Gung-ho for Gunpo: "Try A Little Tenderness"

Due to there not being classes, and in part of my own laziness, I haven't been posting as often as I normally do. For that I apologize.

But you'll get over it, I'm sure.

This weekend was too short. I didn't really do much besides meet up with some friends near Ansan - a small city about 20 minutes southwest of Gunpo. Hwayoung and I had planned to go to Suwon to see a famous fortress, but we decided that it would be best to leave that until the spring when it would be warmer and more pleasant to walk around.

Sunday's activities consisted of trying some new foods. Hwayoung loves a specific dish and highly recommended it - but from what other Koreans told me, it could be a "hit or miss" meal, as it is not exactly up to everyone's tastes.

The dish is a gui dish called naejang-gui (내장구이). I was told it is some sort of intestine of pork (beef and lamb are also popular). It was served with grilled in vegetables (onion, garlic, bamboo, bean sprouts and paprika). It is rather chewy and looks sort of unappealing. However, it has a robust flavor, and isn't half bad. Naejang-gui not something I found myself falling in love with or would have a craving for like other Korean dishes.

We also decided to get some naejang-gui stew, which I actually enjoyed more since it was in a nice broth as well as contained sweet potato noodles.

The part of the meal I found the most frightening (and a little disgusting) was a certain side dish. Normally, side dishes are vegetables or cured vegetables like kimchi, bean sprouts, and sometimes you even get tofu or some sort of egg or radish dish.

With this dinner we not only were treated to those, but to this "lovely" looking dish:

I was told it is raw liver and stomach lining - but I can't be too sure.

After dinner Hwayoung wanted to clear up to me that the dishes we ate that she called "intestine" was in fact "asshole". Personally, I think it was a mix of the two, and if ever asked I'll just say I ate tripe.

The best part of the dinner was that now I can say that it literally "tasted like ass". (insert rolling eyes and groans here)

After dinner we (me, Hwayoung, our friends Domenick and Chang) shot some pool (or as Korean's call it "pocket ball") Hwayoung and I were murdered by these two pool sharks.

Tip:

When someone says "Oh, I am not really good at pool" they just want to make you look like a moron.

We played for a couple hours, and treated ourselves to Baskin Robbins for a small snack. I had a "snow mochi" which is a take on regular mochi. (A rice cake snack with a sweet bean inside). Baskin Robbins snow mochi is a thin rice dough with green tea ice cream inside, and then in the middle of that is chocolate fudge. It was rather delectable (although one would be an idiot to try to eat it without letting defrost a little).