Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Korea, part 1

Well, my first trip into the lovely country of Korea was a day trip to Osan. That was a good four hour drive, which put me in a lovely mood since I couldn't sleep and wasn't in the mood to read. However, the scenery was amazing. I'm a midwestern girl so I grew up mostly on flat ground. Rolling hills in the distance misted with faint fog or high green hills nearby breaking up the monotomy of the faintly colored towns would have held me in awe had I been in a better mood. As it was I enjoyed the views but not as well as I should have and I didn't take pictures either. (There was more to my annoyance than just a four hour bus ride. We were told last minute we needed some stuff some of us didn't have so we had to run around figuring that out and I hate running around last minute because someone else screwed up. So fun.) Needless to say, by the time we got there, I was not in a good mood and I had skipped breakfast to get on the bus so I was also hungry. Finally after one in the afternoon I'd had enough and basically yelled at my buddy that we were going to eat NOW. For those of you who know me, having me in a mood where I basically yell at a person takes a lot and quite shocked her. However, we walked straight into McDonalds and ate. (She was surprised but not really upset that I'd snapped at her as she gets the same way over food, just more often.) I had a shrimp patty sandwich that was surprisingly good. I'd ordered it because I was in a different country and wasn't in the mood to eat the usual American fast food. However, the food quickly disappeared and we continued shopping. One of the big things to get in Osan are mink blankets. I originally thought they were the animal pellets but when we got there I found out they looked like fleece with all their dyed patterns of animals or scenes. I remember my friend was debating getting a Dora the Explorer blanket or a Disney Princess one for her daughter. She decided instead to pick up two blankets with different colored small dragon patterns for her aunts. Next door there was a store that sold Korean paper art so I walked around in there looking at the origami set up in delightful frames showing typical Korean scenes such as little girls in fancy dress and kids playing around or couples looking lovingly at each other. It was quite lovely. Anyways, my friend got her blankets for under a hundred dollars together and we continued. I was still hungry so I stopped at a street stall and picked up _____ mando. (I forget the first word) It was basically an egg roll but instead of being rolled in a tube, it's put on one side of a circle of dough and the other side is pressed on to it before it is fried on order and handed to the buyer super hot. Hmm... that was good although not a smart buy right after McDonalds. I could only eat about half of it before I was too full to stuff more in. However, for $4 it wasn't bad. of course that was before everyone told me to absolutely never buy food from a street vender, which sucks. Half the fun of visiting these countries is the food and it's easiest to get multipul types of food from the venders instead of from the restarauntes that only sell one type of food. (spicy, Korean BBQ (which I still have not gotten :( ), noodles, Chinese...)
Well, that was all for that trip. Korea had awesome shopping, I also picked up a large suitcase to put all my trinkets in for this trip for under 50 dollars. not bad.
Well, this is Li'l B signing off and wishing you all a lovely Holy Week and Happy Easter.

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