Orientation at Kyung Hee University is finally over, and on Friday we traveled by bus to Daegu, which is the province where I will be teaching. before I talk about Daegu though, I wanted to tell you about my fun weekend in Seoul visiting a cooking school, Lotte World and walking around the Business District in Seoul.
First stop was the Soomin cooking school of Seoul. This was one of my favorite activities! the menu for the day was kimbap and bulgogi (Korean sushi and stir fried meat- veerrrryy common food in Korea). I felt like I was on set for a Food Network cooking show. There was a little Korean lady all done up in pink (pink lipstick, pink apron, pink gloves, etc.) at the front of the room who had a video camera suspended over her cutting board and skillet. She gave us a demonstration on how to chop the onions, mushrooms, etc. for the bulgogi and then showed us how to pat out the sushi rice onto seaweed papers and roll the mixture up into neat and tidy Kimbap rolls using a bamboo mat. Traditional Korean kimbap is filled with ham, fried egg, pickled radish (neon yellow!), cucumber and krab (the fake crab meat made out of white fish). Of course I adjusted my recipes some, omitting the ham, stealing krab from other people's plates and doubling the veggies until I had a roll so monstrous it barely held together.
See the lady in pink behind me?
Shaina, washing her hands. Look at the yellow strips of pickled radish- that stuff is the bomb!!
A very hastily cut roll.After scarfing down our creations, we loaded back on to our bus to head to the theme park: Lotte World. Lotte World is just another example of how this company called "Lotte" owns all of Korea. I am chewing Lotte pomegranate gum, sipping Lotte bottled water and I can count about 8 Lotte billboards outside my window right now. So, it figures that they would have a theme park too, right?
Lotte World has two areas: an indoor park geared towards little kids mostly (pictured above- with an ice skating rink for crying out loud!) and an outdoor park with some more extreme rides and your basic Disney-knockoff Cinderella castle. (below)
The characters for Lotte World are all in vague violation of copyright.. they have a green grasshopper, a boy and girl raccoon, a tall GOOFY looking dog character, etc....As for the rides, hang on to your stuff! The one rollercoaster Shaina and I rode nearly made us sick. To put it in perspective: both of her earrings flew out of her ears by the end of the ride! And by the way: the rollercoaster was named "The French Revolution" with absolutely nothing connecting it to the French in any way. :o)
We didn't stay at Lotte World long. With Shaina and Eunice being from California and me coming from Florida, we tend to be cynics when it comes to theme parks. So off we went to board the metro (subway) and take a 30 minute ride with like 12 (ok...3) transfers to a very large book store that offered "foreign" (English) books. I looked at cookbooks for an hour, drooling on the pages, slipping in and out of consciousness with dreams about oatmeal, blueberries and extra chunky peanut butter. And salad dressing (they mix ketchup and mayonnaise together for salad dressing). Most of the books (and this goes for clothes in stores too) are kept in plastic wrap to prevent people from bending the pages and dirtying the covers, so only cookbooks and art books could really be read.
After reading, we decided to take a walk down through the heart of the Seoul business District. With "Simply Italian: A guide to Everyday Italian Cuisine" fresh in my mind, I craved non-Korean food so badly it hurt. So Eunice, Shaina and I pledged that we would splurge and eat Western food no matter the cost! We chose a swanky little Italian place called "Antigone" (a Greek play...) and were immediately chastised for not having made reservations even though the entire restaurant was empty. After huffing and puffing, the server showed us to a window seat that overlooked the city, which was glowing with the setting sun.
How can I describe the happy, no, ELATED feeling of seeing bread after a month of rice? After ordering our meals (salad with Italian dressing and mushrooms marinated in balsamic vinegar), the waitress brought out a plate of bread (and a potato!). We wolfed down that bread quicker than a homeless Korean man can down a bottle of soju (and that's FAST people...) And then... delirious off the rush of starch through my system, I had the audacity to ask the waitress for another plate. She wasn't happy... but I think I had a hostile glimmer in my eye because she hurried right back with another plate.
The salads were pretty good. Small, but honestly the bread was the star of the show. The damage came out to be about $22 a person for a side salad and some rolls. But damn if we weren't feeling fabulous afterward. We even topped the night off with a stop at Starbucks!
The long one was a squid ink breadstick!
Getting my money's worth.
The picture below is a stream that runs straight through Seoul. Apparently, the last Korean President wanted to beautify the city, so he converted one of the most dilapidated ghettos of Seoul into this scenic, peaceful stream. At all hours of the day, you can see people strolling along the water, resting with their feet in the stream, etc. It was a beautiful juxtaposition to have this tranquil stream running directly below the most hectic, traffic-clogged streets in all of Korea.
Now fast forward to our 4 hour bus ride into Daegu. The best way I can describe Daegu is like a more city-ish Jacksonville or a small scale Orlando. It has every convenience I could ever need, but we are literally encased by a sprawling mountain range. We are staying in a hotel called "the Prince Hotel of Daegu" that feels like the Ritz compared to our dorm rooms. Ah, how little it takes for me to be happy. I can actually control when my AC shuts off, I have a mattress that actually has some squish to it and lo and behold: cereal at breakfast!!!!! Unfortunately, we will only be here for a week. Our province is giving us a week more of orientation before we move to our apartments this Friday, but I really feel like our apartments are going to be nicer than expected.
I met my co-teacher. her name is Seong Ji ("Song Jee"), and she is 27 in Korean age (Koreans are considered to be 1 year old when they are born). She is quiet, reserved, and covers her mouth often when speaking English. This is a mannerism that most Korean women have when they are embarrassed, but the longer I talked to her, the less she hid behind her hands. She is excited to teach the kids, and wants to take me out to dinner to meet her friends :o) I probably won't be seeing her again until I move to my apartment, but we will have plenty of time to get to know each other over the next few months.
All in all, I am so incredibly pleased with both my Province and my co-teacher that I feel giddy. Yesterday we took a walking tour of Daegu, went and saw G.I. Joe in a movie theater (they even bought us Krispy Kreme doughnuts!) and went to a night club called "Frog" with my girlfriends. I can see myself loving Daegu (and I bet I will love the city I will be teaching in, Dalseong). More updates are to come, but for now, enjoy some snapshots of our day of exploring.
Single-ride tokens for the Daegu metro. Or monocles if you're me :o)
There are 14 TaLK scholars assigned to the Daegu area. This is our last week being all together like this. Our POE (Provincial Office of Education) treated us to a traditional Korean meal for lunch. Korean-style eating is the best! Relaxing, barefoot on a floor mat with all your friends and family, stealing morsels off everyone else's plate.
Bibimbap, kimchi, naengmyun, water kimchi, steamed dumplings, pickled radish, fermented peanuts, galbi (raw beef) and cinnamon soup. This was a fraction of the meal; there are many side dishes that I cannot even explain.
Look how many plates, bowls, cups and utensils are used. Korean bus boys and servers have a tough job- especially since there is no tipping!
Downtown Daegu.
Our hotel- look at the welcome banner!
Our club of choice- known for being a haven for foreigners. I will definitely go again!And keeping faithful to my habit of ending on a funny, slightly gross note- this was the sign for a clothes store:
Hehe ;)
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