the best W1,500 I ever spent

Behold a Korean-style ice-cream sandwich:

Yeah, yeah—it's not the kimbap diet. I had to wait at a coffee shop to meet my contact at the Golden Goose today, which means I had to buy something in order to have the right to sit and wait. I saw "ice cream" on the menu for W1,500 (about $1.50 at the current exchange rate), so I ordered that. The guy said something about how the ice cream came with bbeongtwigi (puffed-rice snack shaped like a disc); I couldn't quite imagine what he was talking about, so I said, "Give it to me however you want." He shrugged, and out came the beauty you see above.

Even more beautiful, though, is that you're seeing only half of the full ice-cream sandwich. (I'd already eaten the other half.) The thing was huge, as large as my hand, and the price was exceedingly cheap. The ice cream was nothing more than soft-serve vanilla, but the textural contrast with the crunchy bbeongtwigi made for an entertaining eating experience.

The meeting with Golden Goose went well: I'm in as a part-timer, and I'm working with Dongguk to make this entire thing as aboveboard as possible. The Golden Goose is offering $1000/month (net, I think) for working there once a week, four times a month. That boosts my income from Dongguk by a factor of almost 1.5. I'll find a cheap place to live for a few months, put aside $1000/month for about five months, then use the accumulated cash to get myself some real, decent accommodations. Somewhere human. So: cramped quarters until wintertime. Koreans are famous for enduring their circumstances; that's a virtue I'll be cultivating (have been cultivating) as well.


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