Our friend, Yoonsuh, took the train down from Seoul on Friday evening to spend the weekend hanging out with us. She grew up in Seoul and had never been to Pyeongtaek before. Well, of course not. Why would anyone come here? But hopefully, for her, it was a nice little country getaway from the bustling city. She brought with her a book about learning Hangul and a Korean cookbook in English.
We met her at the train on Friday and spent the whole evening asking her dozens of questions about Korean culture, language, things we've noticed, etc. She has an interesting perspective because she lived in DC for 6 years, so she knows a lot about both of our cultures.
On Saturday we went for a *shweaty* walk on some trails in a city park, then on to a Korean market to buy the stuff we needed to make dinner. Finally! Someone to tell us what we're looking at! We learned a lot just from walking around the store with her.
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| OHH, so that's what that liquid blob is! So educational. |
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| Step one of the kimchi pancake. Girl don't need no recipe! |
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| Step two of the kimchi pancake. |
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| And the liquid blob is...acorn! At least I think that's what she told me this is. Somehow the acorn juice (??) is jellified. I'm cutting it into noodles for a salad. |
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| The tedious task of removing the tail from the bean sprouts. |
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| Blanching the bean sprouts. |
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| Showin' us how its done! |
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| Bean sprouts, garlic, parsley, soy sauce and seasonings. So easy! |
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| Jellified acorn "noodles" with fried egg, seaweed, bean sprouts and seasonings. It tastes better than it sounds! |
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| Kimchi stew |
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| The spread |
The food was totally delicious and now I have even more respect for Korean restaurants because everything takes a looong time to prepare. We didn't end up doing a lesson in Hangul like we planned, but we still learned a lot from Yoonsuh. She answered so many questions! I thought I was pretty good at language learning, but this is unlike anything I've ever attempted. She would teach me how to say something and I would completely forget the whole thing a minute later. Hopefully Yoonsuh can come down many more times to help us learn more Hangul and just to hang out. Thanks, Yoonsuh!
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| Saying goodbye at the train station. The boys really like her! |
Love it! So glad you have a friend there who knows both cultures. :) And that food looks delish.
ReplyDeleteWow!!! So interesting about what's in the food. The only Korean dish I've made before was KimChee on its own.
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