It has been amazingly cool here in Daegu. I can't believe this weather. After class I came home and read my students' journals and turned the air-con off but was still cold. Sonja and I went downtown and we both had jackets with us. It was great weather to walk around.
We went to what I call "pottery" street. From the Traditional Medicine Market Street, there is a little street that has lots of shops that sell pottery. It is one of my favorite places to roam. I wish it were longer than a block. I love seeing all of the pottery and other beautiful things associated with tea. Last time I was here I bought an expensive but beautiful bowl.
So far I've been there three times. I hadn't bought anything until today. I found a really cute little bowl that is a vase for a flower - a, as in one, flower. I got a little dish to use as a base. I'm not sure if they go together, but they look nice together.
From there we headed across the main street to the noisy, trendy side of the street where no one seems to be over 15 (I'm sure they are, and just look young). We looked for places to eat. There were some Japanese places, a few with spaghetti and omelets, and one place that had chicken kalbi with vegetables. It looked good, and we opted for that.
It turned out to be another one of those places where you have a big iron plate with fire under it and they come and stir your food until it's cooked.
The guy who seated us was a character, like one of those funny people you see on Korean TV programs. The guy who came to take our order made hysterical faces - I think he was not used to serving foreigners. He made some really funny faces and did lots of teeth sucking when we finally did decide what we wanted. We asked for one order of chicken kalbi with a side of potato noodles and a kim chi pancake. He sucked his teeth and came back to tell us we had to order 2 orders of chicken kalbi.
He brought us a few side dishes - kimchi, radish, kimshi soupy water type stuff, coke, water, and two bibs. We looked around and saw no one else was wearing one. I said, "for baby" and he laughed. We both put them on. I was wearing a pretty new shirt and didn't want to risk it.
He came back and put some scallions, potatoes, cabbage and marinated chicken on our iron plate and then left. Another guy came buy and stirred it and left. Another guy came and did the same. And so it went, each time a new guy coming to stir our food and then leave.
I told Sonja it seemed like the requirement to work there was that you had to be male, young, cute and have an interesting haircut. They were all stamped from the same mold even though they looked completely different in terms of facial features, body types, etc., there was an eery Stepfordwives kind of feel to them.
Finally our food was cooked and they added the noodles and fried them for a bit.
We tasted it. It was spicy, but not too bad. We ate more. The spiciness increased. It was I think, one of the spiciest things I have ever eaten. I was sweating, even my eyeballs were sweating, but I kept eating. It was actually quite good. Sonja couldn't handle the heat and instead ate the kimchi pancake.
When we finished we walked outside and the cool air immediately cooled us off. It was cool and quite breezy. I could not believe I was in Daegu in the summer and actually had to put my jacket on to stay warm.
I think I may have overdone it with the spice. We'll see how my stomach feels tomorrow.
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