Dear Family and Friends,

Fondue. I must tell you about the fondue.

But to pick up from where I left off, the Jeju maze was heaps of fun but not exactly prudent; consequently making our flight from Jeju-do to Seoul was, uh, fast-paced. But make it we did and upon landing, I successfully navigated our next maze of a subway to our hotel. We then consumed a mediocre dinner, investigated the location of the USO, visited a PCBang, and went to bed. Yes, yes. Boring, boring. I agree.

But there was our fondue. You see, advertisements for a rainbow of ice cream flavors dipped in melted chocolate have been, for sometime, beckoning me. And while I wouldn’t presume to know how you feel about ice cream… chocolate… fondue… I will readily confess that I adore them all. So Emily and I found ourselves, on our first evening of our vacation in Seoul, answering the call of the American-Swiss-Koreans by stepping into a Baskin and Robbins.

What was the first response from the gentleman behind the counter when we asked for fondue? A blank stare. Our smiles quickly dissolved into polite pain as we attempted, unsuccessfully, to clarify what we wanted. There were no helpful signs; the counterman was stuck in his Korean and we in our English. Finally, we gave in and were investigating available cone flavors when I chanced to look up at what appeared to be a pink pig potpourri burner on display and on its left was a fuchsia and silver box labeled “TAKE OUT FONDUE - Baskin and Robbins.” I whooped in joy, which attracted the bustling counter-lady, and suddenly fondue was on the menu. Emily and I were very pleased, even when we were invited to take a seat for what apparently was going to be a bit of a wait.

Our kind lady made a phone call or two, created a great deal of rustling behind the back swinging doors, consulted a “recipe” book, and slowly but cheerfully began assembling our take out. The painstaking attention to detail reminded of a visit that a friend paid to Baskin and Robbins so while we waited, I recounted to Emily:

Leaves were falling from the trees and one evening my friend Julie surrendered to the temptation of pumpkin ice cream from Baskin and Robbins. Deciding to make that deliciousness last a few days, Julie pointed to a larger carton and ordered pumpkin ice cream. The lady consulted a book before politely but firmly refusing to grant Julie that quantity of pumpkin ice cream but in meager compensation, the lady instead offered Julie a similar sized carton for 3 flavors. Julie agreed and ordered the pumpkin ice cream. The lady precisely compacted the ice cream into a third of the container and then expectantly looked at Julie for her next flavor request. Once more, Julie pointed to the pumpkin ice cream and a battle of wills commenced. The ice cream lady won; Julie selected green tea ice cream. Again, the process was repeated with the third flavor; Julie hopefully ordered pumpkin ice cream and the lady refused. Julie tried again. The lady refused. Finally, Julie ordered a third flavor. After closing the ice cream container, the lady again consulted her book and carefully read Julie the question, “How long will it take for you to get home?” Puzzled Julie answered and the lady leaned over her book for a few seconds before bustling to the back, grabbing a piece of dry ice and with the help of a scale whittling that piece of dry ice to an exact weight before placing it with the ice cream in a carryout bag. Julie paid, departed, and at the time of the telling, had not yet eaten the ice cream.

The giggles of Emily and I were politely interrupted by our friendly ice cream lady who asked if we preferred a white pig fondue pot or a pink one. Uh, pink, of course. And our lady lost none of her cheer while she was forced to root around a hidden closet for some time searching for a pink pig. Finally, somewhere in the order of twenty minutes after our order, a cardboard box, dry ice and another box had been assembled. We effusively thanked our wonderful ice cream lady and eagerly began to our hotel. We were about a block from the store when our ice cream lady dashed up from behind us to give us the instructions on how to prepare the fondue, which she had apparently had forgotten to include them in our box. We were touched. She was truly wonderful – and we could barely tell her so.

The fondue itself was not as wonderful as its maker. Opening the box revealed a tray of colored ice cream, deep frozen into star + flower + diamond shapes, a second tray with another row of ice cream + dry brownie in two flavors + chocolate chips for melting, and fondue forks. We were forced to run down the street to a convenience store to melt the chocolate chips in a microwave – but we agreed that our Korean fondue of chocolate chips heated over a pink ceramic pig was unforgettable.

Bon Appetite! --Laura