My morning so far. It's about 食醯 (shikhye).

I'm kind of forgetful and it's a blessing that I make it into the office dressed some days. (I forgot my laptop charger and I overslept, but made it to work on time. Luckily the computer department is über competent and lent me a spare charger.)

In the elevator this morning I met a pretty, older-than-me woman from some floor above me. She was adjusting her earrings in the mirror. Cool!
When I got in the elevator I pressed the button for First Floor. But, the elevator has this feature that I tend to forget about. If a floor is already selected and you select it, it unselects the floor. Of course, I did just that and the elevator didn't move for maybe 30 seconds afterwards. Then I realized I was in error and also doing something that could be interpreted as weird or creepy: AHHH! I wanted to scream SURE YOU'RE PRETTY, BUT I'M NOT LOCKING YOU IN THE ELEVATOR WITH ME. AHHH SWEAR!!!!
So, due to my automatic apologetic reflex I said in hapless Korean, "Sorry," which might have been uncalled for, but I don't know. Then the lady asked me what I was drinking (as I was holding a drink). I said, "Shikhye." She said, "How nice!" And so I said, "I like Shikhye." Then we got to the first floor and she said "Have a good day." I wanted to say "You too," but I didn't want to use "You," so I froze up and just did a tiny bow. Then we both tried to leave the elevator at the same time and both hesitated at the same time. I had been embarrassed ever since I got into the elevator, so I couldn't really get any more embarrassed by then, so it was ok.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhye

I think that Shikhye is a pretty good conversation starter. It is "Nostalgia Drink, Shikhye, Since 1994."
Such a sweet nice rice drink. It is malty and has lots of chewy, old-textured rice grains at the bottom, so it helps to shake it up. I want to describe the texture of the rice grains that have been sitting in sweet malty water for weeks. Maybe gristly? gnarly? noodley? It would be a good base for some gelatin, too. I also want to mix it with coffee as soon as I get the chance. I hope that lady doesn't think I'm a creep. I like Shikhye?