Friday came. The day that I had been dreading. I had hoped that it would somehow be skipped in the calendar - that I would wake up and it would be Saturday and we would all be completely confused and baffled, but we would shrug and laugh and continue living our lives. And he would be here. But no. Friday came.

Sitting on the mattress that is my bed last night, I looked around my room and took everything in. I looked past the clothes strewn around the room, proof of a weekend of shopping and debauchery, at the filled bookshelf, the slowly dusting guitar in the corner, the two cameras on my desk and the computer lying on the edge of the bed. It suddenly hit me how many things I have taken up as my own little projects. When I bought my guitar, I justified it saying that I wanted to learn - that it was something to do for my own sake when everything I was doing was for everyone else's sake. Since then, I realised, I have taken up a lot of projects for my own sake. I thought I would pay a small tribute to them here.

Playing guitar. As I said earlier, this was the first thing that I decided to do just for me. I love the guitar and have always wanted to learn how to play it. However, I have become lazy in terms of practicing and need someone or something to motivate me. Wanting to be able to play the songs I like only takes me so far. I need something more - someone to practice with or someone to teach me.

Blogging. When I came to Korea, I started this blog. At first, the blogs were occasional as I was just trying to adjust to the new space I was in, but over the last few months it has become a regular hobby of mine, to the point where I was approached to blog for another website about living in Korea (which I am still considering, since they want me to post 3-4 articles on a weekly basis and I am not sure that I have the time or desire. I want to write when I want to write.) I have also become a bit of a blogaholic, now having three separate blogs - one for Korea, one for my creative writing and one for my photography. But more about those in a minute.

Creative Writing. Last year, I took a course in creative writing, and I loved it. I have always enjoyed writing actually, particularly creatively, and it is what put me on the path towards journalism from an early age. But last year, I started writing creatively in a serious way. Before, I was writing silly short stories, fiction, my imagination flowing over onto the page without a second thought. Last year I started to think about the things that I was writing and channel my creativity and imagination into a specific direction - write about a smell, write a litjourn article, write a poem. Being told what I should be doing was liberating and caging simultaneously - I knew the direction in which my writing should go, but to make it go in that direction was a battle. Then, about a month ago, I started writing again. I have been writing all along, of course - regular e-mails and blogs aplenty - but this time I started writing creatively, taking my feelings, my thoughts, my imaginings and putting them to paper or harddrive as the case often was. I started updating my creative writing blog more regularly. I even went out and bought a book in which I could and would write. While I have been lazy over the last month with Grant here to occupy my mind, I took up my pen once more last night and wrote for a good half an hour. It was a good, releasing feeling and by the end of it the depression that had been threatening to sink in had abaited for a time.

Learning Korean. Grant rekindled this project in me with his sheer enthusiasm for the language, and though (once again) I have been lazy over the last couple of days, the urge to learn has been slowly eating away at me, and soon I won't be able to resist anymore. I am on the fifth chapter of the book, and have found myself remembering more than I thought I would - like phrases keep coming to mind, and though I am not quite comfortable using them yet, the fact that they are there makes me feel that the hours spent learning are not going to waste.

Photography. Unlike my love for guitar and writing, this hobby of mine has not been long in the making. It only came into being last year when I held one of the journalism cameras in my hand and felt the power behind it flowing through me. It started when I learned how to take a camera and bend the world to my will in a small way by capturing a part of it in film. But it slowed a great deal when the camera was taken away from me and I found that my own little point and shoot wasn't nearly as good at capturing the world the way I saw it. It always somehow fell short. Now I have a camera that is capable of doing my bidding and I am slowly learning how to use it - through both study and practice. To see my progress, just check out my 365-day project.

Those are my current projects, but it is possible that one will also come into the works tonight. This weekend, I came across someone in my area who told me about Taekwondo classes for foreigners. I am going to the first class this evening, and I am excited - I love martial arts and want to learn; it is a form of sorely needed exercise; and I am seeing it as a photo opportunity. I will have to see how it goes, but I have the feeling that a new project is on the brink of beginning. It is a good feeling.

