Naengmyeon and Saturday time Wasters....

So on Thursday afternoon I am told that I'll need to attend a seminar on the coming Saturday from 9am to 1am. I was sort of annoyed to get the information on such short notice, especially since the place was set to be about an hour from my place by metro. That implied I would need to wake up at 7am to get there on time. I was not happy. But what can I do. It's apparently a mandatory seminar for all teacher in Korea, and they - F them - make US pay for the books and material used - WTF.

Anyways. I went to sleep early on a Saturday but I didn't set my alarm. Hell with being on time. I was not being paid for that - I was actually expected to pay -so I did not feel happy about it. Man it's easy to get all pissed up when you think too much about things. 

So I head out with a coworker and we head out.  

I have always had a very good eye for useless stuff. I'd find the smallest piece of trash on the floor in a second, and be able to find the exact one yet an hour later in seconds had it not been removed.

But don't ask me to find my needle when I drop it on the floor of a coffee shop when I work on a doll......

Anyways, this theory was proven right again Saturday, I looked at a kid park in the distance as we walked and went oooooohhh look it's shaped like a cute whale! Remind me to take a picture with it when we get back. 

How the hell did I find the time to notice that whale from between the trees....

So.

When I said I wanted to take a picture, I didn't expect to get to take it so quickly. 

Apparently we were told the wrong dates for the seminar, and it was next week.

FML.

One of those things that piss you off. Like wasting 2 hours of your life on a rare day off in Korea when you could be doing ANYTHING else and it'd be better.

Still.

I refused to be angry.

It was too early morning to be angry.

There had to be something good about having gone there for nothing...

And I was right. Yes. Positivism you little cutie pie how I love you. So hungry we were, morning it was, Naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodle) restaurant there was beside us. I felt like in this choking hot weather that was the best we could hope to eat. I had a pancake appointment with a friend later on so breakfasting on waffle was not appealing to me. Naengmyeon it was.

Those were the best naengmyeon I have had in Korea. 

Man it was good. 

Usually, you need to add vinegar and a sort of mustard to you liking to add some taste to the pretty blend broth of the meal. However, this place was incredible. I didn't add anything. The broth was a bliss for my tastebuds. I had never finished a bowl on naengmyeon in Korea; it's good cool and refreshing, but you usually get bored of the taste before the end, and let's face it, it's a lot of noodles.

I didn't leave anything.

Coffee Shops are not just places for Couples and the Lonely...

... they are places for the unexpected.

Who said that hanging out in coffee shops keeps lonely people lonely?

...hm.


....


Probably me.


Well I was wrong and now I am pretty smug about it.

I met this amazing girl at a coffee shop I like to go to during weekdays. It was a day where I had been expecting to get lots of work done cuz my foot didn't allow me to go to the pool outing with my kindies. I had planned on using the time to prepare my final exams, but in the end I came to school and bumped my nose on a locked door: no one had told me that there would be no one until 2h30pm that day. Had I known I'd have planned something else to do. But there I was, already around the school, slightly annoyed and with lots of time on my hands.

I went to buy lettersets and sat at a coffee shop I like around my school. I will need to blog about that place, it's really nice and I always end up there at least once a week...

I started doing my things and the girls working there, a cute girl with a short brown hairdo, always smiling, that looked 22 years old. We exchanged a few sentences and I thought that would just be the usual as when I get to coffee shops in general.

- Long time no see! I was just wondering where you had been!

- Ah, yes, I was in a car accident so I couldn't come around...

- Oh my, are you okay now? 

- Yes, I was very lucky!

- That's a relief!

- It's really fascinating how you can speak Korean so well!

- Thank you, I worked really hard for it.

...

That is usually it. Korean curiosity usually ends with the usual gossip they will be able to tell their later customers: you know, we have this beautiful *cough* foreigner who comes to this coffee shop and she speaks Korean! Maybe next time you come you will see her.

So after the usual exchange I went back to my letter writing. 

But she didn't stop.

We ended up talking about really random things. No one else was in the coffee shop, and the boss had not yet come so she didn't mind talking as she was prepping the coffee shop. I only got two short letters done but it didn't matter: I had a new friend. On an unexpected long weekday morning. 

On the following weekend, we went to  eat at my Pancake place in Mokdong...

 I say my pancake place because apparently, even for people who have always lived in Mokdong, no one seems to know about the place I discovered while looking for a coffee shop to chill at.

... hang out in Hongdae walked around and shopped a bit, but I tried more random stuff than I ended  up buying. 

Yes.

The loser cap really completes my style. I have always known I have talent for fashion...

It is that day that I finally got to understand why Korean love to drink so much that alcoholism is only seen as a bad drinking habit. Apparently "THE LIVER IS EVIL IT MUST BE PUNISHED". So that is their very efficient way to get at it. 

Never knew Korean were so thorough in applying rules...

Me totally stealing my unni's ice cream cone for the picture. I don't like the messiness of ice cream cones, while they are much prettier to use in pictures, so I had opted for the other style (you can see my ice cream on the side). Those were ... man what's the word. It's not ice cream. It's.... damn it. I forgot the word.

OH gelato! That's it.

They were amazing. I don't like ice cream because it just tastes like an overdose of cold milk that is overly sweet. Gelato feel more like a bite of cold amazingness of the actual fruit/flavor you chose. If you get a strawberry gelato, it feels like there is only that one ingredient in it, no other taste, no overwhelming sweetness. Doesn't taste artificial. 

Now I have no clue whether gelato actually have artificial flavour or not. I'm just talking about taste here.

Regardless, we had amazing stuff at the store. I had grapefruit and yogurt gelato, she had blueberry and milk tea. I wouldn't be able to tell which combination was best, both were amazing. I just have a soft spot for grapefruit.

Just beside the Pancake place there is the impressive SBS building and a nice park, both of which I walk around during my lunch hour at work every week, or on my way to Mokdong stadium. I never dared going inside, thinking that outsiders were not allowed, but I was wrong. The first floor has a small coffee shop and anyone can go in when they want. 

The building has an impressive structure in an out. Majestic bit bright empty spaces with lots of light (and probably lots of work to keep clean...). God it would be amazing to work there.

Ending this entry with a picture of the HI I'M IN YOUR FACE building of the Hello Kitty coffee in Hongdae.