What's for lunch?

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LO: Last weekend we explored the old downtown where old ladies sell hot peppers and dried fish in front of Ralph Lauren, Nike and Fila stores. This area is full of fancy western clothing stores and on some of the streets cars are not allowed, so it seems like a big outdoors mall. We came across the old provincial capital buildings that Dave has mentioned before and continued on to the shopping area. We also found the old temple (not pictured here) on top of the hill. While we would have loved to climb up the hill, it seemed that the stairs were the steepest I have ever seen. Ok, I might be exaggerating here, but they seemed to go on forever and the fact that I couldn't see their end made me give up. Hey, I will be living here for some time, so I will get to it ... one day.

Eventually we got hungry and decided to get some food at what seemed like a Korean food version of fast food. The menu is not what you would have expected. It is just a list of Korean meals with a price, no translation, no pictures. We were either going to starve or try to order whatever we could. After about five minutes of studying our little menu (it's about the size of a small envelope), we managed to translate the following:

1. soegogi kimbap (Korean version of sushi with beef)

2. bibimbap (rice with vegetables and a fried egg on top)

3. mandu guk (dumpling soup)

We should get a little medal for managing to do this only two weeks after our arrival, and no previous knowledge of the language. Yes, we were over the moon by the time we got our food. It was what we thought we ordered and it was delicious!