The Bitter End

This is going to be the most exciting entry I've written to date.  A few topics that will be covered include and are probably limited to:

Pizza in Korea

A Rock and Roll Show

A dancing cook

and

another Korean hot dog adventure

Saddle up and prepare to experience Korea vicariously through text and images.

I'll start with our first (and to this date, only) encounter with Korean pizza.  Just around the corner from me is a cozy little place called Pizza Flower.  One Sunday night Caroline and I decided to give it a shot.  Twenty minutes and seven dollars later we were sitting on the floor of my apartment.  Nothing stood between us and the pizza and the cameras were rolling.

Just in case curiosity has got the best of you, I'll describe what you've just seen.  You were looking at a Bulgogi Pizza, or a pizza with Korean-style barbecued beef on top.  What you probably don't know, and what we also were lucky enough to find out, is that the pizza was also covered with other bits of randomness including corn and maybe onions.  Corn seems to be a condiment here.

I hope you're all geared up for the first bite because it's happening right now:

Good not great.  Similar if not identical to a standard frozen pizza.  Nothing about it tasted Korean to me so I decided to improvise.

Buckle up:

Kimchi strikes again!  This stuff is fantastic.  Add it to anything that tastes of mediocrity and sit back as it instantly drums up some flavor.

The next topic that I'd like to cover is music here on the peninsula.  I'm not sure why, but KPop reigns supreme.  KPop is loud, dancy, technoey, (what?), rap/pop music.  I'm about to offend the entire country but I'd like to be honest about my feelings towards this musical genre.  

I think it's pretty terrible.  Every single song sounds exactly the same.  The male singers look like they've never heard of sandwiches.  The girls look fake.  The musical groups have more members than the entire Wu Tang Clan.  It's as cookie cutter as it gets but the  everyone here loves it and I mean everyone; from kids to teenagers to adults; I've even caught some older men listening to WonderGirls while devouring chicken and knocking back shots of soju.

I'd pretty much given up on seeing live music while living over here but then we stumbled into a bar called Urban.  We couldn't believe our eyes or our ears.  On the stage were about 6 or 7 young Korean rock and rollers.  In front of the stage were about 15 or 20 young people flailing around uncontrollably.  We had struck gold.  

Here's a quick glance at the Chef, as I've named him, dancing around to a rendition of the most popular KPop song in the world; Gungnam Style.  We're still debating whether or not this guy was actually a chef who had just finished his shift or if wearing a chef's apron is hip with the country's alternative youth.  Either way this guy was great.  We danced around with him and his crew for a while.  I even introduced some college kids to the Charleston and the Twist.  I hope it catches on. 

I'd rather not leave this post on a sour note but I can't be held responsible for my culinary exploits.  Dancing around like idiots strikes up your appetite.  There were some hot dogs on the horizon, Korean hot dogs.  After my first experience I still haven't learned my lesson and decided it was a good idea to try something else.  The dog I selected looked pretty decent.  It resembled a giant corn dog and it looked something like this:

Shock and Awe

A Village and a Temple

Orientation is halfway over.  It's served its purpose though.  We're all making friends.  We're learning more about teaching.  We're dreading the group project that we need to complete and present on the final day.  At night we eat spicy chicken and drink terrible beers at the local hof.  In the morning, we search for a solution to the Korean coffee desert and usually settle for cans of Nescafe.  Most of us are ready to get to our respective towns or cities to begin our teaching careers.  Sensing our restlessness, our class leaders have organized a group outing.  We're heading to the Jeonju Traditional Culture Center, Hanok Village, and Keumsan Temple.

The Jeonju Traditional Culture Center is first.  We get to play some Korean drums.  We participate in a traditional mask dance.  And we learn all about Hanji paper as we use it to make ourselves some nifty little pencils boxes.  A nice way to start the day.

Lunch is next.  I could write about it but what's the point.  I have pictures to tell the story for me.  Jeonju is famous for its Bibimbap.  We had some.  It was most excellent.

the table is set

 

the main dish

Lunch was over quickly.  The only bad to come from this was our complete and total inability to settle for the free cafeteria food for the remainder of the orientation program.  Thankfully, dining out is incredibly cheap here in Korea.

After lunch we had an hour to wonder around the Hanok Village.  Hanoks are traditionl Korean homes and they look like this:

Hanoks

The rest of the town was busy and full of tourists from all over the region.  Caroline and I went looking for a shrine but we settled for ice cream instead.  The shrine was pretty expensive and ice cream is much cheaper. 

From the village we boarded our bus and rode along a narrow mountain road up to Keumsan Temple.  The complex consisted of about a dozen buildings, each one ornately decorated and holding it's own special significance.



The main courtyard

The backyard

Attention to detail

The regulars

There were hundreds of these guys.

This guy told the best jokes