Some pictures.

Here's just a few pictures of Jeonju, where I visited with Sai, before starting my EPIK orientation.

Traditional Korean Tea house

Vegetarianism in Korea.

As my loving friends and family all know, I’m one of those really annoying people who make dinning a pain in the back-side with my vegetarianism. And have been for the past… almost 5 years O.o. Before I came to Korea I knew that being vegetarian was going to be hard from the get go, especially since that would mean that I wouldn’t be able to eat the vast majority of regular Korean food. But I figured some how it would sort itself out. Upon arriving in Korea, boy did I realise how wrong I was.

If you ask for a meal without meat, well first you’ll get a funny look and then maybe they’ll ask why, but still that doesn’t mean that you’ll get a meal that’s free from meat even if they agree to do it for you. If there’s no meat actually visible, chances are it’s still meaty (hidden meat evilness). The chances are it was still prepared with meat in some way. A dish without meat is still likely to be prepared in either a beef broth or in like a prawn brine or something to that effect.  Dokbokki, for example, is vegetarian in itself, but when it’s being prepared, it’s boiled with fishcakes for flavour. Sure you could just pick out the fish cakes but then you’re still eating all the fish juice. You may as well eat the fish right? Depending on how disciplined you are, as a vegetarian this either is or isn’t acceptable. Coming from my uni days where I was so strict I had my own fridge, plates, and cutlery to prevent cross contamination, this is a far cry! D;

Now there are a couple of places in Korea…mainly in Seoul, like “Loving Hut“, that do do vegetarian and vegan food, but I don’t live in Seoul. =/

So, I gave it plenty of thought before I came to Korea, if I found it to be this difficult and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to give up being vegetarian. *sigh* I'm sure the family will cheer >.>

First day in Korea

So my first free days before my orientation with Sai were great! I’m so glad I came before my orientation to get a feel for things in Korea before getting into work.

Straight after we met at the airport we went to drop our stuff off at the motel which Sai and Tori booked us into and then from there we pretty much got changed, and went for food. My first Korean meal, it was so good, so many weird and new flavours. I’ll come back to food in a separate blog.

From eating, Sai and Tori proceeded to show me around Hongde, which is the kinda clubbing/inde scene in Seoul where you’ll find a lot of foreigners too. I’m expecting we’ll spend a fair amount of our weekends here. To be honest it was all too much to take in at once. There was too much sensory stimulus. Even the buskers in Korea are so much better than anything you would see in Manchester. You actually want to stop and listen to them. I did take a video of one band playing but it may or may not make its way into a video on here.

By this point it was completely dark and since the clubs were starting to open, the girls took me more into their social life. They’ve gotten friendly with some staff in a particular club, and they’re now considered “guests”, so they get free entry and drinks, which by extension, I get too. J. We met up with a couple of their Korean friends (who speak fantastic English) in one club and then proceeded to the next.

The best and most enjoyable thing about Korean clubs has got to be how friendly people. Pretty much as soon as we got on the dance floor a bunch of guys invited us all to dance with them. I assumed they were friends of Sais and had seen me on Facebook, but nope, complete strangers, and they were such good fun. The rest of the night in the club proceeded to be the same. And also, people in Korea can actually dance. And people are keen to dance and have fun too. There’s not the pressure like there is in England to look good in what you’re doing. People just have a good time, I didn’t see anyone there too drunk or trying to start a fight.

Around 2am we left and went to “Norebang” which is the Korean equivalent of karaoke, while one of Sai’s friends from Australiajoined us, and then from there we proceeded to the first club we went to for free drinks and more dancing. Needless to say the atmosphere was pretty much the same only cosier with the added friendliness of the staff and manager. Some random Korean guys joined us for pretty much the rest of the night there too for dancing and drinking. And well…lets just say that the bar staff  put on a very nice show too, including stripping, fire breathing and pouring alcohol over themselves and onto the crowd. They even interacted with the crowd too, which you just don’t get in England! We stayed until around 6am when the club closed and by this point our group had grown to I don’t know how many, but from there we went to a café for breakfast.

We must have been there for around an hour and a half before the staff needed to clean, where we thought that would be a good time to call it a night and headed back to our hostel. And thus concludes my first day/night(mostly night) in Korea.

Most noticeably I have to say, is in fact how safe it is here and how care free people are in comparison to the west, when it comes to personal safety. People leave their phones and wallets, handbags and all sorts on tables in cafes while they go to the bathroom, or even leave the building all together and it’s just still there when they get back. People seem too nice, or rather, they’re too busy minding their own business to even consider stealing your stuff and it’s made me feel like I’m unnecessarily paranoid about everything.