Seattle's Best in Seoul

In the almost-three weeks I've been here I've made it a point to try new things, particularly new foods (bugs and dried squid notwithstanding). Many of you have heard me rant and rave about Americans who go to different countries and then spend all their time eating McDonald's or Pizza Hut or whatever. Why go all that way if you're just going to try and replicate your life back home?

I've been pretty good about this so far, but with one exception--I've had breakfast pretty much every day at Starbucks. There are two reasons for this: 1) Korean breakfast is usually rice or soup or fish, and I need a bagel or muffin or something in the morning and 2) I am the grumpiest jackass in the world if I don't get my morning cup of coffee. Koreans don't really "do" coffee (it's sold here in bars with beer and whisky), and they certainly don't do traditional drip coffee--if anything, you can get Americano (espresso with water). So the American-style chains, which are Starbucks and the Coffee Bean, are really the only place to get a "real" cup of coffee, which I need every morning in the same way that a street-corner junkie needs a "real" blast of heroin.

So each day I've gone in and gotten my coffe and raisin bagel. While I don't believe a raisin bagel is actually a "bagel," in the purest sense of the word (I reject as false all bagels that are not plain, sesame, poppy, onion, salt, everything or pumpernickel--the rest are "donuts"), I've decided that corallary doesn't really apply, because the plain or onion bagels are just sort of dough globs. In that sense, they're sort of like Boston bagels.

Starbucks is really expensive here. My coffee an bagel costs me a little more than $4, and I think I'm the only person inthe place just getting coffee--everyone else gets frappucinos (hugely popular here). The cool thing is that if you recycle your cup by bringing it back to Starbucks, they give you 50 won (about a nickel). But my favorite part is that, because I'm there every day and despite the fact that I don't speak Korean, the two ladies behind the counter and I have developed a really nice rapport. They always make sure I get the best bagels.