My First Teacher's Mug!

We all got cute little mugs so that we can be all caffeined-up to greet the day...and our students.  For a mere 100 won, I can get half a cup of instant coffee from the machine. Yay!!! Actually, more like yuck. Also, though the packaging is super cute, the coffee from the Paris Baguette is not only bitter but watered down at the same time...how is that possible???  So, I vowed that I would never drink from there again.  Thankfully, I finally got my hands on a coffee-grinder and french press so I can have a decent cup of caffeine in this city of instant caffeine.

Being Oh Soju Naughty..

So I went out with my new friend, Rona, who also happens to be my language exchange partner.  We decided to go for dinner and party it up this Saturday and after a lovely italian dinner (complete with Kimchi and pickles, lol) we went for a pitcher of Soju (similar to vodka) at a local place.  Unfortunately, Korea doesn't really work like Canada in the idea of just going out for a few drinks.  A group is usually required to order food as well. It's kind of a reversal of us going for wing night back home, you can have the cheap wings but you have to order the pricey drinks.  In Korea, you have to order the pricey food to get the cheap drinks.  However, we had just eaten and were absolutely stuffed so when I ordered our drinks (in somewhat decent Korean) I didn't think there would be a problem.  Happy with our order, I made my way to the ladies room and when I returned, poor Rona informed me that because it was a weekend we would be required to order food so we made the decision to leave. Easily done right???  Nope.  The manager stood in our way and informed us that because our pitcher was mixed that we would have to stay and also order food.  He was incredibly rude, to the point that even I, as a foreigner, could pick up on the fact that he was failing to use a formal and respectful manner of speaking.  After ten minutes of haggling, he finally agreed to poor our drink into a "to-go" cup and let us be on our way.  Now, I am not very good at insulting people in Korean except to tell them that they are either crazy, ugly, boring, or a dog-baby (yes, that is a huge insult) so I gave him the evil eye, pointed my finger (very rude in Korea because that is how you talk to dogs) and told him that he was a very rude man in a very rude tone, gave a flip of my hair and stomped out.

Poor Rona, she's never been spoken to like that and it was incredibly embarrassing for her especially since they poured our drink into an empty soju bottle.  Drinking on the street is perfectly acceptable but not for women and especially not if you're drinking soju so Rona was incredibly hesitant to do so.  My solution???  Go buy 2 "to-go" coffee cups from a convenience store and transfer our drinks into them for a secretive way for us to sneak them into the bar.  She loved it!  I told her that this is what teenagers do in America and she had a blast after I hyped it up as our way to bond as a Soju Adventure!!!

So, note to self: order food no matter where you go so that you can have cheap drinks and if the management is rude then feel free to be rude back because in Korea...rudeness is unacceptable and the man was either racist against me or just plain crazy with poor customer service.  Either way, I feel like we won that battle in the end, we had a fantastic night...!!!

Nom Nom Nom Nachos!!!!

Yes, I admit it...nachos are the love of my life!  I absolutely can't live without them and their cheesy, spicy, crunchy goodness!  It's not like I haven't tried but everytime life gets me down it's the salt and spice that have given me my strength back.  Unfortunately, I knew that our time together as the food lover and beloved would eventually come an end and so I took it upon myself to mentally and physically prepare myself.  Everyone informed me that nachos would be a no-go in Korea and after going through the five stages of grief, I finally came up with a brilliant plan to part from my favourite food without having a mental breakdown and resorting to setting up a salsa and chip creation-station in my Korean apartment where I would use anything that I could find to mimic my mexican goodness!

And so, it began...I ate nachos every week for two months before I left.  I figured that if I saturated my taste buds with enough salsa, jalapenos, guacamole, and such then I would become so sick of them that I wouldn't want to see another chip for at least sic months.  Did it work?  Kind of...I did tire of them but only at the very end of that two months.  But here I was, three months into Korea and dying for a plate of nachos!  Leave it to me to hunt down the needed ingredients in a country where mexican food is practically unknown.  So, how did I manage to find all of this deliciousness?  Well I scoured the markets for whatever I could find and I did manage to find a TINY jar of Salsa...for $10.  Could I do it?  Well I did.  And it was delicious!  But I wanted more!  More dammit!  Thank goodness for the military base with all of that American food!  Cheap tortilla chips, salsa, and some Costco jalapeno havarti cheese (from the city of Daejon) made out meal complete!  Our?  Yes, I shared with a couple of friends and we ate our nachos ghetto style...on the floor using a box as a table and mason jars as glasses...that my friends, is how we roll in Korea!

WTF!  Who puts lettuce on nachos???  American friends that 's who!!!