Korean Fun

Ode to the Gimbop

     Recently, Kelly and I have decided to try to become "regulars" at a hole in the wall restaurant near our place.  We discovered that if you eat out every night at "hole in the wall" restaurants, you can save a lot of money.  At a good hole in the wall, two people can eat quite a bit of good, authentic Korean food for about 9,000 won (around $8).  If you do the math, thats like $32 during the week.  Cha Chiiiinnnnngg.  Anyway, many of these restaurant's specialty is "Gimbop" (note the picture above).  Gimbop is a clever character.  It has disguised itself as an apropos meal for all three meals.  While I can only stomach it for dinner, and maybe a lunch, some people (Kelly included) can eat it for breakfast.  It's a fairly simple concoction.  It consists of some type of egg, fish, kimchi (occasionally), some type of pickled something, rice, and it is wrapped in seaweed.  It actually is very good.  It took me some time to warm up to it. I, on the other hand, like the dish called "Kimchi Jigae", an incredibly spicy soup that will clear out your nose for months (in my case seconds because I seem to always have a stuffed nose in Korea).

Eating Gimbop and Ramen with a coworker

Ode to the Norebong

To put it quite simply, Koreans love to sing karaoke.  There are tons of "Norebongs" around Korea.  "Nore' means to sing, and "Bong" is room.  Singing rooms.  They are quite fun.  Usually it is about $16.00 to sing for an hour.  These rooms are usually very nice.  They are private rooms in which your party can sing and act as foolish as they desire.  Some Norebongs are nicer than others.  The one we went to in the picture above was the nicest one I have yet to see.  We were very suprised and pleased with the place.  I would like to post a video of us singing, but to keep our pride intact, I think I will refrain from doing so.

This Norebong had it all.  Flashing lights, light beams, a flat screen, an excellent sound system and...

 

 Snoop Dogg. This is Reuben (Snoop), singing his heart out.

Ode to the Jim Jil Bong

I will keep this one brief, and I do not have any pictures for a good reason.  The other day Kelly and I (in our seperate ways) went to a place called a Jim Jil Bong.  This is a Korean spa.  It was a great time and an interesting experience.  When I heard the word spa, I thought to myself, "sure, I'd love to go get a healthy sweat on with some friends."  When I got there, I soon found out that it was a huge (very nice) room with about 150 naked Korean men.  When I say naked, I mean the only thing that was covering these guys was hair.  I took a step outside of my comfort zone and sat in saunas, hot tubs, cold tubs and showers with my naked, Korean friends.  It was a great experience.  I can now say that I have been in a room naked with over a hundred men for over an hour.  Someone else tell me they have done that.