5 things I like about Korea: Part 1

It's funny, when you live somewhere for long enough it begins to feel like home. Small things that used to shock or amaze you on a daily basis begin to feel fairly routine. Oh, there's a guy driving his motorcycle down the sidewalk (sometimes cars, too)? No big deal. What's that, we're having octopus, squid, and seaweed for lunch? Just a typical Wednesday meal.

Here's a quick list of 5 random observations, or things that I've gotten used to that I rather like.

1- Ridiculously cheap yet high quality food. For any given meal, you can expect to pay around or under $4-5 at a restaurant. This may not seem like a big deal, but, when you consider the 4-8 side dishes that accompany every meal (banchan) it's a great bargain. These side dishes are refillable, too. The servers wait on your beck and call and are more than happy to fill these back up ASAP.

2- This kind of ties into #1 and the low cost of dining. No tipping. Anywhere. Ever. They won't accept it so don't even try. This includes taxis, delivery men, and every other service-related thing you'll pay for.

3- The subway. Seoul has one of the best public transportation systems in the world. Buses run everywhere and the subway is usually only a 10-15 minute walk away from wherever you are. Oh, and it's dirt cheap. I can take a 45 minute subway ride from one side of the city to the other for around $1. They can get very crowded, though. You usually only get a seat if you're an older person and it's common courtesy to give yours up if one gets on. See the map below.


4- Cheap movies, sports, museums, etc. Being away from the land of Stars and Stripes on our nation's birthday left me with one option; engage in our national pastime. I went and saw the Doosan Bears take on the LG Twins at the Jamsil stadium (KBO). Admission was 6,000 KRW which is about $4.50. You can bring food and drink in, too. They had vendors outside selling Hite tallboys' for $2. Also, had a Burger King vendor so yeah... baseball, beer, burgers is about as close as one can get to the 4th without being on US soil.

5- Anything that ends in -bang. In Korean, 'bang' means 'room'. So, on any given street you'll find a number of -bangs.

First, the PC Bang. It's essentially an internet cafe where hordes of young kids come play internet games. You can also check your email or do whatever for around $1.50 an hour.

Next, the jjimjilbang. I wrote about this before but I'm a huge fan of the bath house.

And last but defintely not least, the noraebang. Usually a night out goes as follows: dinner first, usually lasts 1-2 hours. Once everybody eats we go to another place for drinks. But, it's not custom to drink without eating (most places, hofs, won't even serve you without ordering a snack of some kind) so we'll then take a 2nd dinner of light snacking and soju. After a time there it's usually off to go the noraebang to go belt out some hot tunes. They use some kind of software there that processes your voice to make it sound better (studio magic?). Also, at the end of each song they rate your performance. Here's a good video of said noraebang. The English song selection is quite comprehensive, I might add.

So that's it. The first 5 things that came to mind about about things I do and see everyday that might be different for those not living here. I've got tons more I'll probably write about but this will be a nice little bite of kimchi.

Daytime Drinking

No, not me. But this indie Korean film should be in Portland in the next few months. The trailer looks pretty good and sheds a lot of light on the drinking/dining culture over here. Hopefully I'll be able to catch it at one of the many film festivals they have here. Go watch the trailer and also check out the Korean drinking FAQ on the site, it's interesting and very true. Notice how they put the movie poster on the bottle of Soju, clever.

Rick Astley meets South Korea

Wednesday is activity day for all the teachers at my school. The staff gets together for a physical activity like basketball, volleyball, frisbee, etc. We played badmitton and boy can they play. I haven't played since middle school but badmitton is a very popular sport here in Korea. After classes on Wednesday we all got together in the gym and crushed some birds for about an hour. It was myself and the physics teacher against a math and PE teacher. The game was super intense but we lost.

After badmitton me and a few of the other PE teachers shot hoops for a while. Most Korean men know a thing or two about the big NBA players but when I try to explain the Blazers to them it falls on deaf ears. Anyways, they like to bust out the trick shots so there were a lot of behind the back drives and 360s. They scream out their favorite players they're emulating like, 360 fadeaway "LEBRON JAMES" - BRICK - REBOUND. It was hilarious.

