Last week I had 4 working days off. The first day of I finally got another chance to go one of Korea’s beaches. I hadn’t been to the beach for about a year and a half so it was quite exciting when I arrived there and ran down to the sand. I went with the girly which made it all that much more fun. We spent most of the afternoon in the water - splashing each other and riding small waves on a tube. The water was a tad dirty but it didn’t bother us too much.
In the evening we cooked up some clams. Actually a large variety of clams that I don’t know the names of. That was pretty interesting. They tasted really good too. I hadn’t really ate big ones before but I’d totally be down for it again. After dinner we took a nice long walk on the beach before hitting the sack.
Our next stop was Chung-ju (충주) - a developing town. Apparently it’s starting to get a lot bigger and more modern from what it used to be. We spent two nights at the girly’s grandmother’s house. There really wasn’t much to do in the daytime but in the evenings we were joined by her cousins for food.
The first night we went for raw fish. We were served the special course which included all sorts of dishes - raw salmon salad, king prawns, soups, deep fried stuff, cooked fish and so much more. After we ate the main course of raw tuna, the chef came into our room and cut up a tuna head for us. It was my first time to eat the head. It tastes a lot different from the body but was quite nice. We also did a shot of soju with him. The shot included a dash of gold leaf and same raw fish eye. Disappointingly it tasted just like soju. After eating we went to a bar for european beer. After all the soju I drank in the restaurant I was hesitant to mix it with strong beer but it flowed down the hatch. I got a tad tipsy but that just added to the good atmosphere.
The second day after watching a movie in Techno Town Cinema (gotta love that name) and having a quick chat with one of the girly’s mum’s school friends we headed to her cousin’s house for a BBQ. Since we did it outside it was kinda interesting to see the overwhelming number of bugs the Korean countryside hosts. I saw weird things I’d never seen before; a cicada knocking itself out after a bad take off; and more interesting a form of a cicada before it gets it wings and starts it’s singing. Since I can’t really eat meat (can’t seem to digest meat correctly) I ate a lot of roasted kimchi and other veggies. For dessert we eat watermelon and green apples.
Oh I forgot to mention that for lunch we went for snail soup (올뱅이해장국). The snails were tiny and blue. They were cooked in a soup with some sort of edible plant. The soup was nice but had a bitter aftertaste. That’s the second kind of snail cuisine I’ve tried. Interestingly while eating the girly’s grandmother ordered a bottle of soju. I really wasn’t in the mood for drinking after the night before but I couldn’t turn it down. She said it was to help me feel better but I didn’t have much of a hangover in the first place. Drinking to ease the hangover - 해장술.
The next day we headed to Bundang and rested up until Sunday. On Sunday we headed into the mountains near Bundang with the girly’s folks and stopped by an open-air restaurant. The restaurant was located right next to a river which was shallow enough to paddle in. After eating Korean pizza (해물파전) and some kind of duck cuisine we took our socks off, rolled our trousers up and jumped into the river. It was so cool that it took the edge off the afternoon sun. The restaurant even provided chairs to use in the river. We sat there merrily chatting away and relaxing until we saw some leeches in the water. We stayed in a little longer before heading out and back home.
I had a good few days off and felt relaxed, if a little tired, by the end of it. Ah, no more holidays until Christmas.
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