My First Foreigner Dinner

I went to my first foreigner dinner tonight. It was a lot of fun, and unfortunately, I don't have any pictures because I left my camera at home.

I started the night by meeting everyone in front of the Starbucks downtown, which is only about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. (And it's only 15 minutes because I have to walk around the huge blue wall that is the construction site of the Asia Cultural Complex that won't be finished for some time. If I could walk right through it, it would only be about an 8-10 minute walk.) There were about 25-30 of us by 7:30, so instead of going to First Alleyway, a small foreigner restaurant downtown, we went to a Shabu Shabu restaurant right around the corner. They had set up about 8 tables for us, so it was perfect and we could all sit together.

The Shabu Shabu restaurant was one of those where you take your shoes off at the entrance and then go sit down on little pillow pads at your table. I really like it, but I can see how some people say it's only worth doing that if the food is really good. Because you have no room to really stretch your legs out (there are gas pipes under your table to work the grill), your feet tend to fall asleep rather quickly. But it's worth it if the food is excellent. And it was. If you remember from an earlier blog, Shabu Shabu is the meal where there is a large pot in the center of your table and everything goes into the broth... very thinly sliced beef, different types of mushrooms, something that resembled parsley... and that cooked and you ate it, and then added more of everything into the broth and it cooked more and then you ate that. Finally, you put noodles into the pot and cooked and ate the noodles. Then the wait staff at this restaurant took the pot away and replaced it with another pot of already cooked rice, and the longer it stayed in the pot, the crunchier it got. It was delicious. (I've only had Shabu Shabu once before, and it was done slightly different. But this was very tasty as well.)

I was finally able to meet Lindsay, my recruiter who worked so diligently to get me over here, and she is awesome. I'm only sorry that it took me so long to meet her after I got here! I also met Mary, Andrea, Karl, Jonathan, Bryan, and Hannah, Annie and Meghan. We talked about Korea and how long we've been here, where to go shopping, where everyone works, and all kinds of things, for about two hours. When we left the restaurant, some people went home, and about half of the original group went to First Alleyway to check it out. Most, if not all, of them had been there before, but it was my first time. It is a quaint little shop. I stayed downstairs with a few people while others went upstairs. I'll have to check out the upstairs next time, I guess. I got a very large brownie that came with two small scoops of vanilla ice cream, and the brownie was so delicious, yet so rich, that I couldn't finish it. And if you know me at all, you know me and brownies and ice cream. And that's odd for me not to finish it. I also ordered some tea, and it came served in my very own little miniature tea pot! It was so cute, I MUST get one here. And soon. I love tea.

And then a few of us headed over to Tequillaz, a foreigner bar in another area of downtown (very close to Kumo World and the U-Square bus terminal! Which is SO MUCH MORE than a bus terminal, by the way). There were supposed to eventually be more of us there, but I guess the others got hung up at another place, but the six of us that made it to Tequillaz had a great time. We ordered a pitcher of margaritas and each had about 2, and we talked and laughed a lot. I had a pretty great time, and I'm almost positive they did, too. I can totally see myself being friends with all of them.

When I left there, I hailed a cab, showed the driver my little piece of paper with the address on it that takes me to a shop by the blue wall, and headed home. I am already looking forward to next month's dinner, and hanging out with the people I've met in between now and then, and hopefully making some great new friends.