First, let's take a look at a traditional summer food called Samgyetang. You are suppose to eat it three times in the summer. I had my share of it when I was at JH's house a few weekends ago, and his mom made it fresh for us.

The chicken, you see there, was disassembled and broken up into pieces and made more into a soup. It was quite delicious, wholesome and I loved the little dipping side of salt and pepper.

JH had been telling me about a park nearby his house. You see the man lives in a concrete jungle in the Northeastern part of Seoul. It is an area corner to corner with "Villas" or tiny housing units. The only plant life you see in this kind of neighborhood are the ones growing out of pots from people's doorsteps. So when he mentioned "park" and "nearby my house" I certainly was curious.

Sometime after dinner we went outside and I followed him to the park, making our way towards a mountain.

I enjoyed strolling through his neighborhood as I discovered the varying kinds of homes nearby and ways people decorated and took care of the exteriors.

This is a basement unit and the outside was covered in a mix of pictures, plates and other odds and ends. I was tempted to go up and play on the xylophone, but of course didn't.


We came to the park, which was quite spacious with exercise equipment, shady trees and the typical group of old gentlemen.



JH mentioned how about ten years ago he went here with his pals to smoke, and there was no grass or tall trees at that time. Apparently, the park was pretty new a decade ago.