Making Kimbap for the First Time

Watch me make my first roll of kimbap in this exciting edition of "My Dangerous Kitchen." Could I be starting a food empire? Will a kimbap-fusion food truck be rolling down the streets of your neighborhood soon? Only time will tell. But if you watch my hopelessly pathetic instructional video and visit your local k-mart (Korean Market, see what I did there?) you can make your very own roll of food-that-looks-like-sushi-but-isn't-sushi-at-all.

A love affair with a roll of rice.

I just realized that the title I just wrote for this post is a bit ridiculous, as a love affair with a roll of rice could certainly only be a one-time thing and it would be messy with potential for serious injury. What's with all the Korea posts lately anyway? The only thing I can say is that our time in Korea is evaporating. It seems like yesterday that we were dreading flying back from the US on our month-long winter vacation to visit family and friends to do a second year here. Now, I'm kind of dreading flying back to the US and figuring out just what to do with myself for a career. In fact, the figuring out should probably start sooner than later at this point. I'd rather write about the time we're spending in Korea so that I have something to look at in a year or two and say "Man, that was a hell of an adventure." Meh, none of this is the intended topic of this post. Today I want to talk about kimbap (or gimbap, depending on how you prefer to write it...I prefer the 'k').

Kimbap means literally, to my most educated guess "seaweed rice," and is often compared to the wonderful, incredible delicacy from right across the Sea of Japan that is so popular at home sushi (vinegar rice). Anyhow, It took me more than a year to really enjoy kimbap. It's not even really an acquired taste, it's just that you have to remove the thought of "I think this should taste like sushi" from your fat American brain before you dig in.

In true expat blog fashion, I will show you the formation of the word "kimbap" in Hangeul, so that you can think I'm super fluent in Korean even though I can't speak Korean but can read Hangeul because it's actually quite intuitive and has a lot of English cognates.


김- the green papery seaweed used to wrap kimbap and sushi, in the US we call it nori
밥- rice

There's a few different kinds of kimbap.

The most common, perhaps, is the regular kimbap roll, filled with cham-chi (canned tuna), bulgogi (marinated/cooked beef/pork), spam, or some other sort of protein, and then most likely mu (pickled radish), some sort of root-y looking thing, and mayonnaise. it's similar to an inside-out roll that you would buy in the US in the sense that the kim is on the outside. The outside of the roll is painted with sesame oil, and the rice isn't vinegary. This gives you a sweeter roll than you would expect, and the textures, especially that of the radish, are a bit more woody than you normally feel with a bite of rice. It took me a long time to actually want to eat kimbap, but now it's my go-to savory snack.

My favorite kind of kimbap gives you a bit larger kim:bap ratio, along with the opportunity for more exciting fillings. This is a triangular blob of rice with a protein either in or on the slab, completely wrapped in kim. In Japan they call these onigiri. I often pick one up after school, usually SPAM or tonkatsu filled. I genuinely love the idea of a tonkatsu filled kimbap, because a deep fried pork cutlet really can't go wrong. SPAM kimbap reminds me of the good old days in Hawaii when I would have SPAM musubi for breakfast. As far as a snack goes, it's not super healthy, but really there's a lot worse you could do than eat a 200 calorie blob of rice and protein, right?

My next exciting kitchen project, in fact, is going to be making kimbap. I might even take a cooking class at some point here in Korea (not might. I should. I definitely should.) Since I'm not really in a position to sign up for a class this very second while I'm motivated, I think I'll use this video as a guide. You can make kimbap in your own home, too!

Changes

It's been a little over one year since Carolyn and I left the comfort of home for an exciting (and sometimes not so exciting) new job and life in Korea. In the 365 days that make up a year, we've seen a bit of East Asia and Southeast Asia and we're starting another year long contract here, and that means changes. Press play on the video clip below and keep reading to the soothing sounds of Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.

One of the biggest, and definitely the saddest change, is that even though we've decided to stay for another year, our good friend BritBrit has decided that it's time to go back to school and become a teacher in Canada. Brittany will be a great teacher and we definitely wish her all the best. We're also quite jealous because she's going to be traveling through Southeast Asia for the next few months...and India...and the middle east. She's been Carolyn's closest friend here in Korea and had a big part in the engagement ring buying process and will hopefully be one of our close friends for a long, long time.

Carolyn's had to move to a new school, and so far it seems like a really positive move. Of course I get all of my information about her work from her, so I guess that's first hand. It's too early to tell, but so far it seems like there's a lot more upside than downside.

For me it seems to be mostly the same. We'll have a new principal, so that could mean some pretty big changes to my desk warming schedule and dress code, but my fingers are crossed that it won't be unmanageable.

In culinary news, we had yeongnyeom galbi, jjimdak, and kal-guk-su this weekend. Yummo.

Mmmm...Jjim Dak

A little over a year ago, when we first started thinking about coming to Korea for a year, we read a post on an expat's blog about Jjim Dak. It sounded quite good, with spicy steamed chicken, potatoes, and sweet potato noodles. The first time we went to a Korean restaurant together we tried to find it on the menu but had no luck. We looked for it on menus at every Korean restaurant we tried in the US before leaving, but it just wasn't there. Somehow, when we finally got to Korea, we forgot to find it, or only found it at times that we weren't looking to sit down and have a meal.

