Onion Mountain

I couldn't believe it when I saw it...

Yesterday was a great day. My friends invited me to go to Costco in Seoul. I had never been there before and I had heard many great things about it. So, I decided to go and do a little shopping.

The drive from Wonju to Seoul was quick. We left a little before 8am and got there a little before 9am, when Costco was scheduled to open. When we arrived, we decided to split up and do our own thing, then meet up later.

There were many things I wanted, but I tried to refrain from indulging my every desire. Thankfully, I was capable of holding back a little bit. I bought chicken, beef, condiments, and other miscellaneous things. I couldn't believe what I was getting at the price I was getting. A pack of chicken in E-Mart (5 breasts) is currently running at 7,400 WON. At Costco I got Almost 20 chicken breasts, of the same quality, for about 15,000WON. I couldn't believe it!

Well, 280,000WON later, I met up with my friends and we decided to eat lunch before heading home. We "parked" our carts and ordered some food at the Costco "restaurant". After ordering a hot dog, coke, and a baked chicken thing, I went over to the condiments area and poured a little ketchup onto my hot dog. Sitting down and beginning to eat my food, I looked up and that's when I saw it. The onion mountain.

Sitting directly across from me was a Korean man eating a mountain of onions. There was ketchup and mustard poured all over it. You would think that there was something buried under the mountain of onions on his plate, like a hot dog or a sandwich or something. Nope. Nothing. He was spooning nothing but onions, raw onions, into his mouth. I thought it to be an anomaly. I then began to look around.

There must have been at least 5 or 6 different people in my immediate vicinity doing the same thing! I was flabbergasted! I didn't know what to say or what to think! I had never seen a person eating, literally, a mountain of raw onions like that in my life! My friends were laughing so hard at me that they almost had tears coming down their cheeks. Prior to arriving at Costco, they warned me about it, but I didn't think it was true to the magnitude to which they described. I should have believed them.

If anyone reads this post, I ask you, why do you think Koreans enjoy eating mountains of raw onions? I have never seen that before. At first, I thought because maybe they were poor. The onion dispenser is at the condiments table so I thought they were just trying to fill their bellies up with free food. My friends assured me that that wasn't the case. Any thoughts?

A New Thing

Well, I originally had a blog set up on my website where I keep my worksheets, handouts, and other materials I use when teaching English as a foreign language. However, I think this blog will better suit my needs. I'm not writing for any reason in particular. I just want to be able to write about my experiences in South Korea. If you read my blogs, I hope you enjoy them.

Ralph