Friday, August 7, 2009

This morning's cafeteria breakfast was rice, kimche potatoes, potatoes in a light soy-type sauce, seaweed wrappers and thinly sliced beef. We used the seaweed wrappers to make little roll-ups with the rice and beef, kind of like sushi. After class I had lunch with Kate and Michelle, who were craving american food, so we split a pizza at one of the cafeterias on campus. They make them fresh there so it was really good - just like in the US, except it had bulgolgi on it, which is a bbq Korean beef. We also had garlic bread, which was really good. The bread was thick and soft and the outside was nice and crisp and buttery. They baked goods here are really amazing. The 10,000 coffee shops near campus all sell a huge assortment of fluffy breads and pastries.

We didn't have a library visit this afternoon, so I wandered around the neighborhood for 3 hours. I went in the little alleys near the women's college. They are filled with tiny shop after shop of clothing stores. Each are only about the size of a college dorm room, but they're all next to one another. I didn't end up buying anything, but they were fun to browse. I then went to a street that's known for its designer wedding dresses. They were in all the shop windows and I assume are all hand made by the women that own the shop.

Next I went to the grocery store in the basement of the Hyundai Department store and bought various Korean snacks to take home with me. I also tried a bun from Rotiboy, which I had been smelling the whole time I shopped. According to their bag, they started in Malasia about 10 years ago and are now spreading all over Asia. Before they bake the buns they coat them in what appears to be a brown sugar frosting, which ends up making the top sweet and crispy. I also discovered that they're filled with butter. So it was a hot, sweet, flaky, chewy, buttery bun. It was delicious. The store adverised the buns as a low calorie treat, but I don't see how that is true given the butter and sugar.

After walking around a bit more I had a healthy treat at a frozen yogurt place called Red Mango. They have soft serve fat-free frozen yogurt that you can top with 5 different things. All the toppings are types of fruits or cereal. I topped mine with blueberry syrup, peaches, pineapple, kiwi and coco puffs. It was really, really good. The fruit was all really sweet.

I headed back to the dorm after my afternoon of shopping and eating treats and relaxed until dinner. This evening the cafeteria had an american-style meal. Besides the rice and kimche they had pasta salad, a breaded cutlet (I think it was soy, like the morningstar farms "chicken") and jelly sandwiches. The pasta salad was really good. It had cabbage in it, of course, but that made it kind of like a combination between pasta salad and cole slaw. I should make it that way at home. The cutlet was also good - like the fake chicken I have at home. There was a white, opaque broth as well. It tasted pretty good, but I couldn't figure out what it was made of. For my dessert I got a chocolate ice cream bar that was like a fudge bar, but had a softer chocolate inside. So far I've been impressed with the ice cream novelty selection. They have all different types of cones and ice cream bars.