Ramen

In the any given supermarket in the States there is always a cereal aisle and an ice cream aisle, but here in Korea those items only have small nooks. Here there are aisles devoted to cooking oil, laxatives and ramen. The ramen in America is a staple for some college students, but here in Korea it's eaten by most of the country. And there is much more variety here too. The Top Ramen flavors I've seen in the States are chicken, beef, and shrimp. And they all taste the same to me.

My first trip to the supermarket here I decided to grab a bag (a bag has 5 individual packages). I picked one that had flames on it. I figured this meant it was spicy and I was right. The next time I went to the store I decided to try another flavor. There was a Korean man also looking for some ramen. He was taking alot of time to make his decision, so I decided I would get whatever he did. When a man puts five minutes into a decision for noodles you can almost guarantee it'll be a good decision. He picked a vegetable ramen that was delicious. Since those first two bags I have also had a bag of octopus flavored ramen and some flavored with garlic. All four have been excellent.

This past Wednesday, I was walking home from work. I realized I had nothing at home to fix for dinner so I decided to go to a mini-mart that has individual packs of ramen for sale. I browsed the chicken, beef, vegetable ramens and nothing caught my eye. I got into the seafood and I noticed one with fish on it. The fish were cartoons and that terrible smell of rotting fish came to my mind. I pushed the thought out of my mind because I figured that there is no way there would be a rotting fish flavored ramen. I went home and boiled the noodles. After four minutes the time had come to add the flavor packet. This is always my favorite part because the boiling water makes the smell explode throughout the room. So I opened the packet and dumped it into the water. Without hesitation I picked up the boiling noodles and dumped them into the sink. It was too late. The smell of rotting fish clung to my nose hairs, it infiltrated my clothing, and expanded to all the little crannies of my apartment. It even combined with the metal of my sink to create a new terrible smelling alloy. I can't believe there is someone out there who is able to choke down a whole bowl of this stuff. The smell was so strong that I think if I would have hesitated at all my central nervous system would have begun to shut down.