At first, I was tempted to write about the Silla dynasty today since I'm currently quite fascinated with its history. However, I realized I hadn't yet written about one of the most important topics about living in Korea: food! Not only do you have a pretty wide range of options when it comes to food here, but meals have a certain significance here. In America it's not uncommon for someone to eat alone or with just another person. Yet in Korea, having a meal together is an important way to socialize both with your new suitemates and friends as well as people in general.

In smaller groups it's normal for everyone to order their own dish and maybe share a little with those who want to try it. Side dishes are complimentary with any order, and can include fish cakes, kimchi, eggs with ham and vegetable bits, and commonly other vegetable sides. I did once find french fries available as a side dish, which was peculiar in its own right. Such American staples are only typically found in American-style burger restaurants.

In bigger groups, it's more common to order one big dish that everyone can share in. While this means you have to eat whatever the group's ordered, it has its benefits. Eating as a group like this can mean more interaction than individual dishes provide. You can get to know someone better during the meal, though talking during meals can sometimes be sparse. Younger Koreans seem less inclined to observe the cultural practice of not talking during a meal, so getting together as a suite to eat a big one can provide the interaction mentioned earlier.

Above are pictures of one instance where our suite ordered a big meal for everyone to share. The dishes avaiable were fried chicken and a separate pork and noddle platter. As an aside, there are lots of chicken restaurants here. And all of them seem to have the delivery bikes whose riders dart through traffic in dangerous fashions.

Something that can be rewarding about these meals is that you can learn little tricks on how to eat the food by watching your Korean compatriots. For instance, you can see in the pictures above that the pork noodles were fairly messy - and some people had to reach across the table to get to them. To avoid spilling the noodles on the floor, the solution was remarkably simple: use extra disposable cups to hold the noodles while you're working on eating them.

Eating lunch together can also be a good way to spend a language exchange that's part of the International Studies program at SoonChunHyang University. Today, for example, my two exchange partners and I went out to a place called 'Uri Jib', which translates as 'our house'. It was highly recommended by both of the Koreans, and wanting to try more varieties of Korean cuisine I followed along. What we got was the above platter of bogori - a mix of chicken, veggies, noodles and rice cakes with hot sauce. Meaning it was pretty spicy.

I learned quickly that the rice cakes are to be eaten first, as they'll get overdone if you leave them in too long. There are burners built into the tables at this place, so you cook the food as you sit at the table. Noodles can be eaten just after the rice cakes, and were spicy but not too spicy when I ate them. The rice cakes soaked up more of the hot sauce and as such were quite spicier. Thankfully water is provided free of charge and in large thermoses for every table.

When the chicken is finally ready, it's been cooked just long enough to make it supple and tender. And spicy. You really can't avoid that with bogori. At this point it's totally fine to use a spoon to scoop out portions into your individual bowl. Korea's the only Asian country where spoons are used so regularly that they're provided in boxes at every table. This certainly made eating the bogori easier, though you can still spill it on the table if you're not careul. All in all the meal was very tasty but also very spicy. But just like the using cups for noodles by our suite, I picked up a tip by watching my Korean exchange partners on how to curb the spiciness.

Here it is! A bowl of diced raddish. You just eat a cube or two of this stuff and it helps tame the spiciness enough to let you eat more bogori. Before I came to Korea I really didn't care much for vegetables and would actually avoid them. Something I've learned here, then, is that they can be pretty good. Raddish is included in kimbap - Korean sushi, esentially - and as a side dish at most restaurants. Vegetables are in many dishes here too, and I've actually come to enjoy them. So thanks, Korea, for helping me like veggies!

Sometimes, though, the amount of food provided in a big meal is almost too much. We couldn't quite finish the bogori, and had the remainder boxed up so we could take it with us for later. That didn't prevent the arrival of a platter of mixed rice, seaweed and vegetables that you see above. Despite the bogori we were still hungry enough to finish the whole thing, which finished the job of filling our stomachs.

This is another case where you wait for the food to be cooked a little on the table before you eat. Not too long though, maybe a couple minutes. Once again we used spoons to scoop morsels out for consumption; we had to blow on it to cool it off enough to eat though. So once again very fresh food. And once again surprisingly tasty for someone who never enjoyed vegetables before.