Filed under: food
“do you eat a lot of fiber?”
suddenly there were three pairs of eyes staring at me, waiting for my answer. the state of the bathrooms at work were at stake.
‘this is a round table,’ i thought. ‘how are they all sitting opposite me?’
people who know me know that i’m pretty open in my conversation topics, sometimes to a fault. however, even i have never discussed the nature of my bowel movements over dinner with people i’ve just met.
ahhaaa. you know in canada, everybody’s walking around with all this clothing and tattoos and things in characters? like we know what they mean, or even what language it’s in?
they do the same thing here with english. i definitely saw a girl today with a cute little pink shirt (she was 11? 12?) with large, curly pink lettering across the front. it said: “GANG BANG”
it’s a good thing i’m not allergic to anything, as i can’t read any of the ingredients of anything in the shops. there’s a peculiar mix of english and korean: on brands that come from the west, the names and slogans are in english and all the ingredients/directions/etc. are in korea. even some of the korean things have names and slogans in (very bad) english: one brand in the kitchen section of the department store was called “clean sink”, and it’s slogan was “this will make your kitchen more cleaner.” stores are named in english as well, sometimes with unfortunate results: the sports store called “the athlete’s foot”, or the store called “children and underwear”.
so, i’m here. i made it to south korea. the plane trip was bloody awful: the only reason i can even call the food edible is because i ate it. we chased the sun all the way to korea, flying into yesterday and then straight into tomorrow without ever hitting today.
i’m not really sure what to start with….or what to say.
i’m set up in my apartment, i’m also almost entirely unpacked, but i’m at loose ends for a while – i’ve arrived just as all of my co-workers are on their break, and so even though we all live in the same building, i’m isolated for a week as they go off travelling. i’m struggling enough with groceries, i’m going to stay put until work starts.
i did go out for dinner twice – once with my boss, and once with a teacher who was kind enough to come in on his day off to show me around. we had barbecue – we were served a plate of raw meat, which we cooked on coals at our table. with the ribs, we were given gloves to wear, rather than utensils. the other teacher thought this was hilarious – i just think it’s intensely practical. we were also given dozens of side dishes to eat with our meat – which we shared, both of us eating from the same bowl. this is a rather intimate way of eating, i think, something i’ve always reserved for very close friends. we ate on “meat street” – nicknamed thus by a., the co-worker. it’s a street simply filled with bars and restaurants, stacked 7 or 8 stories high, one on top of the other, with the street level filled with these barbecues, the tables coming right out onto the street. i’ve never seen, or heard, or smelled, so much going on at once.