Carolyn's school just got a new teacher, and her great co-worker wanted to get together with the two of them and go out for dinner. Our first suggestion was Rama and Bavana, an Indian place nearby, but he doesn't like Indian Curry. Hyemin suggested we try Jjim dak, and we were both excited to give it a whirl, so last night we all met after school, took the subway downtown, and had a nice big platter of Jjimdak.

image courtesy of Hyunwoo Sun on Flickr 

One of the reasons we haven't tried Jjim dak on our own is that the portions are huge, way more than two people can handle, and because of that the price is a little higher than most meals we go out for here. With four of us it was perfect, pretty cheap at about 7,000won each and not too much food (but certainly enough).

The flavor is what the jjim dak is all about. It has a spicy soy flavor, but it seems to me like the sauce has been reduced to a thicker consistency. There are red chilis, carrots, zucchini, and potatos along with the chicken and noodles. Sweet potato noodles are more dense, and I felt like I needed to be sure to bite through each bite of noodles completely or else I wouldn't be able to swallow them without choking. The meal was quite satisfying and certainly kept me nice and full until I woke up this morning.

I'm pretty certain we'll be going back out for jjim dak in the near future, and trying some other local delicacies.

Back to Busan

I haven't been to Busan since we finished our orientation week in February. Carolyn has been back once or twice to visit Brittany, our friend from orientation, but otherwise we've not managed to get south on a weekend. We ended that streak of bad luck this weekend! Brittany invited us down to go to a baseball game (a wild experience that one must add to the list while living in Korea), and to a drink mixing contest at a GS 25 convenience store near Pukyong National University. More on that later.

Fountain Park at Busan Station

Carolyn at the jjajamyang restaurant

Mandu

Saturday morning we slept until about 9:30am and headed to Daegu Station to catch the Mugungwha train to Busan. This is the slowest, cheapest train, but it only takes about an hour and a half to get to Busan, for 7,000W. That's cheaper than a bus ride to Mt. Palgongsan, well, nearly cheaper. The ride was easy and smooth, and we arrived at Busan Station right at lunch time. Brittany took us out for jjajamyang (noodles with black bean sauce) and steamed mandu (pork dumplings). The dumplings were good, but the homemade noodles were my favorite part. After the large large meal we headed to a street vendor for what amounted to  a freshly fried patty of funnel cake batter (well, not really but it's the best explanation I can come up with) filled with sugar, sunflower seeds, and nuts. It was the best thing I've eaten in at least a week.

Lotte Giants at the bat

Doosan Bears Fans

Cool street view from the stadium

After lunch it was time to head to the stadium to see the Lotte Giants battle the Doosan Bears. Baseball teams in Korea are owned by the big, big companies, and the crowds don't cheer for the "Giants" or the "Bears" but rather for Lotte, Doosan, Samsung, Kia, or whatever company owns the team. It's something that wouldn't fly with the public at home, but when the same few companies make EVERY product you use, including the home you live in, it might be a bit different, no? The crowd was a spectacle worth the low price of admission. Every cheer was coordinated and in perfect synchronization. The intensity, ferocity, and synchronicity of the cheers was something I haven't witnessed before. The teams didn't seemed very well matched, as Lotte was up 8-2 by the end of the fifth inning when we left to attend to the important business of a GS 25 drink making contest.

GS 25 is a convenience store that sells pretty much what any convenience store you're accustomed to would sell: drinks like coke, beer, hard liquor, soju, wine, seju, plum wine, champagne, milkis, coffee, and capri suns; and snack foods like fried chicken, roasted squid, and those lovely Crunky candy bars. Since I knew this was going to be a contest I decided to keep it simple and make a variation on a Cuba Libre, simply using whatever limeade was available instead of lime juice and subbing soju for the rum. It was a hit, and we unofficially won the contest. Sadly the rest of the evening is somewhat of a blur of dancing, darts, beer, and making fun of interesting fashion choices.

We headed back to Daegu today after a relaxed day of sleeping, eating, and generally being lazy (that's what I did, you can check out Carolyn's blog for the details on her day when she posts them) and now we're laying in bed. Carolyn's asleep and I'm blogging. It's a tough life we live here, but someone's got to do it.

A Colorful Weekend in Colorful Daegu

This weekend we decided to stay in town and simply enjoy our surroundings a bit, and try to get a bit more familiar with more of the food options available to those of us lucky enough to live in Daegu. Friday after work found us heading downtown. I met Babehoney at a Davinci Coffee shop in the Jungangno underground shopping plaza and we headed up to the street level to find something interesting to eat. We did a complete circle starting at Gorilla Burger looking for something that would pique our culinary curiousity (we decided on Turkish Kebabs and forgot about them during our circle) but ended up back at the Gorilla Burger. I had the Hawaiian Burger and it tastes JUST LIKE a teriyaki burger I would have had when I lived in Kona. I like their fries too, because they serve them with ranch dressing. Not something you see too often here. The walls are decorated with velvet painting renditions of Abraham Lincoln, President Obama, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and a few others. All in all I'd give Gorilla Burger a 9/10 because it's a really good American style burger at a really decent price with cool ambiance.

After eating we stumbled upon the Dongseongno Festival where we watched some hip hop groups perform and a couple of singers. It was a cool thing to happen upon, and it made for a complete Friday evening. I typically find these kinds of festivals irritating, but this one was really well produced and the weather was perfect for watching something like this. A quick stop at the Kyobo bookstore to look for travel guides (for our upcoming vacation in August) and we were on our way home.

