House Hunting

After three full days of touring various apartments in Seoul I decided upon one in the Itaewon section of the city. Itaewon is one of the international sectors of the city, mostly catering to embassy types and the Yongsan Army Garrison, located on the west side of Itaewon.

By the end of the second day the realtor that I used was calling me "picky" in broken English. Koreans are taught English as a mandatory second language in school, but because our alphabets are different and the sounds that the languages are built on are different it's much more difficult for a Korean to learn English than it is for a German or Italian. For example there is no difference between the English "p" and "b" in Korean.

At lunch between showings I had my first Korean meal in Korea...bibimbap (pronounced more like PEE-pim-pop). Its a bunch of vegetables cooked quickly and put on top of a bowl of steaming rice. Then a raw egg is cracked over the top, hot sauce is added and the entire mixture is stirred together. The heat from the rice and veggies cooks the egg. I've had it in the States (except the egg was fried), I've even made it myself, but this was better. Maybe it was the delivery, maybe it was that they seemed genuinely excited when I told them I'd had Korean food before, maybe it was just that Koreans do Korean food best. I'm usually of the mind to get something different each time I eat out, but I ordered bibimbap all three times.