Today I met Keung He for lunch. I think we will probably have weekly lunches (at least I hope we do) because she likes to ask me questions and vice versa. She uses me for English, I use her for Korean, so it's like a language exchange of sorts. Anyway she took me to a Korean place that's famous for it's bibimbap. She had a combo of barley and rice but mine was just rice. Next time I will get the barley too. One good thing about having a cold in Korea is that my taste buds are slightly off. This lets me try some things and get used to them. One of my friends ate a potato chip the other day then said she had to eat another one because the first doesn't count. It's totally true - the first bite doesn't mean anything here. Sometimes something awful later tastes great and the opposite is true as well. I'm still not trying fish though.
I remembered to wear slip on shoes this time and we walked right in and sat down. She ordered for us and they brought out the food super fast. It's sort of a make your own style restaurant. They give you a giant bowl of rice, then a plate with veggies (kimchi, seaweed and bean sprouts) and then other bowls with more kimchi, tiny anchovies, hot peppers and other side dishes. Then there is a big pot of spicy sauce called gochujang (here's a recipe if you want to make your own) that you can add to taste. A tablespoon of this stuff is enough to make the entire bowl of rice spicy. You mix the bowl with your chopsticks, but then eat it with a spoon. They also gave us seaweed soup (which I don't really like when I can fully taste it but was good today to dim the spice).
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| The bowl in the top left corner has the veggies. Then there is a big fish. Next is peppers and seaweed. The bowl at the bottom is my rice. Next to it is the seaweed soup. |
After lunch we went and had coffee at a cute little place called Yummy House which is directly across the street from me. We chatted and did "language exchange" for awhile then she went with me to the pharmacy to get a decongestant and laughed when I said thank you (she always does because she says I sound funny when I speak Korean - it's my polite voice so it sounds like a little kid).
School today was pretty good. I will write another post later with more details about my school and classes, but I want to give it a little while for me to settle in before I describe it. One of my co-teachers brought in persimmons to share. I like the hard ones (these were that kind) but don't care for the soft ones. Then a student gave us all candy and another student gave everyone a bag of dried mango from a trip she had taken to the Philippines. Then another student gave me more candy. So that was nice :)
On my way home from work, I stopped off at the corner mart to get cereal, but they didn't have any so I bought some ramen instead. I still haven't gone grocery shopping yet and I needed food so I could take the medicine. While I was there, the counter lady noticed the change in my voice, asked if I had a cold, then proceeded to tell me that I needed to wear a scarf (this was all in Korean and gestures). The ramen I bought looked plain (the reason I bought it) but I think it was made with hellfire because my lips have been burning and I finished eating it 30 minutes ago. I will keep you updated on the progress of my cold and everything else that's going on. Laters!
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