Taverna de Portugal

The only Portuguese restaurant I've been to in Seoul, Taverna de Portugal (터버나드포르투갈), has became one of my favorite places to go to, especially when I'm craving Nando's Chicken (which I haven't eaten in ages btw). Granted, the taste is not is exactly the same (according to a friend of mine who knows for sure what it tastes like), but their Grilled Piri Piri Chicken (피리피리치킨) is super delicious and full of flavors and it's good enough to fulfill my cravings :p

Located in a small alley in Sangsu (상수), the restaurant is owned by a friendly husband and wife duo. The place is not too big and it gets pretty busy during dinner time, especially on weekends. I usually ordered the Piri Piri Chicken Combo Menu 1 (피리피리 치킨 콤보메뉴 1), which consists of one whole grilled chicken, rice, sausage, bacon, salad, potatoes and home-made chips. It's good for 2 people and if you think that you need more food, they also have other selections on the menu.

They are currently having a summer special menu: Piri Piri Grill Fish Combo—oven grilled whole fish with piri piri sauce (minimum 1 day pre-order is required). Check out their facebook page for more info. 

Tips: Come during lunch time if you want to avoid the crowd. 

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Beach Break

Growing up, family trips were part of my annual school break activity that my family always did. Living a couple of hours away from the sea, I've spent a good couple of summers just hanging out in a cottage by the beach with family and friends, spending our day playing in the sand, soaking up the sunshine and swimming in the sea. No worries. No stress. Just enjoying the summer days before school starts again. Life feels so much simpler on those days. 

This day felt a little bit like those old summer days. After we left Bosoeng Plantation, we just happened to found this quite beach around the area and decided to took a pit stop there. Took blankets with us and laid one on the shaded area on the beach and we just sat there snuggling under the other blanket to keep us warm. Noah has been driving for hours and didn't get much sleep, so after a couple of minutes he dozed off for his much needed rest. Hannah and I did more talking while looking at the calm sea. Nothing much was really going on around us. Saw ahjummas and ahjussiss bending down, working on something on the beach, three women walking back and forth with their dogs, and group of older people having a picnic a couple of meters away from where we were sitting. It's not necessarily an interesting beach, but it's a perfect place to just relax, chill and let your mind wanders. Plus having great companies really makes a difference. 

We talked for about two hours without realizing it. About our lives in South Korea, our faith, our future, our past experiences. Time flew when you are enjoying each other's company, really. After Noah woke up, we took a stroll on the beach, stretched our bodies and left for lunch. It was a fine relaxing late morning at the beach. 

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Bosoeng Green Tea Field

After a three hours or so road trip from Seoul, we pulled up at Boseong Green Tea Plantation's (보성녹차밭 대한다원) parking lot around 9.30am. The place was quite. Nobody was in sight. Hannah, Noah, and I made our way to the plantation. What I remember the most about that morning was the cool breezy morning air, warm sunlight, and birds chirping. Being able to clearly hear the sounds of nature is just something that you can only experience outside the hustle bustle of the city. And that morning was exactly that, a peaceful morning listening to the sounds of nature. 

Noah bought warm cups of tea for three of us and we slowly made our way up the hill while talking amongst each other. I remembered we were talking about how the air is really different here. Fresher. And we were a little bit disappointed because in some parts of the plantation, the tea leaves weren't in full bloom yet, so the field wasn't all green and there were bald spots here and there. Even so, the view was still nice. We spent some of our time just in silence, taking in our surroundings while snapping away with our phones and cameras. When we got to the top of the hill, we sat on the benches to enjoy the view and to catch our breaths. We stayed there for a while. Just talking and enjoying each other's company. When a big group of people came up to the resting area and we saw other people were starting to make their way up, we decided it's time for us to go and that was the end our peaceful morning. 

p.s: May is the month you want to go visit the plantation to see the full bloom of the tea leaves. They also have Green Tea Festival during that time of year.

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Masizzim

A quick short post on Masizzim (마시찜), a Korean restaurant famous for their Galbi Jjim (갈비찜). They have multiple locations, but the one I went to is the one at Garosu-gil (가로수길). The food was delicious and the meat was tender. There are different levels of spiciness for your galbi jjim that you can choose from, but I have to warn all of you who don't eat spicy food, just get the non spicy ones. My friends ordered the mild ones and they were super spicy according to them (and they eat spicy food pretty well).

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Ewha Campus Complex

Ewha Campus Complex (이화여자대학교) is one of my favorite architectures here in Seoul. Built by Dominique Perrault, this grand complex certainly left quite an impression for first time, even returning visitors. The modern campus complex is nothing like I've seen before anywhere else in this city. It is also interesting to see, even when they have this very modern building structure, they're still preserving the old 19th-century gothic brick buildings surrounding the top part of the complex.

Sharing the shots I took during winter, that particular day was pretty cold. So not a lot of people were crowding the place, only the locals who were braving the cold weather, I assumed. We got there right before sunset, and it was my first time too coming to the campus at that time of day. Seeing how the sunlight hit the vertical structure of the stainless metal was certainly a new experience.

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