Today is the day that I have been dreading. As much as I have been avoiding the thought of it, the date of Grant's departure has arrived. Ever since he arrived, I have been thinking up ways of keeping him here, including the burning of his passport, but by now it is too late. There is nothing I can do. Reality always catches up with us and it is time to face the facts - I cannot keep him here any longer. Now I have two choices - I can mope and sink into a serious depression, or I can look back at the awesome fun that we have had over the last four weeks (which may in turn lead to a serious depression, but there are always risks.) After a discussion that Grant and I had a couple of days back where he told me that I need to form a more positive outlook of the world, I think that I will attempt the latter option and reminisce rather than wallow. And so, here I am reminscing prior to the fact itself, hoping that this will make me smile when I look at it in a couple of days time. While there are so many little things that have made me happy about his being here, looking back on the past four weeks there are a couple of memorable moments that stick out.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• Wandering the streets of Gangnam trying to find his first Korean meal, and ending up getting Japanese, only to find kalmegi and galbi places aplenty around the corner from the restaurant that we settled on.
• Trying, in my broken Korean, to find a pub to watch the Grand Prix in. Cue charades!
• Games of darts in every pub that we found, even though non-stop complaining about the stupid dartboards almost always ensued.
• Lotus leaves, lotus flowers, lotus tea, lotus wraps and lotus beer. I don't think I will be able to hear the word "lotus" again without thinking about him.
• Watching the giant yellow-striped spider spinning his web, even though it creeped the living daylights out of me.
• Lazy days spent just being around each other in the apartment, doing nothing special but just being together.
• Massages to work out the kinks in his back caused by sitting on the floor at Korean restaurants.
• The joys of finding a kalmegi place, quickly followed by the horror of spicy kalmegi that was so hot I could hardly swallow it and had to chug milk thereafter. Then going back and ordering what we thought was the other one, only to get the same spicy one again. *Sigh*
• Fresh raw fish on two occasions - once for free and once for an exhorbitant amount.
• Getting lost in the streets of Busan (in daylight this time around) as we tried to find the 40 Steps. Not horribly lost, but a little.
• Heavy bags filled with binoculars, caps, baseballs and souvenirs weighing my shoulders down.
• Making friends with the Koreans, who would probably never have spoken to me if I had been on my own, as they chatted away with Grant and I interpretted their broken English into something that Grant could understand.
• My bed collapsing in the middle of the night, shocking us at first and then leading to hysterical fits of laughter as we contemplated how people would react when they heard about it.
• Belting it out at the Noribang until 1:30 on a school night with some of our friends for Grant's farewell.
• Forcing him into Love Story in Shinae and giggling at how awkward he looked sitting in a pouffy couch, eating icecream with a heart shaped spoon and just surrounded by pink and girliness.

As I said, there are so many memories that have been made, and these are just a few, but they are the ones that stand out the most in my blurry memory of happiness. Check back in a few days when I will have attached some photos, since most of my photos arent on my work computer.

I have been feeling like an absolutely terrible blogger this week! With disaster upon disaster striking me, the worst being Grant's looming departure and the more minor ones being my bed collapsing in the middle of the night and my school computer refusing to start the next morning, I haven't really been focussing too much on my writing. I did write an uber-update to all my friends and family, and am halfway through a ridiculously long blog about Busan which I am not sure it is such a good idea to post, purely because there is just too much information to depart in a single blog!

Instead of blogging, what I have been doing is reading. Not books, surprisingly (though I did manage to get somewhat interested in Shalimar the Clown this weekend - about time in my opinion!). No, instead I have taken to Google Reader, and have been subscribing to blogs! Lots and lots of blogs! Blogs from friends, blogs from acquaintances and even a couple of blogs from people I don't even know! But over the last two days, I have especially been focussing on blogs about photography.

Ever since I held the Canon in my hand, I couldn't help but become obsessed. It has been about a year since I held a decent camera, and I have definitely been going trigger crazy - on the first weekend after we acquired the camera, I snapped around 450 shots. This past weekend, I ended up taking 470 in one day and having to delete a whole bunch to make space for pictures of the temple. But, though I have certainly been having fun clicking away, I feel like there is still a lot I need to learn. And thus I have started following about five photography blogs, including one from a friend of mine. I have also finally set up a Flickr account and have joined a photography group there, even using one of my Busan photos to participate in their August challenge (see the photo on the right).

I also have an idea, inspired by a friend of mine here, of starting a 365 day photo project - a photo a day for a year. I am in two minds about it, because I really don't want to start something that I cannot follow through on, but at the same time I am hoping that this kind of project would inspire me to use the camera on a more regular basis and get used to using it, get used to playing around with it and make me more comfortable in my abilities, thus making me a better photographer.

So watch this space in a couple of days when I may be announcing my new venture (though it will likely be on a separate blog - I like to keep my Korean blog separate from my general life blog, after all. Thus Happy Hour!)

A couple of months ago, I set myself a goal. I should have set it a lot earlier than I did, but I eventually got around to doing it. I even put it in my Bucket List as one of the things I had to do before leaving Korea (it would be kind of pointless to do it after I leave). That goal was learning to speak Korean or, as I put it in the Bucket List blog, "Have a conversation with a taxi-driver in Korean." Why a taxi-driver, you might ask. Well, he would be a complete stranger who, unlike some of my teachers, would be less likely to go easy on me or revert to speaking (or trying to speak) English. Taxi-drivers are also the Koreans that I come into contact with most often who always want to start a conversation despite my not being able to speak Korean. So it seems like a perfect situation - someone who wants to talk to me and can't speak enough English to revert to the language if I were to mess up.

I set this goal a couple of months ago. And then I just carried on with my everyday life, not making much effort to see it come to fruition. I learned a couple of words here and there, enough to help me through and get what I wanted and be polite about it, but I wasn't really trying to learn. Everything that I learned was just the result of being surrounded by a language - something is bound to rub off on you eventually! And then Grant came to visit me.

Over the first two weeks of Grant's visit, I passed on my knowledge to him. But it wasn't enough. One day I came home from work.
"Hey!"
No response. I was still in the kitchen kicking off my shoes and thought that he might not have heard me.
"Hello!"
A bit louder this time, but still nothing. I could see his silhouette through the glass of the sliding door. Was he sleeping? I walked through and saw him rifling through websites.
"Hi!"
Still no response, but this time I knew he wasn't asleep. Getting annoyed, I poked him. He turned with a big grin on his face.
"Sorry, Baby. I was studying."
I looked at the laptop and saw a jumble of tabs open, each of them about Korean: "Learn Korean", "Study Korean", "Practice Korean", "Korean alphabet." A sense of guilt washed over me as I remembered my enthusiasm in the week before arriving in Korea and how it had abated as soon as I got here. I had discovered Grant on his first day of practice, and he practiced every day after that for the next week while I was at work, and sometimes even before or after I came home, much to my dismay.
"Baby, can we watch a movie?"
"When I'm done studying!"
Sigh. It felt like my boyfriend was lost in this world that I was too lazy to discover, getting excited over reading signs as I had seen myself do, and wanting to learn ever more about the Korean language.

