Trip to Downtown Daegu with Nathan

Today was awesome. I spent the entire day with Nathan, going to, and exploring Daegu. There's so much there it would be difficult to fully explore even if I took the entire year to do it. Nathan seemed to know a bit about what he was doing so I was more than happy to let him take lead. We decided to meet in front of the CJ kitchen around 9:30am.

I was hungry by that time so we decided to grab a quick breakfast before hopping on the bus downtown. We then tried to head to the main building so he could grab some cash out of the ATM. Turns out the power was shut off in the main building. We decided to just head down to the bus stop, and hit a CU (convenience store) on the way there so he could top off his bus card.

The CU that we went to is right next to the first bus stop, and our bus was pulling out right as we got there, so we hopped on and got comfy. It took about an hour and some change to get to where we wanted to go. Nathan decided that hitting one of the traditional markets was a good idea, and I was definitely on board.

We walked around the market and looked at what there was to see. Apparently Daegu is famous for many things, textiles being one of them. It was pretty cool to see all the creativity and skill displayed on the sidewalks as we walked past. The market was full of good food as well, and we took the chance to grab some doughnuts that were filled with cinnamon. They stuffed the doughnuts in cups and cut them open, then the guy poured something like sunflower seeds inside of them. Wow those were unreal.

We ate and walked, and eventually got a bit bored of the market. Nathan suggested we check out the department stores nearby. There was a Hyundai department store (it's not a car department store if that's what you're thinking), and it was full of pretty high end things, akin to Nordstroms, or Bloomingdale's. This department store was about 6 floors, and on the main floor was all cosmetics. As you went down there were clearance "events" as they called them, and food stores.

Nathan saw a Magnolia's and wanted to try it. I had never been in one before and neither had he, so it was time. Scanning through the baked goods we saw a red velvet cake. He was originally going to go for a cupcake, but how can you not get a giant 3 tiered red velvet cake slice when you see one? We were curious about the size of the slice since it was about $7 for a slice. Expensive but possibly worth it? Take a look.

I know you're proud of me for this mom.

Yeah...that's how big it was, Nathan had to take a picture too.

So over this ginormous piece of red velvet cake, Nathan and I got to talking about what else? Food. Some of you know about my affinity for a lifestyle diet called "primal blueprint". Basically a high fat, low carb diet meant to improve overall health as well as weight loss. Anyways, long story short, both of us know a lot about it. This was pretty crazy because only a few people I've ever met know anything about this. Some know about the paleo diet, but most people just look at you like you're crazy.

We probably talked about this for a good hour over cake. What a great bonding moment. Nathan and I are really starting to bond I think, and I welcome such a friendship. We decided that it was time to head out of that department store and down the street to the next one.

That plan took a pretty quick hit when we ran into what looked like a peaceful gathering on the street. Being in a foreign country and barely knowing the language we wanted to be as careful as possible, so what did we do? We stood in the middle of the crowd watching what was happening on stage. We quickly figured out that they were friendly, as they were waving American flags along with Korean flags. From what we could gather, we had walked into a presidential rally!

Presidential rally!

We were given Korean flags pretty quickly and some informational brochures. Of course they were in Korean, but we were happy to stand there and wave our flags every time the crowd cheered. What a crazy contrast to America! Our candidates campaign for what seems like an entire election cycle, while it seems that Korean candidates hop out the week before the election and have a few small rallies.

We finally got our fill and decided to move on. We turned the corner on the next block and walked right into another rally. This one was much different. There were a lot of people sitting down, and a man with a loud speaker a ways off speaking in Korean. We weren't sure what this one was, so we proudly displayed our new Korean flags and stood and watched.

The crowd started chanting all together and raising their fists. This was pretty intense. They had giant banners that said things like "May Day" and "Workers Rights". Nathan deduced that this was a labor union strike. Pretty interesting things to see all together on one day.

We decided to keep moving and headed on our way. We walked around and found another large department store. We went up and down and all around, and finally made our way into an underground department store. (They have MANY of these and they are HUGE). It makes sense though since they have to make use of all the land they have.

Part of Daegu Castle!

We found this on the way to the underground department store.

We started to get hungry and tried to figure out where we wanted to go. There was a McDonald's close by, but not wanting to be the stereotypical Americans, plus wanting some good primal food we decided to continue on. Well we probably continued on for maybe another hour before we finally found a place. We were about to give up completely and just get on the bus back to the dorm when we found it: BBQ Alley.

Nathan had been raving about this place he called BBQ alley the entire day. I was beginning to believe it wasn't real. That he made it up to excite me, and then at the last second when I could taste it, CRUSH my spirit. I'm kidding I didn't really think that. It was crazy that we found it on accident on the way back to our bus stop though.

We ended up getting 막창 (Mak Chang) which is pig entrails. We were literally the only people in the place, so the lady cooked the intestines for us and helped us. They ended up being excellent. Mak Chang is something that Daegu is also famous for, so we hit two of those in one day.

Mak Chang! (And half of Nathan)

After eating we had waited out the traffic perfectly, so we headed to the bus stop and got on the bus to head back home. After about an hour and a half we arrived back home and walked back to the dorm together. I dropped Nathan off at his dorm and continued onto mine to relax after a tough day. I messaged the other boys in a Kakao message and it turned out Heavy G was the only one able to make it back for dinner tonight.

My favorite! 가마솥 (Ga Ma Sot)

We maxed out on some chicken, and then it was time for a shower and getting ready for my trip in the morning! I'm going to Seoul! Stay tuned! I'm not going to bring my laptop with me to Seoul so I will update my blog on Thursday when I get back. Thanks so much for reading! See you guys soon.

Korean Word/Phrase of the Day: 백화점 (Bek Hwa Jeom) Department store! Yayyyyyy red velvet cake!

TL:DR I'm in Korea.