South Korea (part 1/3)
In Seoul we were lucky enough to couchsurf at a wonderful, hospitable Korean family. Our hosts were our age Korean woman, Yonghee and a Japanese man, Kosei. We stayed at Yonghee’s family’s house. We were supposed to stay only few nights, but as we got along so well, we finally ended up staying a week. Yonghee was showing us around Seoul and helped us so much while Kosei went to Japan.
We went to see traditional Korean houses, wandered around popular streets and ate typical food. She also helped us to get a Visa to China. We even got to leave our big bags at their place when we explored the country.
Our first restaurant experience in Korea was very interesting. Many times during the dinner the table was filled with different, small dishes. We got to try so many unique tastes already in one meal it was incredible.
Korean food is typically spicy, healthy and consists mainly of vegetables. Also it is widely regarded as a medicine aiming to improve ones health.
Common spices used are chili and garlic. Every meal is served with several small side dishes. Always (even at breakfast) you can find on the table traditional “Kimchi”, spicy, fermented cabbage. Many times there is also either seaweed or spicy tofu-soup.
But Koreans like meat too. Very popular is “Bulgogi”, meat slices grilled on your table. Often, the meat will be wrapped inside a leaf of lettuce, and ate with some spices and vegetables. These barbecue restaurants can be found all around.
We also got to try specialities such as a whole black chicken served in a soup.
Out of sea food, (spicy) shellfish soup is popular. Our favorite was grilled, salty mackerel. Choosing food with language barrier is already a challenge, but when the food culture is also very different, it may lead to peculiar situations. We had some trouble finding grilled fish, as Koreans like to eat their fish raw. We occasionally had to leave a restaurant without eating as we had no idea what to order from the korean menu. Have to admit we ended up eating pizza few times …
