taiyaki...sweet red bean paste in the middle, surrounded by a chewy dough baked to a nice crisp on the outside. shaped like a fish. YUM!! i ate the other 2 while i was shopping at h mart. you get 5 for $3. :)

while waiting for the nice little korean ahjima to make my taiyaki, we chit chatted a bit. when she first saw me she started speaking to me in korean, but when i responded in english, she apologized and said she thought i was korean. i told her i was (in english) and said my korean is horrible. :( it's kinda embarrassing, but i have no one to blame but myself, since there really is little stopping me from learning to speak better korean. but she continued to talk to me, asking me if i lived nearby, if my family lived nearby. i told her my parents lived in california, where i'm from, and that they'd be out visiting for christmas. she said that i should bring my mom and come see her. hehe, she was very sweet.

when she first started talking to me in korean and i responded in english, i was almost hesitant, and thought about just busting out in my broken korean (which is just getting worse and worse). i had a sudden flash-back to the time i visited emc in chicago, about 4 years ago (wow, has it been that long?!). after we had soon dubu (soft tofu soup) for lunch, we walked next door to this han-bok (traditional korean dress) boutique. they had beautiful han-bok and we just wanted to look at them (obviously weren't in the market to buy one). anyway, we walked in the store and one of the 2 ahjima greeted us in korean. we said hi. she asked if we were korean, and we said yes. when we weren't speaking back to her in korean, she got all crazy-korean-ahjima-psycho on us and said "why don't you speak korean when you are korean?!" we just kinda shrugged her off and proceeded to look at the han-bok. when i touched one to move it aside on the rack, she snapped at us, "you said look, not touch!" that was our cue to leave the store. and fast.

that was the first time i really remember being harrassed for being korean and not being able to speak the language. it was a horrible feeling, and that mean ahjima made me feel about as big as an ant. it took me a while to get over that feeling, and being at h-mart today, it almost came back. maybe this ahjima was just super sweet and didn't care about that kind of thing. maybe it's cuz she's a DENVER ahjima. :) whatever it was, i'm glad she didn't take the energy to make someone else feel bad for no reason. i hope she remembers me when i go back with my mom!