this sign greeted us upon leaving the plane
this bus picked us up at the airport
advertisement in mcdonald's
normal street with food and shopping
this morning's breakfasttoday was such a day. i had a wonderful start to my morning by waking early to drink my refrigerated, Starbucks latte and read The Scarlet Letter, which I began on the plane. my
roomate was still asleep so it was great peace and quiet. a campus tour was scheduled for today, but in actuality it was a free day. however, the schedule here does seem much more rigid, so i think those will be few and far between. two korean students, jong uk and boram, had gone to get breakfast for all of us. how truly nice this was. they came back to the dorm with dunkin donuts, sushi type breakfast rolls, and plenty of orange juice and milk. we all crowded around a table and enjoyed the food, which was delicious. it felt great to be taken care of like that, and was a much better experience than searching for breakfast as we did yesterday. at that piont it truly hit me that it was so important that we had the koreans there to help us. contrary to popular belief, not every person in the world is fluent in english. we have the most qualified tour guides at our fingertips. after a brief meeting in a (hot) classroom on campus, we headed to lunch at a traditional korean restaurant. i'm having trouble putting this into words, for it was so unlike anything i have ever experienced. four of us sat around one table, which has a large boiler in the center. two people share a salad and kimchi as the beginning of the meal. we were told we could choose between beef (australian) or seafood as our main dish. liking both, i said i was flexible, and my table ended up with seafood. yet, this was not typical american shrimp and scallops. on the plate was octupus, squid, shrimp, seashell (i believe these were mussels and oysters), and more. on another plate were lettuces, mushrooms, dumplings- mostly vegetable type foods. these were put into the now boiling pot first and were soon ready to eat. they really weren't that flavorful, and after one day of eating korean food, i have found this to be my main argument against it. they eat some dishes with hot pepper paste, but really use no other spices. its as if it is all or nothing. after the vegetables, the seafood was put in gradually. i will say that i ate some octopus, which had a funny texture but was otherwise ok. i was going to eat shrimp, but i think i lost my appetite. when the waitress came around asking for more salad, i decided to fill up on that instead. soon after, noodles were brought out. i loved them. and then, rice that was cooked in the broth left from the other things. it seems like an immense amount of food, but it really was not filling. i say that in the sense that we in america tend to fill ourselves to the brim. that is not the case here. after eating, the girls went shopping. i have found that korea is much cheaper than the u.s. i bought a few things for myself and some happies for some back home. i'm still waiting for them to take me to a neat market. tonight was mostly a night of rest. i took a nap and awoke just in time to make it to dinner downstairs. the koreans were cooking for us. we had pork and galbi (their version of barbeque-but not really similar to ours). it was good, not extraordinary, but i could definitely eat it often. i came up to my room hoping to get a good night's sleep, but am not sure about that. we have an early day tomorrow, and we'll spend all of getting a city tour of seoul. i cant wait to see what else this city has to offer, away from our small corner of it.
roomate was still asleep so it was great peace and quiet. a campus tour was scheduled for today, but in actuality it was a free day. however, the schedule here does seem much more rigid, so i think those will be few and far between. two korean students, jong uk and boram, had gone to get breakfast for all of us. how truly nice this was. they came back to the dorm with dunkin donuts, sushi type breakfast rolls, and plenty of orange juice and milk. we all crowded around a table and enjoyed the food, which was delicious. it felt great to be taken care of like that, and was a much better experience than searching for breakfast as we did yesterday. at that piont it truly hit me that it was so important that we had the koreans there to help us. contrary to popular belief, not every person in the world is fluent in english. we have the most qualified tour guides at our fingertips. after a brief meeting in a (hot) classroom on campus, we headed to lunch at a traditional korean restaurant. i'm having trouble putting this into words, for it was so unlike anything i have ever experienced. four of us sat around one table, which has a large boiler in the center. two people share a salad and kimchi as the beginning of the meal. we were told we could choose between beef (australian) or seafood as our main dish. liking both, i said i was flexible, and my table ended up with seafood. yet, this was not typical american shrimp and scallops. on the plate was octupus, squid, shrimp, seashell (i believe these were mussels and oysters), and more. on another plate were lettuces, mushrooms, dumplings- mostly vegetable type foods. these were put into the now boiling pot first and were soon ready to eat. they really weren't that flavorful, and after one day of eating korean food, i have found this to be my main argument against it. they eat some dishes with hot pepper paste, but really use no other spices. its as if it is all or nothing. after the vegetables, the seafood was put in gradually. i will say that i ate some octopus, which had a funny texture but was otherwise ok. i was going to eat shrimp, but i think i lost my appetite. when the waitress came around asking for more salad, i decided to fill up on that instead. soon after, noodles were brought out. i loved them. and then, rice that was cooked in the broth left from the other things. it seems like an immense amount of food, but it really was not filling. i say that in the sense that we in america tend to fill ourselves to the brim. that is not the case here. after eating, the girls went shopping. i have found that korea is much cheaper than the u.s. i bought a few things for myself and some happies for some back home. i'm still waiting for them to take me to a neat market. tonight was mostly a night of rest. i took a nap and awoke just in time to make it to dinner downstairs. the koreans were cooking for us. we had pork and galbi (their version of barbeque-but not really similar to ours). it was good, not extraordinary, but i could definitely eat it often. i came up to my room hoping to get a good night's sleep, but am not sure about that. we have an early day tomorrow, and we'll spend all of getting a city tour of seoul. i cant wait to see what else this city has to offer, away from our small corner of it.
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