Back to Emart

All right, we went back to Emart. This time the sole purpose was to buy two goldfish for the kids. Benjamin wanted a gold one and wanted Ashley to have another color. So when we got there she picked out a black gold fish (a Black Moor variety) and we got Benjamin (he was in school) a gold colored one. We had looked around a little first, then bought the fish and left to go to the food court and have lunch. I really don’t why the States hasn’t caught onto this but here is how you order at a Korean food court. There is one central area that the registers (in this case, there were three) are located at. That is where you place your order, regardless of the restaurant you plan to eat at. After you pay they give you a receipt with a number on it (or multiple receipts all with the same number if you ordered from different restaurants). You then walk around the food court to whichever place you ordered your food from and wait for your number to show up on the digital marquee sign. You pick your food up on the tray and take the tray and dirty dishes back to the same location after you are done. The only problem is you can’t order drinks. They have water coolers located throughout the food court with cups (for free, of course). I guess Koreans don’t drink Diet Coke with their meals. I ordered (I guess I should say that James ordered…) my favorite dish Japchae (glass noodles with some vergetables and rice). My meal also came with this soup which looked like it might have been spicy. I thought I would give it a try and see how it tasted. I started to stir it around and realized there were little pieces of squid in there. So yes, I pretended I was on Fear Factor, found the smallest piece and ate it. It was rubbery and bumpy but didn’t have much taste (just the spicy flavor of the soup). At least I can say I tried it. When we got done eating, James ran back into Emart to buy a Korean microwave. We didn’t have one sent over and found after being here for a month we really miss having one. Plus, we figured that all the other appliance are in Korean and we don’t understand them, so why not get another (plus the kitchen is one of the few rooms in the house that is 220 volts). Electric and electronic devices are pretty easy to get here (it’s a Samsung after all) and it only cost us 93,000 won (I will let you do the math).

Spicy squid soup and Japchae (in background)