Solution Involves a Bag and My Head

So this week amidst all the general malarkley that children evoke I had my picture taken and introduction taken for the website.

http://www.ybmivy.com/songdo

This is so the parents can check up on us and go "hmm, what crazy foreigner have they hired to teach my precious little dumpling?"

Unfortunately my photo is not very reassuring....in fact I kind of look like I've had a stroke. :C

I've had worse but that's not reassuring considering how often I've had to get pictures redone.

I've met parents though and they don't seem too worried so either they realise it's a terrible and pretty unfaithful photograph or they have faith in their childs Taekwondo skills.

Lunch is adorable

I never had the opportunity to observe Latte Art before. My lunch today was adorable!!

Do It Yourself BBQ

Friday  learned that the much anticipated market was not to happen.  D: It has been postponed until October because rain was predicted. Rain that has not appeared for months.  Naturally, to our consternation, it appeared that evening.  

Well, being an expert at observing and bitching about rain it didn’t seem too impressive. I guess when it rains I’m used to experiencing ridiculous wind and icy water. Sure, it rained but it’s warm and there was no wind whatsoever (and I think it’s actually gotten hotter!! WTH?)  It is also not the best effort Incheon has to offer. No, it should actually get worse from here on out.

Admittedly, this is not a terrible thing, it’s technically been a drought. We explored the science and it involves a pressure barrier but I certainly cannot explain it well. In short – ‘No rain here, we could do with some.’ I understand that North Korea has officially declared a drought but that is a whole different story.

Naturally, a teeny-tiny bit of rain is the long-awaited monsoon so at the door of my apartment complex…..

I know, right! Actually it was kind of fun to use in a ‘wheeee! New toy!’ sense.

Nevertheless, it was Friday so we all (those who could) went out for dinner. Bornga for traditional Korean barbecue and it was awesome. Also, reasonably priced, ending up at about 8’000W each between the four of us.

 

So Stephanie and Whitney introduced Karen and I to the wonders of ‘do it yourself’ barbecue. I’ve heard of similar concepts but I’d never actually been to one.

At this point I must admit that I apologised for my obnoxious photo-taking. I’ve become that sort of person who constantly whips out my camera.

There is a built in section of the table into which they place a pot of hot coals and then the servers place a grill on top before pulling down the heater to warm it up. What we are given then is a platter and tongs (we had what was essentially beef bacon) and ‘we’ cook it. Well, it was really Whitney who cooked this time but I’m doing it next time!!

As you can see we are laden down with side dishes. I mean, look at that tray of salad!! It’s all included in the price but hot damn!! When they say salad they clearly take it seriously!! That tray of edibles was at my elbow (Yes I did eat a good bit of it, it was delicious.) They also gave little dishes of salad drenched in sauce- also delicious and things we could not really identify but were delicious anyway. :D

I should note that our order was the platter of bacon-beef and two bottles of beer. The rest of this simply came as standard.

On a side note – in restaurants beer doesn’t come in those small bottles or poured into glasses. They give large bottles and small chilled glasses which you should be able to see. The metal ones are for water. Obviously, the idea is that you pour for everyone else before pouring for yourself. I actually like this better, the small glasses are easier to handle.

Also, I’m gradually getting the hand of Korean style chopsticks.

Everyone also gets a bowl of tasty soup – I think it’s kimchi flavour – which is lovely but I can admittedly not handle the kick of the spice. I think it’s the chilis I’m not prepared for.

We only had one platter and the servers did not try to take the tongs away from Whitney (they did turn it down when they came to change the grill top which is done at several intervals) so it was a grand success. Apparently they have been known to take the tongs away from the foreigners and do the cooking themselves not trusting them to avoid food poisoning.  

This place is somewhat famous for their sauce which I put on everything. I didn’t quite believe the girls when they said it was good but yes it is. The ingredients are secret it seems because they wouldn’t tell Bora.  I’m all for stealing a bottle but ECC teachers go here so frequently that they’d know where to hunt us down.

It’s not the kind of place you can go on your own though. Definitely an eat-out with everyone kind of place. We’re going again – naturally.  Dad would love this place, even more than the chicken place!! XD

War of the buttons

A button was considering a move. It was the ‘cast off your shackles and go diving’ sort of move.

I simply could not afford to tolerate this rebellion in such a vital province.  (It was a button I could sorely afford to lose.)

It was then that I realised my grave pressing issue – my sewing kit and box of (spares that came with clothes etc.) buttons is safely ensconced in that temperamental wardrobe. Perfectly safe and completely out of my reach. (Fearghal, I don’t care how much a few stitches will help that outfit, keep your hands off.)

Then I realised that, as a woman, I have a discrimination bonus (+4) in domestic tasks!! I quickly used my common sense skill to buy a pocket sewing kit.

Behold my plunder!!