Saturday we cleaned the apartment up really well and then once again made our way downtown. We remembered that we had forgotten to get kebabs so we made our way over and had a couple of them at the Turkish place. I'm kinda surprised at how many Turks live in Korea, but it's a good thing they do because I imagine that otherwise it'd be damn near impossible to find Mediterranean food. The kebabs were pretty good, but I think I prefer the Greek gyros a bit better. I had lamb and Babehoney had chicken. Once again a very inexpensive meal, but cool nonetheless. I'll give the Kebab place a 7/10 good meal, good price, but not super amazing.

After lunch we made our way to the CGV and got tickets to see Source Code. I thought the movie was really good. Usually I don't like those "you figure it out" kind of movies, but this one was pretty good. I especially liked the ending because it jived with what little I know of quantum physics and made for a good warm fuzzy feeling. We made our way home and picked up a box of fried chicken and cheesesticks from the BBQ Chicken. I think the delivery driver/cashier/owner guy was impressed with my upgraded (barely) Korean from the last time I was there. Definitely the best fried chicken evar. The rest of the evening we spent watching movies in bed.

Today we woke up at about 9:30, cleaned the hamster cages, had a light lunch of a tuna sammich (by the way, if you're out of mayo and you have cream cheese in the fridge...it works...) and made our way to the Daegu National Museum to see the National Geographic photo exhibit they have right now. Actually, today was the last day. The photos were amazing, and the exhibit itself was really attractive. It was very crowded and here in Asia there's less personal space, so it was a bit uncomfortable, but definitely worth all of the queuing we did to see the photos. We took a quick lap through the permanent collection, mostly old bronze and iron tools and weapons, some armor, Buddha statues, and a miniature Confucian academy, and headed back downtown. When we got downtown we decided to try a place we spotted on our aforementioned lap of downtown and walked over to Italy Italy. I was excited to see things like farfalle, fettuccine, alfredo, bolognese, and other non-spaghetti Italian style pastas on the menu. I was even more excited when the first forkful of my fettuccine/farfalle alfredo was real alfredo sauce and not "cream sauce spaghetti" like you can find anywhere else. It was awesome, and not too expensive at all. Worth every single of the 12,000 won we each spent on dinner.

This weekend was so productive, and we're really happy to know that we can now easily access the following comfort food categories: Mexican, Mediterranean, Italian, and good old American burgers. The past two weekends of exploring Daegu have been fairly calm compared to our trips to Seoul, but certainly they have made the city seem a bit less backwater (how can a city of 2.4 million people feel like a backwater? ...compare it to a city of 20 million!) and full of conveniences we didn't know were even here (oh yeah, we found a TGIFridays downtown too...in the Lotte Department store.)

I'll see if I can add some videos to this post at a later time...uploading to US based websites like blogger takes forever on our internet connection and it's time for bed.

Sport Shopping in Seoul

I can't believe how far behind I've gotten on my blogging. Oh well. Babehoney and I took a weekend trip up to Seoul a couple of weeks ago for Buddha's Birthday, and it was a great time. After arriving and checking in to the guesthouse we were staying at, we headed over to Gwanghwamun square because there were several festivals going on in the city that we wanted to check out and that was a central point to all of them. We walked through the Hi Seoul festival, and then did some sport shopping at the H&M and a few other stores where we actually found some clothes big enough to fit us!

After an afternoon of shopping we headed over to the Buddha's Birthday Lantern Parade, a heck of an event that featured huge lanterns and thousands of smaller ones marching down the streets to the sounds of Buddhist chants, samulnori groups, and other traditional musical groups.

We were pretty wiped after the parade so we headed back to our guesthouse and crashed a bit early. The next morning we woke up and had to change rooms in the guesthouse, so we needed to stay in the area until our new room was ready. We found a cafe that served gourmet burgers and hot dogs and had a great lunch. I ordered 2 hot dogs, not realizing that the dogs would be foot long ones and that the toppings were taken to an extreme level. We ate everything, re-checked into the hotel, and then went about our adventures for the day.

On the way back we stopped for a spot of tea at the Hello Kitty Cafe. It was amazingly...cute. And the green tea latte and brownies we ordered were very good. I had read many bad reviews of the Hello Kitty Cafe, but I have to say that in my experience I'd recommend it. 

We tried to hop a bus to Insa-dong, but somehow missed the stop and ended up on the northwestern outskirts of the city. After spending a bit of time finding our way back to Insa-dong, we shopped around for local wares and looking at the dudes playing flutes and stuff. We enjoyed an ice cream waffle (wow, waffle with ice cream, bananas, strawberries, caramel, chocolate, etc...huge) and a lemonade, and then moved along to the Buddha's birthday lantern festival, where we made lanterns for ourselves.

After the festival we decided to try and find some ethnic cuisine that wasn't, well, Korean...so we looked through a city guide and found a place called Dos Tacos in Seoul Square. It was the only business open in the Square when we arrived, and the food was pretty convincing. We stuffed ourselves on Mexican cuisine, and hopped a train to the other side of the river where we wanted to check out a fountain show that plays off of a bridge. 

We saw the lights of the show as we approached, but we arrived after the last show ended. Nothing to be sad about though, as the Han river is a mighty river that is cool enough to look at on its own. We sat there for an hour or so watching Korean couples and families play in the darkness. This country is very different as you don't feel the need to look over your shoulder constantly at night when you're in a dark place. In fact, it seemed strange to see people playing basketball and children riding bicycles so late at night, but it's Korea, and everything is different here!

