Korean BBQ

The following is written by Allison.  Be nice, it’s my first blog ever.  Amy is sleeping, so I’m taking over.

Saturday night we had dinner at a new Korean BBQ place across the street from Amy’s apartment.  It’s the traditional take your shoes off and sit on the floor kind of place.  And it was delicious!  (Are you noticing a recurring theme here??  Korean food is fantastic!  Well, most of it.)  (Amy wrote this paragraph before passing the torch to me!)

We had no idea how to order, but the owner did a great job taking care of us.  While on this subject, everyone is great with understanding our broken Korean.    We had traditional Korean beef, salad, onion / balsamic salad, bean sprouts with sesame oil, glass noodles, and my favorite – kimchi.  Their was also garlic and salt to season your meats.

Amy mastered the grill as she has done this before.  We also put the onions and kimchi on the grill which was delicious.  We were given a basket of lettuce leaves to make bite-size wraps.

Here are a couple pictures of Amy mastering the grill.  I also want to point out that they use scissors to cut meat here.

I was told I had to try soju while here, so I did during dinner this evening.  Not good at all.  It is pure alcohol. You put it in a shot glass and sip it.  I understand why you need to sip.  I couldn’t read the label, but I am pretty sure it said 100% proof.  Water is served with every meal, and I would take a sip of soju and follow with a drink of water.  I was completely finished with it when Amy told me they use soju to clean the grill after cooking. The smile on my face is because I haven’t had any yet.  That bottle only cost about $3 USD, so I was ok with walking away from an almost full bottle.

Did I mention that I can master the chopsticks now.  Again, this restaurant did not have forks available, so I didn’t have a choice….but I still did pretty good!  Note these are round metal chopsticks which are more difficult to use.

Note the guys behind me, they had about 3 empty bottles of soju on the floor next to them.  I guess figure skating is pretty big out here.  They were cheering on the Korean skater and screaming at the television.  At one point they had their feet up on the table watching television.  That is the neat thing about sitting on the floor with no shoes on, you feel like you are at home!

We did meet a couple of Amy’s friends out again after dinner, and it did turn out to be another late night at Yellow Taxi to see a live band and then karaoke again.  It was Saturday night, and we couldn’t go to bed at 11pm while on vacation!  We are only young once!  Pictures are not ready to post, so we will talk about that evening in the next blog.

Ok, while I have taken over this blog, I will share my first impression of Korea.  The smells are very strong.  You can smell food (specifically kimchi) almost everywhere.  Also, trash is just dumped on the side of the road.  As you walk down the street, there are just piles of trash….I don’t think that helps with the smells you experience walking down the street.  And did I mention you get fined about $300 USD for getting caught not recycling.  McDonald’s has about 4 different trash compartments for us to separate our trash.

On Friday and Saturday night, it sort of felt like Vegas!  We left the bar at about 3am to head over to karaoke, and the streets were packed.  Also, there are bright neon signs everywhere.  I think Amy told me it is legal to walk around outside with open containers.  I also realized 3 days into my trip that I have not seen one single police officer.  Everyone is very trusting here.  We walked into a store today where the owners had stepped away.  That is awesome they are able to do that….they can trust that no one will take anything from them.

Those are just a few of my random thoughts.  I will include more in the next blog that I write.

Adios!  (Ooops, that was last month’s vacation!)  I have no idea how to say bye in Korean, but I finally mastered thank you….it only took 3 days.