Then Sunday dawned and we made our way to Shinae late in the afternoon and wandered between shops, stalls and markets. Our last stop was the bookstore behind Lotte Young Plaza where I had been told there was a (small) selection of English books. We were intrigued and made our way in, only to discover that by small, what my friends had meant was barely existent. But we weren't deterred and while I made my way through the fiction section which seemed to be based on children's and teenage literature - English for the middle and high school student - Grant made his way through his own sections, which seemed to be mostly in Korean, of computer and science literature. Or so I thought. When I found him, his nose wasn't stuck in a manual on PHP or a book about astrology as it usually was, but instead he had found a section on learning to speak Korean! I joined him in browsing through almost every book in the section and decided to reward his enthusiasm and, I hoped, kick my own ass into gear, by buying two books - Survival Korean by Stephen Revere, which helps with learning the language and grammar rules, and Surviving in Korean by Yeong-Ju Lim and Sun-Shil Ahn, which also teaches a bit but provides a more solid base of vocabulary than Revere.

In the taxi home, I started perusing through Revere, taking in the details about the book without starting to learn quite yet. When we got home, Grant made his way to the laptop to play some games and I collapsed onto the bed and opened the book, wanting to start learning. But, I was convinced to join in with some games before we had to make our way to quiz, and the books lay on the bed until our return that night when they were unceremoniously thrown into the corner as we passed out on the bed. I had taken Monday off, and when I woke up the first thing I reached for was not my laptop as I usually do, but the books. I quickly made my way through the first chapter of Revere - I already knew the language and skills that it possessed so it served as more of a recap than anything else - and through the second chapter which proved to be a little harder as it provided a lot of vocabulary that I didn't know in a very short space of time. It is now Wednesday, and I am up to chapter five and going a bit slower now as I learn the grammar rules as well as the pronunciation. The knowledge is slowly seeping in though, and I find myself thinking in Korean more than I used to and trying to make proper sentences rather than spitting out random words.

One problem that I have been experiencing with my learning of Korean is that with all of this new vocabulary coming in, I seem to be losing some of my old vocab. Yesterday, I was sitting on the bed and came across the word jib. "Jib," I thought to myself. "Like in hayanjib." I recognised the word! I felt so proud! But as soon as the word hayanjib popped into my mind, the struggle to remember what that meant began. It started off as a mere irritation and quickly developed into an annoyance and an aggravation. One little thing that annoyed me led to more things annoying me, and soon I found myself in a terrible mood, until suddenly it dawned on me. Hayanjib - The White House. The name of the building that I live in. I hit myself on the head that it had taken me that long! But, while the word did come to me eventually, I am now in fear that this will become a habit - losing the vocabulary I have as more vocabulary fills my mind. I can only retain so much information after all!

But the books have also proved useful so far! I pulled one out at dinner last night to tell the waiter that the kalmegi we were having was too spicy and to ask for another non-spicy one. While it took awhile for the waiter to understand what we wanted (he understood that it was too spicy but didn't understand that we wanted a non-spicy alternative), we still eventually managed to get some meat that I could eat.

For the next few weeks, I am likely going to be carrying the book around with me and using it to get what I want across, but I am hoping that after a couple of weeks, at least some of the knowledge contained within them will rub off on me and I won't need it nearly as much. It's not that unlikely is it? Grant's enthusiasm rubbed off on me after all!

Ask any of the people I have lived with and they will tell you: There comes a time once every six months or so when I get completely bored with my life and my routine and I decide that a change is needed. Ever since I moved to Grahamstown, that change has always been my room. When I was in residence, my room was small and there were few things that I could do with it, so I would take it upon myself to change the pinboard above my head and adorn it with varying posters and cutouts from magazines. When I moved into my house with Michael, Paige, Amy and Richard, I would get the boys to help me move my bed and desk and closet around in addition to covering my walls in posters (the excuse that I gave the landlady was that the walls were peeling. While this was the case, I'm sure that I would have ended up putting the posters on the walls anyway. I just might have been more careful about it.)

I have been in Korea for six months now and the need for change struck me quite awhile ago, but faded once I realised that the bed was too heavy for me to move on my own. Now that I have a visitor, I enlisted his help and together (okay, so it was mostly just him) we changed my room around. To show you the rennovations, here are some photos of what the room looked like before we got to work (you may recognise them from the walkthrough of my room that I did when I first arrived):

If you have been following my blog, by now you will have read about the foods that I love and want to try as well as the foods that I find to be overrated and the ones that scare me a little. What you haven’t heard about, and what this blog will tell you about, are the foods that I hate and that the one that I would never ever eat even if you paid me. So, lets start with the ones that I hate, shall we?

