nabi-day:

뭐 먹을래?

Korean food is the best. It’s delicious and filling and affordable. One thing people always say is great about living in Korea is that it’s cheap and easy to eat out, and I agree. For the first few months I was here I ate out every day for most meals. But I’m broke and it did get too expensive, and was also hard to eat healthy (lots of meat, lots of soju, not much greenery). So for the past couple of months we’ve been trying to cook at home. At first it was really difficult to know what to cook and buy, what side dishes to make that wouldn’t go bad before we could eat it all, how to plan food for the week and stick to it etc. But we’ve started to get used to it and have been getting better at cooking and learning new dishes as well! Now we’ve all agreed that these days we’re eating well, feeling healthy, saving money and enjoying trying out new things. We still usually eat out on weekends because we’re usually out of the house, so I’ve made a short (and very low quality…) video to show what I ate this Sunday and Monday to show what kind of thing we usually eat during the week and weekends.

한식은 최고입니다. 맛있고 싸고 양이 많아요. 외국인들이 주로 한국에서 쉽고 저렴하게 외식을 할 수 있는 것은 한국살이의 장점이라고 하는데 제가 동의해요. 처음 왔을 때는 몇달동안 매일매일 외식을 했지만, 결국엔 비싸졌고 건강하지 않게 느꼈어요 (고기 많고, 소주 많고, 채소 없다). 그래서 요즘 집밥을 하도록 노력하고 있어요. 처음에는 무슨 요리를 해야 되는지, 어떤 반찬이 오래 가는지, 일주일 메뉴를 어떻게 계획할지 몰라서 조금 어려웠어요. 그래도 집에서 요리하다 보니 익숙해지고 새로운 요리에 도전하면서 요리 실력이 늘고 있어요. 이제 우리 모두가 집에서 해먹는 것을 맛있게 먹고, 건강하게 느끼고, 돈을 아끼게 됐다고 생각해요. 보통 주말에는 집 밖이라서 아직 외식도 하는데 주말 평일에 뭘 먹는지 보여주려고 짧은 동영상 만들어봤어요. 저렴하게 먹고 싶은 외국분께 도움이 되면 좋겠어요.

Click through to see the video and read details on how I cook and eat on the cheap in Korea!

So I took my first practice tests for TOPIK II here. It was much harder than I expected, especially reading! I’m kinda shocked I did better with listening than reading because listening has always been my weakest point, but maybe this past year of living in Korea but not studying or reading anything other than Kakaotalk channel pages has changed that. I got 64 in listening and 58 in reading, I have no idea how to test my writing skills myself but if I estimate another 50 points I guess I’d get around a level 4. No way! I know I can do better than that! I’m really not used to taking exams and the main thing I felt whilst taking the practice tests is that I need to increase my vocabulary a lot. So, time to start actually studying! 

Started planning my Korean study this week. This is my first time reading a Korean book and I just picked one from my boyfriend’s bookshelf. There’s lots of vocab I don’t know but i get the jist most of the time. Also met a new language exchange partner and took the topik listening practice test, I’m planning to take the other practice tests next week to get an idea of what level I’m at and what i need to improve on.