After packing away a little food back in Tampa (basically cleaning out a few more items from the cabinets), my first official Korean meal came on Sat. 11th when James (School Director) picked me up at the Gumi bus station and asked if I was hungry. Surprisingly for my size, I'm always down to eat so I said sure....he did mention that he'd buy if I'd give native Korean food a whirl instead of fast food (aside from a few occurrences - i.e - drunk) & of course I was down for that. He mentioned it was probably more spicy than I'm used to, which it was but I do enjoy getting my sweat on from time to time!
We dropped off my luggage at the apartment & drove a few blocks down the street to a little 'mom & pop' type of restaurant, which is apparently quite common over here as there are probably two dozen little restaurants within about a 7 block radius of my place. Anyway, we roll into this place, remove our shoes at the door & proceed to stroll across the restaurant to one of the four tables. It was awesome because the table was about a foot off the ground, which meant we were sitting on the floor - unfortunately, I'm not the flexible young kid I once was, as sitting Indian style was certainly a bit more of a challenge than I remember (gotta get back into Yoga, apparently). While James kinda laughs, sits down & makes it look easy. Asians are deceptively flexible at all ages - but I'll save that for another blog.
My First Traditional Korean Meal
James does the honors of ordering, which was great since I would have looked foolish pointing at the menu on the wall in Korean & asking silly touristy type questions which would have fallen on deaf ears anyway, since the owners/waiters/cooks were far less versed in the English language than James. He made sure I was cool with pork & that's what we got. When it arrived, it was basically a thin, watery soup which was surprisingly tasty, rice, a spicy pork ensemble & five bowls of colorful veggies - yes Kim chi was represented. I gave everything a taste, some was better than others but all in all a very flavorful meal, although I don't think we ate much more than half of it & they apparently don't really do doggie bags for left overs. Wasn't sure what to expect from the Kim chi but it seems to be a crowd favorite over here but I haven't fallen head over heals for it yet. I mean it's basically cabbage, spices & sauce....which the previous tenant/teacher left a whole batch of it in the fridge, along with some seaweed wrap & a few other items I'll slowly dip into as my stand-by favorites disappear & I'm left with no other options. The entire meal was certainly tasty but I did have some good heat building up inside from the spices; James mentioned it was probably on the low end for spicy, since, you know, I was white & probably not used to it. They do love their food hot, which I'll eventually learn to handle, I'm sure!
I'm working a couple days a week at another Academy (which I think is not what the contract says....it's being addressed) but they love me over there & are bringing in various home made dishes for me. There is no turning it down as they say 'Handsome Mark Teacher must eat, so we made you.....' Most of the time is the same basic ingredients of various veggies (cabbage usually for sure), a myriad of spices, some sort of rice concoction and occasionally a mystery meat. Although most of the food at the other Academy is basically rice & veggies thrown together and heated up with a red spice sauce. I feel terrible b/c they tell me what I'm eating but it's always some Korean word really fast & I can only ask them to repeat it three or four times before I nod politely & say 'Oh, O.K, it's very good, thank you!' One day, I swore I was eating unbattered mozzarella sticks but they told me it was rice....I was certainly a little disappointed but either way, delicious.
A couple different times last week different teachers brought in some food to munch on, so I was able to taste their bakery style bread, which was actually rather bland. Another day, they showed up with a sort of rice/seaweed wrap thing. James said you can get two of them (about 16 inches total) for 3000 won, so basically $3. The seaweed didn't really have a distinguishing taste from what I could tell but whatever was wrapped inside it with the rice was awesome.....I think they said it was veggies, which makes sense given the way everything else has played out these first couple weeks; probably some cabbage!
Finally, on Friday last week, I was eating with the other teachers (five of us total) & they were worried b/c I was going to town on a PB&J, two bananas, a Clif bar, strawberry yogurt & some fruit cocktail. They had their usual assortment of rice, spicy veggies, noodles & some random fishy stuff (imagine very miniature fish, head still on coated in a sticky sweet glaze). I am not a fish guy, really haven't ever been a fan, so....All of them insisted I wasn't eating nearly enough & I should sample some of their goodness. There is a sequence to it, apparently, too. You eat a helping of rice, follow it with the semi-sour veggies, more rice, then the sticky fish....which is interesting cause the little dudes are simply staring at you as you swipe them up with your chop sticks (yes, I've got some skills, not great but sufficient for a foreigner). I probably had four or five helping of the fish....baby, that glaze was awesome!
On the domestic front, I've been eating the shit out of eggs & bananas but I've had to go pretty thin on the PB&J's since PB is quite pricey & can be hard to find in the neighborhood. Oh yeah, I haven't been able to find any ranch dressing yet & 20 slices of cheese cost me just over $7, which basically means throwing cheese around is for the special occasions only!! The 'Edwin' at the meat counter has been pretty helpful, though; whenever he sees me, he remembers my name & asks if I need some more American beef....he was good about pointing out he had both American beef & 'other types that I probably wouldn't enjoy as much.'
I suppose that's about it for now but I'm certain I'll have many opportunities to enjoy many, many different foods, which means I'll need to talk about them!
Be well, eat healthy & try something new, it might surprise you!
namaste
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