delicious, delightful space

i like dalki

dear diary–
after four months of talking about the infamous "i like dalki" space i finally made it there. i'm so happy. since tuesday, march 1 was a holiday we decided that would be a good time to go. i had asked young teacher a couple of weeks earlier how to get there and when she expressed an interest to go i invited her along. four of us ended up going. horace, young, jenny [from taekwondo], and myself. horace, jenny and i met young at yeongdeunpo station which is on line 1 9purple0. while waiting for young in the station we watched some drunk korean guy chase a lady around the station. she looked absolutely mortified. i felt so sorry for her but i also couldn't help thinking "i'm so glad that wasn't me". usually i have a way of attracted the crazies. i also saw the cutest thing ever. a young guy perhaps maybe earlier 20s shopping with his grandmother. he was carrying her bag as the strolled through all the merchants in the station. how sweet is that. we met up with young and jumped onto a bus that would take us to another station where we were going to catch a shuttle bus. we ended up in ilsan which like ansan is another new city. this city, however, seemed to have a lot more going on. i'm definitely going to go back to check this out. it at the very lasted subway stop on line 3 [orange]. around noon the shuttle bus picked us up and off we went. "i like dalki" space is out in paju city which is where we went for the dmz tour. so very close to the border. apparently "i like dalki" is part of a whole art community that they are building there. it's called heyri art town and besides "i like dalki" there a few other museums, bookstores, and cafes open. this is definitely going to be a very cool area once finished. there's even a guesthouse one can stay at if you want to spend a weekend there. when we got to "i like dalki" my eyes lite up. i was so excited. i was hoping there would be rides but it was more like a museum. a fantasic giant kids museum. i was still happy even without the rides. when we bought our tickets we got dalki badges to wear. that's right, now i'm an official member of the dalki press club. it was being in a big playhouse. the way they had things set up reminded me of being in the ikea storeroom looking at the displays. they had this fake grass for flooring which i so want now. this is my new mission. the next apartment i have is going to be covered in it. there was a mirror room that had random costumes that you could put on. it was like halloween. the only other major room was the dongchimee dung tunnel. how great is that. a dung tunnel. you got to love that. after the dung tunnel there was a gift shop and children's playroom. it was all pretty interesting. the architecture was amazing. unfortuniately we're still in winter so the grass was all brown. i'm sure its stunning in the spring when everything is in bloom. i spent a few hours in the gift shop, made some purchases than wandered down to the cafe. after we were done exploring "i like dalki" we walked around the complex. we stopped into a few other museums, saw were they were building the movie + anime museum [can't wait], strolled through a bookstore and then went off searching for food. we ate at a tofu restaurant and left it up to young to order since the menu was in korean. we all aggreed on the seafood tofu. little did i know that when they brought it out there would be a live octopus in the pot. yes, i kid you not. it was alive. i watched as it slowly cooked like a lobster in a pot. when it was time to eat the waitress pick up the octopus with some tongs and cut the legs off. it was actually quite tastey. not as good as the octopus soup i had a few weeks ago though. around 6pm we caught the shuttle bus back to the the subway station and from there made our long journey home. it was a pretty awesome day.

strangest thing i saw besides the live octopus
• little boy squatting outside of the bathroom with pants down about to go to bathroom on sidewalk

another odd thing
• mommy laid an egg, a children's book that was quite graphic with swimming sperms and sexual positions. we saw this in the cafe at "i like dalki". definitely am going to try to locate this book

here are snaps from my visit to "i like dalki". i really do! hope you do too!
Links

• i like dalki