The next morning we headed for the Seoul Zoo. I found the zoo to be fairly nice, with better treatment of the animals than I would have imagined. It was a little startling however how little, umm, fencing there was for some of the big cats. I thought the Tigers might not have a problem getting to us if they really wanted to...but I'm no expert. We spent the day at the zoo, and although it threatened to rain on us all day, it only managed a few sprinkles at the very end of our time at the zoo.

After the zoo we headed over to the Coex mall to grab dinner (we went to TGIFridays, if you think we're crazy for getting western food in Korea when we have the opportunity, you've never lived somewhere where it's not always easy to find your old favorites...) and see the aquarium. Unfortunately after our meal the aquarium was only open for another couple of hours, so we didn't go. It was a bit expensive for only 2 hours. We did do a bit of shopping though. I bought a man-bag and a hat, and Babehoney got some jeggings. I also splurged on new headphones. They had a Nintendo store, but it was very expensive and they didn't have a 3DS, so it was of little interest.

The next morning it was raining cats and dogs. We grabbed breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. I had a banana donut, chocolate donut, and tomato/carrot glazed donut. I'm not so hot on the tomato/carrot glazed kind ;). After breakfast we walked over to Cheongyeonggung Palace where we spent most of the day. Seeing a palace like this devoid of tourists is awesome, and the rain made the experience unique. It was easy to imagine wearing those ornate, shiny robes and sitting in a palace like this making policy decisions and deciding who should be executed by slicing.

On the way back to the train station we made 2 stops. One was for Japanese curry, and it was really good, but not super notable. The other one was at the Hello CAT Cafe. Not the Hello Kitty Cafe. Hello Kitty Cafe was pink with Hello Kitty faces everywhere. Hello Cat cafe was much more plain, with CATS everywhere. For 8,000 won you get a drink and admission to pet the cats. There were probably about 15 of them and some of them were more snuggly than others, but it was really nice to borrow a kitty for a while and get some furry animal petting time in. They even had a sphinx, which was pretty cool. Hairless cats feel a bit like plucked chickens in case you're wondering.

At the end of the day we hopped on board the KTX and sped back to Daegu for a short workweek. In fact, last Friday was teacher's day. All of our classes were shortened so that teaching hours ended at 12:30, and I received a flower and two really cute letters from two of my students. Some people were loaded down with ricecakes and stuff, but I'm plenty happy with two handwritten letters instead...ricecakes aren't really my thing :). 

After such a big weekend we didn't have a whole lot of energy to do much other than go to work and taekwondo, but we made it to 3 classes last week and now the master has offered for us to take a promotion test on May 28th. Last weekend we stayed in town and spent some time in public parks reading books, doing a bit more sport shopping and searching for new restaurants. We found one called "The Holy Grill" that actually has respectable Mexican food. All of the servers speak perfect English and it's a good escape from the normal Daegu places we go. It's worth every single of the 16,000W for the enchilada or chimichanga too! Now, off to plan the next big adventure.

Home Cooking, Korean Style

Tonight we had the awesome experience of having a home cooked feast thanks to Carolyn's coworker Hyemin. Hyemin invited us over to her parents' house for a meal as her parents wanted to meet us. Her father picked us all up near our apartment block at about 6:30 and drove us the short distance over to their apartment. Their apartment is on the 14th floor and has an amazing view of Sangin-dong with a beautiful mountain backdrop.

The menu included bulgogi (by far the best bulgogi I've ever had), kimbap (similar to maki-zushi), fried vegetables, salad (grown on their balcony garden), and pickled radish wraps with various fillings. It was absolutely delicious...mashissoyo even! It reminded me to no small extent of the Anthony Bourdain No Reservations episode where he has dinner with his intern's family in Korea. We talked even though we don't speak the same language, enjoyed incredible food that tasted so full of the pride that it was made with, and got to spend time with a mom and dad. Even though they aren't our mom and dad it was nice to be around them for a bit and feel "under the wing" of a parent for a little while.

After the meal we relaxed on their enormous couch, and took a few pictures. Unfortunately Mr. J isn't in the photo with me because he was taking the picture, but Mrs. J was so cute when she said she wanted to sit next to me "because I'm handsome" that I had to include this photo.

Like any mother, Mrs. J wouldn't let us leave without leftovers to take home, so sitting in my refrigerator are 3 rolls of kimbap, and about a pound of her amazing kimchi. I don't think I've ever had homemade kimchi until tonight, and it is infinitely better than any other kimchi I've ever tasted. It actually tingles when it hits your tongue, and the flavor is just gorgeous. I could not believe how good it was, and with my pound of kimchi I'm going to make kimchi fried rice, kimchi jjigae, and all sorts of good food to munch on.

This was one of the coolest things I've ever done, and I think I'll remember this meal for a very, very long time.

Climbing Mt. Apsan

This weekend, Babehoney and I, along with Laotia and a new friend Leeds went to Mt. Apsan park. This park is only about 6 or 8 subway stops from our station, and maybe a half or three-quarter mile walk from the station to the park entrance. Although I wasn't certain how strenuous the hike would be, I packed 2 liters of water, brought my jacket and my large backpack which was big enough for both mine and Babehoney's coats. I've also learned that in Korea you should take toilet paper with you everywhere, as there probably won't be any in public restrooms should you need it.

We got to the park and began our trek upward. The trail went from a very steep, paved trail to a very steep, unpaved trail in a hurry. We stopped for a bit at one of the outdoor gyms where we had fun trying some of the funny fitness equipment. I found that I'm far too big for most of the equipment, so now I have a great excuse to not use it. After our short "break" we continued upwards where the mountain became much more of a vertical affair. As we neared the peak we found a staircase with rope railings and climbed our way to the ridge.

