Weekend 13 of 52.

VIPs Fresh Life Restaurant, Soul Underground, Jeoldusan Martyrs' Shrine, Seonyudo Park


Friday was Dan's and my fifth anniversary. We ate where you eat for those sorts of occasions: VIPs (pronounced, as far as we can tell, not as the acronym, but as a word) Fresh Life Restaurant. It's a steak and salad buffet restaurant, and Dan and I have both been grieving each meal since not spent there. Koreans do salad buffet right. Maybe it's because every meal comes with a mini buffet of banchan. There were dark leafy greens and red cabbage, quails eggs and sesame dressing, all kinds of noodle sides and fried rice, always a tidy miso soup bar, even pizza and pasta. Our favorite part of the buffet was the soft taco station with chopped chicken and guacamole. Such a good idea, everyone, go to VIPs. We accidentally missed the dessert bar, but we will never again make such an error.

After dinner, we went to the Lotte Cinema in Hongdae. We intended to see "Date Night", but this theater was only showing a handful of movies and that wasn't one of them. So I broke my no-cartoons-except-for-Pixar movie theater rule and we saw "How to Train Your Dragon" in 3D, and we enjoyed every bit of it.

Then we headed to Soul Underground for a nightcap, and we caught the end of a show and had a good chat with proprietor Shin about the Koreas and Korean politics. We always leave Soul Underground feeling more purposeful and un-alone here in Seoul.

Saturday we set out for a park at which to play my wooden anniversary gift to Dan: janggi, Korean chess. We walked through the Jeoldusan Martyrs' Shrine, a shrine to honor Catholic martyrs, and I didn't realize until online fact-checking after the fact that there is an entire museum we managed to miss. We settled ourselves under the bridge by the river, and Dan check-mated me, because I have never won a single game of chess (or checkers even) in my whole life.

We decided to check out Seonyudo Park, a domesticated island paradise in the middle of the Han river. We walked the bridge over and enjoyed a cool breeze and one of those "I can't believe that this is where we live" happy feelings. I am officially recommending Seonyudo Park to every person in Seoul. It's free, of course. There's a greenhouse with flowers and bumblebees, lotus ponds, strange industrial looking artifacts, a water play area (where Korean kids wear raincoats but never swimsuits), and lovers' picnics as far as the eye can see. It was such a peaceful, easy Saturday, and it's made this weekend one of our favorites so far.