One of the many properties of aspirin?

I will never understand Korean medicine and its theories (superstitions?). Example conversation:

Student: Are you cold?

(I was wearing a sweater)

Me: Yeah. I'm cold.

Student: Did you catch a cold?

(this has happened many times before. Apparently, for some people, the two colds are synonymous with one another. Granted, this could be a linguistic confusion, since English uses the same word for different things)

Me: No.

Student: (confused) Oh, really?

Me: You can be cold and not catch a cold. I'm still healthy.

Student: Oh. You should take a pill.

Me: A pill?

Student: Yes. Like aspirin.

Me: Will aspirin make me warm?

Student: Yes.

..... okay.....

Excursion to Bau House!

Puppy cafe! The perfect place to go if you are suffering from puppy withdrawal (as I am), but people can also bring their own dog to sit with them as they drink coffee. When I say this place is crawling with dogs, I am not joking - dogs are everywhere, including on the tabletops and window ledges. Luckily none of them managed to steal any of our kimchi rice, though you will see a couple pictures of dogs giving the food some longing looks...











Also, here is a link to the wikipedia article about my dream dog, the Jindo:
Korean Jindo Dog

Baby's first business cards

When I came into work today, I found a little plastic box filled with snazzy new business cards with my name and contact info on them. One month before I leave. How ironic.

Sushi Dreams

Okay. We went back to Teriyaki a third time, and I think I've finally eaten too much sushi because I dreamed about it last night. We were eating live octopus-fish combination. Maybe it's time to lay off the raw stuffs.

Adventures

I don't know how it happened, but this weekend ended up being a shopping mall weekend. In Seoul, there is a mall called Coex, and it is the most confusing mall I have ever been in. The halls wind and twist and the lighting is strange - probably as a ploy to get shoppers lost so that they have to buy more ice cream. In addition, signs are often faulty or missing. I was trying to get to the Hyundai department store, so I followed a sign. But it only took me as far as a split in the hallway, and then there was no subsequent sign. So... which way, Coex? Sneaky place.

So the reason we ended up at the mall twice this weekend was that we discovered an awesome Japanese restaurant called Teriyaki (though as far as I can tell that's just a name, and not a dish they actually serve). Previously, Andy and I had both been sick after eating sushi at a sub-par Japanese restaurant (meaning very sub-par food for a very NOT sub-par price) and the sushi had been terrible - impossible to chew so that you had to basically swallow it whole, which felt weird in the throat because it was raw fish (obviously). So we decided we didn't like sushi.

Until Teriyaki! We were seduced inside by the plastic model of a rice dish (restaurants here often have displays of their dishes in the windows - real food coated in something plasticky, preserved for generations to come), but once we were seated we found ourselves bravely ordering sushi.

And it. Was. Lovely.

Shrimp, salmon, octopus, and some unknown white fish sushi. Everything tasted great, melted in the mouth, etc. Even the octupus. Sad, isn't it? The bad sushi we had before was the same unknown white fish sushi, but it was even chewier than the octopus sushi at Teriyaki.

Additionally, there was a random Korean celebrity taking pictures with people outside the bookstore. I didn't see much because of the crowd - I could only make out his hair. It was very whooshy, and swept to one side. People screamed whenever he put his arm around a girl for a photo.