Never Eat the Brown Soup

Grade 6 - little sods

Snowy

It’s been snowing quite a bit here in Seoul over the past week. It was cold and icy and the kids pelted me with snowballs every morning as I walked through the school gates. Two of the boys ran up to me shouting “teacher, teacher, never eat the yellow snow” – I laughed.. then wondered how they knew that because I certainly didn't teach it.

But I’m not here to talk about snow. It’s winter, it’s cold, we get it.. let’s move on. No, I’m here to talk about school lunches. I like food and am really not fussy about what I eat. In fact there are only two things I will not eat – any type of nut and anything banana tasting or smelling. Banana reminds me of baby sick… but moving on!...

When I arrived in South Korea four months ago I thought I might struggle with the food. Meals at orientation weren’t exactly a culinary delight. Rice and kimchi with every meal is the norm here but it was the weird attempt at western foods thrown into the mix that freaked me out. Soggy chips were the main issue.

Anyway, once out of the weird orientation bubble and back into the real world food improved immensely… on the whole. At school we get a full cooked lunch everyday and during the first few weekends of being here I realised how much I was relying on those lunches to stay fed – I hadn't been brave enough to buy anything much at the supermarket at that point. Now, four months in, the school has stopped trying to impress me but the lunches are still great and far better than I can attempt to make at home.

Monday:

The worst food day of the week and the day of the Brown Soup. I have no idea what is in the brown soup but from the taste of it, I can only assume it's the left overs of the previous weeks soups left to 'mature' over the weekend. It is disgusting.

clockwise from the top left: pickled radish, fried potato/egg thing, pineapple, Brown Soup, rice with veg stuff.

Tuesday:

We've got all the main ingredients to a school lunch here. Rice, kimchi, soup, meat, and veg. No surprises. Surprising!

clockwise from the top left: kimchi, veg and stuff, meat (possibly pork?), cabbage and veg soup, rice.





Special Wednesdays:
For some unknown reason, most schools in Seoul have a special lunch on a Wednesday. I've had everything from spag bol to cheesy chips.
This particular Wednesday was a little less special than usual. Boo.

clockwise from the top left: veg stuff, kimchi, mini mandu, beef noodle soup, apple and carrot juice and ricecake.


Thursday:
I remember this day. Mostly because I enjoyed everything which is rare. I should clarify, I DO NOT enjoy kimchi... but I can't be arsed with the fallout if I ever didn't put it on my tray!

clockwise from top left: tomatoes, kimchi, ddeokbokki and quail eggs, scrambled egg soup, rice with seaweed and stuff.

Friday:

This lunch was a whole load of weird. The bread and the 'soup' were the weird bits. The bread has a weird buttery/sugar coating and I guess is meant to be dessert along with the orange. The soup was unexpectedly fishy. Weird.
clockwise from top left: orange, breaded meat + unknown sauce, kimchi, sugar bread, fish porridge soup, rice.

This is the tale of what happens if you're a vegetarian here in South Korea or generally don't like spicy food.

Sad times.

And this is an example from a third school.


So the moral of this story is yes, obviously don't eat the yellow snow but more importantly never, ever eat the brown soup!

I'm off to Vietnam in four days time so it's safe to say I won't be posting again before then - it takes me that long to pack a bag! I'll be gone until mid-Jan but I'll be posting pics bragging about drinking cold beers on sunny Thai beaches in the meantime.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

November Happened

I’d love to tell you the reason I've not posted in a long while is that because I've been so busy and having a great time (which I am) and the weeks just slipped by (which they did)… But here’s the truth:

My name is Rachel Brennan, and I’m a Netflix addict.

Wow, that feels good. But don’t worry, I’m working through it. And by working through it, I mean I’ve binged watched Orange is the New Black, Breaking Bad, Friday Night Lights, Dexter, Parks and Recreation, Scandal, The League, and now The Walking Dead. So… that’s a new problem hobby.

A secondary reason for not posting in while: since I've been teaching English to Korean 7 year olds, my grasp on the English language, vocabulary, spelling and grammar all seem to have... gone to shit. So really, I'm doing you a favour.

November just disappeared on me. It flew by! I was taking down the Halloween decorations one minute and I was clearing up from Thanksgiving dinner the next. Now with only 3 weeks until I fly off to Vietnam for Christmas break (more on that next time!) I'll keep this short and post again soon. Unless the new series of Scandal becomes available on Netflix that is.. in that case.. all bets are off.

November highlights package:

Sokcho and Seoraksan National Park

Sokcho is a small city on the east coast of South Korea. It's a quiet place with a large fishing and ferry harbour. It's also the gateway to Seoraksan National Park, home to one of the highest mountain peaks in Korea, Daechongbong. I left Seoul early Friday morning - everyone at Yongdu had a 4-day weekend to celebrate the school's birthday (not joking..) - I caught a bus from Dong Seoul bus station and less than 3 hours later I was checked into my hostel and exploring Sokcho.

