Dinner

I ordered Korean food ALL BY MYSELF tonight!

The other day, one of the foreign teachers' directors was driving me to get my medical check so I can get my Alien Registration Card and he pointed at a dumpling place down the hill from my apartment and said it's a good place to eat.

Guess what?  I went there for dinner!  It's take-out only, which is perfect.  I was a little nervous, cause I've never ordered in Korean, or, really been anywhere except the local grocery store by myself.  I pulled out my little phrasebook and taught myself to say "I would like a pork dumpling, please" and voila!!!  Pork dumpling, ordered!  (I don't know if I said the words in the right order, I don't know if I should have said "dumpling pork please" instead, but they caught my drift!)  The man at the counter held up a finger and said what I assume meant "one," and I said, "ne," which means yes.  It was only 1,000 won, or about $1.  Sah-weet!  Diner is served.  I will definitely be going there again!

"Twae-ji go-gi mandu, juseyo!"

Earlier today I went to the big store at World Cup, a shopping center near the World Cup stadium (from the 2002 South Korea/Japan World Cup) in Gwangju, a few minutes from my apartment.  I bough a cucumber and some tomatoes, so I had those with my yummy yummy dumpling!

Paired with a glass of merlot, it was a very nice balanced dinner in my new apartment! 

It's almost like a British meat pie, the way it's just meat and herbs and such baked in a doughy bread bun, rather than a dumpling the way I know at home.  I actually bought some normal dumplings today at the store - I have no idea what kind - to have for dinner sometime next week.  They're in the freezer.  I tried to translate the Hangul on the label today, to no avail.  Lord help me, I hope it's not some kind of meat that I don't want to eat... shudder... like dog!  I will try to translate it again before I cook it! 

 I'm proud of my little excursion.  I know it's not much, I mean, I only ordered a single dumpling.  But this marks the first time I've looked up words and formed a sentence, by myself, in Korean.  Chalk that up in the Win column!