Chapssaltteok is a different kind of rice cake from tteok. While I love tteok, there is something about the texture and taste of chapssaltteok that makes me want to cringe. These cakes have a slimey and horribly chewy texture and are filled with red bean paste (see in my second blog under overrated). After the first bite, I generally end up carrying them with me until I can find somewhere to throw them so as not to offend the teachers in my staffroom who give them to me.


Eomook is a fried fish paste that can be found in gimbap (see in the first blog under foods that I love). While I do not mind the touch of it together with the other ingredients that tend to block out its taste, I cannot stand it on its own, and cannot eat the fried sticks of fish paste that are sold by many of the street vendors, though they seem to be very popular with many other people.


Sundae (pronounced soonday rather than Sundae as in the yummy ice cream) is a sneaky Korean dish. It tricked me into thinking that it might be something like boerewors, because it looked just like the South African sausage. This made me excited for a few moments, until I actually bit into it and the unexpected chewiness filled my mouth. It was like eating meaty gelatine, and the experience wasn't a pleasant one. When I asked what it actually was, none of the co-teachers at my table could explain it, so I shrugged it off and decided that it would just be something that I would avoid if I ever saw it again. One day, a couple of weeks later, I was driving with one of my co-teacherrs looking for a place for dinner.
"Have you tasted Sundae?"
"I don't know," I admitted ashamedly. I am really bad at remembering names for Korean foods, and in fact had to look up a number of the names for the Korean dishes in this series of blog posts.
"Pig intestine?"
I shook my head, shivering at the thought of trying to eat pig intestine.
"Oh yes! You did! You didn't like."
I stared at her for a few seconds, not quite understanding. And then we drove past a Sundae restaurant and she pointed at the picture above the door. Suffice to say, I have avoided it even more now that I know exactly what it is.

While there are some dishes that I would rather avoid having heard about what they are and them not really fitting into my description of edible, then there is the one dish that I will never eat, no matter how appetising anyone makes it sound or how much anyone paid me (I might eat silkworms or chickens feet for the right amount, though I feel that I would be heavily disturbed thereafter).


Gaegogi is, as you may have guessed, dog meat. It is a dish that is most often eaten by Korean men as it is said to make you strong. There is in fact a national dog eating day, and a couple of my friends were taken to restaurants by their co-teachers to try the meat. Thankfully none of them were forced to do so against their will. Though the dish is still eaten, it is not as common as it used to be and efforts are being made to outlaw the dish. A number of my co-teachers who have tried it insist that the taste of the meat is not enjoyable, and that this is why they refuse to eat it rather than any moral reasons. I wouldn't care if it was the most delicious meal on earth, there is no way that I would ever, ever eat dog meat. The first day that I got to school, my principal took me, together with a number of new teachers to the school, out for lunch. I looked at every dish with a suspicious eye, particularly the unknown meat that was placed on the table. But I was quickly assured by Jenny that I will never be given dog meat without knowing about it. When it is offered to you, the people offering it will want you to know what it is, as it is expensive and they will be proud of being able to offer it to you. So I do not see myself being tricked into eating it anytime soon, and being in a school of mostly female teachers, I doubt very much that I will be tricked into eating it at all.


And thus concludes my series of food blogs. I hope that you have all found it very interesting. I will likely be updating them as I try new things and slotting things into the different categories accordingly. So, watch this space!

To see parts one and two of this series, go here and here.

So, last time I wrote a blog about Korean food (or food that I have found in Korea) that I love and food that I have heard about and want to try. This time I am going to talk about the food that I have found to be completely average or overrated and the food that I have heard about that I am not so interested in trying.

While there are some foods that I love and some that I hate, there are also many that I am indifferent about. It is not that I dislike them, per se, but I will not go out of my way to have them either. If they are put in front of me, I will nibble at them, but I never crave them as I do almost all of my favourite foods. Here are some of the foods that I find to be "so-so".
Naengmyeon is a summer dish of iced soup (pieces of ice literally float around in it) with cold thin noodles and vegetables. Depending on the type that you get, the dish can include boiled eggs and can be very very spicy. I cannot pinpoint exactly what it is about naengmyeon that I am not all that fond of. Perhaps it is the thought of eating ice cold soup as a full meal, or perhaps it is the kind of noodles (often black noodles) that they use that I am not so fond of. I am not entirely sure, but while I will eat it if it is placed in front of me, it is not something that I ever go out of my way to find.


Patbingsu is a dish that I have only tried once, and I was told that it is made better elsewhere, but I have not been all too willing to try it. Patbingsu is a Korean dessert made from ice shavings, syrup and red beans. I am not the biggest fan of red beans, and perhaps this is what has turned me off patbingsu in such a wholehearted fashion, but there is something about the texture combination of hard beans and ice that doesn't please me. I suppose I will have to try it again at some point, and maybe it will be better the next time. I certainly hope so, and if that is the case then it will likely make its way up to the love list, because you know I love my iced desserts!


Ojingeo is, as my friend Jodie's co-teacher would put it, "friend of octopus", or squid. It is prepared in a number of ways, most of which are spicy, including stir fried, thrown in with topoki and dried. While the dried variety of squid is not spicy, it is all too salty for my liking, and it feels rather disturbing picking off the squid's tentacles to eat one at a time. All in all, I far prefer calamari!


