Busy, Busy, and then some more Busy

     To say that we've been busy is an understatement. It started just before Jungwon's graduation from the SMU Tesol Program. We had a few weekends full of her final class projects which included a foreigner interview (guess who was the foreigner), a lot of typing, and very little sleep.
     Just before her graduation, after the projects were submitted, the celebrating began. We had a quadruple date with some of her old university friends. The night began with too much soju, and ended with a few hours of sleep before Jungwon and I took our promised trip to Suwon.
     Before we left Suwon, I asked Jungwon if she thought she would like to come back to visit. She answered with something akin to, "why would I come back here?". Yet, she was very excited to go back to our old haunts. We had lunch at D-Deli, went to visit the old elementary school, and then went to the fusion restaurant named Su. In between we took a break for a few hours to catch the Sex in the City movie, and we sat for a time in a park we used to visit during our lunches. It was a good time even if we were tired from the previous night of drinking.
     The next weekend was the celebratory weekend for Jungwon's Tesol program group, G9. We went out for wine, and then took a trip to Namsan. Visiting the mountain was very different at night, and they had even changed out the art work. The evening was more relaxed than the previous weekend, but we still stayed out late, and drank a good bit of wine.
     The next Thursday was Jungwon's SMU Tesol graduation. Her mom and sister were there so I was very nervous. After the graduation program, which was a bit different from any graduation I'd been to, we took lots of pictures, went out to eat, and then Jungwon and I joined her classmates at a nearby bar for a nightcap before heading our ways for the evening.
     The next day was a workshop day for my school. We took a trip out to Namisum. The island is absolutely gorgeous, but I was wary of the wild ostriches roaming about. Yes, I typed ostriches.

quadrupal date	Suwon Revisited
G9 does wine	grad

namiseom

Octopus

     One day while we were walking through Yeongtong, Jungwon noticed one of the new restaurants. She got really excited. After about a month we finally made it to the restaurant.
     The restaurant is named Kimmyeongja {김명자} and they specialize in octopus. After work tonight Jungwon and I stopped by to order a couple of freshly chopped squirmy things and soju.
     The restaurant itself was very nice. It of course had floor seating, but the cushions were nice and thick. The tables looked nice and the side dishes were very good.
     The side dishes included diced turnip in a red pepper sauce, white kim chi served in a bowl of ice, and gaeronjjigae (which is a type of boiling scrambled egg). Jungwon ordered us the sanakji {사낙지} which didn't have a price listed on the menu, and a bottle of soju. In the end the whole meal came out to be less than 25,000 won.
     Sanakji is nothing more than freshly chopped octopus legs. The guts and the section that I guess you can call the shoulders were served in a side dish. The octopus is so fresh that the legs continue to writhe about on the plate, and they are actually quiet tricky to eat as the suction cups grab on to everything, including your mouth.
     The still pictures of the meal aren't so bad. I made many, many movies, and they may not be for the faint of stomach. Sorry for playing with my food, but it was truly an experience I will not forget.

Octopuses

Fresh Octopus

First (and second) Bite

Stomach and Tired Tentacles

Closeups

Shabu-shabu

     Unfortunately I'm going to skip posting about the Turkish restaurant that we ate at on Sunday. We didn't take many pictures, and the few we did take were too dark to make the food look yummy. Instead of Kebab, I present, Shabu-Shabu!
     Shabu-shabu is one of the meals that is so healthy, yet so yummy, you can't stop eating. Jungwon suggested that we stop by a local restaurant for lunch yesterday. it had been a few weeks since we'd last been so I quickly agreed, and gorging was commenced.
     Shabu-shabu {샤브샤브} (the current-correct romanization from the Korean would be syabeu-syabeu) was a dish that came to Korea from Japan. The basic idea is for the restaurant to give it's patrons a pot of boiling broth, and enough food to feed them twice. Shabu-shabu usually has thinly sliced beef (it browns in just a few seconds in the boiling broth), some mushrooms, and tonnes of veggies. After the pot of goodies is eaten, the servers will bring some noodles, and freshen the broth a little. After the noodles they'll ladle out most of broth and throw in some seaweed mixed rice.
     The shabu-shabu that we ordered was beef and dumplings. Usually we have to shovel in the goodies ourselves once the pot begins to boil, but for this particular meal the pot came preloaded. Luckily this particular meal excluded the final rice course. After the cabbage salad, main course, and noodles, I don't think either of use could have touched the rice.
     Enough babbling. Here are some pictures from Monday's lunch.

shabushabu

Busy, busy, busy

     As of late, I've been busy looking for another job. I didn't have to start this early but I did, and I hope that I've found a good one. I'm not going to hold my breath. Both of my previous jobs in Korea sounded great until after the VISA.
     Now, I know that people come here to see pictures and movies of Korea and hopefully me, and not to hear me whine or rant about work. Instead I'll talk about food. I have lots of pictures from various meals that I've eaten in the past week. I even have pictures of a potential meal. A Korean treat that I promised Jungwon that I'd try.
     I will post the meals in the order eaten. Tonight's post is from two very large chains in the Seoul/Gyeonggido areas. The restaurant is Pho Bay. It's a Vietnamese restaurant, and the food is filling, delicious, and healthy. David was gracious enough to pay for the meal as a gift for Jungwon's coming birthday (July 25). The bar that we went to afterwards is named Wa Bar. The chain is very popular among the foreigners. This was only the second time that I had been to one.
     The usual main course that we get at Pho Bay is a plate of assorted veggies and a bit of meat, a plate of hard rice paper discs, and a bowl of hot water. You take a disc of rice paper, soak it in the hot water, spread it onto your wooden plate, laden it with veggies, roll it up, dip it in peanut butter and enjoy. It's a lot of work for a few bites, but it's really worth it.

