Korean Food At Last...

I left Korea on February 1st almost three years to the day after I had first arrived. When I landed In Korea in February of 2003, I was escorted to my room and then taken to get something to eat. I still remember my first Korean meal. I had mandu (dumplings) and noodle soup and kimbap (rice and vegetables wrapped in seaweed). I liked it, but by the time I left Korea, it was different foods that I had grown attached to.

On my final night in Korea I had my favorite foods for dinner with friends. I had kimchijang (a kimchi pancake) and samgyupsal (pork cooked in front of us on the table) with samjung (a sauce I like on the meat). I also had lemon soju, which is the famous Korean rice wine mixed in lemon and sugar - delicious!

When my friend Brendan visited Boston in September, we went in search of Korean food in Chinatown. Unfortunately, I could not find any with a menu that had the foods I love. The menus included soups and bulgogi (a beef dish with veggies cooked in juices on the table and very popular with non-Koreans). A colleague told me that the best Korean food to be had in Boston was actually in Cambridge near Central Square.

Two weeks ago I finally had the opportunity and the company to go to the Korean restaurant. My friend Josh came along and brought two of his friends. They had never had Korean food before and allowed me to order for all of us. It was a repeat of my final dinner in Korea. The restaurant is called Koreana and I was excited from the moment I walked up and saw so many Koreans sitting eating through the window. That is always a good sign!

We were there early (6:25pm) and still had to wait about 40 minutes for a table. The restaurant is family owned by Koreans and they were very friendly and hospitable. Josh tried the Korean beer. I would have advised against that, but the owner was close and would have heard me. I myself am not a beer drinker, but my friends were and none of them thought Korean beer was good.

When we got to the table we ordered lemon soju and seaweed salad and kimchijang for starters. Of course I ordered samgyupsal for the main course! It came with rice and samjung! I was in hog heaven. They all said they enjoyed the food. Josh actually likes to try new and different foods. That is nice, as I do not have many people here that are willing to eat at those kinds of restaurants with me. Most of my family would not even try Korean food. That is hard for me.

I have since gone to Thai food with him and to Indian food with a colleague. Josh lives in Quincy Center and says they have Ethiopian and Brazilian and everything you can imagine in that area. Sounds promising!

As for Korean food, I will definitely be going back to Koreana, and am happy to know where to go now when my friends come to visit me. One friend, Mary is from Boston and will be home from Korea next summer. Also, one of the best friends I made in Korea, Mark, says he is coming to visit next summer. I am hoping that the three of us can go and have Korean food together just like old times!

A Psychic Moment...

I had a weird thing happen to me early this month! I have had some really bizarre things happen that can only be described as psychic moments, but I have never cared to develop it and it has been a really long time since I have had anything like that happen to me...until this week...

I have to give you some background...

When I was a little girl I was looking at my dad's high school year book and it had two pictures of men (I was a kid, they were actually teens) with "in memory of..." I asked about them. My father explained that they were two students killed in a car accident in the fall of his senior year. The story got stranger though, as it turns out my dad was seated in a mustang ready to ride home and this guy ran up asking for a ride back to Dorchester, but the car was full. Another guy came by and overheard and told my dad to come with him and give the other kid his seat. My dad got out and gave his seat to the other guy.

On the way home they slid on leaves and lost control of the car, crashing sideways into an oak tree. The guy in my dad's seat was impaled with part of the guard rail and killed, along with the guy sitting on the "hump" in the back seat who broke his back and died.

As you can imagine, this story disturbed me so much that I actually got up in the middle of the night and went out to the shed in the dark and the rain (most of you know I am TERRIFIED of the dark) and put the book back because I could not sleep with it-with them-in my room. I have not thought about this since I was a child.

So, this week I am driving to the gym, which is in West Roxbury (for those of you abroad this is a part of Boston that I am only recently familiar with and is the area where my dad went to high school). As I was driving I got this weird feeling I can not explain, but suddenly I felt like I did when I heard the story and started to remember it. It REALLY bothered me all day. I thought maybe it was because the road was covered with leaves or because I was in West Roxbury, but I have driven over hundreds of leafy roads in my life and have been going into West Roxbury since I joined the gym. It was really strange!

I was in NH for my Mom's birthday and I ended up telling my dad how I suddenly remembered it and asked him to talk to me about the details again. I think it surprised him but he told me the story again. Then something made me ask where they had the accident (he would have NEVER told me that as it would not have meant anything to me). He says some parkway? Turtle something? OH MY GOD! I said Turtle Pond Parkway? That is not the way to Dorchester (the part of Boston they were living in, and where my Dad grew up). He said yeah, but that is the way they went that day. THAT IS THE ROAD I WAS DRIVING ON!!!!!

This is a road I was never on in my life before and only heard of when I joined the gym! How strange is that??? Had to be some kind of psychic moment! My dad looked really surprised. He and my mom agreed that although it is odd, I would have never been told where the accident took place, so they say it is really odd that I would get that feeling on the road. I actually felt scared of crashing for some reason. The road was covered in leaves and I found I was driving with a lot of caution, for fear of slipping on the leaves and could not understand why. I would actually be curious to find out what day they died, but I did not want to make my dad go searching for his year book!