Let's talk about .... FOOD, baby !

... Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things, that maybe...

THE GOOD THINGS : My favorite cup noodle

I just finished a... cup noodle, while reading Li Jen's latest entry about life in the USA. Had a good laugh when he talked about the almighty leader of the USA - not for long anymore. Meanwhile I also put some pictures on my last two entries.
My stomach has - to be honest - not recovered to the old state yet, but I kind of get used to it. Or maybe it is because I haven't been eating much except for congee last week. A very strange thing to notice is that my stomach ache disappears when I drink beer or a stronger liquor. And last time also when I went jogging. Maybe I shouldn't been eating cup noodles, but this one is actually a non spicy one and in my opinion the best of the best of all cup noodles : 짜짱 면 'jjajangmyeon' or black bean noodles. Hmmmm... if I leave the water for more than 5 minutes in the cup, the noodles swell up very nicely and the soup becomes a delicious black bean sauce and gives me the most unique sensation of taste that no other cup noodle can ever provide....


THE GOOD THINGS : Lunch at my favorite family eatery
I already had a very nice warm lunch this afternoon at my favorite family eatery - the one where I always go on my own - near my dormitory and I took the Japanese girls of my class to introduce them to some 'jjigae' 찌개. The lady of the house was really happy to see me coming with so many people, because normally the place is empty. Maybe because the eatery doesn't really look appealing from outside, but the food is quite good. And I also feel a lot of sympathy for that lady. She, the 'ajumma' 아줌마, is so kind and generous. She provided us so many side dishes that we couldn't finish all of them and even made a special pork side dish on the house. All the Japanese ladies really liked her cooking and because everybody was eating so cheerfully, the ajumma gave us some kind of 'kumquats' after lunch. She told the Japanese ladies that they get a special treatment today, because I came so often to her eatery on my own. On top of that every one of us got a 500KRW discount on the meal.

I am always amazed how people can get connected to each other. I haven't spoken so much to her except for 'can I still have dinner, goodbye, dinner was delicious, I will come back' and yet there's that kind of bond between customer and host.

THE BAD THINGS : ... here we go : 번데기 beondegi aka SILK WORM pupae
So... I actually wanted to tell this last week, but then I got that stomach ache so I postponed it to not make it psychologically harder on myself than it already was... Hahaha, just kidding.
Friday two weeks ago, I went outside with Heli to get some fresh air and because the weather was nice we took our books with us to study. We went to Yeouido because there's a large public park over there along the Han River where we could find a nice spot to study.

During one of his 'breaks' he just stood up and went buying something. And he came back with a cup of DELICIOUS SILK WORM PUPAE. The sight was actually not really nice, not to even mention the smell of it, ... actually I was not really prepared for this. But I decided to have a go on this 'still technically non meat' meal.... So, I started with one.... without looking to much at it...

How did it look like? Well, like a worm pupae... BWEEEK. I didn't like the sight of it. Because I am afraid of it. Knowing what's inside. I tried to see them as big raisins...
How did it taste? Well the outside of the pupae is quite crunchy, but when you bite through it, you feel some kind of a little juicy fleshy thing on your tongue that you can chew on... it had the fleshy sensation of a little dried shrimp... and while chewing on it ... I tried to think about it as a small shrimp in stead of a wormy little thing... and swallowed it... WITHOUT PUKING :). So that was IT. There you have it... I ate it ! MY FIRST INSECT IN MY WHOLE LIFE !

I was not really fond of it, but to reassure I overcame my fear of eating insects - and especially wormy little creatures - I ate another 5 or 6 pieces. Heli ate the rest of the cup, because his mission was to finish it all. But after a few hand fulls he had to stop to because the taste buds and common sense began the protest, so at the end there was only one bottom left. Mission almost accomplished !!!

Hmmm... to be honest, while writing about it now and having the pictures uploaded, my stomach is getting a bit upset again, so I just let you people enjoy the DELICIOUS images we took that day and ehum...WARNING don't read this while eating... dissatisfaction guaranteed ;p