Food

I like Korean food. I've known this since my old roommate, Trina, took us all to a Korean restaurant in Provo. Trina was actually one of the people who got me excited about going to Korea (she had just gotten home from her mission in South Korea when she came to live with us).

However, there is one problem with getting food in Korea: LANGUAGE. I have yet to learn Korean. I know. It's been almost a month; I should be fluent by now, right? Unfortunately, no. So the hardest part about getting food in Korea has been the fact that I can't read most menus and labels in grocery stores are, you guessed it, in Korean.

It can be kind of frustrating at times. Luckily, I have found some restaurants that have picture menus. Since I can read the Korean alphabet, I can sound it out and point and they usually get the idea. A few restaurants have English menus or, like McDonalds, speak enough English that I can order without a problem. So far the best places I've gone to have been barbeques. I talked about this in another post. They are still delicious. :)

Mostly, I've been eating a pretty uneventful diet of things I've found I like and have an easy time cooking and FINDING in grocery stores.

My first meal in Korea was interesting. We were tired from the day before and so we just went down to the convenience store on the first floor of the hotel and got some ramen, yogurt, water, cookies, and peaches. An interesting introduction to Korean cuisine, but there you go.



I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the cookies were individually wrapped. I was not expecting this.



I have since broadened my horizons, though not by much. Ramen still makes a frequent appearance on my table.

Pot stickers are an essential. Fast and easy and surprisingly CHEAP here. A small bag back home would be about $6. A large bag here costs about 5ooo won, less than $5. Nice.

I've also found these nice buns that you can get frozen and then steam or microwave into deliciousness. They are filled with... I'm actually not sure if it's beans or potato. It's purple and delicious. I like it. Jesi would too, I bet.



I also buy microwave bowls of rice (until I get my rice cooker... hopefully this weekend!) which I then cover with one of a wide assortment of sauce packets. These things are AWESOME! They have curry with potatoes and veggies, chicken with sauce, meatballs, and other, more exotic sauces. Including something red with suckery tentacles on the picture. I don't think I'll try that one, though. I like these things a lot. They are quick and simple and just the right amount for one person.


Snacks are great and easy to find, though. One of my favorite treats from home is here! I get bags of these in my stocking for Christmas back home. They are way cheaper here, though, than they are at Uwajimaya in Oregon. They are crunchy rice crackers with honey. Sweet and delicious. Another interesting thing we found were these little sandwiches with strawberry... cream stuff in them. Only had them once but it was still delicious.



There's also this place called "Paris Baguette" that has all sorts of random pastries and stuff. Most of the things are pretty familiar but some are a little stranger. Like the specimen below. It was like a pizza hot dog with a french bread bun. Interesting.



So that's food. I think I have figured out how to buy vegetables at the grocery store now so I might spend a good part of my weekend chopping and freezing servings of vegetables for stir fry later this week. I hope it works. It would be nice to have some real vegetables...