Josh's First Paragraph

The Korean Food Challenge          

           Even though I had already lived in Ecuador and traveled through Europe, moving to Korea was a big change in my life. Language, customs, and transportation were all new challenges I had to face. However, getting used to the food was probably the hardest thing I had to do for more than one reason.  The first Korean food challenge for me was eating the spicy food. Before I went to Korea, I hardly ever ate spicy food, but when I arrived to the bus station, I realized that almost everything on the menu was spicy! I remember the difficulty of eating my first meal. In fact, it was so spicy that I barely ate half of it. When I got on the bus, I was still really hungry. Another challenging aspect of Korean food was that there were so many strange and unfamiliar food items. The first time I saw "bundeggi" (boiled silkworm larvae), I almost threw up. One time I went to a seafood restaurant because I love fish. Unfortunately, the fish that was brought to me hadn't been gutted. In other words, the fish still contained all of  the guts and other inedible parts.  Perhaps the hardest culinary challenge I had to deal with during my first few weeks in Korea was not knowing what to order in a restaurant. I could read the menus, but I didn't know what anything was! Everything was new to me because I hadn't researched what the dishes were before I left the U.S. There were so many choices, but I didn't know if I was ordering pork (I don't eat it), fish, beef, chicken, soup, noodles, rices, and so on. Despite these difficulties with Korean food, I eventually found Korean food that I really loved, and I even started enjoying all of the spicy dishes.