Tokyo Bananas and Honey Mustard

So time for another blog post of what I have been up to. I bought www.joelmathew.net the other day so I am in the process of building it so you should check it out. Got home from work not too long ago and now I am listening to Pretty Light's most recent EP "Spilling Over Every Side" while I write this. Pretty chill EP and I def recommend checking it out. I personally like "Hot Like Dimes" and "Forever Lost."


Anyway, just some observations that I have made over the last couple of weeks.

Fun Fact #1: South Korean men love messenger bags.

I can safely say about 85% of the men working at Samsung use a messenger bag or a backpack. Most of the time though, its a messenger bag. I am not too sure what all is within said messenger bag...an umbrella maybe? I have realized of another phenomena. Younger Korean guys like to wear skinny jeans/pants. Maybe they can not fit anything in their pockets and need to put their wallets and keys in their messenger bags? Anyway, I carry my handy dandy GT sack pack to fit in with the locals. I only have an umbrella, a pen, and some keys in there...haha. I actually saw someone carrying a similar Starcraft II messenger bag over the weekend.

Apparently, there are computer cafes where you can rent a computer per hour to play Starcraft among other games. Yep...

Over the past weekend, I was planning on going into Seoul, but then it started raining and since tons of walking is required to do anything, I stayed around locally and postponed Seoul to this upcoming weekend. So on Saturday, I walked into Yeongtong city...and got lost for a couple of hours. It is pretty hard to know where you are when you can not read any Korean. I found this hole in the wall restaurant for some authentic Korean food for lunch. Luckily, the menu had pictures so I could just point and order.  I think I ordered a pork cutlet set (meal) or at least that's what it tasted like for about 5,000 won (~$4.50) And it was awesome. The set came with a whole bunch of traditional sides like soup, kimchi, salad, some unidentifiable vegetables, as well as 2 sushi rolls and 2 sashimi rolls, both were delicious. It was great to find some fresh made food, I will definitely be visiting this place again if I can find it.

I ventured out after lunch to find my way home and I came upon a store called Homeplus. Homeplus is not an ordinary store. It is a Walmart+Target+Costco on crack. 

This place is ridiculous. It has 6 floors plus 2 floors of parking and the first floor is a food court. The 2nd floor is literally a Farmer's Market condensed. It puts Sam's Club+Costco's free food samples on Saturday mornings to shame. However, the free samples consisted of some fried octopus tentacle. It was actually pretty good, just chewy and moist. It's a full Publix on one floor...redonkulous. The rest of the floors are dedicated to clothing, electronics, and other household items. Also, the shopping carts move sideways. I wasted about 3 hours of my day here. Well spent in my opinion. 2 hours later, I toured the city some more and made it back to my place after spotting the Samsung skyscrapers and walking in that general direction. All in all, pretty good Saturday. 

Co-worker returned from a business trip to China and Japan today. He brought back souvenirs, and by souvenirs, I mean food.

This is the infamous Tokyo Banana. Japan's version of a Twinkie with banana custard/cream inside. Apparently it is the #1 souvenir from Japan last year. Not gonna lie, it was pretty damn good.

Another weird thing I noticed is that every time baked/fried chicken is ordered or eaten, honey mustard is always there on the side. This is how concluded my next fun fact.

Fun Fact #2: Koreans love honey mustard.