Examples of Korean Awesomeness

This is a new series that I'm starting to try to counter all of the whinging that goes on by a lot of foreigners. I'm going to try to share stories of things that have happened to me or people that I know to try to show a different picture than what normally gets covered in the blogosphere.

My first story happened last October. I got married last October, and so my family flew out to Korea for a visit. My family found many favorable things about Korea. They enjoyed the food, they liked the scenery, and were pretty much overwhelmed by a lot of things. I went to the Hwagae market in Hadong with my folks, and it was pretty much a "Oh look at that," "Hey Jim, what's this?" festival. Then later that week, my sister, and brother in law were taken aback by how cosmopolitan Busan was.

But a pretty interesting thing happened the night before the wedding. My mother and father in law, wanted to have a meal together with my parents, so we all went out for Galbi. We went to a place called Gaya Galbi in Jinju's Sangpyeongdong, nearby the Hanil hospital. In times since eating there I have realized how great the food is there. I didn't quite notice that night since it was quite an eventful evening, however when the meal was over my family needed to get back to the hotel that they were staying in -Jinju's Asia Lakeside Hotel- which was on the other side of the city.

Anyway, the owner of the freaking restaurant had a big van, so he just drove us all there. This was a distance of about 9 miles and the guy was like, okay get in. How awesome is that? On top of that, we had a meal that fed about 10 people and it only came out to 250,000 won. It's not like we brought him a whole bunch of business or anything, 250,000 won is a drop in the bucket, and you don't tip here.

Every time that I have wanted Galbi since then, we have gone there. It is seriously some good Galbi. The side dishes are plentiful and not too salty, and they make this thing with baby cabbage, green onions and red sauce that is pretty wonderful. I recommend this place if you are ever in Jinju, well shoot me an e-mail if you come to Jinju and want to go there, it is kinda hard to find, and not really nearby anything important.