Reflecting back to this summer trip, I am filled with overabounding joy and gratefulness. This trip has been such a blessing. It has blessed me, and made me aware of God’s intimate guiding each step of the way. I knew this trip would be great, but I did not fathom how much of a success it will be. I had several prayer requests in mind before I set out on this trip, and God has answered every single one of them. My God is freaking amazing.

And I thank God for resolving a serious 8-year-long conflict between me and a certain person whom I have loved very, very much. I’ll share more about this on my next post, because I don’t want this post to get too long. But right now, I am just bursting with happiness that this problem which had tortured me for so long finally seems to have reached a peaceful conclusion.

I am also bursting to share with you many of the good eats I’ve had…some which go all the way back to Singapore (dang, I’m so behind)…but this post, in contradiction to all the positive things I’ve said above, will be about bad eats.

One thing I have to admit is that I did not enjoy the food here in Korea as much as the ones in Singapore. I don’t share the same enthusiasm towards Korean food as I do to Singaporean food. Not to say that Korean food is bad—I adore their bakeries and snacks, plus their sweet potatoes and watermelon are fan-freaking-stastic— but I just don’t really like most traditional Korean food, and I have not had as much freedom choosing what I want to eat here as I did in Singapore. For every meal out, I have left the decision to my relatives.

You first start out by choosing a main dish, and it is automatically included into a multi-course meal. We were started out first with guava juice:
And then tea sandwiches:
With the crusts removed, and filled with a thin spread of egg salad. Or something. It was okay.
Next, soup:
Not sure what kind of soup it is. It’s creamy. It’s rich. And it tastes like it came from a dry mix.

After that, salad:
Or is it salad? More like a pinch of iceberg lettuce with a huge dollop of cloying dressing. I think it was ranch. Or something.

The next dish was even more ridiculous:
Not that I have anything against kimchi and Korean pickled radish, but huh? It was so freaking random in conjunction with the previous courses.

Finally, our main course arrived. I had the tuna kimchi fried rice:
It came with a fried egg on top, but I was disconcerted to find the yolk extremely well-cooked.
Also, there were barely enough tuna flakes in there. I thought the server made a mistake at first, but then I came across about 5 tiny flakes of tuna. The fried rice wasn’t bad, though. I liked that they included black rice together with white rice such as this:
Yoonji ordered the seafood fried rice:
Not bad. I’d say she had the best dish of us all. I helped her out with her dish quite a bit.

Clara ordered the donkatsu, or fried pork cutlet:
This was just mediocre. The breading was nice and crunchy, but the pork was low-quality. It was rather dry and too thin.
However, Morgan’s dish was probably the worst:
He got the Mixed Set Meal, which came with a jumble of random things: spaghetti and tomato sauce, deep-fried fish, deep-fried pork cutlet, hamburger steak, kimchi fried rice, macaroni salad, and tater tots.

I felt bad for him because his was the most expensive dish, yet he barely at more than two forkfuls. He was mostly freaked out about why the sauce on top of his fish was baby pink:
It turned out to be tartar sauce, but he refused to eat a pink one. Clara and I split it between us instead.

He also didn’t like his hamburger steak, which also came with too many colors, so I helped him eat it:
Neither did he like the little ball of kimchi fried rice:
The only thing he liked was the macaroni salad and the tater tots:
“Can I just order a huge side dish of tater tots?” He asked mournfully. Unfortunately, apparently the tater tots could not be ordered separately; they were made solely as a “bonus addition” to the Mixed Set Meal, and that only. Heavens know why.

Dessert came:
We had a choice of coffee, tea, or ice-cream. The ice-cream came in chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla flavors, except we weren’t given a choice. We were just handed our ice-creams, each with different flavors or syrup. We took our time eating it because it was crappy, so the ice-cream kind of melted away into slush. Here’s Clara licking away:
There was also the most random “refreshment” basket:
 Korean “cheese” sausages, cookies, and a banana. What the heck is up with the banana? I made Yoonji take it and the sausages home as her study snack. And Morgan ate the cookies, since he barely had any lunch.

So the food was lackluster. And so are the pictures (damn the dark fancy lighting!). But our time together certainly was not. My cousins Yoonji and Clara are anything but mediocre. They are so precious and lovable to me, and heck, Morgan is a pretty entertaining guy as well (though he keeps telling me I look like I’m 13, wtf!). We spent the whole time laughing and talking, with Clara and I doing the translations between Morgan and Yoonji’s conversation.
This was the last day I got to see Yoonji. Yoonji was in the middle of her exams, but she still doled out 3 hours of her precious time for me, right in between her exam and study sessions. I felt really touched by that! Of course, she was also super curious about the 6’2 feet tall Jewish guy with waist-length hair, and she even asked for a picture together:
Can you see the difference in height? Ha ha ha! And Yoonji looks so happy!
It’s been a bittersweet week, to say so many goodbyes to all these people I love. I’m feeling rather melancholy, but at the same time…really, really happy and peaceful. I feel like I’ve learned and gained a lot from this trip, and I’m eager to continue on another journey when I return to America.

I’ll try to post one more time before I leave. But right now, a Top Chef marathon and dinner awaits me. Talk to you soon!
Question of the Day: What is your idea of a successful traveling trip? What kind of trip are you on right now in life?

My idea of a successful trip = Great company + Good food + Meaningful insights and lessons + Enough conflicts/problems to keep things interesting + Positive perspective