Monday and Tuesday Lunch!

Hello World! Today I just wanted to post my two lunches from the last two days.
Lunch Monday:
On top left is kimchi made from cabbage(red) and some green kimchi that I do not have the slightest idea of what that vegetable was. Middle is kind of like an omelet but it has flour in it and tons of vegetables. The top right is pork with hot chili sauce. Bottom is rice and soup. The soup is made from tofu, squid, octopus, shells, and other unknown sea creatures!

Lunch Tuesday:

Top right is beef with hot chili sauce, kimchi, mystery green vegetable with sprouts, and lotus flower roots with ginger. On the bottom is rice and soup. Today soup is Bone Soup. This soup is cooked by taking different bones of the animal and boiling it until the cartilage gives the almost jelly like texture you see above. Also, in korea this is the soup that is like our chicken noodle soup. It is something that they cook for you to show they care. (I prefer chicken noodle though. To each it's own.)

Also, I will be in Fukuoka, Japan on April 7, and 8th. Wish me luck!

Table Manners

This is a caution: This is not intended to be a bad thing, just different to me. Therefore, I blog about it....haha.

Koreans are very close to their families. So from my understanding when you get around to eat, it's quite different then home. In America we all get our plates and we all pick our foods and we eat. We get a common plate but we use other specifically designed spoons and forks to place it on our dish.
Well, in Korea you don't do this. Here you have soup and various side dishes. You all eat out of the same plates. You take your chopsticks (Not to self i still don't know how to do that well...) or your spoon and you dig into whatever you want. This way you basically share the same plates and eat what you want.
In my school on the first day of school we also shared the dishes with all of the teachers. So everyone's chop sticks were in everyone's dishes.
The tradition says that it makes you closer. My only concern is that sanitary? I may have stolen food from my brother's plate a couple hundred times(Sorry...) but everyone out of one bowl? The only bowl that you get to your self is rice.
The same thing also happens in bars, kind of like our appetizers. I understand that, I don't however understand sharing my whole meal.

Hello Spring...

Hello!! Today is the first day of spring. Oh at least it felt like it. :) This made me get up earlier than usual(However that may have been due to my stomach virus...) Put my jacket on and go to the big super market near my house for an adventure.

I decided to walk from my house..(This is my building...)




So then I have to cross a bridge and above you can see a view from there.


Overall, it was maybe a 20 to 30 minute walk to my adventure to the super market. The biggest difference between Korean market and anywhere else is the samples. You will walk out of the store probably taste half the items and have some wine too. Ha. Also, if the store has an overstock of something, they tape it to a different item and sell them together as a special. Also, they can be the most unrelated things. For example: Today I had to buy Naan Bread(Bread from India, flat and made on the stove.) I also got a free measuring cup and some cleaning gloves. I have also bought before some cream cheese and got lotion for free, bought cereal and got a bra storage bar.......

So, anyways the other difference is this country has TONS OF PEOPLE. I mean TONS. Therefore, it is not like the US when you shop. It's a battle. It's a war zone. First of there are tons of people in the stores:


So getting around can be a challenge, especially if there is a SALE. Second, you have to identify the object and wrap it in 2 bags. So it doesn't leak on the way home. & Then you have the seafood section. This my friend is the scariest place on earth to me. Why you ask?
Because Imagine a chicken walking around at the store, the butcher asking you to pick it out and than killing it in front of you. Or a cow, being there and you say "Hm....I want that one..." and just like that they get them out for you. Well, that is what it is like for the fish in South Korea...
However, we do have that with lobsters, so I guess I understand the concept in America same as Korea. Neither the less, it's different. Hey, when in Rome....Also, The seafood section here is the largest I have seen in my life. They have EVERYTHING. They have things I have never seen in my
life. There are so many kinds of shells,
snails, snakes(?), fish, crab, and fish.
You can get everything. Not only that but they have the biggest sizes of these things I have ever seen. I saw crabs the size of my head. (I'll try to find one to take a picture of.)
Anyways, going away from meat we
have the kimchi sections. Kimchi is
huge in Korea. Kimchi is basically fermenting seasoned cabbage. What I understand it has hot
chili sauce, garlic, onion, shrimp paste and left in huge pots for years. The longer you have your kimchi age
the better the kimchi. A restaurant in Seoul has kimchi that has been aged for at least 3 years and is very popular!This is the usual kimchi made with cabbage.


