Another evening on the town...

Well, we managed to get our act together again and head out to Itaewon for some dinner. This time, we headed to Chakraa's for Indian food. We'd had Chakraa's food before at a dinner party and it was good, so we thought we would try the restaurant ourselves. On Friday and Saturday nights they have a curry buffet, for 15,000 KRW each (well under $15 each based on current exchange rates). There was a fair amount of selection and the spice level was just right for even a wimp like me. My favorite was the beef korma, but the butter chicken and the lamb vindaloo were also good. The potatoes and peas (aloo something) were too spicy for me. They tasted really good, but there was a significant stealth blast of heat that appeared after swallowing. The lamb samosas were really good. With all of this came plain naan and dessert. There were also salads and other dishes, but I didn't try those. I filled up on naan dipped into the various gravies.


Eating Indian food always reminds me of a friend's description of one of her first experiences with Indian food. She liked it, but described it as eating orange goo, and green goo, and red goo.

After dinner, we strolled down Itaewon towards Hangangjin station, towards Kabinett. We stopped for a few minutes in Helios before the cover charge kicked in because we could hear some reggae from the street and wanted to see if it was a one time only thing or if they were actually playing reggae. Turns out it was a one time only thing, so we headed on down the street towards Kabinett.

This month Kabinett is featuring South African wines. I had a glass of the pinotage, he had a glass of cabernet sauvignon. Wine by the glass prices here can vary, and the selection pretty much depends upon what they can get in through customs. But we've enjoyed stopping by every now and again just to see what they have and to try something new. Alcoholic beverages in Korea tend to run towards the soju and beer end of the spectrum. And although wine is usually available in many restaurants, the selection can be limited. French restaurants sell French wine. Italian restaurants sell Italian wine. So it's nice to find a place where we can find other wines to try.

After our glass of wine, we headed home via Hangangjin station. We're lazy. After walking down the hill from Itaewon, the last thing we want to do is climb it again, so we just keep going down hill.

Sign of a building along Itaewon:


Itaewon boulevard, looking up towards Itaewon station from Hangangjin station direction. This is where we watched a very drunk girl in very tall heels stumble out of a restaurant, squeal, "A taxi," then get confused when the taxi drove off.


Gas station in Itaewon. Notice, the pumps dangle from the ceiling.

This is in Nagwon, near our apartment. The orange tents with the lights inside them are street vendors/restaurants. They start setting up in the afternoon/early evening, then feed the people as they leave work. I've seen large ones that hold 20-30 people and small ones with a single table for 2 people. In summer, the tent walls will be rolled up. In the mornings on my way to work, I can see where they set up, there's usually a stash of large plastic jugs filled with what appears to be cooking oil sitting together under a tree nearby and there's a ring of grease stains on the street around the edges of where the tent fall.



This is the view from the subway station we get off at towards our place. We go under the arcade to our backdoor. This is where things got interesting last night. After I snapped these photos, a woman crawled out of a taxi and over the grates onto the sidewalk. These are about a foot and a half high compared to the sidewalk. After the woman comes a man. We move out of the way around a corner. As he confronts her, we move quickly towards home. As we're moving, I smell what seems to be gunpowder or fireworks. We didn't bother looking back, other than noticing that other people were moving out of the way, too.