Korea = good food, taekwondo, and soju

My Saturday was exceptionally busy, but also very fun. In Korean class, they taught us how to sing Happy Birthday in Korean (obviously). The teachers went around the room and sang it to every student. You would think the repetition would solidify it into my memory, but no, I've forgotten it already. They also taught us a winter song that roughly translates into: "Cold hands, ice. Cold feet, ice. Winter wind because of ice ice ice. Hands, ice ice ice. Feet, ice ice ice. Winter wind because of ice ice ice". It was good times.

As you can tell by the song, it's getting cold here. The leaves are starting to change colour too. I've begun my search for a winter jacket. After Korean class, I went to Dong-A department store near the YMCA. Maybe it was the location, but I wasn't successful at all. First of all, the vast majority of the jackets I found were not practical. They were either super thin, old lady jackets or were ridiculous (who buys a winter jacket with 3/4 length sleeves?). Also, a regular size in Korea would a small or extra small back in Canada. I found a couple jackets I liked, but they were all between $500 and $700. Forget that!! I'll have to check out some other department stores or maybe a sports store where they sell ski jackets. Hopefully I can find something decent before it starts getting really cold.

After shopping, Diana and I had our taekwondo lesson. At the lesson, there was a group of black belt kids there. I think they were in grade 3 or 4. Sa Beom Nim had them show off for us. They were cute little killing machines. Diana and I sat there, ate Korean twinkies and drank juice while they impressed us with their energy and TKD moves.

Saturday night, Diana, Sa Beom Nim, his wife, the parents of one of my students, and I went out for dinner. We went to one restaurant where we ate tons of Korean food. Some stuff was super spicy, which still scares me a bit, but I still try it. We had this ginseng alcohol drink. It was okay, just very very strong. After we stuffed ourselves there, they took us to ANOTHER restaurant. This time it was seafood. We had BBQ shellfish and soju (type of liquor). I loved the shellfish. It was amazingly good. I'm definitely going back for more! I think Sa Beom Nim's wife was a little drunk. She was hilarious though and we were lucky because she knew a lot of English and could translate for us.

Here's some more pics of my apartment too:

Weekend in Daegu

I've only been here just over a week and a half, so I decided to stay in the city and become more familiar with my surroundings. Saturday morning, I went to my second Korean class. It was really fun. The Korean teachers are so nice. They said we're going to have a picnic at the one of the large universities at the beginning of November. Here's a pic of my class:

After class, I checked out a department store nearby and tempted by some cheesy bread in the food section. So much for a healthy diet. Afterwards, I was really tired, so I headed home and took a nap. Gwen called me a couple hours later and she, Diana and I went to Costco. The Costco in Daegu has two floors. One for household products like chairs and detergent and another floor just for food. It's huge. I was tempted again by a huge container of cheese balls, but I was able to resist. I guess I was really craving cheese. I bought some basics, like cereal, milk, and bagels. A dozen bagels was about $5, not too shabby.

The next day, I went downtown and met up with my friend, Walita. She's from Toronto and teaches in another part of Daegu. The plan was to go to the Colourful Daegu Festival. Unfortunately, we didn't exactly know where the festival was. We decided to just start walking in the direction we thought it was. Along the way, we went down any alley that looked interesting. Unfortunately, we ventured down dead dog alley where every table had a skinned dead dog. They weren't even cut up! There were entire dogs lying there with tails, teeth, and heads. I thought I would be okay with the whole eating dog thing because meat is meat, but there's something about the sight of a whole dead dog that just seems wrong. Part of me wanted to take a picture, but I'm sure no one wants to see that.

We eventually made it to the festival by walking along the Sincheon River and asking many people on the way. It was so much fun. There was a lot of music and dancing. My favourite part was trying on a traditional Korean dress. There was a photographer there, who wouldn't stop taking pictures of Walita and I. He would make us wear masks, smile, pretend to laugh...We may end up in a magazine or billboard one day. We went along with it for a bit, but afterwards we just walked away from him. Our wonderful day ended with some Korean BBQ. It was soooo good. I think the lady working there knew we were completely clueless and stood by our table the entire time cooking and cutting our meat. It was a very tasty ending to a great day.

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