Monday, September 21, 2009

Korean Foods i <3


Kimbap 김밥
-similar to a California roll, Kimbap contains rice, egg, carrots, pickled radish (danmuji), a few other kinds of vegetables, and, if you want, tuna. (Rolls with tuna are known as chamchi kimbap)
-this is the perfect snack to grab for the road while traveling or to pack with you to eat while hiking. There are kimbap shops ALL over Korea, and a roll with tuna will usually cost around W2,500 (or just under $2)
-Ben and I just got ambitious and actually started making our own kimbap at home! Not that we need to to save money... but its kinda fun to do! and most of the Koreans are impressed by it.



Kimchi 김치
There are actually many different kinds of kimchi, but this (pictured above) is the most common type. Koreans eat kimchi with every meal.... yes, even breakfast! Kimchi is basically pickled, spiced, fermented cabbage; it smells like it too; and i LOVE it! :)
***I know i have weird food tastes.... but it seriously does grow on you after you've been here a while



Bi bim bap 비빔밥
-served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with vegetables and gochujang (chili pepper paste). An egg or some kind of meat (seafood or beef) are common additions. The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating. Koreans will tell you if you're doing it wrong.... don't worry.
-costs about W6,000 at any hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant and is a GREAT cheap meal.


Soju 소주
A Korean liquor made from rice or soybeans... it contains about 20% alcohol and tastes like water-down gin.
Koreans sip it out of shot glasses (don't be fooled by the word "sip"..... Koreans are some of the fastest sippers i have ever seen); once a bottle is opened, it usually leads to the consumption of 2 or 3 or 4 or .... more bottles. It is rude not to sip your drink when someone pours it for you (you never pour for yourself) and it is rude not to fill up someone's glass at the table that is empty.
This leads to a very vicious cycle of drinking!






Bulgogi 불고기
-marinated pieces of beef which you cook yourself at a grill in the center of your table
-is served with many side dishes





Sunday, September 20, 2009

Siheung City

When Ben and I applied to go to Korea, we both checked that we would like to be placed in a "rural" area. We figured- we both really like the outdoors; agreeing to be "rural" might give us a better chance of being placed in the same city, as not many people volunteer for rural placements, and we wanted to get on the good side of the people at the Gyeonggi-do Office of Education who was doing our placements; and you get paid W100,000 more per month for being in a "rural" area.

So, we got placed in Siheung City.... a city of about 300,000 people (yes, this is still considered rural) just over an hour SW of Seoul by subway.

It is a nice little town, but, as Ben and I have quickly realized.... there is really nothing here; apartment buildings, schools, and just enough shops/restaurants to keep the people who live in the near vicinity happy. Ben and I live about a 15 minute cab ride/45 minute bus ride apart from each other. (Hopefully you can see the 2 red-ish dots on the map below)

We have met a few other westerners here, which is great (stories about this to come)
We also spend most of our weekends venturing to Seoul or other nearby cities and always manage to have a blast (stories about said adventures to come as well)

Finally- if you want to read more about our lovely little city..... you can check out the city website! (in English, don't worry):

http://www.shcity.net/english/index.jsp



Downtown Area in Siheung



View of my apartment area from a small mountain top at the SW end of the city



map of Siheung (the red dots are Ben and my houses)

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Apartments

My apartment here is actually quite a bit nicer than I had expected!  I'd heard stories of many English teachers living in dorm-sized, one-room apartments, but that is definitely not my case.  The first pictures here is my apartment building.  My apartment is on the 3rd floor (the no-elevator situation made it real fun to haul my luggage up 2 flights of stairs after just getting off of a 14 hour flight.... nothing compared to moving that couch into Jennie's new apartment in Madison though!)

In my apartment, I have an entry way, a decent-sized kitchen, a bathroom, a bed/living room, a porch area for laundry, and a spare room with a closet, but nothing else in it.

The entry way consists of a shoe closet and a place to take off your shoes.  In Korea, you ALWAYS take off your shoes when you go into someone's house. (don't tell anyone, but I have walked through my kitchen w/ my shoes on to go shut off my lights or grab something i forgot before leaving for school).

The kitchen is very nice... everything you would expect (see picture 2) except there is no oven.  I also do not have a rice cooker, as I was promised.  Apparently, when our schools were choosing furnishings for our apartments, they had the option of getting us a rice cooker or a toaster.  Mine (and Ben's, unfortunately) chose the toaster, probably b/c they figured it was more "western".... those of you who know me know that I am deeply depressed by this decision :(  To make matters worse.... rice cookers here are EXPENSIVE!!!!  I have not found one for under 5o,ooo Won (around $45 US).... maybe after my first paycheck i'll be able to afford one.

My bathroom is actually fairly normal too!  I have an actual shower!  In most of the apartments here, the bathrooms do not have a space specifically designated as a "shower".  They have a hose attached to the wall, somewhere near the sink, that is supposed to serve as the shower.  There is a drain in the middle of the floor, and you can't leave anything out on your countertops or it will all be soaked after your shower.  I, at least, have a small divider between my toilet/sink area and the "shower area"!

The bed/living room (picture 3) is the main room of the house.  It is pretty big, but all that is in it is a bed and a TV (which, as of now, only has 5 channels- all in Korean.... some great infomercials and korean cooking shows though!)  I like it though, because the big window of the porch is across the back of the room- great for letting in sunlight! ...those of you who know me, know how important that is to me :)

The "porch area" is basically for laundry.  No one has dryers in Korea (I completely expected this.... the U.S. is pretty much the only country who uses them), so there is a washing machine on the porch and a drying rack to dry the clothes after washing.  These "porches" (i put it in quotation marks because it is not actually outside) are very common in Korean apartments.  I like it because it lets in a lot of light!

Finally, I have a spare room in my apartment!!  It has a closet where I keep my clothes (because there is no closet in my living/bed room) and that was it until yesterday, Ben and I found a couch at the dump outside my apartment and brought it up! (yes, all the way to the 3rd floor).  The couch was actually in really decent condition, a few tears on the arms, but that's it!  I am happy for more furniture in my apartment (especially when it is free!).... that is the one thing it is lacking.

All in all, though, it's a really nice place to live.  It's also about a 5-10 minute walk from my school!  Many students actually live in the same apartment complex..... which makes walking to school interesting.  More on that later though!







Ben's Apartment:












My first month in Korea

Well.... I have officially been in Korea for a month now, and, as I secretly suspected, have not blogged once.  Ooops! Instead of writing one really, really long post, I think I'm going to break it up a bit and do a few different posts on various aspects of my life here thus far.  With any luck I will have them all done in the next couple of days! (I hope...)