Pizza

I'm going to make a longer entry about Korean food once I get internet access at home, but I do want to mention pizza, because it's a little different.

I decided to go out and get pizza this weekend, because I was tired of eating carrots and mashed potatoes for supper. There are about a million pizza places in my neighborhood, so it wasn't too hard to find one. Pizza is "pija" here, by the way, because even though there isn't actually a "z" sound in the word, they seem to always replace letters they don't have with the combo "j/ch" sound they have. They could easily call it peet-sa, but no, pija.

I've had pija three times since I've been here--the first two were at Heather's place, delivered. I think I can safely say by now that all pija in Korea has the crust with the cheese inside that was really popular in the States for two minutes in like the 90s.

Pija comes with a little container of sweet pickles that you eat with a tiny fork. Some people take that fork and fold the tip of the piece of pija over onto the crust and eat it like that. You also get a packet of parmesan cheese and some hot sauce. It's strange.

When you pick up pija, they wrap a ribbon around it like a present, so you can carry it... more easily? I find that questionable. It looks nice, though.

Pija is expensive. I got a 10" (or so) bulgogi pija, which has beef and vegetables on it, and a half liter of Pepsi for 13,300 won. That's about $14. I guess it could be worse, but when you compare it to the 65-cent bowl of soup I get from the food stand on my street, it seems bad.