Korean is the main language spoken in South Korea. Many road signs have English translations, but English is only really spoken in Seoul, the capital.
The Korean won (KRW, ₩) is the currency of South Korea. There are four types of bills: the ₩1000 (blue), ₩5000 (red), ₩10000 (green), and ₩50000 (yellow). There are also four types of coins: the ₩1, ₩10 (which looks like a penny!), ₩50, ₩100, and ₩500. $1 USD is about ₩1435.
On average, a bottle of water costs about ₩1000, which is equivalent to about $0.70 USD.
The best meal I had this week was at a family-run restaurant in the countryside of Wonju, which has a name that translates to “Hometown House.” Because the restaurant is in a traditional countryside house, you take your shoes off when you enter the restaurant. You also sit on the floor to eat, with your legs crossed like a pretzel!
I ate with my high school principal, vice-principal, and seven other teachers at my school. We ate spicy tofu stew with various banchan (do you remember what banchan is?), like kimchi and spicy pickled peppers. There was also pan-fried potato jeon, which is a traditional Korean potato pancake.
