Time to Explore and Eating at Work

Is it already Monday evening? The weekend flew by as we explored the local city of Changwon.

            On Friday night the CT guys and us hailed some cabs at the hotel and went to the Irish bar call O’Brien’s. One of the CT guys was craving a cheeseburger from this place and I also wanted a little taste of home as my pallet was in shock. The wait was an hour long so we walked down the street to an Outback. There aren’t many American restaurants here; the Outback is the only non fast food place I’ve seen that we have in the states. The menu was a little different, no blooming onion, and for those who ordered steaks they were very small, about 4 oz. yet still the same price of a 16 oz. steak. After dinner we hailed a cab back to City 7, our hotel, and I was exhausted from the week of traveling.



The street we ate dinner on

            One thing to note about the buildings here is that unlike the U.S., restaurants and shops go past the first floor. Billboards and neon signs go all the way up buildings and usually the sign is around the floor that the shop is on. I still haven’t eaten on a first floor restaurant yet.

            7:00 a.m. Saturday I woke up from a deep sleep finally adjusted to the time zone. The CT crew had left town and we were on our own. I was clueless to my surroundings; I couldn’t even point out which way was North. Ed, my travel partner,  and I saw a nice tree-lined path alongside the road and decided to walk it. We walked past a convention center, a large sports complex consisting of a soccer stadium, bike racing stadium, and swimming pool. In between each of these stadiums was a lot of large tents set-up with a ton of middle schooled aged students. There was a big stage for performing but we decided to keep on walking. About a mile from our hotel we walked into a major rotary circle about ½ a mile in circumference. We chose to go right and in about 500m we realized that we had walked all the way to O’Brien’s. Since the wait was an hour the night before we wanted to eat there for lunch as it was around 11:30 a.m. The place was closed so we tried about 5 other western pubs, all closed. It took no time to realize that Koreans stay up late, very late. At one of the closed bars you could see inside; the bar had pint glasses on it still filled with beer from the night before.



The nearby sports complex



Changwon Map



Part of the main party street



Random storefront




Downtown area



Another city shot



Residential Towers



The youth festival nearby



A lot of different tents for the kids



The stage


            After being rejected again at O’Brien’s, this time with a locked front door, we ventured back into the street. There was a 7-11 and we were thirsty from our 2km+ walk as well as curious to what they sold. About 80% of it was in Korean with a few American items: Snickers bars, Vitamin Water, Alcohol, etc. We walked around the area a little bit and noticed there were a lot of Americanized shops and a lot of bars. This must be the party area: there was a bowling alley, and bars and nightclubs in every direction. At around 12:00 we went back upstairs to see if O’Brien’s was open and it wasn’t so we ate a few rooms down at an Indian place. The Indians eating stared at us more than the Koreans had. It was a good lunch, again with very small drinking glasses and napkins the size of half a tissue. You may want to ask me why I’m not eating Korean food for every meal. Well, would you spend $30 on an entrée that you had no idea what it tasted like, looked like, or had in it? We walked into one restaurant that had an English sign but not a single picture or English word inside. We chose not to eat there and later found out it was very spicy and a very smelly ammonia-type soup place.With such a language difference it is best to have a Korean friend show you what to eat and where. I plan to eat many meals with the people at Samsung, we hadn’t gotten to that level of friendship in being there only two days.


What would you have ordered off this menu?



A typical shelf at the 7-11



            One the way back from lunch we walked past the outdoor teenage festival again and stopped to take a look. There were a lot of people in costume; my best guess is that it was a dance competition between schools. For dinner we walked around the City 7 area and checked out a few menus. Dinner ended up being some sort of garlic chicken and a few local beers called Hite.

            Sunday was much of the same tempo – walk around in a different direction and then found a place to eat along the way. I ate at a pastry shop which served sausage that resembled American hot dogs. For dinner I finally made it to O’Brien’s and had a good burger.


Hiking up a local mountain



A random grave in the middle of the hiking trail



Looking back as I head up another hiking trail



A residential street with City 7 apartments in the background



A lot of front doors looked like this

A random vegetable garden along the street. The tall stuff is garlic.



A vegetable garden halfway up the hiking trail



An outdoor workout area at the top of the hike. There were no weights to adjust, all these machines worked against your body weight



A nicer home around town



The nicest home seen so far



There is grass everywhere in Korea except for soccer fields and basketball courts



My sausage lunch with a delicious soft rye roll



            For Lunch during the week we are mostly eating with our coworkers in the Samsung cafeteria. Samsung provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner free of charge to all employees and at each meal they serve only one plate of food – no choices unless you didn’t want to put something on your tray. I guess this is how they can serve 2,000 employees in an hour. The first day there was rice, broccoli, kimchi, some kind of chicken gizzard dish, and seaweed soup. The seaweed soup was pretty tasty; I could have eaten the entire bowl.  In the cafeteria no one gets a beverage until after they are done eating, pretty bizarre. One of our team members, Ji Min Gu, said that I used chopsticks better than him. Ed, my travel partner, seems like the only one in the cafeteria who uses a fork but that’s fine by me, I don’t want him flinging stuff at me while he learns how to use a chopstick. Lunch today was like a panko crusted chicken cutlet, kimchi soup, beef and glass noodles, and a big scoop of white rice. I couldn’t eat it fast enough, chicken cutlets were my favorite food growing up.


Seaweed Soup, Bon Appetit!

 

The cafeteria



I didn't use my fork once, only chopstix, and cleared this plate faster than the Koreans sitting with us