Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Still lactose intolerant

It's funny...ever since I've been here, I've ignored my lactose intolerance. And it had been fairly successful, until today. -__-" I had milk yesterday morning (something I'd never ever have in the US) and it didn't sit well with me, and thus, ruined my lunch. I had had milk here before and it's a little different from the States so I was okay, which was funny... But maybe I should ease off the dairy products. If 90% of Asians are lactose intolerant, then what's with Korea's obsession with cheese? There's cheese everywhere - it's in a lot of the ddukbokki, there were three cheese options at the chicken place we ate at today, and we've been to a place that only served cheese rice dishes...

I woke up early to meet my grandparents and dad for lunch. Because they live outside of Seoul, I had to leave early to get there to eat and make it back in time for class. I took the subway and met my dad at the station closest to my grandparents. We then taxied it to a restaurant where we met them. It was the last time I get to see my grandma for a while, which I didn't realize until we left...

In Korean Studies, we finished watching 태극기 and yes, it made me cry. I think it made almost everyone cry. It was quite the movie. We still haven't gotten our midterms back yet. We should be getting them today. Uh oh. He mentioned at the end of class that we weren't all on the same page and that he'd have to go over the midterm today. =/

Korean was difficult because it was so boring. I was really tired so I started nodding off in class. Luckily the teacher didn't notice despite the classroom being so small. Instead, she picked on Jai, who was sitting next to me, who was also starting to fall asleep. I think I've practiced sleeping enough in class to have finally got it down. =)


For dinner, we went to a 닭갈비 (chicken) place. It wasn't bad, but I'm not sure I'd go there again. I guess chicken just isn't my thing. They did, however, give us these aprons to use while we ate, which was super cool!

Sara, modeling the apron.

 Before.

 After being cooked.

 After being eaten. There's a Chinese old wives' tale that says for every grain of rice leftover a pimple would form. Here's to acne-free skin! =)

 After eating. Three girls ate all of this.

Afterwards, we were really full. I actually had homework to do so I went back and did my reading (or took a nap and then did reading after being on Facebook and procrastinating for a while). I have a huge reading assignment to do tonight so I'm not really looking forward to that either.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Jessica, I spent 5 years in Seoul. Loved the way that I could order anything and never have to worry about hidden dairy ingredients. In my home country, Ireland, only 5% of people are lactose intolerant. It's the other way around in Korea, Japan and China. Lactose is the main sugar in milk. However, I suffer from intolerance to cow's milk proteins (like casein, or beta-lactoglobulin). Fermented dairy products like cheese or even the sugary yoghurts sold by the Yakult ladies are very low in lactose as it has been consumed by the fermentation process. And that's why they are becoming popular. People eat them because they can. However, if like me your problem is with the proteins, cheese and yoghurt are still largely off limits. Lactose intolerance is often used as a catch-all phrase but strictly speaking it's only one of the possible issues.

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