Aimlessness and Korean Food

Wandering around the city with Melissa.

On the train ride into the city, Melissa and I get on at different stations and have trouble finding each other. We spend the first part of the trip texting each other, trying to figure out which carriage the other is on. Turns out we were on the same carriage, a few seats away from each other the whole time! When we get to the city, we can't quite figure out what to do and end up wandering the streets for some time. I suggest the gallery and we hang around for a while, lying on the oddly shaped seats staring up at the stained glass ceiling.

I want to visit the music store, to buy another book of piano sheet music, so we head up to Burke Street. I walk out of the store with three new books. Down the street from the music store is one of my favourite bookstores in the city, a must visit whenever I am in the CBD. Upstairs, surrounded by the poetry and classics sections, I sit in the old leather armchair by the window, looking down through the boughs of a tree that has not yet lost its leaves. 

"Have you ever had Korean food?" Melissa asks, and I reply in the negative. She suggests a tiny little Korean restaurant back on Swanson street, a short walk away. I am not exactly enthusiastic (different food has not always been a good experience for me) but I am willing to try something new. The hostess shuffles us along a long wall of tables to one right in front of the kitchen. Looking around, I can't help but notice how distinctly we stand out. To order your food, you have to write down the numbers of what you want on a little card, then hold the card high above your head for a waitress to grab as she hurries past. It is an exciting and odd experience. We order fried chicken and a beef dish that Melissa says she has enjoyed before when she came with her sister. It doesn't take long for our food to arrive, sizzling and steaming on clean white plates. I try some of both dishes, but the fried chicken is by far my favourite. I have particular trouble eating with the chopsticks though, and the hostess comes and gives me a fork. "Is it that obvious that I don't know what I am doing?" I ask Melissa, who just laughs and expertly shovels beef and noodles into her mouth with bamboo chopsticks. The hostess never brings her a fork. 

After lunch, we spend time wandering the city, then get tiny cupcakes from a store on Degraves Street before catching the train home. It was a bit of a nothing day really, and we both felt the effects of not having a proper plan. I enjoy it anyway however, and think about where I might find Korean fried chicken back home for quite a bit of the train ride out of the city.