This lady has another kind of kimchi. You can buy it by grams and it has different kinds. You can get Onion kimchi, Radish kimchi, and many more. They all taste very different and you can usually try them all at the store. That way you can see that some have less fish flavor, some more, some very spicy, and some much less.

While I was waiting in check out line at the store, a Korean women came up to me to ask about the Naan Bread I was buying. She spoke English so I was able to explain how to make it to her. After the bread conversation I told her how good her English was and behold she said her daughter was in USA! I asked her where and she said she was a student at Duke University, NC!!!! I told her that I lived close by in Cary, NC and she said that is where her daughter lives too!! Small world!!! The end for now.

Korea

I decided to do this blog to keep everyone who is interested up-dated on what is happening here. Note this blog is probably really random because I have been in Korea for 2 1/2 month and just writing about all of it. Possibly in no order. Well, this blog is about me and what I have done so far in South Korea. I am currently working at the school 4 days a week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Even thought I do have to attend a "fun day" every 3rd Wednesday. So technically some weeks I do have to work 5 times a week. I am located in Bundang. Also, this blog is just my understanding of korea so far...i may be wrong about some things..

• My school is really nice, and so far everyone seems really friendly.

I also have a Korean lunch everyday at school. Which sometimes its really good and some days not so much. But I guess that's every cafeteria.

• My apartment is really big for Korea, so i am very happy about that.
• The weather has been crazy, it has now snowed every single Wednesday for 3 weeks.
  

Overall I really enjoy Bundang more than Daegu. It is pretty close to Seoul(about 20-1 hour) depending on where you want to go by Metro or Bus. A bus costs about 1$ and so does the metro. (More or less). You can always go out to dinner to a Korean Restaurant and order a meal under 6$. The wiered part of Korean restaurants is that there is usually no more than 5-6 options. So you go to a specific restaurant for a specific dish. There is no such thing as a big or a medium menu. It is what it is, take it or leave it.

The other strange thing about the food is that you eat pretty similar dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Soup(Flavors:fish,sea food, bean paste, picked radish or anchovies), rice, kimchi, and side dish with pork or fish in hot garlic sauce. There may be other vegetable side. (probably slices of sweet pickle)....

You can also have a cheap meal ranging from $1-3 from the street vendors.(Pojangmacha) What that means is: it's a cart parked in the middle of the side walk with people just stopping and eating standing up around the cart. You can eat eomuk(skewered fish cake) which is pureed fish combines with minced vegetables and flour, which is then rolled onto long skewers and deep fried in oil. You can usually also find deep fried hot dogs there. (A hot dog that is wrapped in pastry dough and deep fried.) Sometimes they also have chicken with a spicy-sweet sauce.

You can also get TTEOKPPOKKI there. It is a spicy rice cake . A rice cake is a dish made from gridded up rice and made into little rolls. Almost looks like pasta, but not. Then put into a soup like combination of that and hot sauce. You are usually given a tooth pick and you eat it.

At restaurants Ive had a lot of dishes but here are just some examples:

• Bulgogi: Sliced thin Marinated Beef or Pork(Mostly everywhere pork) in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, onion and chili paste.

• Bibimbap: Many vegetables(bean sprouts, radish, spinach, mushrooms, carrots), a little beef, an egg, rice, sea weed all in one bowl. You mix it all up and eat it. Bibim means mix bap mean rice.

• Juk: is porridge. It is very thick and comes in many varieties: green tea, pumpkin, sweet potato. The main ingredient is rice. It is usually given when you are sick.

• Samgyetang is my favorite. It is called Ginseng and Chicken soup. It has a whole chicken in it, ginseng, rice and broth.

• Seolleongtang is beef bone soup. They take knee or leg bones out of a cow and boil it for a long time. After the cartilage falls off the bone they slice the meat and place it back in the soup and eat.

That is all for the food section for today.
Last weekend i visit Little Russia in Seoul. Wow, every sign is in Russian! I even got a flyer haha that said you can get a cell phone with out a visa!! HAHAHA. I eat at the restaurant called Gostiniy Dvor. Unfortunately, it was not my mom's so It was just okie. The town it self was kind of what could have been expected. There was tons of Russians and not the super kind ones.

I have also been to Itaewon. Itaewon is like little America, UK, and Australia. It has all the food from when you miss home for three times the mark-up. ($8 mac-and-cheese anyone?) All the bars and clubs are all in English and tons of English speaking people. I had a great time and of course there are tons of American soldiers. I believe honestly that at least 15% of our military is here. There is a base at every city. Big or small

Well i am tiered of writing. I will up date soon. Probably tomorrow.

mvah