Minions, Noraebang and Korean/Mexican Fusion

Holiday week!

Sorry for the long wait for the post...I have been lazy and avoiding it because it's such a big post to make.

Beginning with Wednesday...
Fiona and I went to COEX (enormous shopping centre with a cinema, aquarium and kimchi museum) to go and see Pacific Rim. Great movie. so haert warming and lets be honest, Charlie Hunnan is BEAUTIFUL.

Found my best buddie at the movie theatre!!!

I really should have bought this shirt..it's me all over really.

Average sushi at COEX for Lunch

Ok Katsudon, shakedon and udon..nothing to write home about (LOL!)

Fiona and I managed to navigate the train system, which turns out is far easier than I realised, and found our way to Itaewon. Itaewon is the land of the knockoff and home to many American GI's as there is an American army base nearby. I have never seen so many foreigners all together before.

Some excellent engrish

A delightful shop we came across. I believe that is the name of the shop. Had two adorable English bull dogs lazing about on the floor.

Om nom nom nom! Strawberry cheesecake flavoured ice cream

Things were getting tiring after walking for most of the day and we stopped at The Wolfhound. I tried to order in Korean and the guy was unimpressed. He spoke perfect English including slang and replied in English to me.

Cider time! Real cider not that chilsung stuff which is actually only lemonade.

Thursday I met up with Jeremy again, and headed into Seoul to go to Shinsa and have some Grill5Taco.

This was the weather forecast for last week. I'm dying a little bit in the heat at the moment. 

 So far, I have found Korean fashion to be fairly uninteresting. Everybody wears the same stuff and all the shops have exactly the same stuff as well. I spotted this in Shinsa train station. This is how you know you are in the trendiest suburb when they have avant garde clothing on display in the train station! Shinsa has become my new favourite shopping destination. There are so many incredibly well put together people around there that there is a lot of inspiration. While I as walking around, I saw 4 different street style photographers taking photos of people. SO COOL!!!

I met Jeremy at the train station and we went and had lunch at Kiaora Burger!!!

Snack and Drinks at Kiaora Burger. Notice how none of them are kiwi...no L&P here!

Not entirely sure what is kiwi about this...

This was the Maori Burger. The burger bread is baked on the outside. Was really good!

Off to Cold Stone Creamery (Jeremy's fav) for dessert where they have the tiniest paper cups in the world. Need about 8 of these to really get a good mouth full full.

Afternoon Tea at Grill5Taco!!! This place does the most amazing Korean/Mexican fusion. It's amazing. https://www.facebook.com/Grill5taco is totally worth a look and definitely a visit if you are in the neighbour hood. It's one street back from the main Shinsa shopping road and you can easily find it on google maps.

Seoul Fries - smothered in kimchi, bulgogi, salsa, and cheddar beef burrito.

This wicked concept starting as a food truck in Seoul and has spread to a number of locations while still having the food truck operational. You can follow Grill5Taco on twitter and see where the truck is parked up: https://twitter.com/grill5taco

Following that, Taco, the owner of Grill5Taco, took me and Jeremy to C Four for the best papbingsu around. The shaved ice is so fine and melts in your mouth so beautifully that it only comes with the sweet milk and red bean paste. They also make their own red bean paste and it is amazing.

While walking around Shinsa, I noticed a few random stores like the one below where you can buy a number of unrelated things. La Pomme is a dessert restaurant that you can also buy furniture from....a little bit WTF if you ask me. I'm not sure that I'm going to sit down to waffles and think to myself, "wow this chair is super comfortable, I think I'll buy it!" but hey, it appears that thought strikes enough people that they created a shop for it.

Friday night = Foreigner night!

Fiona, Jess and I had Woo Sum Gup for dinner. This is a new type of Korean BBQ where the meat come out very thinly sliced and fries up similar to bacon. I'm not entirely sure that there is the right words to describe how awesome this food is.

