Remember how I said this post would be about my apartment?

I lied.

I will post a picture of my apartment building and the view from my room, as a teaser for whenever the apartment post comes. I have not yet taken picture of my apartment due primarily to its messiness and the hectic nature of my schedule which has me waking up at 6:45 a.m., at work until 4:30/5 p.m., sleeping and eating almost immediately there after. This is interspersed with bits of facebooking, blogging, and general cleaning, as well as errands that need to be run (getting internet, buying groceries, getting stuff for the classroom, etc. etc.). So my apartment is called C Palace, which, frankly, is hilarious to me because it is a far cry from a palace. Fortunately, my apartment itself, while not a palace, is still more than sufficiently big for little ol me. I have a loft that I pretty much never use (except for storing my luggage, vacuum, tv and dvd player) and then everything else downstairs. The big blue building in the picture is my apartment. It's actually two buildings, but I live in the one in the front, building A, on the 11th floor. It's an ugly color, frankly, but I make it work. At the bottom of the apartment, there are a couple restaurants (chicken & beer, a kimbab place, and another restuarant), a family mart (which is a convenience store chain), and an office for the apartments. The view from my apartment overlooks the port of Incheon, which sounds like it could be cool, but really is nothing short of LOUD and bright regardless of the time or weather. Come rain, wind, sleet or snow, the port is still going to be banging cargo and honking horns from 11 p.m. straight on through to 5 a.m., when it becomes inconspicuously quiet. This, to say the least, is inconvenient.

Anyways, so the real reason I am posting is because I wanted share with you something wonderful about Korea. This wonderful thing is waffles. Now, you may think to yourself, "Now Allison has really gone off the deep end on this one. We have waffles in the United States!" This is true, yes, but you do not have waffles like the ones in Korea. I don't know what it is, but they are amazing. Along with a couple dozen other street food vendors selling everything from chicken kabobs to really really crunchy french fries to silkworm larvae (which I DID try once at orientation) to dried squid and octopus tentacles to dokbokki (sp? rice cakes in spicy sauce) to WAFFLES. These waffles appear to be your standard-issue circular, non-belgian, traditional waffles. However, their scent as you walk unassumingly down the streets is simply overpowering. Wafting around your nose is the sweet scent of breakfast food, just a touch sweeter than that which you might find back in the Western World. These waffles are cooked in waffle irons right there on the street before your very eyes, pulled out and then slathered with light, fluffy whipped cream and sweet apple jelly, and folded upon themselves to make a little waffle sandwich of glory. All for 500 won, or just under 50 cents. I could eat about 30 of these if the lady could make them that quickly. They are served warm, and the jelly just melts and blends with the whipped cream and I swear to god it is the most delicious taste sensation I've had in a long time.

It could just be the familiarity of waffles in an unexpected environment that makes these treats so tasty, but by god, they are amazing. It is a good thing for my waistline that the food street vendors don't set up shop near my apartment (although if they did, they could make a serious KILLING), but rather near the subways station (which I happen to frequent at least biweekly).

If you come to Korea I will buy you a waffle. or two. or three. Maybe you won't love them as much as I do, but I think they are worth every won and then some.

That's all for now folks.

xoxo,
A