Once we reached the ridge we saw two signs, one pointed to Apsan Jeong Sam, which would be Apsan summit, so we headed in that direction. We found a peak and enjoyed the view for quite a while. I really find it interesting that the view of a verdant valley turns so suddenly into a city cradled in the valley. After a while we noticed that the wind had turned cold, and decided to head down the mountain. We found another trail down and made our way to the valley trail.

The valley trail led us along a lower route to the park entrance, and on the way I was happy that we passed a Buddhist Temple. I'm not sure the name of the temple, but it was quite smaller than the ones we visited on Mt. Palgongsan several weeks ago. It seemed to have people inside doing religious things, so we left them well enough alone and continued back towards the city.

By this point we were all very hungry. At the park entrance we found a place with street food. I tried the chicken on a stick (which I will buy ALL THE TIME now), Babehoney had grilled corn, which was interesting. The corn kernels seemed much more starchy than corn from home, so they were much chewier. Leeds also had the chicken on a stick, and Laotia had a corn dog, which she refused the sugar dip on (good move for her.) This was enough to tide us over until we could find a real meal.

We walked into town and the first restaurant we saw with happy cartoon animals on the window looked like a good enough place to stop. It had a chicken and a pig on the window, and I ordered the "Han ma li" which turned out to be sliced pork that you grill at the table, seaweed soup, kimchi, and vegetables. Not a bad meal. Especially since the four of us split the cost at exactly 5,000 won each. Nothing quite like eating a nice meal for less than $5 US.

We got on the train and Leeds headed the opposite way while the rest of us made our way back to Sangin-dong and Daegok-dong. When we neared our own apartment, Babehoney wanted to try one of the street waffles they sell everywhere here so we got 2 of them. They were really good, and filled with apple butter and whipped cream. We made it home, watched a few episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" and called it a night.

Korean Vietnamese Fusion

I don't know the name of the restaurant, but the day I moved to Daegu my coteacher took me and the irishman out for Korean-Vietnamese fusion. It was unreal. I finally located the restaurant and tonight Babehoney, the downstairs neighbor, and Laotianiqua went out and tried it out. It was just as good.

We ordered the big combo platter thing. It was 16,000W each, which is crazy expensive for Korea, but we had more than our fill of samgyeopsal, veggies, and a seafood hot pot that included many squid, octopus, prawns, and shellfish. The best part though are the do-it-yourself springrolls. You decide what goes in them, roll them, and then dip them into 3 kinds of sauce to your taste. It's the most fun restaurant I know in Daegu.

Anyway here is a pic of me about to tear into an overcooked octopus.

Here's a shot of the table with the grill/boiler in the middle, the wrapper sauce in the bowl, and various sauces.

Date Night in Daegu, and a note on perspectives.

Last night Babehoney and I had a bit of a date night in the urban paradise of Daegu. Maybe "paradise" is overstating it a bit, but there's nothing wrong with liking where you're at, eh? Now I will regale you with tales from our night out. We get off of work at 4:30pm. We met back at the apartment building, changed into non-work clothes, and headed down to the subway station. We took the train down to Jungangno station and without even leaving the confines of climate control worked our way to the top of the Lotte Young Plaza where the CGV cinema is. We got tickets for the next showing of Battle: Los Angeles and realized that we had 2 hours to find dinner, do some banking, and shop around a bit.

We had dinner at Mi Buono, an "Italian" restaurant next to the movie theater. They serve spaghetti of various varieties and pizzas. We had a tandoori chicken pizza and a honey gorgonzola pizza. They were both really good, but there wasn't much gorgonzola flavor in the honey-gorg. We were happy to find a pizza place that doesn't suck and isn't too expensive. Yay!

After dinner we headed over to the Korea Exchange Bank because I needed to wire about a thousand bucks back to the US. The amazing thing about KEB is that I can make my international wire cheaply and either from home or the ATM. I didn't have my online bank account set up with them yet, so I did it at the ATM. A few button presses and 1,500,000 wons made their way to the USA. It didn't happen instantly though and I was a bit worried, so I went back to the bank today and double checked everything and set up my online banking. Sweet. I also found out that there was a favorable change in the exchange rate and instead of sending about $1,200 home I sent more like $1,325. That's cool.

We explored the downtown shopping options a bit. Babehoney got some new converse hi-tops, and I mainly watched as there are really no clothes or shoes that would fit me here. Downtown really lights up at night with tons of neon. We stumbled by either a church service or a protest of some sort. Everybody was singing along with someone on a stage and holding candles in front of a banner that was all in Hangul. Interesting site, if nothing else.

We made our way back to the theater and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed Battlefield: Los Angeles. What a great flick. It wasn't the standard formula of build tension, alien attack, amazing comeback by humanity. It started straight in on the action. Yes, it was cheesy. Yes it was cliche. Yes I loved it. I'll definitely be buying the Blu-Ray combo pack for this one when it comes out in the US. Well, when I move back to the US and have a TV that makes it worth buying the Blu-Ray again.

We had a little bit of a rush to get to the subway station (just below the movie theater about 9 floors) before the last train, but we made it on and had an uneventful ride home. What a nice evening.

In unrelated events, I bought my first video game since moving to Korea. I got Bulletstorm for the PS3. I had read a lot about the game and thought it would be fun, and the decision was extra easy to make because it was only 40,000W and the only game in the store in English. Decision made. It's a really fun game filled with profanity, dirty double entendre, and remote controlled dinosaurs complemented by over the top gore. There's not much to not like about it.

