Korea Life Blog - Bargains, Dinner, and Frozen Yogurt


I've stopped to the PC bang again to bring you this exciting update. I met James and his friend Sam yesterday in Hongdae. We had spicy Thai food for dinner at Khaosan restauran, frozen yogurt to cool off, then a few beers at a hip little bar with a huge selection of music played by request. It was a fun evening. Why I forgot to take more photos, I'm not sure.



The only time I took out my camera was at the extremely popular frozen yogurt shop in Hongdae called Red Mango. The place was packed.



One of these costs about $5 and is enough for two people. You get 5 toppings.



Here's the one Julie and I had. It was fantastic and "only 25 calories" according to James who likes to make up numbers to look smart.


The previous day:


Julie and I met up for dinner in Songnae and since the weather was perfect, we decided to eat Saeng Kalbi (strips of beef without the regular kalbi marinate) outside. We chose a place that was crowded - a sure sign in Korea that the food is great. And it was. Everything here was just fantastic and we really had a nice time. Julie can't believe Americans don't eat like this at restaurants back home. I agreed, why don't we? I guess it's because Americans don't like to cook their own food at a restaurant and they don't like sharing their food with each other. (I still remember my mother's look of shock when I started eating off her plate when I went home last time). I like that part. It's very sociable. Not once have I ever gotten sick off food in Korea at all, much less by just sharing a meal with my friends...I'd much rather eat like this than at a steak restaurant like Outback Steakhouse...but the again, maybe I've just lived here too long.



I think I mentioned before about the bargain shop outside my motel. They have pretty much every brand name you could want. Every shirt here was 5,000 won (about $4). The LA shorts were 8,000. The likeness and quality is perfect. It just goes to show you how much the sporting companies rip you off. At the Nike store here, the same T-shirt will cost around $25 or more. Yes, they spend a ton on marketing and making sports figures more rich, etc. Yet I think the owner of Nike made a billion dollars in profit last year, but not a single Nike shoe was made in the US - meaning no jobs for American people. Blah, blah, blah, life isn't fair, and more hum drum glum drum ruin...



Here's Julie sporting her new 5,000 won Nike shirt.



Thanks to James, I found these nice Birkenstock clones in Hongdae last night too for 30,000 won ($24). It's hard to tell if they're real or not, they look and feel pretty damn good. The only thing that's different, it seems, is the price.

Being able to get things like clothes so cheap makes it easier to enjoy a styling dinner and a night out with friends. We'll be meeting up with James and Sam again tonight for Club Day...the last Friday of the month in which you can get a wristband for 15,000 won ($12) and get into all the popular clubs. I've got a few new dance moves I've been working on on. (Shuck, jive, touch toes, round about, head bob and repeat).