Smoothie King!

Does your neighborhood Smoothie King have Cheese Sweet Potato chips??

How about Lotus Root Chips?

...because mine does!  Don't be jealous... just accept that my smoothie king is better! 

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BOWZERS!

Usually Aaron's pretty good at convincing me of things... It's the salesman in him, I guess!  Today though, he tried convincing me that "bowzers" was a real word!  

He said bowzers meant you bowed a lot: 

Example: "I was a bowzer at church on Sunday!"

Sorry Aaron, but that was a bit of a stretch, even for me, little miss gullible!  Nice try though! :)

Fresh Ginkgo!

I've always heard of people taking Ginkgo Biloba tablets to enhance their memory and concentration, but I NEVER knew where they came from, or what they looked like... until yesterday!

We had a really nice teacher dinner, at a seafood restaurant, to welcome our new Vice Principal!  The servers continually laid dishes of delicious seafood in front of us for an hour straight - one after the next!  ... and then this was laid down! 

I asked April, "What is that?!"  Her response: "It's Ginkgo! You know Ginkgo?"  I immediately grabbed my chopsticks and ate one!  They were surprisingly delicious, a bit buttery flavored, and soft!  She told me they're really expensive in the market, so I decided to take advantage of the moment and ate about 20!   She later told me that this many would be about $8.00, and Koreans usually eat about 5 a day!  Oops, looks like I over did it a bit! I am feeling extraordinarily concentrated this morning and I can remember a lot more than usual! 

Thanks Ginkgo! 

I ate a head!

... an octous head!  And it was one of the grosest experiences!

Last night, I went to dinner with the teachers at my school.  One of the items served were WHOLE baby octopi.  

 

April (the music teacher at my school) placed one of the baby octopi on my plate.  eeehhhh.  This means I'm gonna have to eat it.  I proceeded to chop it's head off with the table scissors, because let's get real...  I was not gonna eat an octopus head!  

"No, no!" She said, "You should eat that!  It's good for your health."  After much bantering back and forth, I reluctantly popped the octopus head in my mouth and bit down!  

First chomp: Okay, this isn't too bad.  It's just really rubbery!

Second chomp: OH MY GOSH!  What just popped and squirted warm liquid all over the inside of my mouth?  I was instantly disgusted and literally probably looked like a deer in headlights just staring in shock and disgust!  Imagine biting into a fish egg the size of a peanut, and that's about what it felt like!

It took everything within me to decide to be a big girl and not spit it out!  I chewed that nasty octopus head until it was small enough to swallow... ehhhh!

Then, I was determined to find out what that liquid bubble was that popped in my mouth!  So I secretly disected another octopus head under the table.  I found it!  The infamous white sack of nastiness!  I poked a hole in it with some scissors and squeezed a little!  The most vile white puss looking stuff oozed out the way a fresh pimple would!  And yes, I almost gagged!  Turns out, after looking at this picture...

 

Not only did I eat it's brain, eyes, poison gland, digestive sack, stomach, gonad, kidney, heart and ink sac, but I ate it's ANUS too!    Oh, and for the record, I did my research, and you're actually suppossed to remove the insides of the head before eating it, and secondly... April didn't tell me that before I ate it!  Thanks April~ Thanks a lot!

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No awkward good-byes!

It took a little getting used to when I first arrived in Korea.  I would be sitting with 10 teachers, drinking coffee, or eating slices of fruit, and then all of a sudden, there would only be 8 teachers and then 6 and then only 4 teachers.  Where did they go?! And were they coming back?!

I quickly figured out that Korean's don't always feel the need to say "good-bye" when leaving a room, a group dinner, etc, and it's actually NOT rude at all!  In fact, it's considered MORE rude to leave a party early and say goodbye, than to leave quietly without anyone noticing. 

This really comes in handy when I'm sitting with a bunch of teachers who are all chattering in Korean, and I want to go back to my classroom to lesson plan (or watch Gossip Girl on my computer!!)!  I just simply get up and quietly walk out!  haha...  It sure is nice to reduce the amount of awkward good-byes!

You should try it sometime! :)