Wednesday, March 10, 2010

So, news from the food Korean food front-Anlee and I discovered a Mexican restaurant in Seoul a couple of weekends ago that has won the title of "my favorite meal in Korea." We went back the following weekend it was so good. And getting there involves over an hour train ride. But worth it. It's similar to Chipotle or Qdoba. Casual with big, fat burritos being its specialties. And their tortilla chips are amazing. Some of the best I've ever had. They are made fresh daily at the store. I plan on being a regular at this place. I'm already four stamps on my way to a free burrito. Here's the website if you wanna check it out-http://www.tomatillo.co.kr/. I found out about the restaurant through a blog called "seouleats." It's great: All about finding good food in and around Seoul. Why this would be so exciting is really impossible for anyone that's never been to Korea to really understand. Finding a non-Korean restaurant can be a challenge, in and of itself, depending on where you are. Being outside of the city myself, it's quite a challenge, unless you want to regularly partake of Pizza Hut or McDonald's. Additionally, most of the "Western" restaurants are Koreanized versions of western food. There are a decent amount of Italian places, but I've only found one or two that were what I would consider good, authentic Italian (or maybe good, authentic Americanized Italian. Not sure if what I'm used to is really authentic). And there are a significant amount of westernish buffets; but they leave quite a lot to be desired. Every time I go I get my hopes up-buffets just have a way of doing that for me-but every single time I realize that my expectations need to be lowered. All this to say, finding food that I can really get excited about has been a struggle here, hence my newfound interest in cooking. So...that gives you a glimpse of why I am so excited about finding Tomatillo. And I forgot to mention that Mexican food is my favorite kind of food. It just doesn't get any better than Mexican street tacos.

My free time has been spent mostly reading in these last couple of months. Let me rephrase that: When I'm not hanging out with Anlee, I've been doing some reading recently. Actually, Anlee and I have been spending some time together just reading our own books. It's really nice to do be able to do two of my favorite things at the same time. I received a few books in the mail that I had ordered off of Amazon. The first one was a biography of Martin Luther. I devoured that book in a week. I loved it. I felt like I really related to a lot of Luther's thinking and questioning regarding church, the Bible, and God's nature. Though he certainly had some faults, and this book didn't gloss over those, he was a pretty incredible man. I've only read two biographies-Martin Luther and Kurt Cobain-and I loved them both.

The second book I got is a history of philosophy written in novel form. It was recommended to me by my friend Jason, who I respect very much. I haven't started it yet, as I am in the middle of two other books, but I am quickly trying to finish those books so I can feel better about starting this new one. I am growing more and more interested in philosophy, and this seems like a good intro to the field which I only have knowledge of through Christian writers such as C.S. Lewis.

The new semester began at school last week. I was pumped to start teaching again, mainly just to see the students after a long winter and spring break. But it turned out that I didn't start teaching till this week. Bummer! But this week has been going great so far. I've kinda changed the nature of my lessons-I'm focusing essentially all the time on speaking; the students repeating phrases after me-and it seems to be going a bit better than last semester. I'm having a blast being a goof in front of the kids to get them into it. And it's working. They have been really engaged. I'm going to be really busy this semester. I have regular classes a week and then I agreed to teach 4 after school classes. I get paid extra for the after school classes, which will be really nice.