On Saturday I went to my first Korean class. It was both incredibly exciting and incredibly difficult. Korean is so difficult! With romance languages there are so many similarities to English and you can use Latin roots to figure things out. Korean is completely foreign... But I have memorized the alphabet and am currently working on learning to read. On Saturday I learned how to say "My name is Kayla" (Jae irimeun Kayla imnida), "I'm American" (Jae eun Mi-guk saram imnida) and other useful, basic phrases. Like "seun-sang-nim" which means "teacher". So now I know what my kids have been shouting in a panic to each other ("Kayla seun-sang-nim!!!") when they hear me coming down the hall...
After Korean lessons, I went out for delicious sushi in Hongdae (the university district of Seoul) with my Canadian friend Fran and my Korean friend Jamie. After some delicious rolls and some hot sake we went to this tiny hold-in-the-wall place with only four tables because Jamie wanted us to try one of her favorite Korean snacks. It's not that common, but it's somewhat popular among young people. The snack turned out to be the strangest thing I've ever eaten in my life. Here's what it was: you take a square of seaweed paper ("gim") and lay it on your palm. Then you spoon into it some cucumber slices, carrot slices, lettuce, mint leaf, onion, and fish eggs. Then you put a dollop of peanut butter on top. Finally you roll in up into a neat little packet and dip it in wasabi soy sauce. Then you eat it. Sound gross? It was. So gross I got to see it in reverse quite soon after eating it. At least I tried it!
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