I Am Not What I Eat: Aellia Espresso Coffee Shop

Considering its proximity to my door, it's no wonder this coffee shop is still one of my favourites.

The location is perfect to attract customers that will complement the cute, small, yet vibrant shop. It's situated at the Kyungpook National University's North Gate among countless competing coffee shops, but this place has a uniqueness that the other places lack. Over and above the homey-bring bring interior, their coffee is great and their honey bread is even better. 

The first time Jasmine suggested we go out for honey bread, I thought 'Oh no, not another strange Korean thing. Honey and bread? What?! No thanks!'. I swallowed my words along with a few bites of the honey bread. It's amazing. So amazing, that's it's gotten some of the lime light in the extra weight on yours truly. 

I consider myself addicted. 

*Low res pics till I get me a bad boy. Some pics courtesy of Phumi Zondi

My faithful model

Mama's Stoep

The chair would have been past tense

Bring Bring 

Home sweet home

I'm a li-il tea po

It's raining bring

Panorama

Achilles

Free cheesecake for my loyalty

You can't blame me, now can you?

I Am Not What I Eat: Traditional Korean

Sam-gyop-sal: 3 layered pork with its side dishes

Prepare the stuff yourself. Lekker indoor braai

Soju (mild vodka) and Sprite fong kong (what they call 'cider')

That's my 60 year old principal crossing his legs like it aint a thang!

They look comfortable. They ARE comfortable. Ouch, say I!

Preparing the meal

Pile on the side dishes: Tofu, sauces, veggies on the leave

The aim is to take it in one bite. 

Raquel STRUGGLIN!

Tofu soup. Err, acquired taste.

Cold black noodles in icey vinegar water, and an egg. You like?

Almost-burnt rice water. Uh huh. Wet rice.

Jasmine loves it!

Rice beer. Reminds me of Umqombothi (if that's how you spell it)

Leave your anti-clutter OCD tendencies at home. This is how it stays!

I insist. This is good for you!

Raw beef- ready to be eaten. 

Staple. Tasteless Tofu

Culture shock number one. The food. When I thought all I'd have to deal with would be saying 'no thanks' to eating dog meat, the challenge presented itself greater: I would find myself having to hold back my horror face, gag reflex and 'eeuw' face far too often. 

Korean food is nothing like anything I once knew. What they eat is EXTREMELY important, and at every meal, they can justify the health benefits of every single ingredient. Lotsa red pepper, lotsa rice, lotsa garlic and lotsa sea food and lotsa plant looking things. It usually goes like this:

"This is Kimchee, it's really good for you because it prevents cancer. Try it."

I do. Too spicy. Not delicious. Just tastes like something that could prevent cancer, you know?

"Is it delicious??"

And that's where my conclusion came. For Koreans, healthy is delicious. For non Asians, well, 

'Delicious' and 'Healthy' are Mutually Exclusive. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

To my surprise, my taste buds are slowly becoming Korean and the things that looked like animal food now trigger my 'yummy' nerve, and the spicy stuff is becoming a tad more bearable. My knees have gone from not co-operating with the Korean way of sitting at all, to dealing with at least 20mins of the pose before giving in. I don't get ill as often as I used to, so I'm thinking the healthy rumours might be true...

I dare you to try it ^*,