Day 145: Chicken Run

One of the coolest things about Seoul is that you can buy food just about anywhere, anytime from one of the city's many many streetside stalls.  The cityscape is covered in literally *thousands* of them and basically any street that has regular foot traffic will have at least one (but usually where there's one, there's a good 247!)  This means that at pretty much any given moment one is able to purchase a super-greasy snack wherever one feels like it!  This is something that apart from the odd hot dog stand, is completely non-existent back home.  To arrive and see all the major streets of Seoul turned into a giant food court is definitely one of the most noticable differences in life here in Korea.
 
The food is always inexpensive (never more than a couple dollars) and a whole lot of them seem like they never, ever close (well, all the ones near nightclubs anyway!)  I tell ya, there's nothing quite as satisfying/disgusting as coming out of a bar drunk at 3am, feeling an attack of the munchies, and then indulging in on a Heart Attack Special from one of these stands.  Mmmm....yummy!
 
To be honest, other than the occasional drunken visit, I don't visit these stands very often.  Their cleanliness leaves something to be desired, and most of the food is meat-oriented so I stay away from it.  But I still think it's really cool that I *could* buy some miscellaneous mystery meat on the street if I ever wanted to!  Here's a random sample of just some of the things that can be purchased from one of these little stands:
 
-roasted corn on the cob (Henry was especially thrilled with this when he was here visiting)
-grilled spicy chicken
-corn dogs (sometimes even with french fries glued to them!)
-giant sausages
-egg sandwiches
-fried squid (can be a couple inches or nearly two feet long)
-fried tenatacles from other unidentifiable sea things
-silkworm larvae (the smell of this is enough to make me gag pretty much every time I pass one!)
-various deep-fried pastry thingies (most are actually quite tasty)
-donuts
-some pasta-like noodlish things in spicy sauce (very chewy)
-potato pancakes (often comes mixed with seaweed, vegetables, or seafood)
 
And I can't forget the chicken trucks!  Technically they're not a roadside stand like all of the above, but they're SO WORTH a mention!  Chicken trucks are these little trucks that have a giant oven roaster filled with whole chickens on giant rotating skewers!  The trucks find some place to park (and usually in very strange locations, like right next to busy roads where no one would be able to stop without causing a major accident) and then sit there all day or night waiting for people to come and buy chicken on an impulse.  Again, they're especially amusing cause of their unexpected locations.  You'll be walking down some residential street and all of a sudden HELLO! there's a chicken truck right in front of you.  They have glass doors on the giant oven so you can actually see them cooking as you walk by.  (and if you're curious about how much it costs to purchase one of these little urban poultry specials, it's usually 1 for 6000 won or 2 for 10,000 won)  It's totally funny for us foreigners cause back home you'd NEVER see some dude selling roast chicken on a random street corner out of his truck/mobile oven!
 
Ahhh Korea, always full of entertaining and amusing things!  :-)