Report from Korea, Part 3
When you are traveling in a foreign country, you sometimes find words that aren’t in your dictionary. After leaving Jeonju, we went to a port city called Gunsan. One of the local dishes is “champon,” like Nagasaki “champon.” Gunsan noodles are spicy and full of seafood like mussels, clams, and squid. The restaurant near our hotel had a tablet for ordering. There were two pictures that looked the same, but the prices were different. The names were the same in Korean, but there was one more word after the more expensive “champon.” I couldn’t find the word in my dictionary, so we switched to the Japanese menu. The Japanese names were almost the same, but one was written in katakana and the other was written in hiragana. Why were the hiragana noodles more expensive? We decided to order both and see. When we got them, we saw that the hiragana portion was bigger. We finally understood! (156 words) You can send me a comment or your own story at jaremaga@gmail.com