Pho Bay

     After Pho Bay, Meg wanted to go out for drinks. David suggested the Wa Bar (western style bar specializing in imported beer). David had a Jack and Coke (not pictured) I had the Lowenbrau, Jungwon tried the Hooch Ice; Lemon, and Meg had the ultra-captain tall glass of Wa-bar draft something. The most interesting part of the trip to the Wa Bar was that the waitress had no idea what a Jack and Coke was, so David had to mix it himself.

Wa Bar

Ice Water

     When I first got to Korea, summer was steadily approaching. As the days got warmer and warmer I kept seeing signs for cups of crushed ice and fruit, for about 5,000 won. I would think, "5,000 won for a cup of ice and fruit! Who in there right mind would pay that? That's more than $5.00 for ice!" After a summer of walking about the cities, and the new summer pouncing on us like an overweight cat, the answer without hesitation is me.
     The cup, or normally bowl, of ice is properly known as bingsu, {빙수}. The name is derived from two Chinese characters. Bing can mean ice, and one of the meanings for su is water. Proper bingsu, patbingsu {팥빙수}, is made with crushed ice, various sliced and diced fruits, frozen yogurt, bits of rice cake, and sweet red beans. As strange as the concoction sounds it is really quiet delicious. More importantly it is very refreshing after a long trek across town.
     Bingsu can be found everywhere during the summer. Coffee shops, fast food restaurants, and anywhere else that wants a boost in summer business will advertise their bingsu.
     Jungwon and I recently went to an interesting place called Pasticcerria in Yeongtongdong that sells "Italian" style bread. We didn't try the bread, but we got a very lovely bowl of patbingsu.

bingsu

Roses

     Roses are the flowers that you give to a pretty lady to let her know that you care. Roses like to be pruned, they like a little fertilizer, they like a little love. When I see a flower shop I like to stop and look at the different colored roses in the window. When I see a rose bush I think about how much care has been given to it based on how tall it is, or how much it is blooming.
     All of that is changing for me. Korea, at least the small area where I live, is sick with roses. There is a certain variety of climbing rose here that vomits up from the ground and sprays the scenery with its hot pink petals. The fragrance of these flowers isn't very strong, but you do eventually get tired of seeing these masses of hot pink flowers everywhere.
     The worst part is, they are largely untended and unnoticed. The bushes are so unruly that they must go years between the prunings. Koreans walk along the walkways that these roses are attempting to choke, and they are oblivious to the thorny tendrils spilling into the path. They pay no attention to the beautiful flowers, of the late spring, or the rain of petals of the early summer.
     "They're common."
     "They are everywhere."
     "They are nothing special."
     If roses are nothing special, what am I supposed to buy my girlfriend? If roses grow almost wild, what happens to the pride, sweat, and blood that my mom has poured into her rose garden year after year? If roses are common can I start a flower shop and make my fortune selling dandelions?

roses

Yeongtong-dong and Cheongmyeong-san

     Most of the pictures in the next web album are from the hike up the mountain that I took this morning. Cheongmyeong-san {청명산} is a nice, very little mountain. It takes about an hour to climb up, and 45 minutes to come back down.
     About half way up from Yeongtong-dong {영통동} (the neighborhood I live in) you'll come to a leveled off area called Noble County. I've heard that it's a retirement home (silver town) but some of my students have told me about the nice restaurants and swimming there. The whole place is owned by the Samsung Corporation so it could be a combination retirement home/recreation center for Samsung's employees. I took a slight detour on the way down the mountain today to look around the grounds.
     On the edge of Noble County is a little farm. The farm has two tiers for growing their crops. With a county as small, densely populated, and mountainous as Korea you grow what you can, where you can. The farm used to have a giant bird cage filled with parakeets, pheasants, and other noisy little things, but the cage has been mostly dismantled.
     On up the mountain you can find a few little exercise spots. Koreans are crazy for fitness and you can find exercise equipment in almost every park. At the very top of the mountain is a little stone marker and a metal sign letting you know which city is on which side of the mountain.
     I took a picture of my neighborhood on my way home. You can see the paper on the street. Unfortunately littering is a very popular form of advertising in Korea. The towers in the background were not visible from this area when I first moved here in August. Korail is putting in a subway station that will connect to Ori Station {오리역} and I think Suwon Station {수원역}, and the towers are being built to cater to the boom in population and businesses that the new station will bring.
     Finally there are some pictures of the crab tanks next door to my apartment. These tanks are very common in Korea and they are filled with all manner of sea life. I'll probably do a photo essay on these tanks some time soon.

Yeongtong-dong and Cheongmyeong-san