Welcome to Pohang!

Arrived in Pohang and then got driven to the school, which is super nice and completely new! Then met the boss - super nice and father-like. After dropping off our luggage and splitting the stuff from previous instructors, he took us newbies and current teachers out for dinner.. my first Korean BBQ since arrival in the country!

Salad on the left and the cup of purple liquid next to it is plum wine, I believe.

Back home, portions of the salad were super tiny and so I thought it was suppose to be cooked sometimes. Because the portions of the salad were so tiny, never thought it was a salad! Anyways, very yummy, flavorful (from the natural greens and from the vinagrette), and super healthy! Now, what's a bbq without soju and beer! We had that too, but the plum wine was something I haven't had here yet. It wasn't too sweet. Definitely something you would sip, but could take as a shot if you liked. I'd definitely have one of these in my apt if and when I find it.

MM.. clam and fishcake (?) soup. Soup was light, refreshing, and tasted like clams =P

This is steamed egg in a stone pot. Hmm.. that's a good idea. Never thought of that before - gunna try it sometime! I don't know what they mixed it before they steamed it, but yay! steamed egg! P=

MEAAATTT! yumm! So how this works is that there's a bucket of coal underneath the screen. Every 10 -15mins or so someone will come around to the grills and place another screen on top and flip the new screen to the bottom. Any meat stuck to the old screen would be picked off onto the new and away with the old screen. Didn't think the meat would cook well, but it did! Some even turned almost black when we left it on there for too long. Again.. YUMMMM!

Guess what it is? Yes, it's dessert. Hmm..? what did you say? Bingsoo you say? YUP! that's exactly what it is! Bingsoo is shaved ice with a sweetened condensed milk and sweet toppings, such as red bean, boba, different types of fruits, gummy candy, etc. This little cup of icy goodness was topped with condensed milk, A LOT of red bean and some gummy candy. Of course, I finished it :]

Next day, had a late lunch with two of the other teachers who trained with me. One of them had already taught in Pohang two years ago - came back cuz she loved the boss and she had a pretty good teaching experience. She brought us to this little family owned place serving mostly ramen, bibimbap, tteokbokki, and super good kimbap!

I wanted dumplings, as always, so I looked for it on the menu. Mandu ramyeon (dumpling ramen). I love ramen with fresh veggies and dumplings! <3

We also tested out the kimbap (like sushi, except kimbap uses the whole piece of seaweed to wrap the roll and there's a lot more stuff in the roll). This one is the cham chee kimbap (tuna). Kimbap has been lunch/dinner for the first week of teaching. There is absolutely no nice break time, therefore, no time for food! Kimbap is fast to make and super cheap - about 2500 won, which equates to less than $2.50 a roll!

Our two April teachers and some of the Chungdahm teachers out for dinner one night for the newbies..

All of the dishes were on a pan like this. This dish were broiled potatoes topped with cheese and cheddar drizzle. Seasoned and spiced onions and peppers were underneath the potatoes. Totally satisfied my craving for fries!

MM.. this wasn't really a dish I had ordered, but tried some and it was good. It's a chicken salad basically. The actual leafy salad was underneath all the chicken slices drizzled with a ranchy type dressing and topped with raisins and nuts. Also, the circle of delicious decoration around the salad consisted of chopped pears/apples and cherry tomato pieces.

This pan dish had sliced sausages on the bottom with melted cheese and then topped with a mixture of red and green peppers, onions, carrots, and tteokbokki (rice cake) pieces. And a sprinkle of sesame seeds to complete the presentation! haha this was super yummy too. Loved the cheese on all of these dishes.

This was a bag of Cheetos on sale for 630 won, originally 990 won as you can see on the bag. Inside, I found a surprise! hehe

SURPRISE!

My completed Cheetos model plane and first toy in Korea! =] !!

After about 3 hours of cleaning the kitchen and dishwashing, I made my first meal! HAHA. Yupp.. dumplings! lol they were on sale :] 3 bags for 4500 won! - less than $4.50 .. harhar!

Okie. That's it for now. Working odd hours in the day doesn't really give me a chance to eat out as much as I like, but when I get the chance I definitely do and will keep updating with more food when I see/eat them! Enjoy!

Food adventures in Seoul

Finally started this blog! After saying I’d start so long ago haha sorry guys! So here it is – my food blog! Or attempt at it anyway =] Let’s start!

First meal in Korea!

Side dishes. Bibimbap on the left, kimchi chigae on the bottom right and my dumpling rice cake soup. Super good!

Some really good tea we had in this tea house with a very cute train station theme.

Pumpkin Tea was really made from pumpkin and wasn't too sweet, just enough to bring out the pumpkin flavor. Rose Tea consisted of a large rose and little rose buds steamed in a glass tea pot. This was a very lightly flavored tea, very fragrant with a calming and relaxing effect on the drinker. Snow Dew Tea (I think that's what it's called..) - a type of green tea with a sweet after taste. It's weird, but it's for real and very good!

