Nate and Kara visit Seoul's Korean War Museum to see planes and tanks, then explore Haebangchon neighborhood for authentic Korean barbecue. They wrap pork belly in lettuce and sample banchan while navigating the city's mix of military history and food culture.
Did anybody think that was a drone? It wasn't just this thing.
This is awesome.
Good afternoon. We are fully recovered from our wild night out in Seoul last night.
We didn't go to sleep till 6am this morning because we were at the fish market and getting naked with a bunch of people at a Korean spa.
And now it's five o'. Clock, Here we are.
And we've literally like ran over to the Korean War Museum because it closes at five or the last entries at five, and it is six minutes till we made it. Yes.
And it's free.
Tomorrow we are going on a tour of the demilitarized zone between north and South Korea. So we thought this would be a really good opportunity to learn more about the war and appreciate that experience way more. Let's go check it out.
Sam.
I really hate that we didn't get to this museum until 5, when they closed at 6, because we didn't even get to read, like, half of the things that I wanted to read. And I know starting a vlog off with a museum is not the most exciting way to start a video, and that's why we don't do them often. But we really wanted to go to this one. And it's so beautiful in there and outside.
I mean, we just barely, barely scratch the surface. I would say you need at least two or three hours, probably more to like, fully appreciate and learn about all the different stuff that's in that museum.
Yeah, it's amazing.
Kara and I have completely different museum styles. Kara likes to read, like every little detail about everything, and I like to just kind of like skim as I go and learn a little bit about a lot of things. So actually about halfway through, we only had 30 minutes left, so we ended up splitting up. So Kara knows a lot about a few things and I know a little bit about a lot of things.
You got to see the really cool airplanes.
Yeah, that was definitely my favorite part. Airplanes, tanks. I really. I can't believe it's free. It is a really, really good museum. I just thought my favorite part of the museum was the planes and tanks inside. Turns out out here they have a real life battleship. All of the red paint that you see on the battleship is actual bullet holes. I haven't read anything about it. I don't know where it's from, what war it was in, where the bullet holes came from, but it's super cool. There's so many tanks, so many planes. This is such a good museum. Highly, highly recommend coming to this museum, which I don't do often on the vlog W. Look at this.
Okay, so I learned a little bit about the boat. Turns out the boat's not real. It's a life size replica, but it's from 2002. So that is a South Korean patrol boat that was shot at by the North Koreans. It's crazy how, like, recent and real the feud between the two countries are. I mean, I know that's obvious, but like, I don't know, I just don't think about battleships being involved. I think about it all being diplomatic. It's getting dark, so we're going to pull ourselves away from looking at all the tanks and all the planes and all the other crazy military stuff here. And we're going to explore a new neighborhood now called Ha Bang Chong. Why are we going there?
It's really close by and it's supposed to be super cool. And then we are going to end the night eating pretty much what we came for.
Korean barbecue.
Finally. We kind of had it last night.
In bed, by the way.
So on our way to find Hang Chong, we found ourselves in the neighborhood of Idawan, which is good because we wanted to come here anyways. They're right next to each other and we'd heard this was a really popular neighborhood. But like, it is unlike anywhere we've been in Seoul so far. There's so many young people. It's like, really, Kim. There's coffee shops everywhere in these tiny cafes everywhere you turn. We've also seen more white people than we have our whole time in Seoul in the last 10 minutes. And they're playing like Justin Bieber and stuff and all the restaurants. So it's totally different, but a really fun place, Very lively.
We've made it to the Hebang Chong neighborhood. It is so much like the Idwan neighborhood. Burgers, Justin Bieber young hit people everywhere. It's super cool. Maybe a tad bit too cool for us because our friends from actually from South Korea recommended this restaurant where you could taste all these different rice wines for super cheap. But there's like an hour wait. That's okay, because that just means we get to have Korean barbecue sooner.
We ordered the pork belly. I think it's been soaked in wine and it came with all of the beautiful sides. And our waitress has laid the meat on our very own grill and it's starting to sizzle.
We have no clue what we're doing. I'm using the scissors to cut up the onions because that's what everybody else does. Oh, thank you. We've got some soup.
Ah, there we go. She's good.
Thankfully, our super nice waitress has come to the rescue. I think we were doing this completely wrong. So when you order the three of barbecues, you expect it to cook it yourself, but I assume there's a proper way to do it. And I wasn't doing it right because she came and she took the scissors and the tongs out of my hand and started doing it.
From watching people, we've learned that you use.
A lettuce leaf, like a taco shell, and then you put, like, the meat that cooks on the grill with some of these other vegetables, maybe some of the garlic that's cooking. I don't know what we do with the soup. So a lot of things going on, and it's all very time sensitive. This stuff is cooked.
Turns out we're totally useless. The guy just came by and he made my taco for me, which was so, so nice. Also, everybody that we've watched eats the entire taco in one bite. That's got to be the way that you do it.
Tip number one, don't overstuff your taco. Or it's a little hard to eat. But seriously, it is so good. All the hype about Korean barbecue is worth it. The grill, like, I love grill flavored things. And the pork with the onions and the garlic, oh, my gosh, it is the best combination. And then all of these little Cole toppings are so good on top, like soaked onions, whatever that salad is has, like a sesame dressing on it. Kimchi that we've had so many times. I don't even know what's on that other salad. There's so many flavors going on. But this is amazing.
I love it.
First grand barbecue ever.
Success.
Check.
Let me see your money.
Before you know, we're talking about.
