339

Yes, yes, another boring food picture. However! The difference between this spread and my usual "haha suckas, look at the tasty Korean food I get to eat every day" is that I ordered it-- over the phone--in Korean! No small feat for an American expat whose only means of trying to learn Hangul include occasionally listening to various Extreme Beginner Level Zero podcasts such as Talk to Me In Korean and Korean Survival Phrases. To be completely honest, the only words I really needed to understand were "where?" and "how many?" and then slowly, slowly, painfully recite my scripted responses: "S****** Living ('lee-bing') Stell ('shtell') 2**-ho," the numbers in Korean, of course. The conversation lasted 30 seconds, after which I hung up the phone, unsure of whether or not, or even how long, I should wait for food to arrive. I'm mostly certain Korean Dude on the other end told me 30 minutes or something, but I was far too focused on listening for other recognizable information-gathering words. None of those words came, I don't reckon, but 2o minutes later, I was answering my video-doorbell thing and paying 4,500 won for my galbi-tang (beef & noodle soup), kimchi, and rice -- delivered in re-usable metal and plastic bowls, wrapped suctiony-tight with plastic, and with a metal spoon, disposable wooden chopsticks (that went promptly into the drawer), and a recyclable plastic single-serving-sized floral-print table/floor cloth. The bowls and utensils are not for keeping, mind you, they're for piling outside the door, dirty, for the delivery dude to quickly, stealthily, mysteriously retrieve at his convenience.

You can betchyer ass that when it's winter, and the streets are frozen over with layers of precipitation and the wind chill is -20°C, I will be ordering hot food delivered to my doorstep every day. OR when it's still summer, staying within the safety of my apartment, away from the scrutinizing glares of every last person who passes on the street, avoiding the sometimes awkward in-person solo-dining meal-ordering, cause who wants to deal with that and a sore throat?

Believe you me, this new-found delivery-request skill will be put to use in epic proportions. The next hurdles will be pizza, then McDonald's (just once, just cause I can, even if I'm not really into that kind of fooding), then coffee and sandwiches from Arista.

Now, if I could only find a gym with a proper squat rack...