Pat (as in patbingsu) is the Korean's favourite sweet snack of red beans. It is either eaten whole or is ground down into a paste and put into everything from the frozen dessert to ice creams to tteok and beyond. However, while the taste of the bean is not terrible, it is the texture that I cannot stand. It is not a smooth texture but always feels grainy to my tongue and it is more of an annoyance than anything else, but it is an annoyance that I would far rather avoid!



Kimchi is probably the most famous of the Korean side-dishes. The most popular form is fermented cabbage leaves, though these can often be replaced with onion, radish, cucumber or a number of other vegetables. The only real rule is that they be covered in chilli and sit for a good two weeks to ferment. I am not a fan of spicy food, and so kimchi is certainly not one of my favourite dishes. However, it is not terrible and I will occasionally grab a piece of cabbage or onion or cucumber if the mood strikes me, which it very seldomly does. Out of the different types, I think cucumber and radish share the top spots, as I find them less spicy than all the others.



Last time I told you all about some of the dishes that caught my interest, though I have yet to try them. But there are also a couple of dishes that I have seen or heard about that do not sound appetising in the slightest. Below are a couple of such dishes.


Beondegi are the most foul smelling things that I have ever had the misfortune of being around. They are fried silkworms and are often sold by the vendors on the side of the street, particularly in Shinae. While the thought of eating silkworms is enough to make me want to avoid them, the smell of them frying is enough to turn anyone's stomach. I have been told that if you are not around them when they are being fried, the taste is not so bad. But now that I know what they smell like as they cook, it is not something that I particularly want to try.





Gaebul is a Korean fish that can be found in many markets and is often referred to as "penis fish" simply because of the its resemblance to the male sex organ. If the look of the fish wasn't enough to turn me off, I have heard from a number of people that the taste of the fish is absolutely revolting, and so, though I find it rather amusing to take photos of them, I would not be all that willing to try it, though I am sure a number of my friends would like to take photos of the attempt.







The final installment of my blogs on food will be about the foods that I hate and the one that I would rather shoot myself before eating. You can read it here. In the meantime, if you missed the first installment, it can be found here.

I was speaking to a friend of mine a couple of nights ago. He is someone that I met just before coming to Korea, and we were introduced to each other through our parents, since he had returned from Korea a couple of months before. My dad was insistant that I meet Wade, because he hadn't enjoyed Korea and dad thought that it was a perspective that I needed to hear. And so we met, and we got along fairly well and we discussed all things Korea over some lunch. Why had he hated Korea so much, I asked him at one point, and he gave me a number of answers, but one of the main reasons was the food. Eh, I thought to myself after meeting him, food would never be one of the reasons for my hating a place! And so I made it a mission to enjoy Korean food. There are things that I love, things that I hate and things that I mildly dislike; things that I have yet to try, things that I am not so sure that I want to and things that I would shoot myself before eating (I am sure you all know where this one is going). So I thought I would put a list of them together.

I thought that I would start off by telling you the things that I like. Since I am a bit of a fussy eater (anyone who has seen me order a sandwich or burger could tell you this) and I don't like spicy food, you would think that there would be few things that I have found enjoyable. This really isn't the case! I am sure that there are more things that I have tasted and loved, but these are the most memorable.






Shabu Shabu is in fact more of a Japanese dish than a Korean dish, but because it is here that I have experienced it, I am going to call it Korean so there! A bowl of broth is brought to the table along with a variety of vegetables and leaves, noodles, mandu (which I will get to later), rice cakes and thin pieces of what I think must be beef which are all thrown into the boiling broth at alternating times. The shavings of meat cook very quickly and are usually eaten first, while the mandu and the green and orange noodles are eaten last. After everything has been eaten, some of the broth is removed and a mixture of rice and mixed vegetables is brought to the table so that a dish that I believe is called juk (though I could be wrong) is made. I only like this gruel-like substance at the shabu-shabu place. Everywhere else that I have tasted it, it has been awful!


Kalmegi is a cut of pork. I am not quite sure what kind of pork it is, but it is generally less fatty than the alternatives of galbi and samgyeopsal, and less fatty than samgyeopsal in particular. Like the other two, it is cooked at your table over coals on a grill, and is accompanied by a number of side-dishes. What is slightly unusual is that most of the times that I have had it, it has not been accompanied by the common lettuce leaves, though occasionally the sesame leaves are provided. This is my favourite cut of pork and if I have a choice, I will almost always go for kalmegi, especially now that I have found an awesome kalmegi right around the corner from my house.

Galbi is another cut of pork, but this time I actually know what the cut is! Galbi is pork, and very occasionally beef, ribs. They are usually marinated and because of this are often not served with the red pepper paste that accompanies kalmegi and samgyeopsal, though it will be given to you upon request if you know what it is called (gochujang, I believe). While this meat is almost as delicious, and some might say even more so, than kalmegi, the problem that I find with it is the bones. It is inevitable that you will come across at least one or two pieces where the bones has not been completely removed and it takes away from my enjoyment of the meal.



Gimbap is a dish similar in style to maki rolls in sushi, but it involves a lot more ingredients, not all of which are fish and not all of which are raw. The original gimbap, which is the only one that I have tasted and made thus far, includes crab sticks (here is where the fish comes in), fish paste strips (not my favourite thing in the world, I won't lie), cooked ham, spinach, carrot and pickled radish (as opposed to ginger) all rolled together with rice and seawood to look almost identical to a maki roll. While this might not sound appealing to many, it is delicious, though I do tend to add a couple of dashes of soy sauce to add a touch of moisture and saltiness.


