A few tidbits

So nothing spectacular has been going on, but I really wanted to do an update so I just compiled a few things that I've been doing during the last week or so.

First things first. FOOD. Hahahah. Haven't had a food post in a while, right? The first one is 피자 닭갈비, aka Pizza Chicken Meat or AWESOME. Hahah. So I love 닭갈비 (basically spicy boneless dark meat pieces of chicken with veggies), but we wanted a little twist, so we went to a place that has pizza-style. So this one also had mozzarella cheese, olives, bell peppers and onions sprinkled on top. So good. 

We cleaned it up. Hahahah. 

Then tonight, my familia had dinner @ Cafe Minto to celebrate the end of the semester . Seven girls ate two bowls of pasta, three bowls of 떡복기, which is like spicy rice cakes. So delicious. 

Been going to church, too, and seeing too many people dress alike. 

We also take sticker pictures and make Chung wear ridiculous headbands.

Emmaus Girlies :):):)

And.. we also study :D. Melissa, Ashley and my favorite place to study is @ Princeton Square. The environment is so conducive to studying. Work work work!

AND CHECK IT OUT! They have a USC Banner! Fight on!

end

Food Adventure with Family!

Best part about hanging out with my parents? Well, I guess it's actually the second best because the first best is being able to be with my parents. So the second best is... EATING!!!! 

We met up with my mom's friends family and we went to this delicious restaurant in 홍대 or Hongdae, named after the arts university in the area. It's got a lot of cute places to eat and so we went to one called 어머니가 차려주는 식탁 or The Table that Mother Prepares [for you to eat]. YAY! 

Super cute, yeah?

Basically it's a lot of traditional Korean foods with modern twists. It came out in about 10 courses. I didn't upload pictures of all of them — I just put up my favorites. But wow, I was so SO full by the end. 

Delicious salad with tofu slices and an (edible) peony on top. 

This one was super interesting. The folded green and white slices are thinly sliced pieces of rice cake, kind of like the rice paper they give you at all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ restaurants but thicker and slightly tougher. Take a slice (using chopsticks of course) and then take some of the salad and place it in the middle of the rice paper slice. Then wrap it, dip it in the sweet sauce, and mmm. So good. 

This is the modern twist of the 삼겹살, or the Korean equivalent of bacon, but way better because it's fattier. It was so good. It was so soft and tender and greasy. It was on top of this delicious salad and if you ate it together it was the perfect combination of meat and veggies. 

Isn't the presentation of this one awesome? Look at the heart! 

The food looks like fried stuff, and yes it is, but it's not your typical tempura. Inside the one that looks like shrimp is actually ginseng. I thought it would taste so weird, but it was actually quite good. And the other fried food is two slices of eggplant, held together with mashed shrimp. Yummmm. 

Then this is your typical 갈비, or Korean meat, right? WRONG. It's the most tender, best marinated meat ever. And to "heat" it, they lit it on fire. Yes. FIRE. And yes it's sitting on top of rocks and spruced with some kind of pine leaf or whatever. 

To finish the meal, we have greens mixed with rice and spicy sauce. I was about to die by this time because my stomach was so full. 

To finish it off, a nice cup of coffee, plus watermelons+oranges in the background.

So that was another entry. No pictures of me, but y'all are more interested in the food anyway, right? Wow I'm hungry. More updates soon :)

Mother's Day!!!!!!!!

It was Mother's Day on Sunday! I love you mommy! And daddy too :) They're actually coming to visit me in a week, and I'm super excited. Here's me @ church, wearing clothes I bought on Saturday. 

We took jumping pictures!!!

That's Erin 사모, Tina and ME!

Joe and Chung. 

Then Erin 사모 dressed up her husband, Pastor Christian, to make him look like Waldo. Hilarity. 

They are suuuuch a cute couple. 

Then we went to eat some shabu shabu! Delicious! :)

The end! More entries coming soon!

Dates with Girls :)

Korea has a lot of cute cafes and eateries. I love going to them and eating good food and getting cute desserts. Here's two places that I went to. The first one is Spoon Race. I went there once with Joanna before, but I went to it again with Melissa and Ashley. It's located in a small side street by Ewha Women's University. The place is ALWAYS packed. 

Waiting for our food. 

We ate all of it. Hahahahahah. But lemme tell ya, it was reaaaally good. 

I kid I kid. Here are a few pics. of what we demolished. 

Shrimp Olive Oil Pasta. Very light, very delicious. 

Gorgonzola & Honey Pizza Dish. 

You dip the pizza slices in the honey. So good. 

Dessert of Waffles, courtesy of Red Mango.

Tuesday (the 5th) was Children's Day, which is a national holiday = NO SCHOOL. So Tina, Joanna and I went to 압구정, which is a very upper-class section of Seoul. We walked around, browsed, and eventually found ourselves at Kaffee Strasse. 

This is Tina striking the Tina pose. We all followed suit. 

Our coffee + desserts! Yum yum!

More posts coming soon :)

Black Day

So in Korea, April 4 (4/14) is Black Day. I told you guys about White Day, right? So Black Day is the day where singles go out and get 자장면 (or 짜짱면), which is black.. noodle... dish... SO DELICIOUS. See picture below. 


I know I'm not single, but since my boyfriend is really really far away, I thought I was justified in going out to eat some black noodles with my friends :) Here we are, beginning our journey to our quest to find the black noodles! 

Isn't it pretty?? Check out the cherry trees on the hillside. And below, you can see all the budding leaves on the streets. 

Chung and Victoria are ready for their foodz.

Tina and me with our green chopsticks!

Forest path around sunset time. Cool. :) More updates coming soon!

Easter Sunday

I hope you all had a pleasant Easter last week. At church, everyone was all dressed up and soo pretty! These were taken right outside our church, JSEM or New Philadelphia. 

Judy and me. She is sooo beautiful :)

Judy and Chung! They're such Gs.

Emmaus Staff! Mat, Brian, P. Marcus, Erin 사모!!! 

Then afterwards I went out with family because we were celebrating birthdays! It was Hyunjoo's dad's birthday and Hyunjoo's mom's brother's wife's birthday too. She's expecting twin boys in late July! We went out for some really really traditional Korean food. And it was delicious and not heavy. Yum. So here come the food pictures :D

The meat in the middle right is 떡갈비, which is finely chopped/diced pieces of meat that are then molded into normal meat shapes using rice. It's got a really interesting texture and it's delicious. 

I generally haaaate shellfish/clams/whatever. But these were actually really good and not salty. 

The end :) Will post again soon! 

More cherry blossoms

Hey, guys. I've been super busy because of classes. Midterm exams are coming up and it's starting to be crunch time! But here's an update for you faithful readers :)

Last Saturday, the 11th, Christine, Joanna and I went to Yeoido near the National Assembly for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Basically it's this really famous, really beautiful street that has cherry tree after cherry tree. They were all in full bloom and gorgeous. But there were also a TON of people. 

Joanna and me!

Too many people!!! 

They clear out the streets of cars so that people can walk around freely. 

Afterwards, the three of us decided to go to 명동 (Myongdong) and we ended up eating at this place famous for 칼국수 (kalguksoo). It's basically a flat flour-based noodle dish that was SO DELICIOUS. Wow. It was insanely good. 

We ate it all. Bwahahah

Afterwards, we went to a cake cafe, where you get a free slice of cake for every drink that you buy. Really really cute. This is Christine, excited for our order :)

I'll update again soon :) Keep checking back!