Turning Korean

I think I might be turning Korean. Not really, but the process sure is fun. One of my students was asking me about bulgogi today, which I said I liked, and he said, “Oooh, you’re Koeran then,” with a big smile on his face.

I make the joke because I think these last few days have been very “Korean”… maybe, I don’t know, I’ve still only been here for about ten days.

Saturday was happily met by several very tired teachers, but we were not dying out just yet. The four of us (the foreign teachers) were taken to a fun dinner by our fabulous TAs where a special kind of rice wine is served called Dong-dong-ju, that to me, is very similar to unfiltered sake. We were also served several kinds of Korean pancakes that were DE-LI-CIOUS. Let’s see, there was also a plate of spicy chicken feet, a plate of pork (regular meat and skin, imagine sautéed pork rinds), glass noodles with vegetables, savory brown gelatin, and of course, lots of kimchee. One of the pancakes was even a kimchee pancake, I gotta’ make it when I go home, you would never believe how good it is.


After dinner, I had my first proper noribong experience. That is, basically a private karaoke room for four hours with an unhealthy serving of soju and beer snuck in from the corner store. A bottle of soju is about two dollars here and there’s no cutoff time. No wonder why I have heard that there is a problem with Korean men drinking too much.

The noribong was great, we went crazy, singing and dancing like it was going out of style.




The next day, I and the other teachers were in bad need of some recuperation. We were lucky, because that day we had planned to have the samgyetang again (that ginseng whole chicken soup) and experience the Korean style spa. Sarah, Nick, Ryan, Ellie, Heidi, and I rode the bus to a restaurant for the delicious soup and then Sarah, Nick, Ellie, and I took a taxi to In Spa World.

Let me tell you, that this is one of the craziest best things ever. It costs about ten dollars to get in and it’s the size of a big casino, four floors of it. However, instead of blackjack tables and slot machines, there are saunas and hot tubs. There are separate women and men’s sections where most people are very naked and very “whatever” about it. The hot tubs and cold tubs are mostly in this area. Then there is a shared floor where both men and women can go. The saunas are mostly in this area.

When you first walk in, you take your shoes off (of course) and put them in a little locked cubby. You trade that key for another key and then go up to the locker rooms. On your way into the locker room, you stop at a front counter where you pick up your little outfit you have to wear in the shared area: comfy shorts and a t-shirt, pink for women, blue for men, and green for kids. After you change into your little outfit and drop your stuff off in your locker, you head down to the shared area where there is food, massage chairs and a lot of relaxing going on. The floor and air is very well heated and people just sleep anywhere, really… anywhere; the nearest bench, the floor, a chair, wherever. There are snack bars where they have delicious fresh beverages, ice cream, fruit, and more. There are counters where they sell clothes, beauty products, underwear, swimsuits, eggs, everything. We; Sarah, Ellie (our newfound Korean friend), and I, got these big cups of Shikye, a refreshing sweet rice drink before we went for our sweats. I was especially interested in sweating and checking out the saunas. Everything has a digital temperature outside of it, bith the saunas and the hot tubs, so you can choose just how hot you want to be. The most surprising thing to me when I first walked into one of the saunas was that there was a television mounted into the wall behind some Plexiglas.

You have to understand that this seems to be a regular family affair and there are lots of kids and whole families, couples, friends. That’s actually one of the things I really like about it. It’s like a park that’s indoors and you come out feeling refreshed and glistening. The first room was a little too comfortable for me as I wanted something hotter, so I went into the next room with a higher temperature gauge. I was surprised to find that the floor was covered in coral-colored rocks. So, imagine walking into a blasting hot, enormous, circular sauna, with a TV playing Korean dramas or music videos, some little kids watching the TV, some grandparents taking a nap, all in a sandbox filled with walnut-sized, hot, pink, rocks. It was great and boy, did it make you sweat. You lay down right on the hot rocks and settle yourself into a perfectly shaped little rock bed. You can even take some of the rocks and put them on top of you to really get the sweat going. I came out of there dripping!

Well, I had to wash off after all that sweating, so it was back up to the locker room to get naked and do some bathing. Through the locker room you enter a bath house full of showers, Korean-style bathing buckets, hot tubs of varying degrees, steam rooms, and one of my favorites, a cold sea water tub just big enough to swim around in. When you go in, you take a shower, scrub the heck out of your skin to get rid of all of those dead skin cells that you’ve been sweating through. Then you go in the hot tub for as long as you can stand (I like the hottest one). When your pores are all open and relaxed, you scrub the heck out of them again, shower off and then get back in the tub. I liked to stay in the hot tub and then go in the cold sea water tub and then do the process all over again as many times as I can stand it without getting sick.

By the time, we were finished with the spa, I was ready for bed. But, of course, we couldn’t just go to bed, no. We had to have people over to our apartment and make dinner and more conversation. Nick and Ellie came over and the four of us ate a big vegetable stir-fry with brown rice. Elli brought kimchee over that her mom made and taught Sarah and I how to make those Korean pancakes we loved.

I don’t remember what time I fell asleep that night, but I know it happened quickly.

Today was back to work and then a much-needed nap before my Korean haircut. (See, I told you I was turning Korean.) Yay! Ellie took Sarah and I to her favorite salon in a downtown area of Incheon to a very swanky salon. The catch is that I had probably one of the best, most professional haircuts of my life and it ran me about fifteen dollars. You’re not even supposed to tip, but neither Sarah nor I could help it.


After the super haircut, we went to a shabu shabu restaurant. Shabu shabu is a lovely Japanese dining experience where you have a big metal pot of broth boiling in the middle of your table on a burner and the servers bring a plate of perfect thinly sliced beef and lots of fresh vegetables. You throw it all in the pot and eat as you like it. When you’re finished with the meat and vegetables you throw some very fresh noodles into the same pot of broth and eat them when ready. Finally, you empty out the broth and the server cooks savory rice porridge to finish you off. That meal was about twenty-two dollars for all three of us. Amazing.

I don’t know if I’m going to get fat with all the eating I’m doing or lose weight from all the unprocessed food. Although my stomach still puts up a little fight from time to time, I generally feel pretty good and am loving the culinary adventures.