Street Food

I have a slight fascination with street food in Korea. I don't know if it's because we don't really have anything like that back home (maybe hot dog stands are the closest thing?)... but I am seriously in love with it. Everything (or almost everything) smells so good when you're passing by the stands. Last night, Daniel and I decided to go to leave our little area of Sunae and check out the next neighborhood down, Seohyeon. We walked around and noticed that most of the vendors had a lot of the same food, so we decided to try a little bit of everything and people watch

... Starting with 오뎅 (odeng... pronounced "oh dang!" according to Daniel, haha)!  This might look gross, but it's actually just fishcake! It's drenched in a spicy broth of... well, I don't really know.  My guess is gochujang?  Anyway, you get a skewer of fish cake and a cup of broth/soup (not the spicy one, just a clean, fresh tasting one).  It was delicious.  Not too spicy either.  :)

Daniel decided to try out a "hot dog" vendor.  It didn't taste much like a hot dog, but the sausage itself was pretty delicious!  Of course, it had a kick (they really love spicy food here!).  :P  Then I wanted to try 튀김 (twigim), aka vegetable tempura!

It was so good...  Probably the most oily thing that I've eaten in Korea so far just because it was deep fried.  A lot of food here has less oil/msg than back at home, haha.  So in a way, this was a delicious fix for unhealthy cravings.  x)  Anyway, I cannot wait to try different types of street food while I'm here.  :)

Chicken Night~

The eating and sleeping schedule of an English teacher at a hagwon/academy is just ridiculous.  I feel like I'm back in college!  We finish teaching our last class at 10:00 and have to find places that are still open for dinner.  Thankfully, there are quite a bit of restaurants near our hagwon and our apartment.  Last night, Daniel and I walked around our neighborhood and saw this stand...

It was a kebab stand and it looked deeeelicious!

 So of course, we bought some.  It was chicken and dduk and it was SO GOOD.  It was spicy, sweet, tangy... basically just amazing.

Mm, mm, mm!  But of course, that wasn't enough to fill us up for dinner.  So we headed to a dakkalbi place and got way too much food, haha. I learned that I really need to increase my tolerance for spicy food if I want to survive here!  x) I guess the only way to do that is to keep eating deliciously spicy food.  :P 

I take back what I said in my last post about the lack of AYCE KBBQ places! We just visited our school and there's one across the street for only $15! :D I am super happy. :)

KBBQ... finally!

This past week has been incredibly exhausting.  Our training for our school was surprisingly grueling, but in the end it was really helpful.  There were four wonderful people in our group and thankfully, we all passed training!  We wanted to all go out and celebrate, but everyone was shipped out to their new locations in South Korea.  So Daniel and I decided to finally walk around and celebrate.  Daniel was craving pho, so we walked around and found this place, which made me giggle:

So we walked towards it, but then we noticed that the place underneath was a BBQ place.  Back at home, KBBQ places are typically all-you-can-eat and relatively inexpensive... but here, meat is really pricey so there are no AYCE eateries and it is definitely pricey in comparison to in the US.  But, we were celebrating so we decided to check it out!  The interior was beautiful and clean (a bit different than home) and the ventilation was great (you could pull down the vent closer to your food).

We ordered one plate of chadol (beef brisket) and one plate of samgyeopsal (pork belly.. it's like big bacon).  Next time we could probably order three plates of just samgyeopsal because the chadol was mainly fat and seemed to disappear on the grill.  :(  But the pork?  Mmm...

 
Let's just say that I'm a sucker for samgyeopsal + grilled kimchi.  That combination makes my mouth water every time.  It was definitely the first time I left a KBBQ place and still felt like I could eat more, but I've been wanting to eat BBQ since we arrived.  It definitely hit the spot, especially after such a long week.  :)

  

Bulgogi Burger!

It seems that I might be a day behind in writing these blogs... but that's okay, because it will technically be that same day when people from home read them!  x)

Yesterday, Daniel and I walked around Seocho-gu and explored a little bit.  I already knew what I wanted for lunch -- the bulgogi burger from McDonalds!  So we headed that way and ordered.  (Fun fact, they say "set" instead of "meals" over here!)  This is what we got:

It was pretty good!  My burger didn't have as much sauce on it as Daniel's double bulgogi burger (which is why I took a photo of his).  It was basically a normal cheeseburger, but with a sweet glaze over it.  I know it was supposed to be bulgogi, but the sauce made me think of a Hawaiian burger or something...it'd probably taste good with a pineapple.  :P  Okay, that might just be me being silly.  Nevertheless, I'd eat it again!

Another fun fact: McDonalds in Korea delivers!  And they drive in these cute little mopeds that have built in gloves for the drivers.  x)

I was going to post more food, but that will have to wait until tomorrow because I am exhausted from training and exploring Korea via subway (that is it's own story, haha!).  Goodnight!

Journey To Korea!

We made it!  It took ~18-19 hours for us to get to this spot outside of Incheon International Airport last night, but Daniel and I finally made it.  I was planning on writing my first post the night before so that I could write about all of the excitement and anxiety that I was feeling... you know, so that I could laugh at myself a year from now.  x)  Unfortunately, I was too busy packing to blog, so this will just have to do.

Our families said goodbye to us in Orange County, which made the first flight to San Francisco pretty emotional.  I have never been this far away from home so this move really is a huge step out of my comfort zone.  Fortunately, by the time we made it to San Francisco, I was feeling less emotional and less anxious.  The flights were slightly delayed because President Obama was in town ("There is Presidential movement in the Bay Area," is what we kept hearing over the intercom).  Thankfully, we had enough time to eat our last American meal (cheeseburgers, of course!) and got onto my first international plane.  While on the plane, I watched In Time because I missed my mom and she really liked that movie, Glee Concert because I missed my LLS Josephine and she is a Gleek, and Crazy, Stupid, Love because... well, I just like Ryan Gosling.  ;)  I guess the wait wasn't too bad.  Oh, and Daniel and I must have drank a whole 2L of Sprite during that 11.5 hour flight!  x)  Thankfully, the food was delicious and the flight itself was smooth.

I expected the airport in Seoul to be crowded and busy on a Saturday night, but it was very quiet and empty.  I got to use my phrasebook for the first time to ask for change for my 1000 won bill!  (I was very scared to ask... but she understood me, so that was awesome!)  We went on our first bus in Korea and our first taxi to our hotel in Seoul.  So far, everyone here has been nice -- A lady on the bus said that I was pretty (even though I was an absolute mess, lol) and gave us her number in case we had any questions about Korea! We probably won't call her, but it was a nice gesture.

We managed to come into Korea with four hours left for Daniel's birthday.  Although it's already the 19th over here, it is still the 18th back home so we will go out and celebrate today.  So HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!  :D  Your present is an entire year of adventures in Korea.  :P

That was a pretty exhaustive and probably one of those TL;DR type of posts... but I really just wanted to get this blog up and running!  Don't worry, most of my posts will not be this long.  x) Today we will probably walk around the area, so expect a post later on our first adventure.  :)