasonably large Russian expatriate community in this area, as there are a lot of bars and store signs in Russian. This is a working-class, industrial type area.
Later that evening, I went to Sincheon (west of downtown in an area with two or three universities) to meet someone with whom I had talked about computers online. He took me to a place that serves pork belly. You cook it on a little barbecue that is at the table, and you mix it with garlic, onion, and kimchi. It was OK, but we both agreed we would have been better off going to a chicken barbecue place.
As we left the restaurant, we saw people dressed up as soju bottles.
Mystifying sign of the day, and a clever cell phone holder:
