"Where in the World"

Insadong

Insa-dong (Insa being the name and dong meaning town)is a culture street market. It is a large tourist area mainly due to the amount of Korean gift and souviner shops it boasts. It sells anything from traditional style masks, scrolls and wooden carvings, to key rings, masks and plastic budhas. It is beautiful at night when all the shops are lit up with fairy lights in the trees outside. We wandered down a little back street where all the resteraunts were tucked away from the main street. We found this beautiful little resteraunt that had little balconies in it with shutters to make your room private from the rest of the resteraunt (kinda like a tree house) and the waiters had to climb stairs to get to them, glad it wasn't me carrying a large tray up them. 

We ordered a seafood pancake and this was my first time eating out (f you discount domino's on the first night and home plus the local supermarket). This was my first experince of Kimchi which i later found out that it has to be the Koreans most famous dish as they eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some of the students even told me that they have fridges at home just for Kimchi. It is a variety of vegtables most often cabbage dressed in a hot spicy sauce and served cold as a side dish to every meal you order over here.

Kimchi, also known as gimchi or kimchee is a traditional Korean dish of fermented chili peppers and vegetables, usually made from Chinese cabbage. In Korea, kimchi is served with most regular meals, and is also used as an ingredient in cooking, including kimchi jjigae (kimchi soup), kimchi bokkeumbap (kimchi fried rice), and other dishes.

Though there are hundreds of variations, most types of kimchi tend to have a strong, spicy, tangy flavour and odor.

                                        Traditional cabbage kimchi

Since being here and eating out I have been told the many things you should and shouldn't do at the dinner table here are some of them: 

Never leave your chopsticks sticking out of a bowl of rice this is a ritual reserved for the dead and doing this at the table is very disrespectful.

Never blow your nose at the table, only in the bathroom. If your nose is running from eating all that spicy kimchi, simply wipe.

Do not drink from your soup bowl. (although i have seen my director do this)

It was a lovely day and I’m sure I will be coming back to do some souvenir shopping for everyone back home.

                

 Yeuck (a sweet nutty substance like toffee that is shaved and put onto a stick to create a sort of lolly pop)

• Posted by k_millington on 04/12/2006.
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