out in Bundang

Last Saturday evening I went to Bundang for a bit of a get-together. Chris' parents were visiting and he had organized a bit of a dinner party for them and his friends - the visit corresponded with his parents' wedding anniversary and his father's birthday.
The original plan was to go to Carne Station (one in Bundang), an all you can eat and drink restaurant, but it apparently shut down recently. So, we went for some kalbi (meat).

I love kalbi restaurants here. It is basically just meat that you cook on a little grill in the middle of the table.

There are always a variety of side dishes to eat alone or with the meat. Lettuce (to wrap the meat in, garlic, kimchi, some sort of green onion dish and a somewhat spicy dwenjang (bean paste) dip are fairly standard. At the place we went, there were also mushrooms, squid, tofu and some sort of egg dish. We also ordered rice, which is VERY cheap and comes with a hot dish of dwenjang chigae (bean paste stew). I LOVE IT!

At the end of the meal, they also brought out complementary dishes of an egg soup type thingy - well, more like a bowl of steamed egg. The dinner, of course, was accompanied by drinking - beer, soju

and some sort of Korean wine (called Cheong-ha).

After dinner, the parents went home and the rest of us, about 18, mostly foreigners, bought some drinks at the local convenience store and headed down to the river to enjoy them.

Once we had all run out of drinks, we went to Jared's apartment nearby to hang out some more.

A few of us ended up staying there for the night, as the public transportation into Seoul ended at 12 midnight and a taxi would have been too expensive. I got up very early in the morning (7AM) and left before the others were up as I had company coming in the morning.

To get to the subway staion, I walked along the way we took the previous evening along the river. There are bike and walking paths all the way along the river that follow the river all the way to the Han River in Seoul. Where we were sitting the evening before is just to the left of the far tents on the right. The little area has a couple of little water features and a long stretch of textured path:

sections of different textures (soft small round rocks, larger round rocks, sharper rocks, bars, etc) that you walk on in bare feet - it is supposed to help the accupressure points in the feet which are linked to the rest of the body.