Some Strange Snacks

I know that I comment on the food here several times but I am not finished with what I find fascinating.

When I first came to Korea and stayed in the hotel, there was corn tea in the hotel fridge.  I was told it was very good.  I tried it, but I think it is an acquired taste and is one I choose not to acquire any time soon.  Well, I also found there are corn popsicles.  The melon popsicles seem more normal but corn?  One of the other teachers told me he tried a sweet potato ice cream substance.  I asked him if it was good.  He said, "It tasted just like sweet potatoes.  I guess if you really like sweet potatoes you would really enjoy this."

Corn and melon popsicles

Another strange thing is the tendency to combine garlic with sweet.  I really cannot get used to this tendency.  And, OK, I know it is fashionable to combine several types of flavors, but why must there be sweet with everything savory?  Why can't we separate the two just sometimes?  

The fast food burger joint is interesting here too.  They have beef (well it pretends to be beef I am not sure what it really is but it isn't like US beef), chicken and shrimp burgers.  The shrimp burgers are ground shrimp like ground beef is.  They serve french fries, crab cakes, cheese sticks and squid rings on the side!  They even have burgers with hash-browns on the burgers. Even when going into a burger joint, you can't get the same food here as in the US.    

The pizzas here have much sweeter sauce than is usual in the US.  There is a good pizza here that is a gorgonzola cheese pizza, but they like to add mayonnaise to the top of it.  They also serve sweet potato pizza along with others.

When I go to somewhere to eat I just cannot have any expectation as to how it should taste.  OH for a bowl of macaroni and cheese!

A Korean BBQ

I went to a Korean BBQ restaurant that one of the teachers from school recommended.  The waitress spoke in English which was a real plus.  She seated me at a table that has a gas grill in the center.  This is used to cook the food.  Generally several people would eat together but I went alone.  The food that I ordered was for two people as they don't prepare this for one.  Needless to say I could not even begin to finish all the food that was brought.

I ordered the pork.  They brought meat from around the rib area and either fat or some other type of substance.  I tried one small piece but didn't enjoy it much and avoided the rest.  One piece of the fat "jumped" off of the grill!

I was given many side dishes.  The macaroni salad was rather sweet but it was pleasant as I tried to use it to cool my palate after I took a nibble from the end of a hot pepper. (just to be sure it was really hot) (come on, you know you would have too!)  The stone bowl had egg.  When they brought it to my table the bowl looked like soup boiling.  After the substance cooled down, it turned out to be egg which had an omelet like texture and was very well scrambled.  There were two types of kimchi a jellied substance that was very spicy, a sauce, raw garlic, raw onions in a vinegar sauce, pickled vegetables and lettuce to wrap up the meat (and raw hot peppers).  I think that was everything. Anyway, it was very good, but would have been better with someone to share it with.

I enjoyed talking to the waitress, but only got to chat with her for a few minutes.  I will try to talk to her some other time.  By the by, that restaurant is beside an antique store.  The antiques look just like the ones in the US.  Most of them look European.  I don't quite understand it.  Maybe more on it later.

They cut the meat with scissors.  One of the Americans who has been here for years says he only uses scissors in the kitchen now as they are more handy than knives.  The fat is on the top left part of the grill.

These are part of the side dishes served with the meat.

This is the eggs after they cooled.

Cherry Blossoms

Hello and happy spring to all!  I have been thinking of spring the past two weeks.  Here in Korea there are several famous cherry blossom festivals.  The Koreans feel the Japanese take too much credit for their cherry blossoms when the festivals and trees are more beautiful in Korea.  I didn't go to the more famous festivals as they are in the southern part of the country and I haven't figured out the train and bus systems yet.  I didn't think a weekend when there could be more than a million people visiting the same area would be a good time to try to find my way alone.

The trees here and the fascination with the cherry blossoms reminded me of the poem by A. E. Houseman:
                                                       Loveliest of Trees
         

LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,	5
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,	10
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

While I agree that "fifty springs are little room to look at things in bloom", I don't think I have to do it with 2 million others.  Here are some of the photos of cherry trees and other flowers and flowering trees that I have found mean spring has come to Korea!

Cherry trees at night down the street near my apartment.

A lovely view between the buildings

I saw these and knew spring is here!

Nice photo if I do say so and this is right across from my apartment house.