After that we had a welcoming party for myself and another new teacher. The event was in the cafeteria and was catered. Since the kids had gone home the adults busted out the soju. As I wrote about before, soju is a huge part of their culture and usually consumed in mass quantities during meals. My new friends taught me the names of a few of the dishes and proper table etiquette. Social standing is a pretty big deal and most of your actions (whether it be talking, eating, drinking) are determined by your standing in relation to whom you are doing said activity with. So for example, I was pouring drinks for people who were older than me and somebody younger was pouring my drinks. If you are the same age you pour each others, but never your own. You always use two hands when giving or receiving something as well. It is considered rude and disrespectful to say pour a drink with one hand or receive one. You have to stay on top of your game to ensure people of higher standing are taken care of at the table.

After the welcoming party we went to another restaurant dowtown and had one of the best meals in my life. Bulgogi, or Korean BBQ, is very popular here. Everyone removes their shoes on entering the restaurant and sits on the floor on pretty comfortable pads. The coolest thing is that the BBQs are on the table themselves. You are served a huge platter of uncooked seasoned meat, vegetables, and seafood and then you grill it at your own table. It is delicious. Another new thing to me is the 'create-your-own-bite' system of eating. For example, you grab a large lettuce leaf, add some kimchi, add the meat on top of that, then maybe some chili sauce, anything else you want, dip it in some sauce, ball it up and chow down. Very, very good.

After our 2nd dinner we decided to hit up the noraebang. This literally translates to 'song room' in Korean. As you may have seen in the movies, most kareoke or noraebang in Asia is done in private, catered rooms. Our noraebang was on the 12th floor of a huge building downtown. They are super cheap to rent and tons of fun. I was really surprised at the song selection- I would say about 1/2 were American or Western type songs. I plan on dropping some Rick Astley all over Korea.

It was super late after singing but we ended up going to a bakery and getting some fresh baked foods. I came home yesterday and the co-teacher who escorted me home had bought me a bag full of milk, breads, and pastries for the next morning. Good times.

Korea: first impressions

The people-

Given my few days here I have been blown away by the sheer generosity and kindness of the people I've met. My co-teacher (native Korean speaker who studied English who does complicated translations students may not understand), Lee Seung Mi, has basically become my Korean Mom. She has been bending over backwards to make sure I am adjusting well to my new life. Very, very helpful and I would be completely lost without her help.

All of the teachers eat together in the cafeteria during lunch. After lunch I was approached by a PE teacher, about my age, and instructed to go back behind a storage area for coffee. There were about 5 other teachers back there, all men, standing around smoking and just chewing the fat. They offered me a cigarette and then told me that in Korean culture, sharing a cigarette means you are now friends. I asked one of them where a bike shop was and after saying a bunch of stuff I didn't understand one of them left our little party. 10 minutes later he comes back and hands me a bicycle and keys to the lock. Mine for the year.

The Koreans I've met have been awesome.

The food-



How can you talk about Korean food without mentioning kimchi. It is their staple dish and is served at every single meal. I had a chance to try it a few times before I left and really took a liking to it. Everyone who I've eaten with so far has been pretty impressed with my chopstick ability and my love of spicy food. I think the people here believe that Americans have no tolerance for anything spicy and cannot use chopsticks, I am changing that belief one meal at a time.

Korean cuisine is typically very spicy (a lot of chili sauces with their dishes) so I'm in love with the food here. Rice is a huge staple of all the dishes here and so are vegetables. I think I've eaten more vegetables in the past 4 days than I have in the last 6 months in America. If you want to diet or to lose weight eat Korean food. I haven't seen an overweight person in my city yet and I think a huge part is the diet. No wonder they are the second slimmest nation in the world (America is in the 30s), their diet is super healthy and delicious to boot.

The drink-



Soju, soju, soju, soju. Soju is served at almost all meals outside of work and is pretty damn strong. It's about 40 proof and kind of tastes like watered down vodka but not as bad. It actually compliments a meal quite nicely in my opinion. It is a big no-no to EVER have an empty glass at the table and upon finishing your shot or sip it is immediately refilled by somebody else, never yourself. Korean dinners last a very long time so you can imagine where hours of pounding Soju will get you.

I don't want to sound elitist but the beer here is terrible. Living in Oregon or more specifically Portland will do that to you. I'm starting to think I won't get my hands on a good IPA for quite some time and that scares me. Cass and Hite are the two big ones everyone drinks. I've had warm Olde English or Milwaukee's Beast Ice that tasted better. I'm sticking to Soju.

I had a huge Soju night last night after the welcome party the school threw for me, post coming soon.