I started with breakfast on the beach then wandered around Abai village - a small community of North Korean expats. I visited the nighttime fish market and the Sokcho Expo Tower.

On Saturday I caught a local bus 25 minutes to the entrance of Seoraksan National Park. I climbed to the top of the Ulsanbawi peak and rode a cable car to another. I visited 2 temples and a giant bronze Buddha. Two Nice old Korean guys gave me food and booze and we generally just had a great afternoon acting out basic conversations.


Seoul Grand Park and a Day at the Races

A few weeks ago I visited Seoul Grand Park. I wanted to see the David Hockney exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Luckily, after a week of wet weather, it was a warm, sunny autumn day so I walked though the grounds after buying some kimbap and was able to find a bench in a prime location overlooking the sculpture park. I eventually went into the museum and strolled around. I watched the Hockney documentary and saw the painting. I'll definitely go back to the park - there's an amusement park and a zoo too.

Later that same day I met some friends, Pete, Karim, Tom and Sam, at Seoul Racecourse Park. Turns out horse racing, and more specifically, gambling on the horses, is extremely popular here in SK. With Koreans barred from all but one of the casinos here, gambling on the horses is the easiest way win/lose a lot of money quickly. Entrance to the Racecourse park was a ridiculously cheap ₩1000 (65p). We were free to stroll right up to the fence at the finish line or to sit in the stands and try to make some sense of the huge information board showing the odds and the name of the runners and riders.

After we had watched a couple of races and observed the locals filling out the betting slip and putting the money on at the window, a few of us were feeling lucky enough to have a flutter.. I picked two horses based solely on their colours (hey, it worked in this years Grand National - HELLO £120!). I staked a MASSIVE ₩7000 (£4.55) and shouted and jumped when one of them came home in... second place! Luckily, my risk averse side had backed it each-way so I walked away with something. A successful and very fun afternoon!

Seoul Lantern Festival



Each year the Cheonggyecheon stream that runs through the middle of Seoul city centre is the venue for the Seoul Lantern Festival. It was great!

I met Katie for some dinner and Sam arrived little while later. We walked to the stream and did a 360 loop up and down both sides of the stream. It was busy but the crowds of people kept moving and we were able to see all of the installations. They were all incredibly impressive including a laser light show and a full fleet of lantern ships. It was easy to see why it is so popular every year.

SK Knights Basketball

I've been to watch FC Seoul a couple of times now and I've seen the LG Twins at Jamsil baseball stadium but a couple of weeks ago I went to watch the SK Knights. They're the top team in the league and won again on this night. In true Korean style, the crowd were singing and dancing throughout the entire game - including the opera singer who performed at half time!

They were trailing for a lot of the game but they fought back to win by a narrow margin. All sports events are pretty cheap here. Even to see the top teams i the biggest and best stadiums. We paid less than £8 for the basketball and the same for the football, the baseball outfield seats are even less. Next up on the sports list - ice hockey. The cold weather sports season is about to begin here, the ski slopes have opened and I'm excited to see what the Korean snow is like!

Thanksgiving

One of my favourite things about November was Thanksgiving. The day started with a subway ride up to Katie's at Banghak - I got funny looks on the subway (more than the usual) from the clinking bottles in my bag. Or maybe the morning hikers were already gagging for a soju... who knows. We watched the UCF Knights game with a terrible Bloody Mary and a much better Screwdriver, by lunchtime we'd moved on to peeling potatoes over a beer whilst still shouting at the game.

So in a country without any live turkeys and very few ovens, how does one manage to provide a full turkey dinner for 12 people?... Get a full cooked turkey delivered directly to the front door, at whatever time you need it at - of course! Korea is brilliant at some things - delivery service is definitely one of those things.

We ate and drank and ate some more until we (mostly me) were all ready to burst. It was really great.

There was other stuff that I did in November too...

I joined a gym. Partly because it's getting too cold to be exercising outside and enjoying it. Partly to counter the Netflix guilt.

I bought a coat. I don't like shopping at the best of times but shopping in Korea is quite traumatic. In Korean terms I'm a weird giant woman with oddly long arms but I made the best of a bad deal and if I don't raise my arms for the whole winter nobody will even notice I'm sure.

I discovered the electric darts board. Call me old fashioned but I'd always played darts with a piece of chalk and a blackboard... A few thousand ₩ and a computer does it all for you! Leaving you able to enjoy some more beers and get steadily more terrible at darts...

And most exciting of all I booked a Christmas trip to Vietnam! Leaving on Christmas day and returning from Phuket on 11th Jan. THREE WEEKS TO GO!!

Right, It's 1am... I'm off to watch more Ne bed.

Until next time,
Bren x