A Lunch

I've had a request for more photos and descriptions of what I eat. In effort to oblige, here's a picture of my lunch from a few weeks ago. This dish is served at a chain of Japanese eateries. I don't know the actual name of the dish, but the main component is what's at the upper left, and can loosely be described as pork cutlet (돈까스) in a hot plate with egg and sauce. There's some mushroom and onion tucked in there too. This comes with rice (lower left), udon soup (lower right) and some salad and pickled side dishes (upper right). Cost: 6000 won ~ $6.75 CAD
Taste: scrumptious

Cultural Activity

A few Saturdays back I attended what was billed as a festival for foreigners. Or something to that effect. Along with some entertainment, there was also ample opportunity to sample traditional Korean food and drink, and traditional games etc.
Here is an middle aged woman (아줌마 ) dressed in traditional dress (hanbok - 한복) serving up some pine needle-flavoured traditional alcohol called dong-dong-ju (동동주).
Here is John mixing up the most traditional of Korean foods, kimchi (김치).
Here is Rebecca smashing up some (glutinous?) rice in the way that rice cake (떡) was traditionally prepared.
Here is a shot of some of the entertainment. These happy characters are representing the police force whilst doing a little dance.
Finally we can see an older man (아저씨) just kinda hangin out on his wee bike. This is not an uncommon sight. Older men can often be seen touring around town on what seem to be kids' bikes such as this.

Autumn Activities

For September and most of October the weather was unpleasantly warm, but finally the weather has turned beautifully autumnal with crisp air and clear blue skies. To take advantage of such a day, myself and a few others went for a hike at one of the larger mountains in Pusan called Jangsan. We got pretty close to the top and looking to the east had a great view of the ocean and the famous beach area known as Haeundae. Here you can see groups of large apartment buildings which form huge complexes throughout Korea.

We reached a vantage point with a more southward view. Here you can see the lovely Gwangan Grand Bridge snaking into the distance. My house is located near the farthest end of the bridge. Actually, though it didn't come out in the photos, the day was just clear enough that we could see the Japanese island Tsushima in the distance.
Here we are lounging about at the end of our trek. Our trail popped out at a very beautiful temple near the foot of the mountain. Behind us was a beautiful golden Buddha statue.


After our hard work we decided we needed a hearty meal to replenish our energy levels. We'd heard about a new resto-bar that had opened in my neighbourhood that reputedly sold not only a few import beers on tap, but offered fish and chips! Though the fish and chips weren't the most authentic ever, what was lacking in authenticity was more than made up for in quantity. It seems we were eached served a whole fish, Adrianne noticing that her portion was in fact as long as her forearm.

The parasites are coming! The parasites are coming!

A link to this article appeared in my inbox a while ago courtesy of Dekosser. Wow. Creepy, bizarre, fascinating stuff. With some seriously descriptive writing to boot.

Do Parasites Rule the World?

Exsqueeze me?

Noticed this sign in my neighbourhood the other day. What on earth goes on in this place??? Be on the alert for a follow-up story...

Anyone else??

I've got a new daily read. It's called 'Overheard in New York', and as the title may indicate, it's a collection of snippets of overheard conversations. It's often crass but just as often very amusing. People say the dangdest things. Some may contest the authenticity of these spoken fragments, but I say it doesn't matter cause the funniness remains regardless. I've shown this site to a few other people, but so far no one seems that impressed. Am I the only one who finds this stuff funny?

Change to comments section

I just received some spam in the comments section of my blog. Arghh!! In an effort to prevent this, I've enabled the word verification feature. What this means is if you want to leave a comment, you have to type the wavy word you see into the appropriate box. This is to foil automatically generated messages.

Thank you for your understanding.

Unusual Gift

A few weeks ago I went and got a few things from my local grocery store. Imaging my surprise when I was offered a rather large plastic green tray as a kind of parting gift. It seemed very amusing at the time, but upon thinking about it, for a lot of people it would have been a pretty good gift. You see, my shopping trip had taken place a few days before the Chusok holiday, which is sort of like Thanksgiving and involves large family get togethers with lots of special foods. So I guess this sort of tray would be good for hauling stuff over to Grandma's house. In any case I have no idea what I should do with it, so it's just hanging out on my veranda at the moment. I tried using it as a kind of kitty-toboggan but FatKitty wasn't too into that. Any other suggested uses for this thing?

More funny food names

This little wafer-type snacks are kinda of tasty, but it's a pity about the name. I presume it's meant to be French, but I can't quite figure out what. Croque maybe?? The d'asse part I really have no idea.

Station ID

For my avid fans who have been suffering due to the sparsity of posts, not only have I been quite busy, but I've been having some problems uploading images to the blog. That's all!