Ah, my note about perspectives. Living in Korea has done this amazing thing for me. It made me realize that my own country is kinda cool. Sure, the US is cutting corners on some really important things like education, the economy is horrible, and people who spent big money to get degrees are kinda screwed because there's no jobs in many fields and they're graduating with a fair amount of school debt. But, there's a lot about our country that's good. Special education in schools is a big one. That's not offered in every school here and parents can opt out. I like the inclusivity and diversity of the US too. Korea is not bad by any means, but everyone here is Korean less a few foreigners. This doesn't bother me as I'd usually just watch society pass me by, but sometimes I wish people didn't look at me like I have a giraffe crawling out of one of my ears on the subway :). I know I won't eyeball foreigners in my hometown anymore after my experience here.

It's very interesting as an ex-pat to get the outside view of your own country. You can definitely see things that are embarassing or could possibly make life more difficult for you when you live overseas. You definitely want the government's foreign policy to not be unilateral and offensive on a global scale, and you're definitely proud when your country handles things right, and when they're on the scene immediately to provide aid when something horrible happens in a third country like Japan.

Anyway, that's the note on my perspective, and I told you all about date night in Daegu. I'm sorry that there's no fun pictures for this post, maybe I'll do something more picture worthy this weekend :).

Being my own Anthony Bourdain

I have enjoyed Anthony Bourdain's television series "No Reservations" for quite some time. I remember two or three years ago having the flu, and watching his episode about Korea while I was waiting for someone to un-double park my car so I could go to the doctor. I remember seeing him eat some really exotic foods and thinking "if I ever went there I would do the same, because he is too freaking cool." Then his episode on Osaka came on and I found my two favorite episodes of his show, all in one miserable afternoon. I've always wanted to have that kind of experience, but Tony has always had one up on me because he has a local with him everywhere he goes to do the ordering and show him how whatever he's eating is supposed to be consumed. That's what I was missing...until last night.

We went out for a Daegu specialty with my coworkers, makchang. Makchang is basically grilled pork intestine dipped in a really spicy and flavorful sauce. Carolyn and I went to the dinner with a bit of trepidation because well, the concept didn't seem so appealing. Once the grill was on and the butts were on the grill though...well things were a little different. They weren't bad at all! In fact, I kinda liked them! We also had samgyeopsal (which was particularly good at this place) and lamyeon (Korean ramen) and plenty of beer. It was a fun outing and after that I figured we would go settle in at home to get an early start on the weekend resting...but just as in the Korea episode of No Reservations, there was to be no break. We piled into the music teacher's car and headed to Sangin-dong for another...MEAL!? We had seriously eaten about 2 pigs and that apparently was not enough, so it was off to eat a raw cow. Well, not a whole cow. Just the meaty bits.

Here I am throwing a munch on some makchang

Our table at Uncle Jang's Makchang

At the new restaurant plates of marinated and raw beef were served. You apparently dip these in different sauces and eat them...raw. When in Korea, eat as the Koreans do, I always say. So I dug in. It tasted a bit like sushi, but one of the marinated varieties was particularly good. I tried everything. Raw beef, raw beef liver, Korean snails (raw), beondaegi (marinated silkworms), and raw beef stomach lining. Not everything was something I would order again on purpose, but nothing was really too scary. The silkworms were not nearly as gross as I imagined they'd be. They tasted a bit like they looked (kinda like the top of a pecan pie, plus dirt). The snail was not my thing, too sandy. The raw beef liver was a bit too ookie for me, but I choked it down anyway. The raw and marinated beef bits though were pretty yummo. Oh, and the stomach lining, not really my thing.

The spread at the Raw Beef House of Joy

Me, the Irishman, and one of my Co-Teachers

About to dig into some beondaegi

After the majority of eating was done and bottles of soju were nearing their way to emptiness another great idea emerged. Drinking games! Now, I've always thought that drinking too much with coworkers was a bad idea, but these people were lots of fun and the odds of having to drink in their games were a bit lower than in American drinking games, so I didn't have to get hammered to participate and have a good time. Hopefully I earned some credibility and bonded a bit, and I feel like I know quite a few of my coworkers a bit better. I bet I'll get more hellos and such in the hallways at school now for sure :).

The only way last night could have gotten more epic would be if we had gone to a no rae bang (singing room, karaoke) and somehow carried the party all the way into the morning. That would have been the complete Korean Nightlife Megapack. Perhaps next time!

I guess I've learned that maybe I should be a little less of a homebody and join in on the late night fun a bit more. Last night was a complete blast and I can't wait to do it again. I believe I have a date with the English department next Friday.

UFOs in Korea

Today I coined a new term to use in my life here in Korea. UFO...no, not the alien spaceship kind, but rather the kind that often appears in my school lunch, at the food stalls on the street, or even as bahn jahn with a nice meal. Unidentified Food Object. UFOs are sometimes great, like Mung Bean Jelly was before it became a Named Food Object. Some of them are not so great, and these usually appear in meals from the school cafeteria. Here are a few memorable ones from this week.

1) It looks like noodles, but no, those aren't sesame seeds, they're EYES! You're eating tiny, clear, BIG EYED fish. These often come with some sort of sweet seasoning and almonds. They have a gag factor of about 6/10. I haven't had the opportunity to photograph them, but I'll get a picture one day. When I see these on the kids' trays in the cafeteria my heart sinks because I'm going to be hungry all afternoon. It's hard to describe the flavor, I think they fit the idea of "it tastes like what you dip it in," but the texture is somewhere between copper wire and cardboard. And they look at you.

