Perfectly conveyed in a Korean soap

LE was the daily adoration of one particular older woman who always made our mornings so perfect at our favorite breakfast destination.
We will miss her.

What a collection! What hi-tech way of viewing works given Samsung technology! Impressive.
They’ve got de Kooning, Warhol, Gilbert & George, Rothko, Ruscha, Giacometti, prolific Korean artists and much more.

Had no idea Koreans ate them until I was served this banchan dish that blew my mind away.

But it is getting repetitive. Shake Shack, Sweetgreen, Whole Foods, Estadio, Le Diplomate: I miss you.

Celebrity sighting at lunch today. Lee Young-Ae from the international hit Korean drama, “Dae Jang Geum”, seen eating a beef omerice at a fancy mall food court. With husband (a beast, truly) and friend. I desperately wanted to take a photo of her face but could only capture her back (she’s wearing a white blouse with black sleeves) . She was as flawlessly beautiful in person as she appears on the screen. Exceptionally beautiful. As for her husband, of course, I think he’s a beast for pimping her out to Kim Jong Il in exchange for large sums of money. And who knows about the “love child” with the former dictator? Scandalous. It’s not an accident that the link to the Joongangilbo Daily stories about this cannot be found online. 

 

Right?

Those words came out of LE’s mouth this morning as he watched an ad play out on a big screen display. 

I had lunch with an old friend today who now lives in Seoul. He was full of amusing and interesting perspectives, from the standpoint of a Korean-American. I was lamenting about the anti-American sentiment I’ve been experiencing here (more on this later) and he pointed out how backwards and far behind this country still is…..if it wants to catch up with the rest of the Western world.
Case in point:

You dial “119” in an emergency in Korea. Yes, that’s backwards from “911” in the US and other parts of the world. Information is also “114” in Korea, not “411” as in the US.

The term used to describe women who get work done on their face in none other than Gangnam district – and who end up looking similarly alike.