Are you new to Korea (or planning to come) and want to know how to order food at one of the local eateries, or just know what it is? Do you live somewhere else and want to impress that beautiful waitress (or waiter, I guess) at your local Korean restaurant?

Well, despair no more, friends, because I'm going to give you the beginnings of a Rosetta Stone for ordering Korean food with style and aplomb and hopefully not too much embarrassed-for-you giggling.

The weather had been flawless for a good week after a miserable summer - unsmoggy blue skies, dotted with fluffy cumuli, hot sun cool shade. It was gorgeous; the sun spattered through the leaves as the wide trail wound its way up to higher heights, at a much steeper grade than our old daily walk in Gunpo. I got past the thundering-heart first ten minutes, and fell into the euphoric groove that exercise almost always brings, when I'm out in nature, senses heightened, brain clear.

It's pretty often the case that Teaching English in Korea involves very little teaching and not a whole lot of English. This is perhaps the most important thing about all this that nobody ever tells the newbies. In other words, for a very large proportion of people coming to Korea thinking they'll be teaching the English language, the reality is that they probably won't, really.