This is essentially what it is like being an expatriot. You forget things. Things that are supposed to always remember. I nearly missed Mother's Day too--a friend here was telling me what she ordered for her mom. I even got the day wrong--when I placed my order, I made it for the week AFTER Mother's Day. I told my Mom and my sister the mistake I made, and they were fine with getting their gifts a week late. However the fabulous people at Edible Arrangements allowed me to change the delivery date and they got their gifts on the Saturday before Mother's Day.
I am always early on birthdays--mostly because of the time difference but I have been known to wish someone a happy birthday in Korea and have it not even be their birthday. I'm losing my edge, so it seems. ^^
I have been taking quite a few pictures here and a lot of have made it to facebook. I'm going to try to put some on here as well...let's start with food ^^ Why food? Because if there is one thing I have learned from David Sedaris, it is if you can't talk about the celebration of holidays, you talk about food. Bon Appetite!
The first picture is of panchan...panchan is not a particular kind of food--it is the side dishes that comes along with every meal. Consider it to be the bread in a restaurant. You will mostly find the Korean table staple: Kimchi. I have loved Kimchi since I was an angsty teenager. It's a spicy fermented cabbage and it is delicious. ^^
The second picture depicts the wonderful mean called Shabu Shabu. This is also known as hot pot in China. Shabu Shabu is a better though. You start off with a large pot on the table and you make soup. Yes, you go out to dinner to make your own dinner. Bear with me, my story gets better. They aren't asking you to do the dishes. ^^ So you start off with a tray full of veggies, a pot of boiling broth and then you add thinly sliced pork or beef to your soup. There were also some quail eggs in the one we had here. You can keep adding veggies to your broth and when you're done eating the soup, a guy will come by and either make a rice porridge for you or fried rice. Martha Stewart would certainly call this meal, "A good thing."
The third picture is actually a home cooked meal, made by my best friend's mother. I went to Kathryn's parents house for Christmas and this was our Christmas dinner. The pancakes are actually made of squash and they were so amazing! The main dish here is called Daktoritang (Dok-dori-tahng). It's a spicy chicken and potato stew. Del-ish. There was also some fish on the table but I didn't try any of it because I really don't care for fish. There is also some nori on the table---Nori is dried seaweed sheets. ^^
The last two pictures were taken at the same meal. You have probably seen them on my facebook pictures. Kathryn and I went to a noodle house on my second day of being in Korea. My noodle dish had rice cake (looks like the mushroom) in it and I really enjoyed the flavor of the bean paste sauce. The other dish was what Kat had ordered. It had a little squid in there and some clams. I never thought I would even try something like this, but let me be the first to tell you that it was AH-MAY-ZING! Loved it!
I'm going to post more food pictures later, as well as some pictures I have been taking of Korean alleyways, which completely fascinate me.
Allow me to be early again and say Happy Father's Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, and Halloween. That should do it for now.
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