The Little Things
Aside from family, the thing I miss the most from home is food. There are plenty of western food chains here in Korea: Subway, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Popeye’s, Outback, Bennigans, TGIF, and Sizzler to name a few. Others have opened for a time and eventually gone out of business: Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Ponderosa and Golden Corral come to mind. Still, the fast food chains are missing items from the menu that I used to love back home. BK doesn’t have the broilers. McDonalds has no quarter pounder and the breakfast menu has been missing the McMuffins and hot cakes.
I loved McDonalds hot cakes as a kid and wish I could get them here. One location that I know of in central Seoul did serve them for a limited time. I stumbled across it by accident, but I don’t know how many other locations had them. None of them do now. The McMuffins were a sometimes thing for me, but in Korea I’ve been wishing I could get my hands on one. For once, a wish has come true.
The other day on my way to a morning class I was walking through a district near my house that is popular with foreigners, called Itaewon. The Itaewon McDonalds has been around longer than I’ve been in Korea. Because Itaewon is a popular late-night hang out for so many foreigners, the McDonalds store started staying open until midnight a few years ago (it was shortly after the midnight bar curfew was lifted by the government, but that’s another story). So as I was walking to class the other morning I saw a McDonalds ad on a sign that read: Did you miss us? In the center of the sign was a big McMuffin.
The Itaewon McDonalds has gone through a huge change. Now, it is two stories (it used to be on the second floor above a shoe store). It is now open 24 hours and serves breakfast from 5 - 11 am. And they have a few different kinds of McMuffins. I bought four of them that morning I was so excited.
McMuffins aren’t the best thing in the world, nor are they anything special. But the little things like that become much bigger when they are no longer available to you. Now, if Waffle House would ever come to Korea I’d be golden.
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