2) It also looks like noodles, but I don't know WHAT it is. Probably some sort of candied radish? These are difficult to eat because they're kind of pointy and don't want to go into your mouth easily. They taste like...I don't know, candied radish maybe, but the texture is quite similar to the tiny fish described above. They have a low gag factor though, I'd say maybe a 2/10.

3) It looks like pineapple chunks, but covered in kimchi paste. And it tastes like...candied radish...in kimchi paste. It might actually be candied or pickled radish in kimchi paste. Very low gag factor unless the bite is too big (there's no cutting your bites when you eat with chopsticks.)

4) That orange-ish brownish stew. You put the stew in your bowl and then cover it with broth. I believe this might be called dubu jigae, but I'm not sure. Usually there's lots of cabbage, onion, and radish leaves, chunks of something that looks like blood sausage made of tofu and there might sometimes be hot dogs or SPAM in it. I like it better with hot dogs and spam. The gag factor varies between a 1/10 and a 6/10 depending upon the ingredients.

5) Those long black things that look like noodles or black green onions. I don't have a clue what these are. The texture is similar to what the texture of a much larger tiny fish would be, the flavor is "whatever you dip it in" and it often occurs on bibimbap day. Strong gag factor 5/10. I also get sad when I see this.

6) The leftovers fried rice. You can usually tell most of what's in it. But it's never good news. Usually it's the leftovers of all the items mentioned here at the end of the week. You can't blame the school food service for using everything it buys, but you'd better eat a big breakfast when this rolls around. High gag factor 8/10.

It's really funny because I used to be quite the picky eater, but now I'm happy if it has tentacles because at least I have a clue as to what it is, and if it has leaves I know it doesn't have eyes. It's the UFOs that cause my gag reflex to warm up.

Dining with the Teachers, and Haggling like an Arab Trader

Last night I went to the welcome dinner for all of the new teachers at my school. What an interesting experience. It was a very good traditional Korean food restaurant with a long dining hall. All of the teachers showed up and started eating. There must have been 16 courses or more. I remember distinctly red bean paste soup, kimchi oysters and bean sprouts, rice noodles with soy glaze, pickled radish roots, fried chicken breast pieces topped with Korean red pepper sauce and lettuce frisee, a salad with mango dressing, freshwater fish caked with red pepper, marinated salmon, seafood jigae with crabs and prawns, bulgogi, ddok boki, and more. After a while an announcement was made that all the new teachers were to get up and introduce themselves. All the teachers talked for a bit and the other native English speaker said "what do you think we should say?" I replied "I'm not sure." Finally the mic was in my hands and the crowd cheered (led by my awesome co-teacher, of course.) I said "Hello! (cheers) Charlie im-mi da, mi-guk eso im-mida. That's all the Korean I know for this type of situation, so I'll just say I'm very happy to be here and excited to work with you all." As soon as I started speaking in Korean all of the teachers said "oooOOOOOOoooooo." They sounded a bit like the kids do if I mention the fact that I have a girlfriend. It was fun. After we sat down the P.E. teacher came over and started pouring beer for us and then ANOTHER course of food came out. This time it was a whole grilled fish with about 4 different bahn-jahns, a bowl of rice, and sheets of kim (nori) to wrap the rice in. At this point I could hardly eat or drink anything more, so I was quite thankful when the party ended and we all headed home. What a night!

Today was a nice day off. We were both pretty tired last night. I fell asleep while we were watching the most recent episode of America's Next Top Model last night and woke up this morning at about 8:30am when Babehoney's phone was ringing like crazy because someone had the wrong number. Boy were they puzzled when she said "ani-yeyo hangugo" which means "no Korean no Korean." It's the best we could come up with for the situation.

At any rate, the big adventure for the day was to go to Gyodong Electronics Market, a pretty vast area of downtown, to find a new power converter. On the way we stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts because Babehoney loves their coffee to no end and wanted a little taste of home. The donut flavors were interesting. Spinach, vegetable, and olive flavored donuts were all over the place. I had a banana filled donut (it was okay) and a peanut crunch donut (which was omg[ood]), while babehoney enjoyed her honey fritter. It was quite enjoyable, and gave us just enough energy to make it to Gyodong Market where I tried to haggle in Korean. It went pretty well even though the guy wouldn't move off of his super low price of 15,000W for a huge converter box. With dreams of an evening playing video games in my head we walked downtown from Gyodong Market and stopped in at the Kyobo bookstore. This is a massive bookstore that covers many floors of a huge high rise building and has a large English selection. Underneath the store in the Jungangno station shopping plaza was a huge stationery store where we spent a while picking out some stuff we needed for work and around the house. I found some sweet Domo-kun paper to write letters with to the nieces and nephews but decided to save that purchase for another day.

We were hungry again, so as luck would have it I sniffed our way to the Irish Potato, a french-fry restaurant where you get fries and toppings. It was okay, but the corn dogs we found on the street afterwards were awesome and way cheap. We looked around the HomePlus a bit at chairs and pillows and such before stopping in on the floor with the groceries to pick something up for dinner and head home.

