Exchange Day 77 - Waffle

Breakfast wasn't much of a spectacle today, I scoffed down some waffle biscuits and that was it. You can imagine how starving I was when I finally went down the mountain for food. Every time I go down to study, I bring a lot of books with me that are bulky and heavy so I try not to bring my laptop along. Because of that, I normally finish everything I need to do on my laptop before I go down and that seriously takes a very long time.

I wanted to try a cafe different from yesterday's but the new cafe I went to rejected me for they had no more available cabins for lone customers. Why do you even need to split your cafe into cabins and fine, I'll leave.

So I had nowhere else to go, Cafe Bene was teeming with people and the other smaller cafes were closed (most of them), leaving me with no choice but no go back to Angel-in-us. So embarrassing I actually chose the exact same seat, but I don't think the staff remembers. I found out that they had those huge waffles that I was craving for so I ordered a plain waffle and a cup of strawberry tea for my overdued lunch.

Look at all these books, how to still bring my laptop along?

After an excruciating wait of ten minutes, my food was ready! The smell of the waffles drifted throughout the entire cafe as it was cooking, tempting me to go on a rage before the waffles were ready to be served. How I have missed that familiar scent! I'm surprised by my ability to pause for pictures despite being so hungry I could devour two horses.

A plain waffle costs 6,000W and comes with blueberry jam and frosted sugar. The strawberry tea cost 4,200W.

The waffle was soft on the inside and crispy on the outside, and absolutely delicious when paired with the blueberry jam. I took at least ten pictures before settling on this, I think if I took anymore I would have rampaged on the spot.

The tea was really fragrant, I felt like I was in a strawberry garden but tastes just like normal black tea. I recommend ordering hot drinks if you're planning to stay for long, because you can ask for refills of hot water and that gives you better value for money!

My friend came down early to meet me for dinner so I wasn't able to do much (partly because I spent so much time eating and doing nothing). I regret lugging those books down. We had no idea where we wanted to go for dinner so we decided to be adventurous and hopped on the next bus that came along.

The bus brought us to the Busan Station, where we found a Pyongyang (North Korean anybody?) cafeteria while we were navigating through its back alleys. We ordered a 따로 국밥 (pork soup and rice) to split so that we could afford to eat more at other places later. 국밥 usually comes with the rice already in the soup itself, but for people like me who are resistant to the idea of eating wet rice, 따로 국밥 is best for you as the rice and soup are served separately for the diner to mix at his own discretion. 따로 means 'separate' in Korean and is useful to ask for separate bills when dining with friends too.

The pork soup was kind of bland initially, but that's because you have to mix in the chives and shrimp paste that came along in the side dishes. It's up to the individual how much he wants to add in, but I'd recommend throwing the whole lot in as it makes the soup much more flavourful. Chives also boost the fibre count of the meal, which is really important if you don't eat the kimchi. There's essentially no more fibre.