My dish was a sort of clam base soup with tofu, egg, and fish. Now this wouldn't be Korean cuisine without rice on the side!

Roomie's cold buckwheat noodles with seasoned hot pepper paste and veggies.

Mmm.. so this was the most interesting dish of the night. We've contemplated during most of the dinner as to what the thing on the spoon was. We were told it was fish reproductive organs, but that wasn't very reassuring - we still thought it was something else and I'm sure everyone who sees this pic knows which part of the body of I'm talking about! But aside from the supposed fish organ, veggies, string mushrooms, and real fish made up the rest of this stew, which didn't taste too bad!

Paris Baguette is a chain bakery around Korea with tasty pastries, cakes, cookies, sandwiches, and cakes!

These are some of the cakes and a little bear shaped bread they make. Very pretty and cute!

The first Sunday in Seoul, roomie and I are already taking the subway! When we got out of the Nowon Station there was a thousand won store (or dollar store!) and this stand for sandwiches..

1,000 won store and the lady making the egg part of the sandwich

Griling the bread with butter! I think the sandwich was pretty healthy even though the toast was smothered in butter - the egg had a little mixture of veggies in it and a little bit of ketchup for taste. Also, had a fifty cent cup of instant coffee - very yummy!

Our first Sunday in Korea and lucky enough to be able to attend a Thanksgiving dinner, as American as it could possibly be in Korea where they don't have turkeys! Thanks Christy for having friends here already and being the best roomie anyone could ask for for the week; thanks Jamie for inviting us; and thanks Madeline for having us :]

Our combined efforts in making homemade stuffing in a rice cooker came out very well! The buffet table's salads and rolls.

Yes! We had turkeys. I believe they came from an American base in Korea..? But there's also cranberry sauce, kyo chon chicken with radish, mashed potatoes, ham, and more stuffing. Super yummy and very full by the end of day!

After first day of training/orientation, roomie and I went out with the rest of the guys in our hotel for dinner.

I got the soondubu chigae (tofu stew) and roomie got hot buckwheat noodles - it was kind of bland, but healthy? The chigae was very good - you can't really go wrong with chigae.

All the guys were drinking soju and beer, so roomie thought we needed a drink too. Our waiter had spent some years in Cali which was great for us! He recommended makkeolli, which is like a milky beer without the alcohol.. ALMOST. Only almost because it's probably like .01% alcohol and it was a bit carbonated. It was definitely different and yummy!

After dinner we all went to walk around Dongdaemun, which is an area where a bunch of yellow and white tents are set up outside and it's like an open market. There are also malls with a bunch of different little stalls, like HK and China, as well as underground mall shopping! All of this starts around 10-10:30PM and goes 'til about 5AM. Me and roomie got the munchies while walking around so.. we snacked =P

I thought I got sausages on stick.. but it was they were actually made out of the same thing that fishballs are made of. Also, did not expect it to be super spicy, which it was! I realized it was most likely made from the seeds of the spicy green peppers they have around here. Yup, had one of those green peppers too! Roomie had chocolate ice cream - yumm! I killed it later trying to take out spice in my mouth =D

Walked around for a bit and the guys decided they were still a bit thirsty, so we found this "Western" bar. All the waiters were dressed in cowboy outfits, which I thought was a bit silly looking =P

That little black thingy next to the tissues is a bell that you press on when you want service. Waving down the waiters is not the norm in bars here.

The beers here are HUGE and if you get the Korean beers it's super cheap for one of those. Western beers are a bit pricier. Popcorn is the bar snack here, not peanuts or rice cracker mixes. Love it!

We wandered around our hotel for breakfast/lunch..

The lady had an English menu written in a random book lol she must get a lot of foreigners from our hotel. Smart lady. We ended up getting the mackerel casserole. The casserole was overall very filling and yummyful, but I don't know if I would order mackerel again - too many fish bones to pick out! I like to enjoy my food with as little effort as possible =]

BEFORE and AFTER

After a nice brunch, we walked around the market nearby - Chungbu Market.

Chungbu Market sign and the chili pepper stall. They crushed up pepper to make flakes or fine red pepper.

This was the garlic stall and seafood stall. The garlic was ALL peeled. Amazing. So far, I still haven't seen any unpeeled garlic. This stall had a very large variety of seafood, all of which is used in many dishes to either flavor or be used as the main part of a dish. MM.. seafood <3

Here was a huge tub of tofu. I think it's fresh and thought it was super cool, so it definitely needed to be photographed =P Then there were the stalls with all types of veggies. I think a majority of these veggies were roots or stems of plants we don't normally have in the States.

There were also all kinds of beans and I believe huge bags of snacks! hehe

This was the "Bast Shopping Bag" producer that was located right outside of the market. One other store sold huge things of ginseng. Probably super expensive, huh?

For the last two days, roomie and I had really good bibimbap from this place near our hotel. Very recommended! ..if only I knew what the restaurant was called =X

Side dishes + soup and bibimbap!

That's it for the food diaries from Seoul. Next up, Pohang!