My Weekend

Oh what a wonderful weekend.

I went to Seoul for the first time. I went to the COEX mall with Hesang and Eunji for window shopping and lunch. For the first time in, oh I don't know, FOREVER, I had American food! Outback Steakhouse to be exact. Although we did still eat Korean style, the bread tasted exactly the same and the seafood pasta and coconut shrimp were divine.

Then I went to the Sinchon area for the teacher welcoming party hosted by Korvia. I'm so glad I went, because I met a lot of cool people...especially some girls who are just as awesome as I am. The one bad thing about Seoul is the subway closes early. So we left a little after 11pm, but when we got to our transfer station, the subway closed! Luckily we weren't that far from Seongnam, so we all took a cab and it was pretty cheap.

But the main thing I want to talk about is tonight's dinner. One of the english teachers at my school invited me to her apartment for a typical Korean family dinner. It was SOOO good! She and her husband picked me up and drove me to Yuldong park first. I keep asking her about the parks here, so she finally wanted to shut me up by taking me to one. :) We walked around for a little bit, saw the book theme park (lame), then drove to her apartment. She told me her apartment is average for Korean families. They have a view of the mountains. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, the kitchen was small but very nice. No oven, but I think under the stove was a small toaster oven. Her two sons are 13 and 11, and they were just adorable. The TV was not on, and we ate at the table...you know, how Americans did in the 50s? I was so bummed I forgot my camera, because I would have taken a picture of dinner. But I'll do my best to describe it.

She fixed bibimbap since she knew it was my favorite dish. This is simply rice with different veggies, and meat, eggs, or tofu (or all 3!). The rice and veggies were already prepared, so her husband fried some eggs, while she cooked bulgogi. Bulgogi is marinated meat and mushrooms, but I've never tasted anything like it. Yes I know its meat, but the flavor was amazing. Her husband also made kimchi pancakes and he could flip them in the air! I felt like a little kid again watching him. Ok, I could keep going on in detail but you have things to do, & I'm tired so I'll just list everything we had.

Bibimbap:
rice
green pumpkin
bean sprouts
carrots
spicy chinese cabbage
hot pepper paste
sesame seed oil
egg

Bulgogi
Kimchi soup with tofu
Kimchi pancakes (I couldn't get enough of these...freaking amazing)
Kimchi- chinese cabbage and red pepper powder
Kimchi- some type of leafy green or maybe green onions?
Kimchi- sesame seed leaf and red pepper
More of the dead minnows...I gladly did not try them.
Actually, I don't think anybody did.

PS- There's about 100 types of kimchi. And they have an entire refrigerator (same size as a small deep freezer) for only kimchi (the normal cabbage kind). Koreans eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yes, BREAKFAST, LUNCH, and DINNER. Everyday. I can see why too. I love it!

Her Mother-in-law makes her family a lot every year. She spends about 3 days just making kimchi, and then it ferments as it sits in the fridge. Like wine, it gets better with time.

Since I didn't take pictures, here are some I found online. They don't do Songsook's dinner justice of course, but you get the picture (figuratively and literally).


Bibimbap


Kimchi pancake!!! Her youngest son and I were constantly eating from this plate.


Kimchi


Kimchi

After we ate this huge dinner, we sat in the living room and watched her favorite Korean TV show. As a skeptic of reality TV, it was actually pretty good. For dessert, we had fruit and some traditional Korean "cookies". They eat their dessert on a low table on the living room floor. We had...


Korean melon

As well as apples and a Korean pear. A Korean pear is nothing like our pears. Its the size of a grapefruit, brown, and tastes more like an apple than a pear.


Traditional cookies...they are very sticky and not sweet.

That's all folks!