Food!

It's almost lunchtime, so I have food on my mind.

The orange juice that I bought at the market is called "Squash Gold Orange 100." Very majestic sounding. I thought that there might actually be squash in this orange juice, but I recently figured out that is a Korean translation of "squeezed."

Ramen seems to be the most common cheap convenience food here, although they have a million more varieties than we do at home. I picked up a kind that is rather delicious. The package (aiming at health conscious consumers) says "Body Design Noodle."

One thing I miss: No one is very concerned with cheese here. In fact, I haven't yet found in the store any real cheese that is not the processed, plastic-wrapped singles. Although the Italian restaurant called Tomato we like has real mozzarella on the pizza and pasta...

French-style bakeries/pastry shops are very popular here. Almost every other store along the main street in downtown Hayang is a shop with the most beautifully decorated cakes I've ever seen. I picked up a little piece of chocolate cake with cherry filling the other day (which is quite plain in comparison to the full-sized cakes). It was almost too pretty to eat. But I managed it.

I did try Korean sushi the other day (called kimbap or gimbap, g and k are equivalent sounds). Very delicious. The one I had was tuna with rice and veggies rolled into a sheet of dried seaweed. And the whole roll of it is only $1.60. They consider this "fast food" here. Beats McDonald's any day.

Sam gyup sal and daeji galbi, another two delicious foods that are from the Korean barbecue restaurant. One is pork and one is marinated beef, not sure which is which. We just order some of both and it is a happy time. In this picture you can see both. The beef is on the grill with garlic and mushrooms, and the pork waiting in the wings.

They also have this delicious steaming hot egg soup sort of thing at the barbecue that I'm determined to find out how to make. So simple but so wonderful. Side dishes are king here. If you order 1 main dish, they will bring you an endless variety of sides, including kimchi, different types of salad, sauces for everything, sometimes watermelon, raw hot peppers, and cherry tomatoes.

I have also now eaten twice with my students in the campus cafeteria for dinner. It is pretty notorious for being not so good, but it's free, so I don't mind too much. Lots of sticky white rice and other things that I have to ask my students about ("What is this?"). They think I am a very slow eater with my chopsticks, mainly because I can only pick up one or two small pieces of food at a time. Also because I hesitate when I don't know what something is!

Water is also an interesting experience here. They don't drink large glasses of water with a meal; usually, if at all, it's just a shot glass sized glass of water. They don't drink tap water because it has too much iron in it or something (even though it just tastes like Huron water to me), so there are water machines with purified hot and cold everywhere (and the hot is hot enough for tea, even by Mom's standards, I think!). Anyways, at the cafeteria they have this long "water bar" with a whole row of water spigots and the little shot glasses, so after eating, students go there and take their shot of water. It seems they think it's a little strange that we waste time (and stomach space) drinking liquids during a meal.

Which leads me to another habit: Everyone brings their toothbrushes to school and brushes their teeth in the bathrooms right before class begins. Even the English department secretary is brushing her teeth in her office when she gets to work. Joel asked one of his students, "Don't you have sinks at your dorm?" and the reply was basically equivalent to a "duh," but no explanation for this ritual. I guess I am just too messy when I brush my teeth to participate in it publicly.

Well, that is off topic, so I will stop for now. Some of us from MSU are meeting a few students who are planning to go to the States for a study abroad and want to practice their English conversation. It's so nice being helpful and appreciated just for speaking a language you were practically born speaking (thanks, Mom and Dad).