Wapeul

If I asked you to guess what the most popular snack foods in Korea are, I'm betting you wouldn't come up with:

waffles!

Yep, the wapeul 와플 is, for some reason, extremely popular. It's sold out of street carts and in student dining halls, usually topped with ice cream.

This little cafe on campus sells coffee and soft serve ice cream, such as these two fellows are enjoying:


But most of the students waiting in line are there for just one thing: a waffle.

That line never goes away. Around lunch time it is 30 or 40 deep.

Here is the object of their desires:


I wish I could tell you that I walked up to a co-ed and said "May I photograph your waffle?", but this in truth this is a classmate of mine.

The plain waffle was, frankly, nothing special. Kind of bready. Most of the waffles sold here aren't plain, though. They are topped with vanilla soft-serve ice cream and chocolate sauce.

I took these pictures from far away with a 15x zoom. Still, I think the guy in the second photo noticed me.



Speaking of Korean foods, this is a chamoe 참외 melon. Etymologically, the name means "true/fine cucumber".



According to this web site, it is a type of chate melon with a flavor halfway between a honeydew and a cucumber.

The skin is very thin, like an apple. I found it hard to decide how best to peel it.

It might be too early in the season, or I might just have gotten a bad melon. It wasn't very sweet.