This is a small por
tion of the open air market at the end of our block. On this side of the street, older women bring their vegetables to sell and spread them out in bowls and collanders on top of tarps and blankets and you can buy them (though only in large quantities, as I discovered) and on the other side of the street, there are two big, covered tunnels full of vendors selling raw meat, eggs, more vegetables, all kinds of things.My favorite is the cooler full of skinny, plucked chickens!
It's really nice though and the produce is amazing. Before I knew it was buy-in-bulk only, we got The Best eggs and potatoes. Seriously, it was really good.
To the right is our stove, which I think is really cute (if inconveniently not located above an oven). And it's gas, which is awesome. It takes a little effort to light, but it's not hard. You just have to think differently here, since everything's not about convenience, it's more about function.The stove was a wreck when we arrived, completely slathered in grease, which would have been okay. If this country sold anything close to a proper degreaser.
Oh, well, a lot of dishsoap later and most everything is clean.
[caption id="attachment_31" align="alignleft" width="239" caption="Yogurt? Cake?"]
[/caption]And these little treasures are terrifying.
The drinks are about three inches tall and.. we aren't sure if they were made of rice or not. The little cake is undoubtedly made of rice. We got it on Wednesday, I think, so it may have been a mung bean cake for Cheusok, which was yesterday.
Cheusok is Korean Thanksgiving, a harvest celebration where everyone goes to their grandparents' house and eats traditional Korean food.
All that meant for us was that only the Lotteria was open for food.
The Lotteria is a block and a half from our house and, when we found it the other day, we were really excited because they have (what appear to be) cheeseburgers. And... I guess you couldn't say that they weren't cheeseburgers because weren't exactly not.. cheeseburgers.
Side note: When you've experienced asian culture for a period of time greater than a couple of weeks or so, you come to find that things, food especially, are not what they appear. So, it is best to alter your expectations accordingly.
We are poor right now, so we picked one of the cheaper things on the menu, what looked like a simple cheeseburger. It said, "cheeseburger", right next to it, leading us to believe....
This is what it was:
A hamburger bun with nacho cheese, a heavily salted, ground pork patty, a slice of american cheese, dark green pickles, lettuce and ketchup.
So, really... I mean, technically, it was a cheeseburger. After all, they went quite well out of their way to make it very.. cheesy... but I don't think I have to tell you that the combination of nacho cheese, ground pork and ketchup was not a good one.
Even still, we already knew going in that it would probably be a pretty hilarious experience. And it was. And now, when we want a cheeseburger, we will look for a McDonalds.
Though Lotteria did have good fries. And decent ketchup, not too sweet.
In parting, this is my newest project. A pair of Noro Stripey Socks:
That's just the beginning, I have the first sock done now and am almost done with the second. They've been fast and it's already starting to get cold at night, so I've been wearing my other pair of wool socks nonstop. It'll be nice to have a switch-out pair.
