The last time I ask about culture.

Every year at Montreat, we have two new Korean exchange students.

Last year, we had Cheol and Jo. We met Cheol on his birthday, and got to talking.

He went on to tell us about how they celebrated birthdays in his friend group. They get many types of alcohol, ice cream, and some "treats" (We never really learned what he meant by "treats") and put them in a bowl and mix them together. All the guests put the mixture in their socks and filter it through them by squeezing it out (we later learn that people do it with their underwear and wash their hair in it too). They also throw in whatever else they want. Then, the birthday boy gets to drink it all and passes out.

After gagging and telling him that we couldn't provide that kind of birthday, we went and bought him a birthday cake from Ingles. It was a lot of fun. We started singing him "Happy Birthday," and when we got to the name part, we had forgotten his name already. From then on, we called him Crash.

(Our first option for a nickname was Chuckie, but he told us if we called him that, then he would kill us.)



Anyway.....


This year, we have Seong-ho and JaeYong.


We always ask about their culture (they actually do the birthday alcohol thing too...).
They started telling us about this Korean soda, called Milkis.
Apparently, it's a soda made with milk. MILK. From a cow.
We were disgusted, and upon their insisting, they made us some by mixing three parts Mountain Dew, and one part skim milk.
After much coaxing, we actually drank it, and you know what, it wasn't terrible.
It was kind of like a cream soda, or something. They also said that it wasn't as good as real Milkis.

it's real. who would have thought...

Note: I was also told that I have a CD-sized face, which is very attractive in Korea.

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Edit: These same Koreans were absolutely disgusted when I told them about carrot cake. 

"CAKE MADE FROM CARROTS!?!?!?!"