Tteok is a kind of Korean rice cake, and though there are many kinds, this is the only one that I really like. Though it may look like a dessert, it is often served as a side-dish together with the main course rather than as a separate course. They are small balls made from rice and covered with some form of sugar or coconut and are occasionally filled with the red bean paste, though I am not so fond of them when they are. They have a rather chewy texture which can become a bit much after awhile, so I can't eat too many of them, but if they are on the table, I tend to leave room for a couple of them.



Mandu is another dish which is not technically Korean, and which I quite a bit of before I even came to Korea. We do not know it as mandu, however, and refer to them as dimsum or dumplings. They are a Chinese dish and are filled with a number of different things depending on the type that you buy. So why have I mentioned it here? Well, because even though they are a Chinese dish, you can buy frozen mandu at any corner store and they are often made by vendors on the side of the road. When I arrived in Korea, for the first few weeks before I got up the courage to cook (which I quickly got tired of anyway), mandu were my staple food. I would buy a packet from the corner store and heat up six or seven for lunch and dinner daily. Eventually I got quite tired of them, and at this stage I cannot look at the frozen variety without cringing, but I still love the homemade ones that you can find in restaurants, and particularly the ones that are used for shabu shabu.



Jajangmyeon is yet another non-Korean dish that I have found in Korea and fallen in love with. It is in fact another Chinese dish - black bean noodles. While this does not sound particularly appetising, it really is delicious - looooooong noodles smothered in a black, not quite soy, sauce and mixed with vegetables and small pieces of pork. I was introduced to this delicacy, along with a number of others, by Amy who insisted that I join her for dinner at a Chinese restaurant between our two apartments. I am exceedingly glad that she did because this was one of the first meals in Korea that I truly fell in love with!



Sesame leaves are a type of leaf served with samgyeopsal, galbi and kalmegi. I really didn't like these slightly peppery, slightly minty leaves at first and struggled to swallow them because it really felt like I was eating a leaf rather than a piece of lettuce which is the other form of "leaf" that accompanies the meat. However, the more I have tried it, the more it has grown on me and I am now at the point of choosing these leaves over the plain lettuce everytime, though this could be attributed to the fact that the normal lettuce is often particularly bitter tasting and not enjoyable.



The Dream of Tea is one of my Korean addictions and I must have at least one can of it else I am not in a happy mood. While this might just sound like any other iced tea, if you have tasted the iced teas in Korea, they are all ridiculously sweet. Revoltingly so at times. Dream Tea, on the other hand, is hardly sweetened and is more like just plain old Ceylon Tea (which is what it is made from), but iced. Some people find that it isn't sweet enough for their tastes. It is just perfect for mine!






While the foods above are some of the ones that I have tried and loved so far, there are a whole lot of Korean foods that I have not tried. There are some that I am dying to taste and some that I am not interested in and one in particular that I would rather shoot myself than ever eat. I will start off by telling you the ones that have caught my fancy.
Doenjang jjigae or "smelly foot soup" as my friends and I fondly refer to it, is a thick soup made from vegetables, tofu and soybean paste. Why do we call it "smelly foot soup", you may ask? Well because of the obvious! It smells absolutely awful! It's smell has put me off trying it time and time again, but I do hope to get past the smell one day because it is supposed to be absolutely delicious despite the aroma and, according to my co-teacher Jenny, is "very good for your health".


San ojingeo is, as the second part of the name suggests, a type of squid. But this is not just any type. It is not a spicy variety (thus my desire to taste it) and it is certainly not dried. Far from it. This type of squid is as fresh as it comes - taken from its tank and cut up at your table so that it is still slightly moving by the time you eat it. While this does sound like a rather disturbing ceremony to witness, I would still like to try the dish just to say that I tried it. I have no aversion to eating squid after all, and I have heard a number of accounts of what it is supposed to be like, including one person saying that the tentacles stick to the roof of your mouth. While I am not sure that I will like the taste of it, I feel that it is something that I must experience while in Korea, just to say that I experienced it.



Bulgogi is what my kids like to refer to as "fire meat". It is a kind of (often spicy, as the nickname suggests) beef which is served in a number of restaurants and is often used as a meat for burgers, though I feel that this generic alternative is not quite as good as the real bulgogi. Though I am not a fan of spicy food, I am working myself up to trying this meat that I hear about all the time wherever I go. Let's hope that it is not as hot as the kids make it out to be.






Watch this space for more about the different kinds of food that I have tried. Next will be the kinds that I have found to be okay, but nothing that I would go out of my way to try (call it the overrated Korean food if you will) and the stranger foods that I haven't tried and am more hesitant to go near.

To read the next two part in the sequence, you can click here and here.

So, I was looking back at all my blog posts and realised that I hardly ever talk about the city that I live in. Then I started thinking about why that is and realised it's because I hardly ever get out in the city that I live in. But despite a lack of knowledge about the city and things to do, I love it anyway, so I thought that I would make a blog to talk about why.

Let me start off by answering the most obvious question; the question that I get asked over and over again by the people who don't live in the city. Where is Cheongju? Well, it is in Chungcheongbuk-do, the most central province in Korea and the only land-locked one. It is in west of the province, a 45 minute busride from Daejeon and an hour and a half from Seoul.

