The people I've met here have been strictly limited to the people at my dad's new church. They are FANTASTIC and I love'em. I wish you YSY people could meet them and learn from them. All of them speak either decent or wonderful Korean, and they all speak perfect English. They have this really carefree attitude, but at the same time, they are incredibly respectful to the adults. And whereas Koreans on the East coast tend to ignore younger kids and not hang out with other age groups, the kids are so sweet to each other. And the older kids are so nice to younger kids. I wish I met them much earlier in life. And I like the way they speak-- It's not like they speak with drastic accents or anything, but I notice little things that make me smile :)

On our very first day we went out to the movies with our new friends. It was so easy to just get along and hang out! The mall we went to was huge. Another thing that was huge was the concentration of different kinds of Asians. It kind of made me feel uncomfortable--it was odd seeing so many Asians in a huge public setting. We live in this town called Surrey, and because there's a big Indian population in the area, the kids here dubbed a nickname: Surrey-Curry.

Speaking of curry, since there was a high demand for an entry on food, I guess I'll try to focus on that today. We haven't had much time to try out the different types of cuisine here, but here are a few things I've taken pictures of:

One of the first things our new friends wanted my siblings and me to try was Poutine, which is basically fries covered with gravy sauce and cheese. It sounds gross and looks gross, but apparently it's a Canadian favorite. It wasn't phenomenal or anything, but it was perfectly satisfying in a very unhealthy way. I know a few of you who would enjoy it.

Poutine

Some of you like to eat potato chips with ketchup. Well, in Canada, there's no need to do that because they have ketchup chips. That's right. Ketchup chips. It's just like sour cream-n-onion chips, only ketchup flavored. Again, I'm not a fan. They also have a flavor called all dressed chips. It's basically every flavor you can think of -- sour cream-n-onion, ketchup, cheddar, vinegar etc -- all on one chip. It's explosive. And my mouth was a little confused when I first tried them. But I think I might grow to like them.

We haven't had much of a chance to go out for dinner yet, especially because my dad is much busier, but my family went out to White Spot, our first Canadian restaurant on Monday. White Spot seemed like the typical family restaurant. Like a Friendly's or TGI's. The food wasn't that great, but I really enjoyed the appetizers! I guess, because there are so many Indian people here, the menu incorporated bits of Indian cuisine, along with the usual Italian and American food. For those who are familiar with Indian food, you'll know that you typically start with Naan bread. White Spot serves Naan bread with three different kinds of sauces-- spicy mayo, tomato lemony garlic stuff, and a creamy garlicy sauce (my favorite). We also started with sweet potato fries, which also came along with spicy mayo sauce. I was hesitant about the spicy mayo on sweet potatos but we ended up killing that dish in 5 minutes.

Naan Bread

Sweet Potato Fries with spicy mayo

There are a lot of Greek restaurants here, which is exciting since I've never tried Greek food. And I also heard that the seafood here is amazing.

I'll include more snippets about food as I slowly encounter them.