Sunday, May 4, 2008

Hangari Daejigalbi

I went out for a drive with hubby. When we were hungry, we went to the restaurant to eat "hangari" (pot) "daejigalbi" (pork ribs). It is a franchise restaurant and you see this restaurants wherever town or City you live. The place that we've been to is a small City (I even couldn't believe that it's a City because it's small and there aren't many buildings) so when hubby told me that he would find that kind of restaurant, we found it easily. No sweat!

Here's the hangari daejigalbi. The pork ribs is in the pot with some shrimp, mushrooms, corn, potato, onions and rice cake to roast and the sauce. It is eaten with some vegetables like samgyopsal.



When i went to the restroom i saw this posted before you reach the restroom door.



Here's what is written: Dear foreign guests of Nolboo (restaurant's name) jip (house/ restaurant). You are now entering the "toilet" (Hwajangshil in Korean), which is the most general term in Korea, but long ago the work "Dwitkan" is a pure Korean word revealing Korean people's emotion. It was in the book titled "Wolinsukbo" published in the 5th year of King Sejo of the Yi Dynasty 538 years ago that the word Dwitkan was first used.

The word "Dwitkan" means literally a room at the back. Ancient Koreans preferred to dispose of a place for settlement of excrement backward rather than put it up forward. The "back" side has a special meaning to Korean as such. In reality, they make a clear distinction between the meanings of front and back, using the front as a word associated with the sense of light, spring, and revival while the back as one suggesting darkness and winter. There are such words as "Chungnang", "Cheukshi", "Tongshi", "Sugak" and "Booksoogan" meaning "toilet" besides "Dwitkan" for your information.

Check out the pictures in my Goindol (Dolmen) entry.

I thought the toilet looked like that in the picture but when i entered it was a modern toilet as what people use now a days. A toilet where you can wash your "mm" (for ladies) or "mm" (after taking a sh**) by pressing a button.

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