When I heard that I would be living in Cheongju, the first thing that I did was to delve into my trusty Rough Guide to Korea. What I found was not particularly heartening: "Cheongju is best reserved as a convenient base for visiting th surrounding area, or to take in the urban pleasures of shopping and drinking." While I was rather interested in shopping and drinking, it did not seem like the ideal place to be based. But after a couple of months here, I have decided that I rather like it. Here is why:

Westerners: There seem to be an abundance of us here! And not just any Westerners either. I have bumped into rather a lot of South Africans randomly in bars, and I thoroughly enjoy the brief conversations and reminiscing of home that I share with them before we both head off in whichever direction.

The Koreans: I have had a number of different experiences with Koreans in different places. I have been stared at by ajumas on the subway in both Seoul and Busan; I have been worked over by salesmen in Yongsan; and I have been shouted at by a number of Koreans all over the place. But I rather like the Koreans in my area. Sure, I get stared at every now and then - it is bound to happen when you are the only white face in a crowd of Koreans - but it is not the glaring, insulting, "what the hell are you" kind of stares, but the fascinated, curious, "what is your story" kind. I have come to know some of the Koreans in my area well, and am greeted with a wide smile from the lady behind the counter whenever I walk into my favourite Mini Stop or have a quick conversation with the tall gangly man at the supermarket as he practices his English on me. I am always made to feel welcome rather than outcast or used, and I think that comes from the city being one of the smaller ones.

It's small, but not too small: One of the things that I hate about going to Seoul is the number of people who surround you all the time. In Cheongju, there are areas that are crowded and busy and you can get your dose of shopping in and have a choose between more than three movies at the CGV, but there are also areas where you can get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and just relax. Yongam-dong, which is my particular area is one of those. And while it has it's disadvantages of being ages away from anything fun and exciting in the city (far from Shinae, far from Chungdae, far from the bus terminal) it also means that I am not being shoved around 24/7, and I can take a nice stroll down the street without having to worry about bumping into too many people.


These are just a couple of the reasons why I like Cheongju. But I also like it because, despite what the book told me, there are some things to do here that are slightly more interesting than the Early Press Museum and the flagpole in the centre of Shinae. What are some of these things you may ask?

Shinae. While the book talks about the flagpole located in the centre of the shopping zone, it mentions nothing about the shopping zone itself. The first time I went to Shinae, and I have been there a number of times by now, it wasn't the shops that I was entranced by. It was the atmosphere. It was two weeks after I arrived in Korea, and I was walking down the street with Phillipa, Rowena, Georgina and Meghan and it suddenly struck me - I was in Korea. It happened as we were walking under strings of bubled lights that had just come to life between carts selling all numbers of food and cellphone accessories. It is something that I have never quite forgotten, and though the feeling has never struck me quite as hard while walking Shinae's street since then, I think that it is a must for newcomers to the city, even if you aren't a fan of shopping. I would recommend going in the evening when the lights will be lit because the atmosphere is just not the same without them.

Chungdae Jungmun. While I know that I talk about this all the time, and it seems like just a place where I go to drink, it's more than just that. A lot more, in fact, since I am not a big drinker at all. Once again, it is more about the atmosphere of the place than the bars themselves. After a week spent using broken English almost 90% of the time, it is good to walk into a bar, even if you do not know anyone there, and be surrounded by people speaking the language that you are used to. After a couple of minutes, the stress from the week that you didn't even realise had built up is gone as you start talking to people and the language flows as freely as the Western alcohol that you cannot find at other bars in the city, Southern Comfort being my relaxant of choice. Of course, it isn't just the bars that attract people in the area. Great restaurants also sprinkle the streets if you care to look hard enough - an Indian restaurant called Hungry Eyes hides on the second floor of a building near the entrance, a building that you would never go into unless you knew the wonders that awaited within; Pearl Jam's burritoes have no competition and an awesome kalmegi place is hidden down some back streets. Walk down the street laden with cards advertising restaurants and between carts selling even more jewellery, accessories and food and you may stumble across some other gems like the batting cages that I saw once, but have never found again.

Sandangsamsong. Though I have yet to venture on the hike that the fortress awards, this spot is beautiful and good for a picnic even if you aren't in the mood for a long walk. I am sure that one day I will get up the energy to adorn my walking shoes and take a hike along the fortress that is supposed to yield incredible views of the city, but until then I am happy to just go there in my shorts and sandals and relax on the lawn, watching the children playing and occasionally taking part in a game of frisbee or soccer or the blowing of bubbles.

Swan lake. I have heard about a lake in Yongam-dong where you can rent a paddle boat for half an hour at a time and take a romantic boat ride on the small lake. I have yet to try this, but it is definitely on my list of things to do in the city.

I am sure that other people have other things that they love about Cheongju and that they love to do in the city, and I encourage you to share them with me, because while I love the city that I live in, there is still much exploring that needs to be done!

As most of you will know by now, I have a visitor. Grant has come all the way from South Africa to spend a month with me in Korea, and I couldn't be more excited. Of course, a month is a long time, and I now need to find cunning ways to entertain him. He has already been here for two weeks, and this is what we have done so far:

1. Explored Seoul.
   When I first imagined our exploration of Seoul, I pictured us strolling through the palace gardens and taking boat rides on the Han river. What this ended up being was a couple of trips to Itaewon and one to Yongsan. Not quite what I pictured, but a good time nonetheless.
   
