I recently traveled half way around the world to visit my closest friend and to explore a country I otherwise wouldn’t have planned to visit: South Korea.
It was an unforgettable experience, filled with friendly people and memorable meals.
My fiancé, Richard, and I flew to Incheon, South Korea to spend a week immersed in Korean culture and catching up with my friend, Jessica, who is teaching English at a private school in Incheon.
She loves it there and decided to stay two years instead of one.
Jessica planned an aggressive itinerary, and in five days, she took us all over Incheon, to Suwon and to Seoul.
All three cities are huge metropolises with staggering populations. Seoul alone has 10 million people, or twice that if you count the suburbs. I’ve never been to New York, but I imagine it would look similar to Seoul – lots of people, lots of traffic and lots of skyscrapers.
The markets
Each day, Jessica, Richard and I meandered through outdoor markets that stretched for dozens of street blocks.
Vendors lined the streets selling fresh fruits and vegetables, raw fish, squid tentacles and lots of dried red peppers. Some vendors even boiled half ears of corn at their stands. Others offered heart-shaped waffles, spicy chicken-on-a-stick, or French fry-covered hot dogs. We even saw a couple of tanks full of black slithering eels. Now that’s something you won’t find at the farmers market in Chico or Redding!
Throughout the trip, the South Koreans we met were friendly and helpful. Even though we don’t speak Korean, we were able to get by with smiles, thank-you nods and lots of hand gestures.
Fortunately, the subway system has signs in English, as well as Korean and Chinese, and many restaurant menus feature pictures of food. Most of the employees at shops and department stores used large calculators to show us the cost of products.
Some stores even advertised that they had air-conditioning. Korea gets hot in August with an average of 90 percent humidity. On the last day of our trip, it rained buckets and we still felt hot. We bought umbrellas at a department store for 5,000 won, roughly $5, but got soaked anyway. Richard’s shoulders wouldn’t fit under the small umbrella!
The restaurants
Through the rainstorm we hunted for a restaurant. South Korea doesn’t have any billboards or giant signs advertising businesses. As I got hungrier and hungrier, I came to appreciate how useful it is to see those three-story fast-food signs in America.
We finally decided on a place that looked good, but it had no food photos! We ended up pointing to a meat dish on a neighboring table and said, “We’ll take that, for three.”
The waiter brought out small bowls of salad, steamed white rice, two types of Kimchee (spicy pickled cabbage), garlic cloves, sliced onions, various spices and finally a plate of raw pork strips, which we cooked on the barbecue grill at our table. Yes, many Korean restaurants have a grill in the middle of the table! The waiter also put a small metal tin full of mozzarella cheese on the grill. It was delicious and made for a fun experience. We ate with chopsticks — a learning experience for me — and cut the meat with scissors. We used our rice bowls as plates. While we were there we tried Soju, a popular Korean alcoholic drink. The aftertaste reminded me of rubbing alcohol.
The Korean restaurants we patronized all had good food, friendly service and a fun atmosphere. I would love to see one open in Chico. I could even go for a Korean pizza place. The Koreans put corn and white sauce on pizza, which tastes great!
There’s more to tell, so my next two columns will feature Korean fashion, the sights, the history and the people. If you want to know anything in particular about South Korea, feel free to ask me and if I can I’ll answer in the next column!
Journalist Lauren Brooks lives in Chico. She is the editor of the Chico Enterprise-Record’s weekly entertainment guide, The Buzz. She is a CSU, Chico alumna who graduated with a B.A. in journalism in spring 2006. She can be reached at lmbrooks.work@gmail.com.
