South Korea, Day 1

So, approximately 1 day after coming in 4th runner up at the Miss California pageant (yes, pageant), I bought my ticket to first go to Korea for 6 weeks to visit my family and learn about my family's history for a potential book in the future, and then to go back to Harvard to start my junior year, one year later than my peers due to my year off from school. I truly believe that God has a plan for everyone, and, it was simply in his plan that I should not become Miss California and have to take another year off from school. Now that I have spent my first day in Korea, I am so thankful that I had this mentality because now I get to appreciate the warmth of my family, eccentricities of this country, and secrets in my family's history fully.

With that being said, I am typing this from my Uncle's (mom's brother) house in Seoul, South Korea. Seoul is a hustle and bustle kind of place with a population of 10.4 million people (half of which I think I saw on the crowded subway system this afternoon).

This morning and afternoon, my cousin and I explored Changyeonggung, and Changdeokgung, two of five ancient palaces originally constructed between 1405 and 1412. Koreans are an interesting bunch to say the least. For one, their scribes almost unanimously proclaim the Korean race to be the oldest in the world, and, scribes from around the world have declared Koreans to be one of the most homogenous people due to their selectivity and seclusion from 30th century BC. Both of these palaces were constructed "Korean style" with gorgeous and colorful buildings whose architecture resembles the hills the palaces lie in the shadow of.

*Note to future Sara: insert picture of Changdeokgung here. I forgot my camera cord at home*

Although it was rainy (way to go Sara, visiting Korea in the middle of their rainy season...), the location was perfect as the buildings were literally nestled next to hills. My cousin and I took some time to walk around the royal gardens and pond that were within the palace's premises as well as exchanged ghost stories while sitting in front of the Changdeokgung palace waiting for the rain to let up.

On the way to a fancy schmancy lunch, we walked by several food stands, and, temptation gave way to steaming hot Duk Bo Gi (rice based large noodles with a spicy, orange-red sauce) and Ti Gim (fried squid and sweet potatoes). I thought I died and went to food heaven. For $1.50. I'm going to love living here! And I'm pretty certain that our meal was better than anything we could have ordered in the fancy schmancy place anyway :)

After some shopping and more rain, we met up with Uncle and decided to go out to dinner. Now, before I begin describing the next meal, I need to issue a preemptive declaration: I love dogs, and even own the sweetest Beagle in the history of the world who sleeps in the same bed as I do. But, for dinner, my Uncle, cousin and I ate Bosintang, a dog meat soup.

To continue with the story, the restuarant was a typical Korean restaurant where you take off your shoes at the door and sit on the ground, criss cross apple sauce style. Every Korean meal is accompanied by several smaller dishes of various pickled goods, but, I barely ate those in anticipation of Dog Soup. When we got our dishes, I thought that everything would be ok. I mean, the meat, though fairly dark in color, looked just like any other meat you would see in a soup. The texture was very chewy however, and, while on my fourth bite, get this: I discovered a frickin DOG HAIR in my soup.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spit it out, and my cousin and I examined it:

*insert picture of disgusting dog hair*

As you can tell from the picture, the dog was clearly light brown in color.

After thinking about it, I decided that, contrary to the opinion of my cousin, I HAD to finish the rest of the darn soup because some poor dog sacrificed his life for the sake of filling my bowl/stomach. So, I finished every single piece of awful, chewy, in a pretty gross soup dog meat in that bowl. And I now have a stomach ache.

Day one:

Dog: 1, Muggy, raining weather: 1, Sara: 0