Traditional Korean food

Another Wednesday, another ceramic team meeting. I presented another journal review I had done before, but next time I'll need to actually make a new one.

Professor Lee took us out for a traditional Korean meal called soojaebi, a wheat flour noodle soup. The flour was pulled from a lump at random, so the pieces were all different sizes of flat, ripped, chips, I guess you'd say. Following the Korean War, rice was scarce. America imported food to help the South Koreans, but since we primarily harvest wheat flour instead of rice flour, recipes had to be developed to use the new ingredient. The dish was very simple, but satiating. The nutritional value was probably negligible, but you certainly didn't feel hungry afterwards.

A simple dish.

Team Ceramic strikes again.

My advisor here has been very good about taking me out to eat "real" Korean foods. I'm fortunate that he's is as passionate about food as I am. He also keeps a collection of vinyl records at home, so I have to give him props for that. He knows more about American rock music than I do.

Posing outside our secret headquarters.

While I'm thinking about it, here are some other tidbits of Korean culture:

When girls laugh, they cover their mouth. Haven't asked about this yet.
Talking with food in your mouth is not at all considered rude. They do at least move it to their cheek if they're speaking a lot, though.
If you come in to a large sum of money (first paycheck, prize money, pay raise) it is customary to take out your friends, family, or coworkers to celebrate.
Taking breaks as a group is done frequently and usually paid for by one person. Coffee, chips, or fruit are often the midday snack of choice. The person treating everyone rotates, though I think the older you are the more frequently you [are obligated to?] pay. Could be whoever has the higher salary.
They really do ask if you've eaten when they see you for the first time in a day, even if it's almost time to go home. Just another way to say "How are you?"
Crime is very low here and people are very trusting in situations where Americans would not be. Leaving shoes outside restaurants, purses at tables to hold seats, bags left at cash registers while shopping, I'm not sure how this isn't more of a problem. People are either going about their own busy lives without time to think about it, or else the mandatory military service for men might have some effect? It's a mystery.
Sarcasm is just as prevalent here as at home. Shouldn't be surprising, but I was caught off-guard by a few poorly translated sentences until I realized they were joking.

That's all I have for now. Time to write and do science!

Appended: Thought I'd toss in some pictures from the rest of the week not really worth their own post.

Just a random meal of river oysters and dwenjang jigae.

Another favorite of my labmates, pork bone soup (gamjatang).

They love Korean food as much as I do.

Before heading out Busan for the weekend, Minho treated us to lunch. The ceramic team is going to a conference in Finland, so they held a student meeting over Italian food. Minho recently had a paper accepted for publishing and was given an incentive bonus from the lab, so he paid for everything. Nice.