It fits handily in my pocket so I am no longer unarmed in the battle against fastenings uprising against their liege lords.

Also I can now participate in on the spot embroidery contests – Useful for honour duels.

The proper way to pour a drink.

So Ben and Bora are leaving so we (the company workforce) went out to dinner. Thankfully it wasn’t a fancy place as most of use came straight from work. (I, however finish early on Fridays this month so happily I had time to change. Yes Mother, I made myself somewhat presentable. My green top met great success and dollops of barbecue sauce.)

The place is a fairly nice chicken barbecue joint with very long tables so we would pass plates up and down to be filled by those close to you. It was the most meat I’d had in a while and honestly did not find my stomach up to the challenge.  They kept bringing MORE!! Oh god, I think I’m still sweating out barbecue sauce (say what they want it was ketchup.)

More important than my meat induced coma anyway, was my lesson in proper drink etiquette. So apparently, we don’t really pour our own. You hold your glass in both hands and your friend pours for you. The director got up and poured beer for everyone like that and Helen (who was next to me) and I poured for each other. Apparently, although it says cider on it, it’s actually Sprite. Such scandalous lies.

We went to a bar after which I shall like simply on the premise that it gave us a platter of free food to encourage us to drink more. So Nachos, chicken nuggets (ah, nostalgia!), chips, battered sausages and deep fried bread. Honestly, who deep fries bread?  Personally, I blame America.

I also remembered how terrible I am at darts. Despite the instruction of the great dartsmaster Zach-teacher I suck pretty bad. XD I did win this weird game of ‘conquering japan with darts’ (All the tea and rice a woman could desire) which was hilarious as we had pretty much no idea how the scoring system works at all.  Let me tell you that machine was harsh, docking points for the weirdest thing but giving them even if your dart skitters off.  Obviously honour grudge matches are in our future.

Anyway, it seems that Korea doesn’t do cider like we would know it.  As I said before, what was labelled ‘cider’ was sprite and the closest thing we’ve seen is closer to apple juice. The beer….erm I don’t know it’s all the same to me. The place we went had a pretty good variety at any rate.

Like an amazing number of places here the bar we visited was inside a twisty turny path. What you should know about Songdo is that it is all about the back alley. (Apparantly Seoul takes this to the nth degree.) Everywhere you go has a back entrance that leads into a street with coffee shops, marts and whatnot. (must. get. pictures). And then a lot of these buildings that have entrances that take you upstairs to other businesses hidden upstairs – sometimes it’s hard to see the entrance.

Like my workplace takes three floors of a building and the entrance I take to get in is technically a part of Soopong Snack next door.  Kind of like leaving through the back entrance of McDs to go to the shoe shop there.

Add to this how I’m not used to ‘blocks’, the shortest buildings are at least six stories and my diabolical sense of direction – well, I get lost…..a lot. But enough about I how I spent most of Saturday.

Still hot by the way.

The fabled riceball

I feel you should know that the only thing more ubiquitious than Starbucks and Paris Baguette is 7-11 and their competitors.

24 hour shops are rather unusual by my standards seeing as many places close fairly sharply even in the centre of Dublin but rather than being useful for their late opening hours, they simply fit in better.

Whether it is an Incheon, a Songdo or merely the type of area I reside in opening hours are fairly late. As in Open late (10:00 onwards) Close late (9:30 onwards).

Anyway, I sauntered into one of these establishments one evening feeling hungry but far too lazy to cook. Lo and behold I witnessed the famous riceball so naturally I simply had to try it.

Yes, it’s heavily processed convenience food and not nearly as good as one you’d make yourself (like a sandwich made with leftover roast chicken Om nom nom) but I’m not an idiot………just obtuse.

It was chicken flavoured and well, quite tasty.  I’m not going to buy it again but maybe I’ll try to get the recipe and try it myself.

The Asian equivalent of the sandwich: not bad. Not bad at all.

This blog is only about food.

Seeing how my fridge only seems to contain milk, eggs and a dozen containers of water I do tend to get hungry eventually – the five cans of tuna in my cupboard just ain’t gonna cut it – so I decided to try Kraze Burger by my building which promises authentic American dining. I’ll have to disagree, I mean where’s the mayonnaise? The salt? The super-size option?

Analysis: not bad but I’m not going back if I can.  

As you can see my club sandwich is quite nicely packaged. Lots of salad, nice big chunk of tomato and well cooked chicken – pity I hate lettuce in my sandwiches and I refuse to eat tomato unprocessed.

Yes, yes perfectly good food is wasted on me, I know.  Well after a daily diet of rice, kimchi and things I can only guess at I wanted something relatively plain. God, I could murder a potato waffle.

I will say this though, the wholemeal seed bread bun they used - it was the only decent bit of bread I’ve had since I got here.

Hey, at least I got a free drink for ordering out.