Chimek = Chicken + Mekju (Beer)

Last month, I had a hankering for chicken. Luckily, Korea has an abundance of chicken restaurants to choose from. The one featured below is probably my favorite. I don't even know it's name, but it reminded me of dining in third world countries and home at the same time.

Basically, there are three things on the menu: fried chicken, beer and soju.

The restaurant was located in the basement of a large office building and obviously, served several other purposes during the day. If you look to the back of the below photo, you can see a glass case full of chicken carcasses waiting to be chopped up and thrown in the fryer.

The place wasn't very clean; there was a spider settled in his large web just above our table and I'm pretty sure we scared a cat out his make-shift home under a crate next to the table. Nonetheless, we all thoroughly enjoyed the food and atmosphere.

One of Korea's most popular dishes among foreigners is dak galbi. Chuncheon City is especially famous for the stir-fried chicken dish. It's so famous that it has signs boasting of entire streets lined with restaurants that specialize in dak galbi. 

 The chicken is stir fried with gochujang (red chili pepper paste) and vegetables. One of the best parts of going out to eat in Korea is that many dishes can be cooked on small table top grills.

Dak galbi can be so messy that aprons are provided to customers and a splatter guard is placed around the iron skillet. 

 After all of the chicken as been eaten, rice is fried on the pan to soak up most of the saucy residue.

In between eating chicken, I've also visited some sights. I went to Chuncheon with a Korean friend and four Tainwanese girls. They are studying Korean at a university in Seoul and are very knowledgable about Korean TV dramas, for which Chuncheon is also famous.

Earlier n the afternoon we visited Jade Garden Natural Aboretum. Several TV dramas were also filmed here.

Already, the weather has turned colder and I miss the warmth of early autumn days. To give myself something warm to look forward to this winter, I booked my flight to Taiwan for winter break. My friend Nick lives in Taipei. He moved there after finishing his JET contract. My friend Caroline, who is also a JET alum and now lives in London, is visiting Taipei for her winter holiday, as well. 9 days in a country with good friends and warm weather promises to be a splendid break from Korea's biting cold.