The food...

So this is galbi, Korean barbecue. This is a galbi place not far from us (there's loads everywhere). As you can see you have a pot of coals in the middle of the table where you cook your meat. Directly in front of me is a type of shredded coleslaw, which they marinade in some sort of soy sauce, then (going clockwise) there's lettuce and sesame leaves to wrap your meat in, kimchi, steamed egg, something anonymous, thin slices of raddish to wrap with, salad in a strange sweet creamy pineapple dressing, then red bean paste which is very tasty and then what they call 'Korean pizza', though it's not really pizza at all. It's batter with bits of vegetables (like shallots) in it. A bit like a savoury pancake really. Nice.

You get different side dishes depending where you go. I guess that determines the quality of a restaurant. Sometimes you get sweet potato in honey sauce (not usually) or maybe even jelly fish.

Speaking of odd foods, Koreans have embraced the fact that tomato is a fruit. They put tomatoes on top of cakes, right next to the pineapple and glace cherries!

Wes mastering his chopsticks. All chopsticks are stainless steel here, which is far more difficult to maneouvre than wooden ones. Most bowls are stainless steel as well. Apparently it's got something to do with the Confucian way of thinking.

This is Dolsot Pibimbap, which has become quite a staple of mine. It comes in a boiling hot pot of steamed rice topped with vegetables - usually bean sprouts, seaweed, shredded carrot, shredded lettuce, mushrooms, kimchi and an egg on top. You mix it all together with spicy red pepper sauce.

The Koreans assume you have no idea how to eat their food and will often stand there to make sure you mix the rice and vegetables together enough (oh yes, it must be thoroughly mixed). It's quite amusing, considering at home nobody would really care how you eat your food.

But here, it has to be just so!

(Of course, sometimes they're quite right and you have no idea what you're doing, so it can be quite helpful.)

Pibimbap and some kind of Pulgogi Deop Bap in the background. Pulgogi is beef marinated in quite a sweet sauce.

The good thing about the Korean language is that it seems to be very consistent and, at least in terms of food, simple to decipher.

For example, "bap" means rice, so you know if something has "bap" in it, then it's a rice dish.

• Gim Bap: "Gim" meaning seaweed and "Bap" meaning rice - sushi rolls, like at home.
• Mandu Ramyeon: "Mandu" meaning steamed dumplings and "Ramyeon" meaning noodles - literally dumplings and noodles.
• Mandu Guk: Steamed dumplings with "guk", which is soup.

Anyway, you get the idea. I think it's probably a lot easier than a non-English speaking person ordering in Australia, where dishes are sometimes not so straight forward.

Sightseeing in Seoul

Last weekend we went into Seoul and did a Shamanist hillside walk, which has quite a few Shamanist shrines and places where Koreans go to pray - one rock formation in particular is where they go and pray to have a son, not a daughter.

It took about 10 goes to perfect this shot. This is looking back onto Seoul.

This is quite popular with the tourists and locals. It's called Gyeongbokgung, the primary palace of the Joseon Dynasty, built in 1392, later burnt down by the Japanese and then re-built. It's an enormous complex with about 18 buildings and also the Korean Folk Museum.

We've been having extraordinarily lovely Autumn weather here, and this day was just gorgeous, walking around in the sun. Entire mountain-sides are turning orange as the trees change colour and the leaves fall. It's so distinct in comparison to what we're used to, at least in Brisbane.

The weather here is really starting to get quite chilly. The weekends have been about 12 degrees max, and Seoul has been getting down to four degrees at night.