Sep 5, 2012

1 week down...

You got a snippet of my life in my post yesterday, but, as promised, here is the Life Update.

I've almost survived my first full week of school. I'm exhausted, and I didn't even have a full class load. Next week I add 4 after school classes!!

Last weekend was my first weekend off in... well.. a really long time. I met up with some friends on Saturday to go to E Mart (like Target, only in Korean).

But before we got to E mart, we decided to get some lunch. We were in an unfamiliar area and had absolutely no idea where to go! After a lot of herd-like walking back and forth, we finally decided to just go into a random restaurant. We walked in and were seated by a little ajumma. That's when we realized the place didn't have menus (with pictures), and the selection was just written on the wall. Well, Ajumma either didn't think we could read hangeul at all, or was too impatient to let us sit there and sound out every word. She started gesturing and pointing to things. We think she was making suggestions. She said something with "bap" (rice) and "gogi" (meat) so we were just like Ne! Ne!
It turned out to be pork belly, which came with lettuce and a bunch of tasty sides. She showed us how to eat it, which was to take a piece of lettuce and put a piece of meat and whatever other goodies you wanted, roll it up, and eat it. Let me tell you, it was pretty tasty. Then, while we were enjoying our new-found appreciation for pork belly, she brought out a plate of scallion pancakes. They're just as delicious as they sound. Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard. She handed them to us and kept saying "service-ee! service-ee!" which is basically Korean for "here's some free stuff." The whole meal came out to about 4 bucks each. I could get used to this.

Then, we hit up Emart and bought a bunch of stuff. I won't bore you with the details, but I did get a pimpin umbrella. It's giant and green with little ladybugs on it.


After E mart we decided to take a tour of everyone's apartments. This took the better part of four hours. We all live really far away from each other. It was fun, though. It gave us a chance to see each other's neighborhoods, and we all got to drop our E mart stuff off at home.

When we got to my house, we decided to be brave and try to order delivery.
A word on Korean delivery: It's amazing. Everywhere delivers, including McDonalds. It takes about 10 minutes to get there. It comes on real dishes with real silverware, and when you're done you just leave the tray outside your door and they come pick up all your dirty dishes.
Oh, and it doesn't cost any more than it would in the restaurant, not even for tipping. There's no tipping here.

However, ordering delivery involves speaking in Korean on the phone. It's harder (but not impossible) to mime over the phone. Our quest for delivery involved several minutes of me on the phone trying to convey my needs in broken Korean. We were moderately successful.  Food was, in fact, delivered promptly to my door. It was the food we ordered. The only problem was that we ordered 3 bulgogi soups and only got one. We're still counting it as a win.


Sunday was devoted to exploring one of the major shopping areas, Myeongdong. Oh, Myeongdong. How I love thee, and yet how I hate thee. Thy stores are so amazing, and thy prices are just low enough to convince me to spend too much money. Curse ye, Myeongdong.

Anyway, it was back to the grindstone on Monday. For the highlights of my week so far, see the previous post.

 I did recover, though. Last night I got beer and CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) with a friend of a friend. On a related note, the existence of a CPK a mere ONE subway stop away has crushed all my dreams of losing weight from a year of a strict Korean food diet. So it goes.

Anyway, no classes for me today, so I've spent the day at my desk planning lessons and trying to watch the DNC. Fun times.



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