OSU-PNU 2006

Today I received a spontaneous lunch invitation from two students in the P class. I went with them and Stuart to a traditional Korean restaurant, where we met other students from the P class and sat on the floor and ate (what seemed to be a million) panchan (side dishes) including kimchi, dok, bean sprouts, spinach, squid and others along with a boiled pork dish. (Yes, it seems that my vegetarianism has (temporarily) gone by the wayside.) (BTW, don't worry, Pop, I won't bring any pig intestines home for you since it seems like we have enough of these already in the States! ;)) At lunch, I learned a lot more about the Korean style of eating, including what dishes are shared and what aren't. I had difficulties distinguishing what dishes weren't shared at lunch today because every time I've been to a restaurant where I've sat on the floor to eat, everything on the table was shared with others. The only time I've had my own entree was at restaurants where I sat on a chair at a table.

Just before lunch, one of the students in the N class gave me a small container of two different kinds of panchan, which I believe she made herself. One of them was spicy stems of garlic; the other was spicy catnip. She included a note with these which provided an explanation of them. She wrote that they might be a bit sour, which I found to be true with the catnip. I was planning to eat these with the lunch I brought today, but because I ended up eating with the P class, I ended up eating these with my dinner tonight. They were delicious and a nice compliment to the kimchi pocum pap (kimchi fried rice) I made for dinner.

I just reviewed the past few postings, and from these it seems like the only thing we do here is eat. For the record, I am doing other things than eating. Really!!! ;)