Food and Chilbo or is it Chilbo and Food?

One of my favorite pictures of Nan-Young, my chilbo teacher and sister-friend and me. We were on our way back from our field trip.

                                       I also took a photo of her shoes. She is so talented!

 We stopped for lunch on the way back at a little hole-in-the-wall place. I rarely have a bad meal especially in South Korea but this one was pretty bad.

                                     But the banchan (side dishes) were pretty good.

And they had the worst bathroom by far of any I had ever used in all of my three years of living in South Korea. This is what I saw when I walked in.

                  We did have some pretty fantastic meals in Vomit Alley by Suwon Station.

This restaurant is one of our favorites. It's hard to find if you don't know where it is. It's in Paldalmun and it's in the basement so you need to know which side street it's on.

But they have the best kimchi jeongol which is stew with not only kimchi but mandu (dumplings). It's very, very spicy but oh so good.

                                                                 Great side dishes too.

 Curt was feeling pretty good so we went for something to drink near the chilbo shop. I love this coffee shop where you will see a lot of bojagi (Korean quilting) in the window.

They also had some maedeup. I love how Korean coffee shops reflect the owner's taste. No cookie cutter coffee shops here although you will find chains like Starbucks.

Rocketman ordered crysanthamum tea and it came like this. She graciously showed us how it worked. He loved it. I ordered a fancy coffee.

                                        Little did we know what tomorrow would bring.

Metal Guy had also made Rocketman a silver tie. Doesn't he look great in his new North Face jacket?

                                It's a piece he designed and was made out of sterling silver.

                                  He also designed this turtle which was perfect for chilbo.

                                          Here it is after I finished adding the enamel.

He also designed these hearts and I made a pendant and earrings. Nan-Young takes lessons from an Asian brush painting master and I had ordered his book which came in to Nan-Young's. I wanted him to stop by and autograph it for me. He came and you won't believe how amazing that visit was. I'll blog about that tomorrow.