What we've been up to

Hello friends,

Since my last update we've been doing some fun things, so ill share with you. 

I was able to go to a small market last week with Abbi and her kids, and it was so much fun. It was basically just an alley and all up and down the alley there were vendors selling stuff. There were lots of produce stands, but there were also a lot of other things like whole pigs, soup, fried fish and veggies, desserts, and gimpob. I didn't try any of the desserts, but I hope to eventually. Abbi told me they're made of some kind of rice flour or something and a lot of them are filled with a bean paste. Sounds weird, I know. Apparently they don't really do sweet things here, so even the desserts aren't all that sweet. However, if Koreans try to mimic American food, it usually turns out sweet. Like pizza, for example. They put different things on their pizzas here than we do, like sweet potatoes. Abbi says the sweet potato pizza is really good, but it's sweet, so that'll be interesting to try. Also, she said if you order a corn dog they'll ask you if you want sugar on it. What? I've also seen pizza crust made with green tea. Actually, pretty much everything is made with green tea cause I've seen ice cream and coffee as well. 

All of the food at the market smelled and looked delicious, so I had to be careful not to spend too much. I did get myself some gimpop, and it was delicious. Gimpop is basically the Korean version if sushi. It's veggies wrapped in rice and then wrapped in seaweed. Don't knock it till you've tried it cause its super yummy. 

It was really fun to buy fresh produce from the vendors because its cheaper and it lasts longer than the stuff at the commissary. Plus, what a cool experience!

Live octopus for sale

That lady is chopping up a pig

Fresh produce. You buy the whole basket.

Some other fun things I was able to do recently was go eat at neat places. I went with some girls from the relief society to a Japanese restaurant downtown to celebrate one of their birthdays. It was a lot of fun, and it was fun to be invited! We had only been here a few days and they were already including me in things. 

Downtown daegu 

Relief society girls at dinner

Eenja taught me how to use chopsticks correctly. I'm still not great at it

This is Eenja. It was her birthday

I ordered this pork dish that came in a pot with a kind of soup or something. It was yummy.

Walking back to eenja's apartment

So, last Sunday was my birthday, and it was kind if sad to celebrate all the way over here without my family and friends around, but Dan tried his hardest to make it special. On Saturday, Dan made me breakfast in bed and then got both the kids ready so I could just relax. Then we hit the streets of daegu hoping to find a Korean BBQ place to eat at for lunch, but we had absolutely no luck. We walked around for at least an hour and never found one, so we called it a day and just ate at this place right outside the gate of camp George called BBQ chicken. Super Korean, right? It was just wings in different sauces, but we were starving by then and it was pretty good. That night Dan made dinner and gave me some of my presents, which was a lot of different kinds of chocolate and the movie, oz. So, after the kids were in bed, we relaxed and watched a movie with an accompaniment of Godiva chocolate. Not too shabby. 

On Sunday, we had taught senior primary because everyone was sick or out of town. That was an interesting experience because the entire primary was like 8 kids, so our senior primary class was 3 kids total. After church evie took a nap and we relaxed for a while and then Dan made dinner again. Steak and potatoes. I think he thinks that's my favorite meal? Or that's all he knows how to make, because that's what I get every holiday that he cooks. Cute boy. Don't get me wrong, I do love steak. After dinner we had "cake" and blew out the "candles", which evie was excited about. 

The cake was actually an ice cream pie from the frozen isle, and the candles were actually strawberry sticks that Dan found. Not candles at all actually. Do not light them on fire. That would be gross.

After "blowing out the candles". She was so proud of herself.

Mr Emmett. This was just a cute picture. No back story at all

After my birthday was the 4th of July, and this is one of my very favorite holidays because we always made it a big deal growing up. So, I tried to make it as fun and patriotic as possible, but it didn't really turn out all that great. Oh well. Maybe next year. 

After Evie's nap, we went to camp walker to check out the festivities they had there, but there wasn't a whole lot for a little girl like evie to do. It mostly catered to older kids and adults. However, there was a bubbles show, and we thought evie would love that for sure, but she actually wasn't a huge fan. I think the guy doing the show freaked her out. Oh well. I thought it was neat. 

Red, white, and blue the best we could. Waiting to get on the bus to take us over to camp walker.

Evie liked standing in the back and waiting for the bubbles to come to her, rather than stand in the front and actually watch the show.

On Friday this week, some of the girls and the missionaries from the branch took me out to lunch for my birthday. Our lunch adventure is actually a pretty funny story. We met at eenja's house because she lives downtown, and then we would walk to the restaurant from there. It was a good plan, except that it was pointing rain outside. All day long. We walked out of her apartment to a torrential downpour, but instead of turning around and just ordering in, we decided to trudge on. About 2 minutes into our walk, I was soaked up to my ankles. By the time we finally made it to the restaurant I was soaked head to toe. I had an umbrella, but it was raining so much that even the umbrella was soaked and couldn't hold off water anymore. The entire street was a huge puddle, so i seriously looked like I had gone swimming in my clothes. But the good news is, once we got to the Korean BBQ place, it was closed, so we had to wander around some more until we found a restaurant that was open. The restaurant was a traditional Korean food restaurant, and that was totally okay by me. Luckily, the sister missionaries and Eenja all speak Korean, so they ordered for us and told us what to do. The food was delicious, but pretty spicy. 

This is what they call a "hot pot", which is just a pot that stays hot. Well named. Like, piping hot. The whole time. But, I was freezing and drenched, so something hot and spicy was perfect. It was rice, veggies, and beef, with a bunch of other stuff, all mixed together. Yum.

I went to the bathroom before we ordered to try and dry off a little, and this is the sign that was on the door for the men's bathroom. Hilarious.

Random picture of me waiting for the bus today. I high tailed it over to the bus stop and wanted to show Dan how close I was to missing it. Pretty darn close.

Today we, yet again, wanted to try and get some Korean BBQ, but failed, again. All of the places were closed until 6 because it was a Saturday. Bummer. So, we walked around until we found a place that was open, and I remembered my friend Abby saying that this place had really good gimpop, so we went there. I think the place was called Kim pasa. The ladies there didn't speak any English, and we don't speak any Korean, and the menus didn't have pictures, so we just put up 2 fingers and said gimpop. Luckily, this is what we got. It was different than the stuff I got at the market, but still just as yummy. I'm addicted. 

Gimpop

Dan trying to use chopsticks. We both forgot how as soon as we got here. I think it's the intimidation of it all.

Evie actually kind of liked it. She was a bigger fan of the soup though. She didn't eat very much, so when we got home I made her Mac n cheese. Go USA.

Those are all of our adventures so far. I'll try to remember to keep updating this. Love you all.