2. Explored Cheongju.
   I may live in the city, but I am no expert on things to do in Cheongju. Thus far we have wandered aimlessly around Shinae, partied in Chungdae and taken a drive through the city. I have also shown him aroud my dong, but since there isn't too much to see, it wasn't particularly entertaining.
   
3. Explored Korean cuisine.
   The first week that Grant spent here involved a variety of foods, not many of which were Korean - Japanese, pub food and Taco Bell in Seoul; fried chicken and pizza in Shinae; a whole lot of different Mexican delicacies like quesidillas, burritos and tacos and so forth. But we did try some Korean food, a lot of which Grant seemed to enjoy. While the gimbap failed in comparisson to sushi, the shabu shabu was a definite win! Galbi was also given a thumbs up while samgyeopsal was said to be "quite bland". Loads of lotus-inspired Korean food was also tasted this weekend, including lotus steamed rice with some form of pork and a whole bunch of sidedishes, and was met with indifference - it wasn't amazing, but it wasn't bad. But the best find had to be the kalmegi place that we discovered last night around the corner (literally - it took less than two minutes to walk there) from my house. The meal involved kalmegi, of course, which is my favourite of the pork cuts, mandu, salad doused in sweetish soy sauce, mixed vegetables covered in something that resembles but isn't quite mayonaisse, kimchi (what Korean meal is complete without it), the leaves that look like they come from a mulberry tree, garlic, the spiciest soup in the entire world and some funny pancake type thing that was a lot thicker than the Korean pancake that I am used to, but was delicious regardless. All in all, the meal was a definite win and I will be going there a lot more often now that I know about it!
   
4. Explored the Lotus Festival.
   The weekend that just passed was spent in Muan looking at pretty flowers and leaves and making and tasting a number of different lotus-infused foods and drinks, including lotus-steamed rice and onion kimchi (both of which we made), lotus flower and lotus leaf tea (we both preferred the leaf tea) and lotus beer (which we had different views on. Beer. Yeuch.) We also went on a boat ride on a canal between the flowers, and I paddled for awhile. Go me! All in all, it was really pretty and lots of fun. Above are some photos to prove it.


5. Explored the notion of a beach party.
   When we got on the Adventure Korea bus on Saturday morning at the ridiculous hour of 7:30 (in the pouring rain, I feel the need to add) we were told that Saturday night would be spent in a hotel that had a swimming pool and its own secluded beach. A bonfire was to be built, marshmallows would be provided, and a party would be in full swing that night. Or so we were told. First of all, the "hotel" wasn't much of a hotel. It was a minbuk (I think this is how it is spelled) with a minimum of five people sharing a room, lying on thin mats on the floors, all of which were covered in bugs. I wasn't too impressed. Sure, it had a swimming pool, but the pool only came up to my stomach. There was a beach, but it was hardly secluded - you couldn't see the ends of it - and it looked rather a lot like the mud beach that I visited two weeks ago. Hardly the kind of beach that you want to throw a party on. They made a bonfire, but it collapsed within seconds. Once the marshmallows were finished, we all headed back to the poolside for a couple of drinks and then made our way upstairs to finish the party there. It didn't last long, and we were asleep a little before midnight. Beach party? I say not.
   
6. Rearranged my room.
   For those of you who know me well, you will know that I like change rather a lot. I hate stagnancy, and one of the things that I tend to do to avoid it is to move my room around. A lot. Since arriving here, I have not been able to do that because my bed is just too heavy. So now that I have a big man around, I got him to help me move my room, and it is absolutely perfect now. Of course, I will probably want to change it again in a couple of months, but at least now I have the light switch by my bed, which will mean opportunities to read before sleep. Hooray!
   
7. Met my friends.
   If you are wondering why this is at the bottom of the list, it is because it is an ongoing process. Grant has now met a number of the people that I tell him about all the time, but there are still a couple that he has yet to meet. But at least now he will have a picture in his head of the people I talk about, and maybe next time I mention Geri or Neil or Shaina or Jess or Amy or Kate, he will have a picture in his head of the people I am talking about and won't have to ask "Who?"

1. Meeting my friends.
   As I said, it is an ongoing process. The more often we go out, the more people he will meet.
   
2. Exploring Cheongju.
   I still want to take him to Sandang-samsong. Since I haven't done the hike myself, I thought that it would be quite a nice thing to do together. I also still want to take him to see the flagpole (oh, the excitement, I know!) and explore the outlying areas such as Ochang, which might be on the cards for this weekend. We shall see.
   
3. Exploring Korean food.
   He has tried a bit of Korean food, but we must find more to try! Now that I have someone to go exploring with, I think we are going to try a number of the restaurants in my area which I have been too scared to venture into on my own.
   
4. Exploring Busan or Island Hopping.
   While we intend to spend this upcoming weekend in Cheongju or the outlying areas, the weekend after that will be spent either wandering around Busan and taking in the sights and sounds there, including at least one temple and possibly a boat ride, or going island hopping on the isles just off Incheon with the girls that we shared a room with last weekend. We are still in two minds about which we should do, since neither of us want to spend too much money and both sound equally appealing.