The Card Shark

Meet my card shark. I don't remember her actual name, but this is what I called her for the day. To back up and give context, I met her at an orphanage. Yes, she is an orphan. As I said in an earlier post, there are so many foreign groups for any kind of activity imaginable, and there are many great volunteer opportunities. I decided to take advantage of one right away. This way, if I enjoyed it, I had that much more time to do it and if I didn't, well, at least I did it once. This particular volunteer excursion was to an orphanage called Soyangwon Children's Home. The volunteer group organizes a trip once a month (as it is a bit of a trek to get there) and the volunteers (us) bring games, snacks and energy. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being one of the best days I've had thus far. The group of volunteers was a nice mix of Koreans and foreigners and everyone was very friendly. We got there and were immediately served lunch (even though we had missed the lunch time, they had kept the food hot just for us!). Then we all trooped outside to play with the kids. The children's home has children from elementary to high school age. Mostly we played with the elementary aged children, as the high and middle school-ers were a bit too cool for us. To be fair, we were making origami, painting nails, coloring and playing basketball. I decided to bring a deck of cards, thinking that I would teach them simple games. Well this one- the card shark- caught onto the games really quick (with the help of an excellent translator) and so it went from simple to difficult. By the end of the day she was teaching other kids how to play and sitting there with an excellent poker face telling the other kids she would play nice (she never did, I had to work hard not to lose every game!).

Posin' for the camera in typical Korean style

Group picture of the volunteers and some of the children decided to join in as well

It was a refreshing and relaxing afternoon of just playing with the kids on a beautiful sunny afternoon on a hill overlooking the ocean.

View from the orphanage

Afterwards the volunteer coordinator decided to take me and any willing volunteers on a food expedition.

Katherine, the volunteer coordinator, and I by the docks

She found out that I was a complete newbie to Korean food, so off we went! First we checked out the famous fish market, I have never seen such a variety of fresh seafood in my life. Everything from fish to octopus to sea anemone, squid and eels.

Octopus all ready to eat!

Ok not even sure what all of this is aside from the squid in the front

Don't be fooled, these aren't cheap

They're trying to escape!

Anyone for lunch? Those are silk worms in the small bowl

Fresh sting rays

Just enjoying the view of the ocean by the market

Once we had worked up enough of an appetite, she whisked us off to a small restaurant to try a sit down version of a popular Korean street food: Tteokbokki! In a word: Spicy! Yet, delicious. There are many different kinds, this kind in particular has eggs, ramen noodles, some fish and veggies in it (in Korean, its 라볶이). My words cannot do it justice, so here are some pictures that might. I'm very glad that there were tissues on the table because I needed them to get through it, and that wasn't even the spicy-est kind!

After it has cooked all the way through we are ready to eat.

With just the sauce left its time to add the rice to finish it up.

Add some rice and seaweed and you have a savory/spicy dessert!

To wash it down, we went to the streets and got the famous Nampo-dong Huk-dul (pictured below). It is essentially friend dough with brown sugar in the middle. Then they cut a slit in it and fill it with peanuts and seeds and voila! Delicious hot goodness all for about $1.

 As you can see, this was quite a fantastic day. Relaxing and playing games in the afternoon and delicious authentic Korean street food. Needless to say I was exhausted, but did that stop me from going on a massive hike the next day? Nope! Look to the next post to find out more. If you want to read more about Korean food, please vote for food on the side bar!