Sadly the component cable I picked up for the PS3 doesn't fit the humongous TV, so the only video games I played were on my laptop. Sigh. I will have playstation soon. Oh yes. It will be mine. Now it's the end of a long day, I'm worn out, and my damn iPod needs a software update that is taking a really long time to download. This is particularly troubling because we have an amazingly fast internet connection. I guess I'll leave the computer on overnight and hope that it finishes. Or maybe it's best to just stop it and restart in the morning. Yeah. That I think.

Another day in Dynamic Busan...and Global Pohang City!

Before I begin this blog in earnest, let me note two more observations about things I've noticed in Korea that just seem kinda funny.

1. Every city name is preceded with an adjective. For example, Busan is not just Busan, it's DYNAMIC BUSAN! The city that we're moving to on Friday isn't Daegu, but rather, COLORFUL DAEGU. Today we visited a city that exports a vast amount of steel to the rest of the world. It's not just Pohang City, it's GLOBAL POHANG CITY. I think it's kind of neat. The Koreans have more civic pride than they know what to do with, and that's a problem that I think people back home could stand to be burdened with sometimes.
2. When you enter a men's restroom, there are probably women in there. Cleaning it. They'll clean the urinal next to the one you're using. I got used to that. It's okay. Even more shocking is that when you walk up to a urinal it flushes. Instead of when you leave. It flushes upon arrival. It just seems a bit backwards. I'm sure there's a reason for it.

Now, onto today's exciting update:

Today we went out for a Korean cultural experience, and I think we all got a little more than we bargained for. Our first activity was a 2 hour bus ride to Pohang City to tour the POSCO steel factory. This was the biggest factory I've ever seen. They said it was 800,000,000 meters square, with 210 miles of conveyor belts. We got to enter the actual steel mill where we saw massive slabs of glowing hot steel get pounded into 6mm sheets of steel in front of our eyes. The heat was amazing as the big pieces of steel passed by. They wouldn't let you within a mile of a place like this in the US, but here in Korea it's apparently a tourist destination. They seem to be very proud of their industry and ingenuity here.

POSCO Factory (Main Building)

After leaving the POSCO factory we drove back to Busan to have lunch at the Hwanha Resort. The food was kinda meh, but the view along the waterfront was stunnin. A beautiful bridge called Gwang-ann runs across the bay, and the picturesque Korean coastline is like a ghost on the Sea of Japan. That was poetic, no? Here's a picture, it's worth about 950 more words than what I just said.

Gwang-Ann Bridge

It really DOES look like this.

After lunch we headed over to the JUMP! theatre to watch a performance of...well...JUMP! The show is a martial arts show featuring Taekwondo, Hapkido, Drunken style kung-fu, and other martial arts style. It's a bit of a campy hong-kong-fooey kung-fu story that's played out with absolutely amazing athleticism right in front of your eyes. I'm very lucky to have gotten to see the show, I probably would have never heard of it if it wasn't for EPIK, and I would have never believed such a show would be good enough to pay to see. I'd pay to see it again! It was really that good. This isn't my video, but it's the show we saw!

A short bus ride back to the campus left us with a few hours of free time, and Babehoney and I both decided that it wasn't going to be a day for another cafeteria meal. We knew we liked Korean food when we left home, but the cafeteria had me questioning in the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back of my mind whether or not I had just faked myself out. Well, we made sure to "oops" miss dinner tonight so that we would "have" to buy something to eat off campus. Babehoney needed AA batteries for her camera, so we took a trek to the MegaMart. More on that in a minute.

The first stop on our evening trip was the United Nations Peace Garden memorial for the Korean War. My grandfather (who I never met, but was my grandfather nonetheless) served during that war, so it was kindof cool to see a memorial for his and all the other participants, on both sides, sacrifices in the place where it happened. We're going to have to go back during daylight, though, we ran out on our walk over today :(. 

Korean War Monument

We walked from here to the MEGA MART. They are not kidding around. This is the first Korean big-box store I've entered and they had everything. And a million employees all saying something that sounded like "Annyeong Hashibnika!" The store layout was fairly confusing, as the snack foods were next to the pants, and the shoes were in several different locations. I bought a box of rice crackers shaped like chicken legs to snack on. They were kinda fun. After we picked up batteries we headed back towards Pukyong National University and looked for a place to eat. We re-entered the small alleyways to find less traffic and plenty of neon lit places that looked like they had good stuff to eat.

One of the "dark" alleyways with restaurants and bangs galore!

Cool view from a foot bridge

After much walking we decided on a sit-down looking place with a really scripty sign (which means I couldn't read the Hangeul) and started looking at the menu. I just learned to read Hangeul in the past few days, so I was quite slow trying to work my way down the menu looking for familiar Korean favorites. The nice maitre'd came over to the table and asked if I needed help. I asked if Kalbi and Bulgogi were on the menu and she said no, then pointed out that they only served pork and duck. Sam gyap sal. Pork belly cooked at the table and served with bahn jahn, the Korean collection of side dishes that you use to flavor your meat. We had to get 3 orders minimum, so we did. Then she said "drinkee?" and I said in KOREAN, "Meul juseyo." Which means "water please" and she brought WATER! FREE WATER!!! Now, this meal was a little pricier than we wanted to pay. For two of us, the meal was 18,000W. For 3 meat orders and bahn jahn. That translates to about $14.94. No tax, no tip (you don't tip here). A similar meal in the U.S. at a Korean restaurant would probably be about $75 in my experience. 3 meats at about $25 each, same bahn-jahn. I like how this worked out.

A quick walk back to Pukyong National University and we're in for the night.

Anyeong hee gyeseyeo!