Meet Kay

I want you all to meet Kay, our driver. Kay, in his own words said, "I am your hands and feet for two months." He picked us up from the airport on Sunday in our Daewoo Winstorm and will be driving us around for the next 2 months. Mostly, he will be driving Mike back and forth to work, but maybe sometimes helping me get some food shopping done and a trip to Costco here and there.

Kay has been more than just a driver. His wife made us some delicios kimchi the other day and, as soon as I mentioned that I liked japchae, he had his wife make us a batch as well. She is a very good cook. He works for GM Daewoo here and has two children.

He wants us to call him anytime 24 hours/ day, but I don't think we will do that. Yesterday, Kay did some great negotiating for us on some new furniture in the Korean furniture district...thank you Kay!

Last night Kay introduced us to Seolleongtang, which is a soup made with beef bones and thin slices of beef. It is typically simmered overnight and salt, red pepper paste and seasonings are added when you are ready to eat.

The rice you see is called dolsot bap (bap is rice). It is rice in a hot stone bowl so that the rice at the bottom get hard and crunchy. There is some black rice, beans and chestnuts mixed in there as well. Kay scooped all of the rice into his soup and then added hot water to the rice bowl. He says that  it is like desert for him. Mike and I were too full from the soup to try it. Koreans eat very fast and they eat alot! Well, at least Kay does. The food is hot (temperature) and spicy, but they are able to eat it quickly...while I am still trying to manage my first bite.

If you see a reddish vegetable on the right middle of the picture, that is kimchi. This is served with every meal. There are hundreds of different types of kimchi (which I believe just means fermented), like cucumber, cabbage, radish, etc. Kimchi is so popular and has a distinct odor, that many houses have a seperate kimchi refrigerator. We have one.