Hot coals for to bbq over

Small beefy bacon bits and a couple of prawns for good measure along side some garlic.

Roasted garlic, prawn and ssamjang sauce. Amazeballs.

We started the night with a bottle of soju with dinner and then headed to the self-serve bar. I proceeded to follow my soju with 5 smirnoff ice black...bad idea. I forget those things taste like nothing but are actually 7% and get you much drunker than you need to be much faster than you need it to happen. I met my first couple of Kiwis and a few new people as well. Unfortunately, due to drunkenness, I'm not entirely sure of their names so hopefully I'll pick them up this Friday night. Also due to drunkenness, I was talked into heading to the noraebang. Best idea ever.

Scored 100!!!

Everybody enjoying singing together, clearly drunk when you have to get that close to the screen!

I lay wallowing in a pit of hungover misery until the absolute last moment possible on Saturday. However it was off to Bundang to have dinner for Oma's birthday. We went to fancy a Italian restaurant called Blooming Garden. Interesting name I thought however the food was really nice!

We were in our own private dining room.

The white bread had red beans in it and was sweet, which was a bit odd for my taste, but the black bread was salty and had chucks of cheese in it and was amazing with olive oil.

First course: small beef pattie on the left with an amuse type cracker thingy (well balanced flavours and textures) on top of a glass of juice. Would have been good without the juice to be honest...but altogether was still really good.

Diavolo salami pizza. Came with heaps of chili oil on it and was cooked incredibly well. We also have a gorgonzola pizza that came with honey which was also amazing.

The black balls were crabs cakes and the white ones were arancini. Two of my favourite types of deep fried balls!

Carbonara was cooked very Korean style. Was really nice but a bit heavy for my tastes. This is however, how I have found most pasta to be here in Korea.

Lamb chop, beef fillet and salmon to share.

Birthday cake!

Final dessert of brownie and ice cream

 By this point I was feeling much better however I was also stuffed full of food.

Sunday was incredibly unproductive! But hey, we all need a lazy day here and there and it was nice not doing anything on my last day of holiday.

I wasn't too happy that my first holiday was when I first arrived, however, it gave me an opportunity to get settled in my area, figure out the buses that I needed to know about and get the train system under my belt while actually being able to get out and about and see some things.

Yesterday was my first day back at school and it was really fun. Long but fun. I'm starting to get to know the children and get accustomed to my school a little bit which is starting to make things a bit easier. Cary Ann had just come back from the states and brought back some lollies for us all. I'm hanging out for treat day to eat these babies!

School lunches! 

After school, I hoped on the bus and headed to Bundang for my first Korean lesson at the Culture Complex. Because I'm so new to reading, I read at about the speed of a 5 year old and when I'm in front of people it's even worse. you all know I hate being bad at something so this is a lot of motivation to get my learning on! The first lesson was good and I learnt my first grammar point about using 'I am'. I also was given homework for the first time since I left school!

Chicken Bulgogi Rice Triangle for dinner on the way to Bundang

After the class as payment, we stay and have English conversation with people learning English to help them improve their conversational skills. I met Alex, Tony and...now I feel REALLY BAD because I can't remember the last guy's name :(. They were really cool to talk to and they are going to be there every time I have a lesson so I'm hoping to get to know them well!

Today was school as usual and I went at had coffee with Eric so he could help me with my homework.
Eric was very patient with me while I read my exercises and attempted them. I even got a thumbs up for my stroke order being correct which apparently not a lot of people do right...I'm taking the small wins!

Completed homework!

I finished off today with a trip to the Daiso to get myself some school and learning supplies. This is like a $2 shop on steroids. You can get pots and pans for about $4. They even look halfway decent!

Well that's a run down of my week last week and the beginning of this week. I apologise it took so long to come out and but I'm hoping to have a new blog post up each Sunday night as this will be after I have hopefully done something interesting on the weekend.

Again, let me know in the comments or on facebook any questions you have :)

Much love,
Ally