As many of you know, I'm not that much of a discriminating foodie. My approach towards drink - "if it's wet, drink it" - equally goes for my stance on cuisine: "whatever that is, it ain't gonna eat itself." Which is why it's odd to be starting a new entry where I left off last time: with food. Here's the explanation: you can't come to Korea without being struck by the attention the locals give to food and the variety of it as one encounters the specialties and variations from all over the small Korean peninsula. The affordability of Korean food (in Korea) also makes the shift from a western diet to a Korean one much easier on the bank balance; added to this, the local imitations of most western foods are pretty bloody awful at best. Corn on pizza? Sweet iced buns that everyone mistook for cream cheese for breakfast? And the coffee? Don't make me laugh. Granted, coming from Sydney means having been spoilt in the caffeinated domain, but today I paid $4.50 for a Cappuccino bucket whose flavour actually made me wince. The other week I watched a friend pay $6.50 for one, but the big difference was that she enjoyed hers (she's American).
But I digress, and I'm not in a coffee based culture here. If you want a drink in Korea, you have to hold your glass with both hands and turn away from the elder members of the table as you drink it. It's bad manners to refuse a drink and if your boss invites you out for soju then he wants to get to know you better, and you'd better not refuse. Consequently I wait with patience, often remarking to my principal on the hot weather we are having. I’m sure he’d love to hear about growing up in Mittagong / captaining the under 12 cricket team / the year they introduced an entrance fee for the Dahlia Festival. If you can out-drink your boss then you're in for promotion during the year. Well, I reckon I can out-drink the entire province of Gyeonggi-do, but don't tempt me. I can also feel the call of other, more Russian lands and wouldn't want to work as a "handsome projectionist" for too long. (Koreans remain fascinated by appearance in the education sector and in life in general. If you want work spend less time on your resume and more time on photoshopping your appearance for the application package. Nothing like life at home of course...)
Anyway, the picture above is of a dish I occasionally eat. I wandered into the food court across the road in search of an experience, and the lady who worked here was the first one to talk to me, so I tried to order something using the pointing and gesturing method. She knows less English than I know Korean. When I tried to gesture for "how much?" by pretending to leaf through some notes in my wallet, she must have thought I was making a peeling action and therefore set to work on whatever this is. It was pretty good and I have since gone back. The second time, she was thrilled to see me and took my hand and shook it, and taught me how to say "Si Dae Bi," which I believe is what this is called. If I'm right, no more pointing at food and rubbing my stomach.
The major outing of the past week was to the Icheon Ceramics Festival. I took my first bus journey beyond the city and once again marvelled at the cost - $3.90! A middle aged man looked after me and made sure I got off at the right stop. We had formed a bond by comparing tickets by pointing at them and at buses and at each other. 5 minutes of pointing amounted to this - "it seems we are going in the same direction." For every bug-eyed stare I get from Korea, there is someone who is pragmatic and helpful and makes being a foreigner so much easier. But I'll tell the story of when I lost my apartment key another time. Not here. I've got a bus to Sokcho to catch and want to round off this short post with a few pictures of what happened last weekend.
This is an example of the kind of stuff on display at the ceramics festival. I mainly took pictures of the fish-based designs because I think they looked the best. As it always is for me however, the best things are always the quirky and characteristic things of the day. Like when we found an elevator to take us downstairs, which subsequently wouldn't move, because there were 7 of us using it. Even though the restrictions said it would hold 10 people, 4 of us had to get out before the damn thing moved.
Here are the aforementioned:
And a traditional teahouse:
And I have to get my skates on. Take care out there. Remember: if they're good-lookin' - don't believe 'em.
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