My second day in Danyang was pretty relaxed. The day started late, and we visited the local market again to get food for our lunch. Lunch was to be a boiled chicken soup, something very famous in Korea, but the Korean name I can't remember at the moment. Also, Toohyun picked up some 막걸리 (makgeolli) which is a Korean rice wine and we drank some of that with lunch. The boiled chicken soup was fantastic and was accompanied by a delicious vegetable salad with a kiwi dressing. After that we relaxed and watched some K-pop on TV, which eventually turned into a very odd Korean show about a bunch of forty-year old men doing a bunch of weird stuff. A little later we went out for ice cream, and then proceeded to head to the aquarium.
The Danyang Aquarium is actually quite impressive, despite it being in a relative rural area. It rivals the Vancouver Aquarium, with everything but the outdoor pools for dolphins and larger sea mammals. The interior is fantastic and has a number of fish, reptiles, and amphibians from all over the world, so I of course got to see my favourite animals: frogs! After the aquarium, we went out for some Korean BBQ (do you see a trend?) and I got my first chance to try freshwater slugs. Quite an interesting dish, but they weren't that bad. We went to different restaurants, had some soju at both, then once we were full we went home (grabbing some more soju at a convenience store before we got home).
The rest of the night I spent by drinking soju, attempting to speak Korean with Teresa and not doing very well, and eating a number of different seafood snacks called anju (안주). Anju is the Korean term used to describe food eaten when drinking. Finally, I taught Teresa how to count to a million in English and then went to bed, full and happy.
The next morning we left early to beat traffic and because we were meeting Sarah's mom and brother to have Korean BBQ for lunch (surprise!). When we were there, I found out that Sarah's grandmother was recovering from a knee surgery in the hospital, so we decided to go visit here. When we got to the hospital, a number of interesting things happened. First, I was introduced to almost all of Sarah's family on her mother's side. Remember when I said all the students called me handsome? Well, apparently my face type or body type or just being a foreigner is very attractive to Koreans. I got a number of compliments from Sarah's family and one of Sarah's aunts even tried to set me up with her daughter! And I don't mean she suggested it, I mean she actually called her daughter, had her daughter talk to me, and then sent a picture of me to her daughter. Then, in another Korean custom, I was forced to eat even more, despite just eating lunch. And of course we had some makgeolli with it. I didn't even know it was legal to drink in hospitals!
Eventually we made our way out and Sarah and Toohyun drove me back to my apartment in Osan. All in all, it was a fantastic trip and I loved every second of it! I'll post a few more things about Korean culture that I've noticed over the past three weeks, but that's for another post. Thanks for sticking with me through this lengthy blog post and I'll update soon!
That aquarium looks really cool!
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