Our First Official Korean Meal

Our first official Korean meal was quite tasty. Our boss Ryan took us out to a very nice restaurant in downtown Pyeongtaek(which was our first time to go downtown). The first thing we had was an ice-cold herbal tea with radish in it. It was very cold and unbelievably refreshing! Then me being the "lady of the house"(which is what my boss called me), was given a salad with a light yet sweet cucumber dressing. I loved it. The only utensils on the table were chopsticks and one spoon. So guess who had to learn how to use chopsticks? Grant vigorously tried to teach me how to use them. Everyone, including the waitress, got a huge kick out of my attempts to eat with chopsticks. She kept giggling at my attempts. At one point, I dropped some lettuce into my tea. The waitress was very gracious and brought me a fork after seeing me pitifully struggle to eat. I WILL learn how to use chopsticks before the year is over! I'm not going to leave SK until I do!

Then we were introduced to Korean beef. In the middle of our table, we had a grill where they put the meat down and let it cook. After it cooked, Ryan showed us what to do next. We dipped our small pieces of beef into some sea salt which made it VERY tasty! After that, we dipped our next piece of beef into a bowl that looked like soup(see picture to the left). The dip was kind of garlicky and had onions on top of it. While we were enjoying this new phenomenon, our waitress was preparing for us a piece of meat and sprouts wrapped in seaweed. This was probably one of my favorite things to eat throughout the whole meal. Grant and I also enjoyed what they call "Korean Pancakes." They are quite zesty, not sweet. They are tiny pancakes filled with vegetables and some peppers. One of our next courses included fried mushrooms which were pretty much to die for! Grant really loved the mushrooms! Next, I decided to be brave and eat some jellyfish which was definitely one of the most interesting things I have ever eaten in my life. The texture was kind of like sour-punch straw, but without the sweetness and sugar. The taste was sour and fruity all at the same time with a hint of bitterness. Suffice it to say, I did not eat another jellyfish the rest of the evening. Grant tried some, but from the look on his face I'm pretty sure he didn't enjoy it.

The next course was an actual soup with steamed rice. You're supposed to get some soup first and then with your spoon add some rice. Our boss told us that the soup was kind of hot, so I decided to take it slow the first bite. Therefore, I took two what looked like chives from the soup and added some rice and took a bite. My mouth immediately swarmed with an extreme burning sensation. What I thought had been chives was actually peppers which were very hot! The rest of the soup wasn't that hot just the pepper-chives (: For dessert, we had a divinely delicious plum tea and some grapes. Grant and I both decided that we really need to find some plum tea!

We had some great conversation and fellowship with our new boss. He is very friendly and hospitable. We got the chance to talk about his newborn baby girl who was born a month ago and his new wife. He had asked us what we had done the past two days. We got the chance to tell him everything we did. He was VERY surprised when we told him about going to church. We told him that we were Christians. He told us that he had once tried to be a Christian, but somehow it didn't workout so now he is trying to be a Buddhist. Please pray that God will work through us and that Ryan can see something different about us. Also, please pray for boldness in sharing our faith. We greatly appreciate your prayers. Much love!