Day 139 : Korean Craze

I had bumped into a Korean couple (Sujin and Wong Sang) last night in the main square of Cusco, whom I had met while I was in Puno and Uros, and we agreed to meet for lunch at a Korean restaurant at 2pm. 

So I invited Washuma to join me, his first time eating Korean food!

Food in Cusco seems to be on the more expensive side, and the Korean restaurant was no exception. 

It was a good thing they had lunch specials so we ordered Beef Bulgogi on rice.  As a typical Korean restaurant (it is run by Korean!), it came with a selection of kimchi, which was an extremely refreshing change from the typical South American food. 

When the Bulgogi came, it was a decent meal, but definitely not as authentic as I hoped it to be. 

Apparently according to my Korean friends, there is another Korean restaurant in Cusco, but run by locals.  Although Korean food hasn’t really caught on in Cusco,  there definitely seems to be a Korean craze in South America.

While in La Paz, the staff at the hostel I stayed in had mentioned that there is a craze on Korean drama series in South America, and though I didn’t quite believe it at that time, it sure seems to be the case as I ventured along the streets of Cusco. 

I happened to realise that a couple of the vendors were watching a Korean drama series on TV!  It was playing on national TV and for it to be shown during the so-called TV prime hour, it must really be popular.  It was dubbed into Spanish though. 

South America was one of the last places I would have imagined for the popularity of Korean TV series to reach!