It's a little bit alien

DC: There but for the grace of god go we, here in the land where we know all of two and a half phrases in Korean: Checking out the jobs on Craigslist Seoul, and finding a writing job posting that promises 'salary comiserate with experience.' We're trying to learn at least a word a day. So far, we've had hang gung (airport), and kopi han jan (a cup of coffee), among others. Today's word is pang (bread). Lana uses her right hand to indicate the vowel sounds in Korean writing, reminding me of Francois Truffaut's hand signals to demonstrate the aliens' musical tones in Close Encounters.

I wonder what Koreans eat for breakfast

DC: It's day five of our new adventure, our new life, in South Korea, a country neither of us have previously visited. I mention the latter only because we've been asked a gazillion times already, it seems, if we've been here before. So, no, Korea's all new to both of us, though I've been to Asia before, lived in Hong Kong for a couple of years while working as an editor for the South China Morning Post, during which time I visited Bangkok and the Philippines. Anywhere else? Oh, did a couple of touristy day trips into southern China (actually, one of those was with my mum and dad, then an anti-corruption investigator in Hong Kong, some years before I went to live there). Lana's not been to Asia before.
Thing is, we both REALLY like this place so far, even though the guy from the gas company came only yesterday to connect the stove. Finally, we're able to cook. And right on cue, Lana calls from the kitchen, "These are the largest eggs I've ever seen. They're huge. Beautiful." And the stove itself is impressive in its, um, level-ness, says Lana, recalling the pathetically undulating apartment in New York that we vacated last Sunday. "The eggs stay in one place! Come see!" First cooked breakfast in South Korea: Eggs and hot dog sausages. With green beans in hot red-pepper paste.