Scouting the bars

Luckily for us, the Songchon night life is pretty lively. A good thing too as we now have quite a few visitors booked in. So, we have taken it upon ourselves to visit as many bars as possible in order for us to be able to take our visitors to the best places. Now, it has been a little bit hit and miss but we have accumulated a good selection, with different places for different moods.

One of our favourite places is simple called "The Beer". And is next door to "The Marlborough":

Location: From Baskin Robins, head into the busier area, straight over the crossroads and on for  200m

We like this place for a few reasons; firstly, the bar girl is lovely, Chong Dok I think her name is, and she loves talking to us as she is studying to be an English teacher. The longer we stay there the more random food is brought to us (this is standard practice in most Korean Bars), random as in: oranges, squid, dried fish with tomato ketchup, and cheese balls. Strange as it sounds you do find yourself eating most of what is brought. And lastly a 500ml bottle of Cass (Korea's lager) costs only W3000 (£1.70ish).

When we feel in a classy mood we pop around the corner (adjacent road, up the hill) to DaDas (phonetic translation of the Korean Hangeul characters) for Weiss beer.

The nice thing about DaDas is that there are around six beer fridges around the walls, each with a price tag on it (W4400/ £2.50 for the expensive ones and W3000 for the local stuff)

So you go in, stand pondering in front of a fridge, grab a beer and cold glass, then sit down. Then of course some snacks are brought over. When you're ready to leave the lady has a quick look at the empties on your table and gives you the bill.

Oddities and Observations

There are a few random things that we come across in our day to day lives that seem strange or funny at first, but we get used to them very quickly. So I thought I would share some of these things on this blog, first and foremost for our friends and family at home to appreciate, but also so that we can look back and remember the things that seemed so alien or amusing at first.

Beondegi - one of the side dishes you often see, it is steamed silkworm chrysalis

We see a lot of funny bar names! Many of them tend to be variations on 'Sexy Man Bar', but we like this one in Dunsan in particular

The street is always littered with leaflets at night time; often there are large ones Sellotaped to the ground!

International Cuisine at the supermarket

MASSIVE bags of snacks - the one on the right is the size of a child

Crosses lighting up the sky everywhere you look

Odd bar snacks - seaweed, popcorn, nachos and soy sauce

Pressing a button at the end of the table to call over the waiter/waitress

Spam and olive oil gift sets

Matching couple clothes, sometimes just a coat or pair of trainers, sometimes an entire outfit!
(Notice my sneaky photo taking hiding behind my trolley in Costco...) 

And one that is the opposite of the other photos - very familiar! A great way to ward off homesickness, go to Homeplus (Korean Tesco) and buy some very British Tesco products

Korean BBQ

Despite being told that all I ever talk about is food, I have decided that a few posts should be dedicated to the bars and restaurants of Songchon. At least this way everyone will be able to see the food that I otherwise simply describe and attach a strange name to. Hopefully this will also help out any people who find themselves placed in Songchon (Daejeon), as despite its small size there is quite an overwhelming choice of bars and restaurants which are all next door to (and sometimes on top of) each other.

Restaurants first. One of the most popular cuisines of Korea is "Korean BBQ", not such a strange name I know. I have learned that Americans generally know what this is since there are apparently quite a few Koreans in America. However, it is more likely that the concept be new to Europeans.

Korean BBQ is quite simply an indoor restaurant with a shallow, round pit BBQ in the centre of the table. The variety of meat one can order is more extensive than I care to find out, as during the fist visit when I was pointing at different options on the menu, the waitress was herself pointing at different parts of her stomach, then telling me not to get it. 

This is the only Korean BBQ I have tried, and since the manager gave us such special attention (probably because he didn't want us smoking out his restaurant by carbonating the beef), and the quality of meat was so good (very little fat), I've been back three or four times.

Location: Head straight down the road between Baskin Robins and Dunkin' Donuts, over the cross road and continue for 200meters (ish)

So gogi (beef)

Dwegi gogi (pork)

So we went for the two most popular choices: Dwegi gogi (pork), and So gogi (beef). By the way, those are bean sprouts cooking in oil in the foil, nothing crazy. So very simply, the waitress brings you a dish of the raw meat (costing about W12000/ £7), above is half a portion as we ordered half beef and half pork, and you stick it on. The idea is that this is a more sociable way to go for dinner with people, as while the meat is cooking you have a chat, then eat, then cook and chat again. Compare this to the western norm of waiting for half an hour, all the while gradually starving, then understandably "digging in" and forgetting about the people around you, and you will see that this alternative has its merits.

All Korean BBQ restaurants are obvious as they have a big extractor fan system, with individual pipes falling down above every table's BBQ pit.