when in korea.....do as the koreans do

Maybe it was the snow, maybe it was just a need to catch up on sleep, this weekend was a quiet one.
We ventured to a bowling alley, located under a skating rink and ping-pong room, through a garage and into this secret hidden gem. The balls are a bit heavy, I dropped one mid stroke, but it was fun all the same.
We also ventured to Gwanyang, a town about 20 minutes away. It may be 40 on a normal night, however, our taxi driver had this sense of urgency about him clocking 167K per hour, it may have been the fastest I have ever driven, I always hoped that experience would be had on American soil with my seat belt on. My friend Sue owns the bar and was kind enough to offer us a cheese platter. Although we were very happy we decided to go, this cheese platter made the 25,000won cab ride well worth it. It is very hard to find decent cheese in Korea, and if you do it is very expensive. However, we had cheddar, sharp cheddar, bleu cheese, gouda....we were in heaven. It is great when the little things can bring you so much happiness.
Yes, it has snowed. I tell my students about the snow storms at home, thinking I have it better here, turns out I don't. It snows and snows and snows, and the wind blows this piercing air into your face, and there is no accumulation, it just disappears. It is so cold here at night, often times the only way to stay warm is to sprint the mile home from work. The Koreans love seeing a Waygook running down the street in heels.
There is something about being in Korea, the ever changing smells that encircle you, the smell of fermenting kimchee permeating into your apart at any given moment that turns you off of Korean food. This past Friday, I joined the teachers at my school for our New Year's celebration dinner at a Fish and Pork BBQ Korean Restaurant. It was interesting, how ever, again, I just don't like Korean food. Course after course came, the offerings including 4 different varieties of Kimchee, BBQ Pork, cold cockles, prickly lettuce leaves, a stew pot with random things in it including 3 large kimchee marinated fish, another large whole fish, oysters, whole pickled garlic.
The upside of Korean dining is that you can often find the best meals in the oddest of places.
Gavin, Trevor and I spent Sunday lounging in a coffee shop in Shinae and then decided we wanted something new and exciting for dinner. We went to the eighth floor of New Core, a sort of Filene's like department store to find "Ashly's Western Buffet". To me "Western" still brings cowboy hats and country music to mind, however, here, it simply means Waygook- or foreign food. There were chicken fingers, spaghetti, proper salad (something which is hard to come by here) tomato salad, hash browns, ice cream, grilled vegetables...it was the wonderful way to end a weekend.
On our way out we passed through the food court on the bottom floor and got a look at their offerings. There is a very large market for plastic food here, any dish offered is shown in some plastic, resin formation. It truly is an art form. I am convinced however, that every day they make the actually dishes and just spray some substance on them.

I am off on Friday with Gav across Korea. As of now our itinerary has us: Starting in Daegu Friday night, moving on to Gyeongju on Saturday. Sunday we move up the east coast to Danyang where we will visit some of the largest caves with enormous stalagmites finishing the day off at the Suanbo Hot Springs. Moving further north on Monday to Samcheok and Sinnam we will see Penis Park and another Limestone Cave exhibition. We then move along the northern border where we have booked our tour of the DMZ for Wednesday and then the highest point in Seoul at Namsan. THEN....a secret destination before we head down the west coast and back to home...Suncheon. I believe we will hit every province in Korea! Quite the feet for a chic from Newburyport and a lad from Flint!