Starbucks is Here!

We planned ourselves well in advance to give up Starbucks. We thought that there’d only be a Starbucks in Seoul, and that we’d never be able to go. So we were happy as all hell to find a Starbucks right beside our house. Really now, what isn’t right beside our house? The prices are steep, and everything is a size down, meaning that a tall is really a short, a grande a tall, venti a grandi, etc. As well, they don’t have the variety North America has, but they still have enough for us to be happy. Woohoo! We just bought a bodum and beans from them as well, so that we can remain just as caffeinated as before. Goooooooo Starubucksu!

Our First Meal Out

Today we ate our first meal in Korea. It took us half an hour to walk around and finally find a place to eat. Every place we went to had pictures of food that we had never seen before while living in Toronto. We confidently walked into the place, removed our shoes, sat on the floor cushions, and when the waitress brought us a menu, it only had 6 choices. Every picture had meals laden with fish-heads. We scuttled off and walked for another twenty minutes until we finally found a place with pictures similar to something we ate before. One strange thing we noticed was the eggs on the table (just sitting in a basket) waiting to be cracked into your hot, bubbling, soup. We ordered our meals, and our side dishes (called "pan-ch'an") included a whole dried and salted fish, and something that looked like a noodle but might have been squid or intestines. We didn't really eat that last one. We polished off as much of our meals we could eat (they are really big) and spent only $12 even. No tipping required in Korea! We’ve got a video for this as well, so check it out.

Korean Signs

I had to stare at this picture for a while before I finally understood it: