Squeaky Sound System

Little things...

2008-10-06T23:01:00.002+09:00

Being that I was apparently incredibly inactive for a good two months during the summer, combined with copious amounts of Canadian food and beer, Anne's Belly grew a fair amount. Not a huge deal since my clothing still fits, albeit a little snugly. And it gives good impetus to get back into the gym or whatever. What isn't delightful is when the combination of added flesh and lost muscle tone results in a sore left foot, which leads to a sore left back. My left side has always been a bit wonky, but through all my hard work at various physical activities had the situation in check. Until one lazy summer!!! ARGHHH!

But, I've gotten over weird aches and bodily anomalies before - I shall succeed again! And already this term I've been making good in the gym. Today I had a personal victory in that I ran for twenty whole minutes in under thirty minutes!!! What that means is I had a few minutes warm up, followed by 6, 10 and 4 minute running spurts with a few minutes rest between. All you athletic people might scoff at this, but you should know that I am not a fast moving land creature. Since a very young age I have hated running as I've never been fast and always gotten easily winded. Running was my nemesis for years and years. Well everyone needs a new challenge once in a while and running has been mine. What I did today was in fact an extraordinary accomplishment - I may get up to twenty or even thirty minutes of unbroken running one of these days!!

That being said I do also need to get back in the pool as it really is the overall best exercise for my weirdy back. If only the damn weather here would properly cool down (it was still around 25 today with ample humidity) maybe the pool would actually thin out a bit during free swim hours and I could feel a little less annoyed and well, swamped, when I want to go for a swim...

Boo Butterfly!!!

2008-09-02T23:52:00.004+09:00

No, I don't mean the delicate winged creatures that flap about spastically in the sky, I mean the butterfly stroke. I've been meaning to post for ages on swimming culture here in Busan and, well, here it is.

I love swimming. Lap swimming is great exercise and gives me a chance to think about nothing in particular. But sometimes I love swimming a little less in the pools near my house. I used to go to a really nice pool that was new and had big windows to let in natural light. The free swim hours for that pool are in the afternoons and haven't matched my schedule in a few years. Enter Century 21. That's the name of the building where my new pool is. It's quite a bit smaller and grungier than the first pool, but the free swim hours are much better - open till 11pm weeknights and 10pm on weekends. If I don't have to wake up too early, the best time to go is around 9:30 - 10:00 pm when the lessons are all done and the pool pretty much empties out.

Until tonight. I got to the pool at 10:00pm, only to find at least three people per lane. In one lane, a guy insisted on practicing his diving (not a great idea in a pool with no deep end), in another lane were some slower folks who also liked to stand around at the end of the lane gabbing at high volume, and in another, the bane of my existence - a heavyset fellow chugging away doing the butterfly stroke.

I have long suspected and was eventually told my another swimmer that here the butterfly stroke is a prestige stroke; it's trendy if you will. Now in principle I don't give a crap how people want to propel themselves through water. In practice however, the butterfly creates waves, lots of 'em, and even more so if the person doing the fly is large and slow. Garrrrrrr. I guess if I ever find myself afloat in the ocean during a typhoon I'll be able to swim through it no problem.

For the most part, tonight I was just a little disappointed at how many people there were so late in the day. Not sure if it was because it's still hot here and people want to cool off, or if the Olympics are to be blamed for inspiring people into the water.

Other slight differences in pool culture: none of the pools in my 'hood have deep ends, kids may run on the deck, and lifeguarding is optional. In my pool there is a little room at one end where who I presume are lifeguards hang out, but who I've only ever seen watching TV or sleeping.

Other fun incidents at my new pool/gym: here people shower and then put on their swimsuit, which is actually hard to do. Dry swimsuits and wet bodies don't mix. As I struggled to get into mine one time, I was startled by a lady next to me deciding to help me into mine.

I finally got a full membership to the gym with the 'new' pool (I'd been subsisting on discount coupons before) just yesterday. Tonight when I went the Staff Lady who signed me up started talking to me, in Korean, a lot. I sort of got the gist that she was asking me a favour, something about a foreigner (that's all white people in Korea). So I followed her over to the other desk where she dialed a number and handed me the phone. Suddenly I figured out what I was supposed to do. This other Foreigner with a membership hadn't been to the gym since mid-August and the Staff Lady was concerned. So I told this to the Foreigner on the phone, who was understandably a little perplexed at the nature of the call, but told me I should tell the Staff Lady that she'd simply been busy and not to worry. The Staff Lady seemed satisfied with this explanation.

These are good examples of the wackiness that really keep me enjoying this fair land~!

Sunset Li

2008-08-31T03:12:00.001+09:00

Sunset Li
Originally uploaded by anninator

Sunset Live Here I am at a music festival amidst a sweet potato field a ways outside Busan. The current band is playing a Velvet Underground and later will be some ska acts. All in all a pretty decent little festival though there is some concern about hiking out to civilisation in the dark!

SKA!!!

2008-08-30T20:35:00.001+09:00

SKA!!!
Originally uploaded by anninator

SKA!!! Hard to see but that's a super awesome ska band from Seoul - Kingston Rudieska

3 showers a day

2008-07-04T16:22:00.003+09:00

Well it finally happened yesterday - the heat and humidity besieged us. We'd done surprisingly well this year compared to last; June was coolish and considering it was supposed to be the rainy season we had little in the way of rain aside from a few days of downpour. The last downpour was Wednesday, and the moisture just didn't want to leave this time. This means no matter how slowly I walk, I sweat. And it means I really really wish there was such a thing as dimensionless clothing, 'cause aside from parading through my day naked, nothing will feel comfortable or dry until the fall. Joy!

Regular classes ended mid-June. Since June 25 I've had a most interesting gig at Samsung Electro-Mechanics. It is interesting on several fronts. Firstly, the plant is located a good hour from my house on the south-western outskirts of Busan. The longer I've been at my job at Pukyong, the less frequently I leave the surrounding neighbourhood. I mean, why should I? I've got my shops, my gyms, my restos, my friends, my movie theater, my hiking trails and my bar. I leave so rarely though I'm convinced there may be some sort of force field in place around Daeyeon3dong!

But Samsung gets me out, waaay out. The first day I took public transit and it was a disaster. The bus was hot and super crowded so I had to stand, and the way bus drivers attack the road here standing on a bus is strenuous business and requires extreme focus. Thankfully shortly after I learned that Samsung runs buses all over the city for its employees, and there was a stop conveniently located near my house. It is great - the bus is a comfortable air-conditioned coach and I get a seat every time. The downside is it gets me there an hour early but hey beats the alternative.

The Samsung plant is interesting as well. It's of course huge, and in a recently developed industrial park. Nearby is another Samsung plant, Samsung-Renault Cars, as well as various other types of industrial stuff - lumber processing, tubes and pipes etc. At our plant all sorts of weird stuff is made, I guess mainly chips and bits that go into all kinds of electronics. It seems they have extra potent electricity or something too cause check out this sign on the first floor of our building:
I actually teach on behalf of Pukyong, as our university has a kind of relationship with the company whereby employees can take a bunch of classes over a period of a few years and earn some sort of diploma. I really love my students 'cause they are 'real people'. They have to come to class everyday after a full day of work, and despite being so tired participate very well and are very attentive. The class I teach is an intensive 15 day program where they get about 2.5 hours of conversational English every evening from about 8pm till 10:30pm.

Even though the teaching time per day isn't too long, with travel time and sitting around time it still manages to eat up about 6 hours each day. The students with cars are very good about driving myself and my coworker into town each night. Usually I get back to my hood around 11:30pm and drop by 'the bar' for a pint or two on my way home. The other day Canadians were awarded one free beer for Canada Day which was nice. Maybe 'cause it was Tuesday there weren't so many of us Canucks out that night:

Anne's whereabouts

2008-06-02T05:54:00.002+09:00

Hello my 2 loyal readers! No posts in ages due to extreme business. In fact I sort of forgot I had a blog for a while there. My job is great but preparing for three classes instead of one takes time. Also one of those three is Advanced Composition, which unlike Conversation that I can teach in my sleep, I really need to know my stuff. The semester is coming to an end though, with only one week of class remaining and exams finishing by mid-June. Then I'll have giant stacks of papers to mark and grades to compute. I have an interesting summer gig starting round the end of June where I'll be teaching Samsung factory employees a few hours a day. That'll finish up mid-July and after that I hope to be Canada bound for a month or so. Sadly, even though I thought I'd booked well enough in advance, I'm still on wait lists for certain legs of my flight. I'm sure I'll eventually get something to match my desired itinerary but I cringe at the possible cost. July and August are vacation months here and a peak travel period to the point of ridiculousness. Other than that I'm in severe avoidance mode on my dissertation. I have lots of ideas but am having trouble formulating them into anything coherent. I'm hoping this state will improve shortly - I've got to get something done!

Me and Ed

2008-05-24T19:53:00.001+09:00

Me and Ed
Originally uploaded by anninator

Me and Ed eating awesome quantities of awesome grilled duck.Yum!

Lunch overkill

2008-04-15T21:55:00.003+09:00

Went to find something light and refreshing for lunch today and my mind was set on 'hwoe-deop-bap' 회덮밥 (rice basically topped with salad and raw fish that's mixed up with hot sauce). Since my favourite place for that dish disappeared I've not yet found an adequate replacement. So today I went to an actual raw-fish restaurant that advertised they had it. Much to my delight and awe I was served up an incredible amount of food of pretty good quality for the ridiculous price of 6000 won (about $6 CAD).
That's a fairly big fried fish on the upper left with a few other random side dishes and that pot of orangy goodness is 'mae-un-tang' (매운탕), a delightful spicy fish soup. The actual hwoe-doep-bap is in the lower right. Yum!

Old Timers R Us

2008-04-08T22:44:00.006+09:00

Recently I passed the five year mark here in South Korea. 'How time flies!' I said to myself. Feeling celebratory I invited others who'd made Busan their home for five years or more (plus two honorary invitees who've been here perhaps five years combined) to get together for an evening of gaiety and frivolity. We started off with a solid foundation of grilled pork and apparently quite a bit of soju:
After dinner, we headed to our second destination for further libations. On the way we passed a place that had recently opened for business which in Korea often means the presence of 'dancing girls'. We decided to be obnoxious foreigners and have our photo taken with them.
The two Korean girls in the middle are the dancing girls. That's me in the front trying to reject the passage of time by looking twelve years old. Hee hee~~

There are no photos of our subsequent drinking place which is probably a good thing. Likely fueled in part by a bottle each of vodka and scotch as well as plenty of Tsing Tao poor YongSuk's bar was practically destroyed. The highlint was the round of major wrassling that erupted amongst my otherwise staid friends (Cuttlefish boys I'm talking 'bout you!), followed by a spontaneous face-stickering event - hands down one of the most hilarious things I've seen recenlty.

The stickers were in fact issued as part of a voting system. You see throughout the evening people had been trying their hand at composing haikus on the subject of 'ajumma', a somewhat affectionate term for the tough-as-nails local middle aged women. Colin was the winner as four stars went to his poem as opposed to everyone else's face. For his poetic labour he was awarde a bottle of Busan C1 soju (which he drank on the spot) and a can of 'beondegi' (that's silk worm larvae to the rest of you). His oeuvre in its entirety is reproduced here:

Purple curly hair
Sexy leopard print pants wow
I want your rude love

Wow Colin! Perhaps it shows that you've lived in the ajoshi/ ajumma love hotel district for the past few years!!

In music news: an 80's synth pop front is moving in from the west.... previous - Alphaville; current - Erasure; next - Depeche Mode

Little update

2008-03-29T17:25:00.003+09:00

Though you poor Canadians are still probably buried under snow, spring has sprung in Busan with the cherry blossoms starting to bloom their delicate pale pink blossoms. School is busy but good. My students are amazing - it is a real treat to teach English majors.

The earlier post about a laptop, monitor and burger was very brief as at the time Colin and I were near starvation. Having already made one failed attempt to get a burger on the tenth floor of the ridiculously busy Lotte Department store we were forced to forge our way through the Saturday throngs to get to a second T.G.I.F. which did finally have the burgers we so desired. We had to wait a while for our burgers to arrive so the post was basically to distract myself from my hunger. What I ended up buying that day was a simple laptop to use for work as well as a lovely 22" LCD widescreen monitor which I didn't really need but was so cheap I figured why not. It sure takes up less space on my desk than the 19" CRT I had previously.

In other news, I continue to listen to music obsessively. I've decided to trade in my iPod Nano that I've had for a year and replace it with an iRiver Clix. It'll take a while to get used to the new design as well as the minor annoyance that I have to keep it on hold while in my pocket to prevent track stopping/skippage, but the sound quality is stellar and no more annoying iTunes. I listen to all sorts of stuff but for the past several monthes I've been under the growingly firm impression that Queens of the Stone Age are possibly the greatest rock band of our time (no disrespect to Led Zepplin). All five of their albums are so frikkin good.

In other hobby related news I'm looking forward to April 4th and I know many of you out there don't even need me to say why. I'll tell you this though, I am midly concerned the internet will explode that day due to the insane frenzy that will result from the beginning of BSG Season 4. Woo!!!

Ribs!!!

2008-03-19T20:44:00.001+09:00

Ribs!!!
Originally uploaded by anninator

Ribs!!!Yummy BBQ ribs where you need a Micheal Jackson glove to get into tha flava...Bam!!!

Kickass

2008-03-15T18:33:00.001+09:00

Kickass
Originally uploaded by anninator

Kickassmonitor + sweetass laptop + fatass burger = success! It's been an eventful day~~

Vietnam - Part I: Ho Chi Min City

2008-03-13T23:54:00.002+09:00

In February I took a two week trip to Vietnam where I hooked up with my mate Jon. We had a super good time, time which was mainly characterized by eating but did involve some travelling and sightseeing.

Jon lives in Ho Chi Min City, which used to be Saigon. It's a big bustling city with literally millions of motorbikes, lots of awesome places to eat and very visible remnants of the French colonial period.

Check out the photos here.

What's new in Anne's world

2008-03-13T23:49:00.002+09:00

Well, back to work so posts have obviously slowed down a tad :) I've got a lot of prep to do for my new classes; people are coming out of the woodwork to ask me to do more stuff, and I've been suffocating a little with super intense yellow dust but other than that things are good. Being all English majors, my new students are wikkid fluent which is really cool. I've so far really enjoyed exercising my teacher chops in the higher level atmosphere.

USS Nimitz and Co.

2008-03-01T04:35:00.006+09:00

Tonight I tried to have a late evening swim but failed. Apparently the pool water was too dirty (??). So I dropped by my local watering hole to have a drink and see who was about. I was the first of my crew to arrive and as I waited a clean cut man approached me and asked if I was on my own. I responded that at present I was. He enquired as to if I was US Navy. This question was a little out of my range, and I responded truthfully that no, I was not, I was in fact Canada English Teacher. He seemed very surprised and asked why on earth I'd be teaching English in Korea. Putting two and two together I surmised that he was new to these parts. Turns out he was in fact a Sonar Operator on a guide missile cruiser. That would be a vessel in support of the USS Nimitz, a massive US Naval ship currently docked in our fair Busan. Tim was in fact a real swell guy. He very concisely and diplomatically explained his role aboard his ship the USS Princeton (he listens for enemy submarines) as well some of the major features of the other ships in the team. Interesting indeed. He estimated the crew of the Minitz plus the crews of the other five or so support vessels put the number of US sailors currently in circulation around Busan at between 7 and 10 thousand. That's quite a night out on the town!
"U.S. aircraft carrier: USS Nimitz, a 97,000-ton U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, approaches Busan Thursday. The nuclear-powered carrier and its 5,300 crew members will join the annual exercise of South Korean and U.S. forces here. The exercise, Key Resolve, mainly aims to test the combined forces’ capability to host over 600,000 U.S. troops to be deployed here in case of an armed conflict while effectively defending the country from enemy hostilities."

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/nation_view.asp?newsIdx=19841&categoryCode=115

Things I Love About Korea

2008-03-01T04:09:00.005+09:00

I can buy something that approximates real food for under five dollars at the corner store - microwave Spaghetti Carbonara!!

2.5 minutes later and voila:

Is it gormet fare? No. Does it have any actual bacon? No. Does it taste frikkin awesome for $2.30 CAD at 3:00am? You betcha!!

Jesus!

2008-02-28T19:53:00.001+09:00

Jesus! "Shine Jesus shine!" Lyrics in a song currently playing in a pork cutlet diner I'm having dinner in. Korea's so weird sometimes ^^

For sale

2008-02-28T19:40:00.001+09:00

For sale
Originally uploaded by anninator

For salefrom the back of a truck - computers, TVs, is that a milk fridge too??

Gangwando + Andong Fall 2007

2008-02-27T09:32:00.005+09:00

After visiting misty Seorak Park (near number 1 on the map), I headed to Gangneung (number 2), a beautiful coastal city a little south of Sokcho (which is an eyesore by the way). I wandered around town for a while before taking a quiet and inexpensive room. Later I met Ben, a Gangneung native I knew from Busan where he'd previously owned a bar. We went out for some scrumptious grilled duck. Grilling various meatsat the table is very common in Korea, but there is a lot of variation in the apparatus - sometimes coals, sometimes cast-iron grills, this time it was rotisserie in the table. Delish!

After dinner I managed to avoid death by alcohol (Ben loves doing shots) and woke up at a reasonable hour the next day. Decided to wander in the direction of the coast, had a fantastic mushroom stew for lunch and eventually made it to Gyeongpo Beach which was spectacular. Busanites like to boast about Haeundae beach, which is by far the most popular one in Korea, but most Westerners don't think much of it as it's very built up, lined with hotels, sushi restaurants and so on. Gyeongpo beach is just sand and ocean with a few restaurants and lots of tranquil pine trees. And what blue water! Almost next to the beach is Gyeongpo Lake - also beautiful. There's a path that runs all the way around it, and there's also bikes available for rental. I thought I'd walk around the lake, but soon realized it was in fact quite a big lake. So I had to hop off the path to get to the train station in time to catch my train. I was having trouble catching a taxi, and when one finally picked me up, the driver was at the end of his shift but he drove me to a busier area and flagged down another taxi for me at no charge. Gangneung photos start from here.

Onto the train bound for Andong (number 3 and I just noticed on their website 'The capital of mental culture of Korea') which was a spectacular four hour trip first along the coast and then weaving through some BIG mountains. It was actually the time of the Andong Mask Dance Festival and the hotel I stayed at was teeming with perfomers from India and other far away lands. For anyone in Korea at the time of this festival, I highly recommend it, there's some wonderful performances to be seen.

About 40 minutes outside of Andong is the Folk Village. It's still got traditional style houses and is an actual village in that actual people actually still live there. It is also a venue for the Mask Dance Festival, and seeing a traditional style Korean perfomance amidst the lofty pines on a warm autumn day is really grand. I really liked the Folk Village, so be forwarned there's a LOT of photos from there! Andong photos start from here.

Ocular Issues and Space Kimchi

2008-02-27T00:52:00.003+09:00

I've been reasonably disoriented since returning from Vietnam. I had such a good time there and since coming back to Busan only to be faced with loads of impending work as well as an assortment of random tasks that I've been having trouble staying on target. This was exacerbated when around 6:15 today I took a walk to the main office to pick up a parcel containing a package of ravioli, 5 avocados, 4 pounds of bacon and 6 kilos of Tide detergent (welcome to expat land) and the suddenly strong wind blew a particle presumably from the recently opened construction site in front of the library into my unsuspecting eye. The particle refused to dislodge itself even after repeated blinking and me pouring half a litre or so of mildly salty water into my afflicted eye. The situation was distressing enough that I had to cancel dinner plans with James so that I might (it turns out in vain) seek medical attention. All eye clinics/hospitals in the region were closed so I was forced to make do with some eye drops. These, along with a hearty dinner of Indian food and a few drinks with friends have put a temporary hold on things. I'm hoping a night of fitful rest will dislodge the offending particle, otherwise I'm off to the doctor first thing in the a.m.

Personal ocular issues aside, I did find this article quite amusing. A Korean cosmonaut will be ascending to the stars shortly and what does he require? Kimchi of course!

Gangwando Fall 2007

2008-02-25T19:20:00.005+09:00

Back in time again to last fall when I took a four day trip to Korea's northeast province of Gangwando. Gangwando is famed for it's tall mountains and abundant snow in winter. I took the express bus to Sokcho, a coastal town only hop skip and a jump from the North Korean border. In fact, there was a ferry terminal in town with departures to Mount Baekdu, a resort in North Korea mainly for South Koreans. The bus ride was six and a half hours, pretty much as far as one can go in Korea. From Sokcho my plan was to visit the famed Seorak Mountain National Park which is famed for its colourful maple foliage in the autumn. I was too early in the season for the leaves to have changed and much to my delight it was rainy and grey the morning I headed to the park. Though no amazing views were to be had, the low clouds gave a mysterious mood to the park.

See more Seorak photos starting from here.

Fantastic new additions

2008-02-25T19:12:00.002+09:00

My two loyal readers may have noticed some slightly different activity here on zee olde blogge of late. This is because I recently discovered I could post directly to my blog from my cell phone by text message. Even more recently I figured out a way to post photos directly from my phone (which are marked as having been uploaded by anninator). This I was able to do using Flickr, which I've decided to start using. Having just taken a quick spin with a group of photos I am quite pleased with the way the site handles things, even if I'm not super fond of the layout that a human browser must navigate (I find it a little disorganized). I think overall it will help me get my photos online a heck of a lot faster than before.

Dinner!

2008-02-24T21:20:00.001+09:00

Dinner!
Originally uploaded by anninator2003

Dinner!Big meaty dinner with some associates to celebrate my five (!) year anniversasy in South Korea. OMG!!

No sleep..

2008-02-22T10:41:00.001+09:00

No sleep... ... till Busan. My flight from Saigon departed at 1:20am. What a convenient time. The flight was just over 4 hours which didn't permit much sleep. Now I'm at Gimpo Airport waiting for my 11am flight to Busan. T.I.R.E.D. Somewhat unrelated, I tried to buy perfume inflight on my way to Korea to unload my remaining VND. It was a Vietnam Air flight but they wouldn't accept Vietnamese currency. What's up with that??

Ugh

2008-02-09T10:24:00.000+09:00

Ugh There are like a dramillion infants on my flight. All undoubtedly armed with powerful lungs. -_-

Waiting

2008-02-09T08:52:00.001+09:00

Waiting I really really really hate waiting. And I'm doing just that at Incheon Airport right now. The queue for Vietnam Air is so long it doesn't even fit in the little curly-cue system. Perhaps the slowness is in part due to two of every three carts towering with bags and boxes, many of which are rather tenuously held together with a colourful variety of tapes and other binding materials. Ah! Finally made it into the comforts of the passenger maze!

선날 2008 - 바다와 해운대

2008-02-08T01:03:00.000+09:00

Today is Lunar New Year, or Seollal (설날). After sleeping most of the day yesterday, today I awoke bright and early, did some work and then headed out to Igidae Park. Here's the view of the sea and Haeundae off in the distance:
Saturday morning I fly off to Ho Chi Min City (Saigon for those of you caught in a time warp) to chill and tour with my mate Jon. Will have a new camera in tow so expect to see some fab shots in maybe a year or so (that seems to be a generous estimation based on how long it generally takes me to organize and process my images ^^).
새해 복 많이 받으세요~~

SPAM

2008-02-06T05:35:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow is the first day of Seollal, the three day Lunar New Year holiday. It's the biggest family holiday in Korea and results in roughly a quarter or more of the population in Seoul relocating to their hometowns in the provinces. It's a super busy time of year and I daren't go to the local marts. Even venturing to the bank and a popular shopping district resulted in massive crown and traffic side effects. On the subway home many passengers were toting holiday gift packs, this guy perhaps received the short end of the gift set deal:

What's in Anne's fridge today?

2008-01-12T20:01:00.000+09:00

Here's some profoundly interesting stuff - what's inside my fridge today. Top shelf from left to right - plain yoghurt, small bowl containing shredded carrots, some kimchi, some tofu, some leftovers including a piece of fish, sauce etc.

2nd shelf - walnuts, coffee, minced garlic, sweet spicy sauce

3rd shelf - parsley, baby bok choi, some kind of veg, ground pork, dumpling wrappers. In the back is a jar of mango pickle and citron tea (it's sort of like marmalade that you add to water)

In the bin - various veg: carrots, green onion, Napa cabbage...

And on the door of my fridge:

Top shelf - eggs, maybe some cucumber, pieces of lemon

2nd shelf - dijon mustard, maple syrup, week old milk, mayo, ketchup and hot sweet sauce

3rd shelf - bottle o' white wine, olives, water, fish oil pills

Bottom shelf - oyster sauce, Patak curry paste, fish sauce and some Krafty parm.

The internet doesn't get any better than this I tells ya.

I heart eggs

2008-01-10T23:25:00.000+09:00

Seems like a dorky thing to say, but in the past year or so I've really come to deeply appreciate this simple food. In Canada I was always scared off by the cholesterol mafia but here in Korea eggs are just good eats.

When you buy 'em in the store here, tis not a dozen but a box of 10. Almost all eggs for sale are brown. Often as not they're not refrigerated either. At pretty much any convenience store you can buy a single raw egg to chuck into your instant ramyeon or you can get ready to eat boiled eggs. They always come with tiny packets of salt for dippin'. At the jjimjilbang (a kind of public sauna) I've been going to recently in the hottest room trays of eggs are baked on top of the central heater as people lounge and sweat on the floor below.

As far as eatin 'em, for breakfast I now usually eat one egg (normally scrambled but occasionally in an omelette) with a side of black beans boiled in sweet soy sauce (검은콩조림) some seaweed salad, some sliced cucumber and a piece of cheese. Sounds weird but it is amazingly tasty. Throughout my solo travels around Korea this past year I pretty much lived off the corner store eggs and triangle kimbap. And my new latest thing is 'gye-ran-bbang'(계란빵) or literally 'egg-bread' . This is not a loaf you pick up at the backery, this is street vendor food and particularly popular in the winter. Basically a tray similar to a muffin tray is filled with a sweet bread batter, on top of which is deposited a single lovely egg. Together the batter and egg are steamed into a lovely and delectable fusion of sweet squishy bread and, well, egg!! There's a vendor right outside my gym and it makes the most delightful post-workout snack, and holds me over till I can get home and throw some dinner together.

Anne's Grumpy Christmas

2007-12-25T22:48:00.001+09:00

Minor personal stuff *about my feelings*:

It's Christmas and I'm grumpy. I miss my family and I don't feel like hanging around the people I know here in Busan. So I've been staying at home the past week or so indulging in a quasi hermit-like existence. Lots of coffee, tea, movies and TV on my computer, as well as Diablo II. Every 2nd year or so I enjoy playing a real computer game. Yes I know, Diablo II is not exactly new but I'm having fun with it. I'm a level 11 sorceress!!

In other less self-pitying news, I signed a new contract yesterday. New as in new department cause the position is still at Pukyong - my fifth contract at this uni!! The contract is not ideal in that it's too many hours per week, but this is offset by a satisfyingly higher monthly salary, and 12 weeks vacation a year. Also, my students will be awesome cause I'll be teaching only English majors. Woot! So the headache of looking for a new job and moving has been avoided for one more year...

A few weeks ago I went through the bizarre process of getting a new cell phone. There was nothing wrong with my old one but I decided I'd really like a phone with a bilingual dictionary. Makes figuring out what I'm buying at the grocery store a little less of a crap shoot. Amidst various phone calls and faxing of documents I was able to get an older model phone for about $30CAD. It's still very fancy though. Along with the delightful dictionary it's got a pretty decent camera. While I don't usually carry my real camera around, I usually have my phone on me. Which means I can take random pictures like this:
In all homes here people take off their shoes before entering. Last night there was a Christmas Eve party with many attendees and this was the result. That's a whole lotta footwear...

I also spent a while snapping shots of my kitty, much to her disinterest. Here's her in her 'sexy' pose:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone out there who never bothers to write!!

Land's End - conclusion

2007-12-04T00:05:00.000+09:00

Our last day in Land's End we'd hoped to go aboard Captain's ship, but it needed repairs so instead we wandered around the village.We again visited the Family Mart and hung out with some locals. They seemed to really like Soju.

A little later Jen insisted we follow her along a trail she'd found. It was such a beautiful day. Here are some sights.

After a short haul on the trail we reached this majestic monument marking the official southern most point on the peninsula - 땅끝.

Here's a kinda neat reflective shot of us adventurers:After that it was time to bid adieu to Land's End and our charming host and hit the road. The rural scenery in Korea really is beautiful, especially on a sunny autumn day where the fields of rice seem extra sun-kissed:

Unfortunately around sundown these glorious open roads ceased to be as we were returning to Busan on one of the days most notorious for traffic jams - the second last day of Korean Thanksgiving. Shortly after getting on the expressway we hit a dense wall of traffic and moved at less than a crawl for several hours. Finally around 11:30pm we couldn't take it any more, exited and found a hotel. We crashed for a few hours then were back in the car around 6:00am. Though the roads were no longer blocked, they were by no means free of traffic. We rolled into Busan around 8am and figured that around noon the roads were likely back to their chock-o'-block state.

Note to self: never EVER travel by car on Chuseok ever again!!!

Land's End cont'd...

2007-11-26T23:59:00.000+09:00

On the way back from the fish market our lovely host unexpectedly dropped us off for a little sightseeing. This place was the set for a popular historical drama. Kinda neat cause an entire period village was set up just for the shooting of said drama.

Upon arriving back at Cape Cafe, Captain served up our raw fish along with some pan-fried shellfish, fresh greens (you can wrap up the fish in the leaves along with spicy sauce) and of course more wine from the Family Mart. Here we are enjoying our scrumptious eats:That's Jen, Keri and Captain starting from the left. You can't see Captain clearly but if you had to, what would you guess was his age? We were all certain he was in his thirties and so were absolutely floored to find out he's 49!!! He's just so fit, funny and vigorous - we were just amazed...At this point my crush on Captain was full fledged~~

Notes of a personal nature

2007-11-26T23:36:00.000+09:00

In a rather bold decision I told my director last Friday that I would not be renewing my contract for my current position. By the end of this coming February I will have worked at Pukyong National University for four years bringing my grand total of time spent in Korea to five years. My how time flies.

I am now really hoping that I made the right decision. My idea was to find a 'better' position with fewer hours per week. Now that I kind of have to find that 'better' job I'm having second thoughts. You see due to the nature of being a contract worker in Korea, particularly one who prefers university work, finding a new job is kind of like finding a new apartment in Montreal - everything has to by signed sealed and delivered by a particular date. Montreal moving day is July 1st, the first day of the new semester is March 1st. So around now university positions become available, people get let go or choose to leave and it's basically a big scramble to get something good before before being tossed out of the country. Add to this the tension that's running through the ex-pat English teaching community because of pending changes to immigration laws that will see the tightening of visa issuance and it's proving to be an interesting time.

Of course I won't not get a job, I just hope it works out that I manage achieve my goal of improving my situation. I don't really have any major problems with Pukyong but I feel it's time for a change. And ideally I'll have fewer working hours so that I can get my blasted dissertation wrapped up within the next year. A lot of my anxiety has more to do with the prospect of moving. I haven't done that in almost four years and I've become rather snug in my current living quarters.

Good luck to me!

A trip to... the End of the Land

2007-11-07T23:28:00.000+09:00

Sounds dramatic but in reality myself and fellow adventurers Keri, Jen and Soju (our canine accomplice) did in fact take a trip to Land's End. This is the southern most point on the peninsula proper and the Korean name is literally Land's End - Ddang Kkeut (땅끝) or To Mal (토말). Towards the end of September was Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) which meant a five day holiday. We piled into Keri's time-shared car with the vague idea of heading to the southwest corner of the country. Our first stop was Boseong's tea fields:
Where the tea is truly green:
After that we meandered down to Land's End, an increasing sense of a cinematic significance opening before us as the distance to the End of the Land decreased. The surroundings seemed unusually beautiful and evocative, the sky higher and bluer, the trees and sea hinting at melancholy memories of summers past. When we finally reached the small town at the End of the Land a feeling of quiet destiny encompassed us.

There were the usual assortment of crass and obvious accomodations available, but we were drawn to a small ivy wrapped place which seemed more like a cottage than inn. We walked into the ground floor cafe in search of the proprietor and found a cozy room filled with tables, art and a fireplace comfortably surrounded in stone walls. Eventually we found him, a fit man with sharp features who, when I enquired about the availability a room replied derisively that there were no beds. His mood loosened when I replied that that was fine.
We took a room at the Cape Cafe in the late afternoon and decided that it was time for a celebratory vacation drink. We headed down to the cafe and got into some beers. After a while we invited our inn keeper over. His English was not magnificent but he was a good communicator and between that and my mangled Korean we soon realized we were all good people. He had created and run the inn alone for the past ten years and also operated a small fishing vessel; Kim Seok Ho - Inn Keeper, Sea Captain.

After a while we realized it was dinner time and so asked about a good place to eat. He said, 'You're hungry? I'll cook you up something.' So he did and we went to the Family Mart to pick up some wine. He cooked us up some abalone (a local speciality) and served it up with a few other random dishes. We tucked into our tasty mollusks and got into our cups. It was just us for quite a while but eventually other people started to trickle in. A pair of young Korean doctors down from Seoul joined our table and we whiled away the night joking, laughing, drinking. We made plans to go to the nearby island, Wando, the next day to hang out with our new doctor friends.

The next day we awoke at a comfortable hour, and eventually made a move for food. A restaurant across the road advertised jeong-sik (정식) or Korean course meal. This basically amounts to a million side dishes plus some rice and soup. Here's Keri going, 'Wow! Is it all for me?!'
Via text-message communique it became apparent that our doctor friends were too busy and unable to meet as planned. Our inn keeper, however, was unfazed. He was in his van at 3pm sharp ready to take us to Wando. The drive was pleasant, sitting shotgun I made small talk with Captain. Upon arriving in Wando he took us to a pier well populated with fishing enthusiasts. The gimmick here seemed to be a cooler filled with some sort of stinky fish bait. This was periodically chucked into the water by a fancy elongated spoon in order to attract unsuspecting fish.
This fasciniated Keri to the extent that she in fact asked a fishing ajeosshi if she could give it a go. She did a pretty good job:
Look at that fish bait fly!

After our walk along the pier we went to the fish market to pick up some raw fish for dinner. Markets have always interested me and it was really cool to go with Captain, who could explain about the various creatures on offer. They're all living until you order one of them, then the market ajumma chops, hacks and slices your request into a convenient package:
Check back later for the exciting conlusion to 'Land's End - the End of the Land'...

Final Jeju post - Ancient provincial government grounds

2007-10-27T18:41:00.000+09:00

As the title indicates, this was the local head of government compound.

See that last picture? See what's in the water? That's right! More lovely fishes!!!

And finally let us conclude the Jeju expose with an artsy shot of some stairs:

Jeju stone grandfathers

2007-10-27T18:38:00.000+09:00

One of things Jeju is best known for is stone grandfathers. Here's some tall ones that were guarding a park:

And here's some mini ones from another historical site:

Jeju City

2007-10-27T18:34:00.000+09:00

My last day in Jeju I took a walking tour and visited several historical sites. The first was a park commemorating where 3 demi-gods emerged from a hole in the earth. What I saw...

did not match the picture:

I do however still enjoy strangely worded English (click on image for larger version).

Jeju - Udo Island scenery

2007-10-11T22:16:00.001+09:00

One of the things I enjoyed most about Udo was that it was very quiet and I could explore the black rocky seashore at my leisure. The rocks are volcanic in nature.

There were also horses!

In the distance you can see how the black rocks have been stacked to form a wall. These walls run all over the island:

Jeju sightseeing - Udo Island

2007-10-11T21:51:00.000+09:00

Udo Island is a small island off the north-east part of Jeju. The small ferry takes about 10 minutes to reach it:

Exiting the harbour:
Udo Island from afar:
Once on the island I rented a scooter for about 10 bucks and drove around the island in just over an hour. It was very fun.

As you might have noticed the sky was very ominous and dramatic at that time:
And even the soil was looking black:
It actually started to rain just as I returned to my starting point. I hopped of my scooter, hopped on the ferry and then onto a bus back to Jeju City.

Jeju sightseeing - Seogwuipo

2007-10-09T22:35:00.000+09:00

So the southern area where I stayed in the posh hotel is called Seogwuipo. One of the first places I visited was this charming waterfall:
After checking in I went to that Sound Museum, but first wandered down to the beach. As you can see, the southern part of the island is semi-tropical. Quite pretty.

Neato bridge. Quite a large one, and I think part of a botanical garden.
One of the most famous things about Jeju Island is that it is home to South Korea's tallest mountain, Mount Halla. The whole time I was in Jeju the weather was so cloudy and rainy I managed to view the peak for a grand total of about 30 minutes. Here it is. It looks small but that's cause it's far away.
Doesn't it totally look like that cloud is about to eat the Mt. Halla???

More Jeju

2007-10-08T21:56:00.000+09:00

In my previous post I showed a $20 bacon and egg breakfast. This was from the sorta posh hotel I stayed at one night. I'd requested an ocean view room and this is what I paid for. Pretty cultivated right? Well that view is if I stuck my head over the balcony and looked to the right. The view that was actually in front of me was this:
Those are greenhouses. Not really very oceanic.

Sort of in the vicinity of the hotel were a variety of strange museums. I passed up the Teddy Bear Museum and the Sex Theme Park (I'm not making that up) and instead opted for the Sound Museum. There were some interesting things, including a couple of rooms filled with old phonograph sets. I'd never actually seen one up close before.

There was also a room that had instruments from around the world, which was cool, but the final room was this:
I have no idea what was going on the mind of whoever created this room, nor could I figure out what it had to do with sound. It was just sort of bizarre and vaguely creepy.

And...we're back to the food

2007-09-30T00:12:00.001+09:00

Here's a little story I wrote about the restaurant across from my hotel in Jeju City:

Found a nice little resto right across from my hotel. The name said it specialized in 추어탕 (loach fish soup) but there were some 찌개s (spicy stews) mentioned on the menu as well. Went inside to find a cozy place staffed by about 4 ajumma. I didn't see 찌개 on the menu so enquired about 물회. I was guessing that this was 'water-hwoe (raw fish)' but couldn't figure out what it was exactly. When I asked one of the women, the first thing she said was that is was 'refreshing' (시원하다) and then went on about how it was a Jeju special dish with '자리'. I kind of got lost so just said 'ok'. Not a minute later another ajumma came over and asked if I'd tried the dish before. I said no, and she expressed her concern that I might not be able to eat it because of soy-bean paste (된장) and spiciness etc. I said that was all fine. A moment later the banchan (sidedishes) showed up and and I saw that even if the main dish was gross I would be ok with just the scrumptous looking sidedishes and rice. I need not have worried, the main dish was DELICIOUS. It was sliced raw fish in an iced bath of tasty tasty broth. It was garlicy and a little spicy with some soybean paste and sesame seeds. Soooo good, though knawing on fish tails wasn't my favourite (the fish were pretty small so there were several - pretty sure those were the 자리). After I finished eating and was sipping a coffee the ajummas started a group analysis on what I had or hadn't eaten ("Did she eat that?" "Yes yes she did" "I don't think she had any of the potato" "Oh yes she had some"). They seemed particularly focused on the leaves. Fresh leaves are often served so that you can make 쌈 (ssam) which is where you wrap up some rice and whatever in the leaf. I was served three kinds of leaves: lettuce, sesame leaf and one I didn't recognize which the ladies told me where soy bean leaves (콩잎). I told them I'd never had that kind of leaf which elicited further animated discussion from the women. Anyway it was a great meal and those ajumma were quite friendly.

Here's the front of the restaurant just in case anyone wants to find it. Look at that happy fish!
Since the trip to Jeju was my vacation and considerably cheaper than my usual trip to Canada, I figured it was within budget to spend a night at a slightly expensive hotel. Slightly expensive hotels of course come with fantastically priced room service. Here's what a $20 bacon and eggs looks like. The coffee pot looks nice doesn't it. Too bad it contained only one cup of coffee. Cheap bastards.
From the sublime to the mundane. Overall I enjoyed travelling by myself except when it came to eating. A lot of the interesting Korean food doesn't come in single servings, which means eating in a restaurant is sometimes a hassle. Fortunately the franchised corner stores actually sell a reasonable selection of what qualifies as real food. One of the most ubiquitous chains is Family Mart. This one was cute with its traditional style roof. One of the stand-by corner store lunches is 'rice triangles'. Just a triangle of rice with a dollop of meat or fish wrapped in a crispy sheaf of seaweed. My favourite is tuna mayonnaise. They're actually a clever bit of work as they are carefully wrapped so the seaweed only comes in contact with the rice at the time of eating. This is to prevent the seaweed from becoming soggy. Nobody likes soggy seaweed.
My last night in Jeju City my friend Adam and some of his friends were available for dinner. We had more delicious Jeju style food. In the front you can see more of that yummy 'mul-hwoe' and the reddish dish that has been quite decimated is the remains of 'go-deung-oh jo-rim' (고등어 조림) or Braised Mackerel. Again, another super tasty dish.

Jeju cont'd

2007-09-28T20:37:00.000+09:00

In Jeju city there's a rock called Yong-du-am (용두암) which basically means Dragon Head Rock. It doesn't look *exactly* like a dragon's head but with a little imagination you can see it. I was almost equally interested in the swarm of people dressed alike viewing the rock from above. Probably high school students.
Here's the rock set against a moody sky.
Here's some evidence of Jeju's semi-tropical status - cacti growing happily at the side of the road.

The island's lone airport is eerily close to the city. Though it's hard to tell in the picture, I felt like this airplane was about to land just adjacent to where I was.

Trip to Jeju Island - First installment

2007-09-27T22:17:00.001+09:00

The last week of August I squeezed in a solo trip to the island of Jeju. It's a semi-tropical island a few hundred kilometres south of the Korean peninsula. It's a 45 minute flight from Busan, and though it's part of Korea it's quite unlike the mainland.

The first place I visited was a bonsai, or as they're known in Korea, bunjae garden. It was truly beautiful with lots and lots of miniature trees amongst spectacularly landscaped grounds. Most of the trees were over 50 years old, with plenty well over 100 years old. Though it's hard to tell, this tree is no taller than me. I particularly liked its expressive trunk.
There are a lot of pine trees in Korea and they play an important cultural and historical role since they are apparently associated with lordship. They are also very beautiful. This tree is not a miniature but has been carefully pruned to reveal this fine form.
Right up in the list of my favourite things is fish. So I was very delighted to find this koi pond where you could skip across stepping stones whilst gazing at the fish (ok maybe you can't really gaze and skip simultaneously). Still the fish were mesmerizing, and some of them quite large. I overheard a man say that fish of this size could go for up to $10000. That's some expensive fish!
When I finished at the garden I went back to town to catch the bus. First I wandered around for a bit. I walked out to the end of this ________ (What's it called? I haven't built up my coastal living vocabulary enough yet. It's a long, narrow, concrete 'spit' which extends out along one edge of the harbour, same as the one in the distance that's got a white lighthouse. Presumably to protect the harbour from big waves...?) and had a small lunch behind the red lighthouse.
On my way back down the ________ I saw this cheeky cat. Can you see what he's doing so brashly??

More good eats

2007-09-26T22:13:00.000+09:00

One of the tastiest Korean meals is the barbeque. Near the university there are loads of barbeque places and the most popular meet is called samgyupsal (삼겹살) which is essentially uncured bacon in a thicker cut. It is often eaten in a lettuce wrap with bean sauce, garlic and / or onion.

Here's Minsu working on some tasty cuts. This place has charcoal fire; that thing hovering above the grill is for sucking up the meaty smoky fumes. Yum!

Welcome to the neighbourhood!

2007-09-26T22:03:00.000+09:00

After much anticipation a new cinema has just opened down the street from me. The amusing thing is that aside from the theater itself the rest of the building is, well, incomplete. The theater is on the fifth floor, and on the other floors is, well, nothing.

Random find

2007-09-26T22:00:00.000+09:00

On a recent walk in Igidae Park I took a new path. It wound steeply up the side of a hill, and when I popped out at the top I found this lonely punching bag.

Igidae Park / 이기대 공원

2007-09-10T22:51:00.000+09:00

I seem to recall mentioning a magnificent coastal park near my house, and I'm finally getting around to posting some photos. It actually only takes about 25 minutes on foot to reach the water's edge. I can't believe I've only started going this past year!

The day I took these it was overcast and drizzly - actually very good conditions for taking the coastal path. The trees look extra green contrasting against the rough rocks that extend into the water, and the ocean often looks stormy and moody - very dramatic. One of these days I'll get up on the ridge and snap some shots. The view of Busan is incredible from up there. [click on images to view larger size]

Even though the weather wasn't the greatest, it was the beginning of summer vacation which means people will head to any piece of shore they can find. These folks were hanging out above the swimmers pictured above.

Two posts in one day. Whoaaaa....

2007-09-09T13:09:00.000+09:00

Well, I took a test. I'm not a nerd. The internet says so. Must be true~!

Uber Cool Non-Nerd. That's me baby!

If you're unsure of your status, take the test here.

Literary Notes

2007-09-09T10:52:00.000+09:00

Of late I'm trying to re-engage literary habits, that is reading books. My latest arrangement is reading non-fiction in the mornings and fiction before bed. This is going quite well and I thought I'd mention a few of the interesting titles I've been diving into recently.

First off, after years of resisting my brothers exaltations I finally got into the Harry Potter series. Yes, they are very good books. A few weeks ago I finished the final installment, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' and my my if it wasn't an exciting read. Stayed up till dawn to finish it.

Now my fiction read is 'HMS Surprise' by Patrick O'Brian, well-known for the film adaptation of 'Master and Commander'. He writes meticulously detailed historical nautical tales. A tad difficult going at times due to arcane vocabulary but since one of my secret ambitions is to become a sailor an important read.

For non-fiction I've just finished 'The Professor and the Madman', a most interesting story by Simon Winchester. It has to do with the creation of the Oxford dictionary and the friendship that developed between the head developer, the Professor, and one of the dictionary's leading contributors, the Madman. As a side note, if anyone would like to purchase for me the complete Oxford dictionary I'd be much obliged. (On CD ROM please, I haven't got the space for the 20 volumes)

My next book is 'This Is Your Brain On Music' by Daniel Levitin who is currently a neuroscientist in charge of McGills's Labratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and Expertise and who has past experience as a session musician, sound engineer and record producer. I've just read a little of this fascinating book but wow this man knows a lot! And the book is packed with loads of interesting bits of information. Did you know, that if you take the recordings of several different instruments individually playing the same note, then edit the 'attack' from the recording that the instrument's identity is no longer, well, identifiable. That is, without the initial sound an instrument makes, different instruments playing the same note cannot be distinguished. I think your mind was just blown...! Anyway apparently this experiment was done first by Pierre Shaeffer, one of the originators of musique concrete back in the day.

Lest you think all I do is sit home and read books, don't worry I still watch plenty of junky TV too. Lately I'm seriously hooked on an American teenage drama called 'Veronica Mars'. She's a young, smart-mouthed P.I. going to a rich kid's school in Southern California where people are always getting double-crossed, murdered or roofied. Don't know why but am seriously sucked into Veronica's world...Oh and the second season of 'The IT Crowd' (HT to Ian) is underway. Hurrah! We love you Moss!

Homestyle eatin

2007-08-15T20:33:00.000+09:00

Today was very hot but there was also a breeze and it was very sunny with a brilliantly blue sky. This is something new given the weather for the past few weeks has been mostly grey and rainy. Today was also a public holiday so instead of going to the gym for my sacrificial cardio it was time to venture out into the world. I decided to head over to Igidae Park which is a sprawling forested park along the coast (photos will appear another day). I had an absolutely gorgeous if somewhat rigorous walk (it is mountainous after all!).

When I got home I washed up, cracked a beer and tucked into the delightful sandwich I'd picked up on the walk home. This wasn't going to be enough so I decided to build on the beer theme and whipped up a plate of nachos. I settled in to an episode of C.S.I. (Vegas - it's THE C.S.I.) and as I watched dead bodies being sown up was still feeling a bit peckish. So I decided to crack open one of my recent adventurous food purchases - partially dried squid. This is basically Korean bar food but I often go to foreigner oriented bars where not many are into eating this local treat. But, I really enjoy it so I thought I'd give it a go at home. I'd previously tried fully dried squid but practically broke my jaw with all the chewing that entailed. The half-dried stuff is much better and consequently much tastier. Once you break it out of the package you just warm it up over the grill, then shred it up into strips with your fingers and dip it in a mixture of mayonaise and hot n' sweet sauce. Man it tastes real good with beer! Here's a shot of what the original goods look like, plus the devasted remains of one I ate all unto myself....yummmmmm~~ (you can also see my lovely new faux-hardwood floor ^^)

That nasty construction

2007-08-07T01:17:00.000+09:00

There's a very large construction site next to our building. It opened a few months ago and work is slated to continue until Dec. 2008 or so. A new dormitory and student centre are being built - each one will be over 15 storeys upon completion. Oh! Happy day! The noise and dirt levels fluctuate, but thankfully they do at least stop work around sundown. A friend told me of a charming 11 months when a new mega grocery store was constructed in front of his house - construction was round the clock.

I haven't been able to get many good shots of the big mess but I managed this one.
Here you can see a big ol' stack of materials, but what I was trying to capture was the crazy huge crane moving this very heavy looking box thing through the air and onto a flatbed truck. I was sure the end was near as it seemed inevitable balance would be lost and the whole thing would come crashing through my front window. Thankfully this did not happen! (I feel the gritty element of this photo is heightened by the grid effect which resulted from taking the picture through my screen door - click on the image to see a larger version)

And...now for some more food !

2007-08-07T01:00:00.000+09:00

A close friend asked me the other day if I'm happy in Korea and without hesitation I responded yes. The main reason is that I truly love my job - something I never expected when I came to Korea about 4.5 years ago. The other reasons are basically found within a few kilometers of my home. I have a great gym, a great set of shops including a produce market for shopping, a mountain for skywards hiking, a vast park along the ocean for scenic walking and I know almost every decent to good restaurant in the area. Throw in a good bunch of co-workers and friends and to me these are the ingredients of a happy life.

There's one place I often stop in for a bite to eat and I always order the same thing. The place is sort of equivalent to a Japanese fusion diner in the sense that it's not too expensive but they have everything fusiony under the sun on their menu. That means mostly loads of bizarre rolls, some sushi and even some pasta and salads. But what I go there for is the 회덮밥 (hwoe-deop-bap). Literally that translates as raw fish- covered- rice, which is I guess literally what it is. But man is it tasty. On a heaping pile of rice is basically a generous topping of shredded greens (mainly lettuce + sesame leaf = yum), some strips of 김 (kim = roasted pressed seaweed - a lot tastier than it sounds) and sliced raw fish. The diner then liberal douses this with a sweetened chili sauce, mixes well and digs in. Mmmmm sooooo tasty.... [cost: 6000원 ~ $7.00 CAD]

Not dead, just away from the computer

2007-08-04T21:36:00.000+09:00

My last post was June 2. Seems like ages ago. Of course, that was right before the Mighty Summer Workload hit. Mid-June was final exams and grading, which was promptly followed by the summer intensive program for uni students, known as PassE. It's a four-week program where about 90 students stay at the dorm, only going home Saturday night, and spending about 6 to 8 hours in the classroom a day. That meant yours truly was at Yongdang Campus from 9am till 5ish Mon. through Fri., subsequently meaning I was knackered for that entire four weeks. Several Saturdays were spent mainly sleeping.

After PassE finished, I taught two weeks at the English Kids' Camp. Only four hours a day but wow it sure did remind me how I'm no longer so keen on teaching children. Actually the majority of the kids were really lovely. I had to teach a lot of classes under the auspices of 'Music and Chant'. That meant a whole lot of nursery rhymes but also I taught them 'Yellow Submarine' - what a great song for kids!

On top of all that, for the past few weeks major renovations have been going on in the Foreign Teacher's Residence. Granted a lot of the work was past due but what a mess cramming all the work into two weeks.

First off, I came home one day to the set of E.T. This is the hallway of the fourth floor. The fumes were AWFUL. In typical fashion we were not notified that this grand event was taking place so two days in a row I awoke to the toxic smell of paint. Fortunately the Starbucks down the street opens early so I filled my backpack with books and headed there for the duration.

After the paint job all apartments had the floors and wallpapering redone (the floors here are covered in this strange 'paper', often patterned to resemble hardwood; it's similar to vinyl flooring but somehow different). That required a great deal of effort on my part since I had to 'put away' all my (loads and loads) of stuff so the workers could easily access the floor and walls. After that excitement, over the next few days we recieved a new microwave, TV, and washing machine. Here's the old ones sitting out to rest:

Here are the new washings machine waiting to be installed. I must say they are a VAST improvement over the old ones. The new one is so big and deep I have to stand on my tippy toes to reach stuff at the bottom. Happy days!

I thought the washing machine was the end of it, but no, there's more! We also got new air conditioning units and a new hood over the stove. Phew!! Finally I can put my apartment back together now that the streams of workers are done stomping through my apartment.

Finally! A post not about food!

2007-06-02T14:48:00.000+09:00

The hanbok (한복) is the traditional dress of Korea and can be quite beautiful. Nowadays hanbok is usually donned on special occasions such as weddings or big family holidays. The woman's hanbok is the most spectacular with a large skirt topped with a small jacket, typically in very bright colours. Fashion folk have been working on updating the hanbok's look, often employing subtler colouring with slight changes to the original design. Here's some images of more modern hanbok:

Because the skirts are so large (and some versions like the one above with big dangly sleeves) they make an excellent canvas for naturalistic paintings. Lovely!

Full article can be viewed here.

Mandu party

2007-05-01T22:52:00.000+09:00

A few weekends ago several of us made the trip to nearby Daegu to Chris' girlfriend's house. Hwui Lin is from China and so has a natural ability when it comes to making dumplings, or 'man-du' (만두) as they're called in Korean. With Hwui Lin coaching, we all hunkered down and set about wrapping up tasty little packets in two flavours, pork and shrimp. Here's the end result, just before eatin' time.

Judging by the expression on Chris' face, Colin has just said something appaling/shocking/perplexing.

A little later we took a walk to get something from the store.

Colin and Justin awaitin'.

More food!!

2007-05-01T22:45:00.000+09:00

It seems these days the only thing worth blogging about is what I eat, so here I go with some more good eats...

Kept walking by a new Chinese place so I thought I'd try it out. Chinese places are good for the solo dweller as they will gladly deliver single orders for low cost with incredible speed.

The first dish is 'ma-pa-tu-bu' (마파두부). It's a spicy tofu stir fry, and this one came with loads of fresh veggies. I was pleased.

The second dish is 'nak-ji-bokk-eum' (낙지볶음), another spicy stir fry, this time with baby octopus. Look at that crazy tentacle!!

Overall the dishes were quite tasty; for the low price of 5000 won and delivered right to my door not bad at all!

Korean cooking 101 - Seaweed salad

2007-03-30T00:42:00.001+09:00

A relatively recent question by a fellow blogger has coincided with a thought I had: I should really explain some of the Korean cooking mayhem I get up to in my wee kitchen. Korean cooking is very fun and exciting due to the variety of crazy ingredients available as well as new techniques to be experimented with. Some recipes I find online in an English version, other times it's guesswork, or occasionally I dip into my (written aaaall in Korean) Korean cookbook.

Today's recipe was mainly guesswork. Sometimes basic dishes are easy to figure out once you have a grasp of basic seasonings.

Seaweed Salad (미역 무침)

Miyeok is a kind of brown seaweed; it's most famous dish is miyeok soup which is traditionally consumed by women for up to a month after childbirth, and by everyone on birthdays.

Fresh from the grocery store.

Miyeok comes in two basic forms, dried or fresh. Dried is convenient as you simply have to soak it in some water and it'll spring back to life. Caution: a little expands a LOT. Or, you can buy it fresh at the market or grocery store. It's really cheap - you can get a huge mass for about a buck. If you buy it fresh, soak it in water for a while. This makes it less salty and slimy. Whether using dried or fresh, after its soak it should be drained thoroughly before proceeding. Once it's well drained, simply cut it up into manageable chunks. Scissors work best for this.

ONE piece after it's been soaked. You can see the need for cutting - who could fit that tentacley thing in one's mouth...?

Now for the seasonings: salt, vinegar (rice or apple - something mild), minced garlic, sesame oil, sesame seeds. Just mess around with the proportions till it tastes nice. I'm guessing for a couple of handfuls of miyeok, you'd want around a teaspoon of sesame oil, about that amount of vinegar depending on how tangy you like it, not much garlic (maybe a small clove), 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of seasame seeds. Salt to taste. Mix it all up and enjoy~~

Whoa nelly...!

2007-03-23T17:37:00.000+09:00

Look at this crazy beast that is parked somewhere near(ish) my house!

It's a US aircraft carrier with a crew of more than 5000. Biiiiiig...

Interweb shopping

2007-03-08T00:20:00.000+09:00

It's taken me a while but I think I'm now a convert. I believe in Internet Shopping. In Korea, you can get really sweet deals online and it's just so very convenient to get stuff delivered right to you. I have bought books, electronics as well as groceries (!) online with excellent results. Groceries are a new hot area as you can buy loads of 'foreign' foods online that are next to impossible to find in your local shop. For instance, I taught a special interest class about food and wanted to prepare some recipes with my students. I decided upon Mexican style food and a few clicks away I ordered a full taco set including seasoning, taco shells, salsa and canned black beans. The same order also included sour cream and avocados (they arrived in a styrofoam cooler)! The entire thing came in at a reasonable cost and arrived at my work place within 48 hours of placing the order. Sweet convenience. Well, I was just about to browse a site known for its deals on electronics (I'd like to upgrade my headphones) when I noticed that the site has a new category: CARS!!! Hahahaha... Add one Lexus to my cart please~~

Lunch of the day

2007-03-07T22:43:00.000+09:00

Last Saturday I took a daytrip to Seoul and as usual I took the KTX (Korea's zippy train - from Busan to Seoul -> 2 hrs 45 min). I didn't get a chance to eat before boarding the train as I was late getting up and out the door so I was at the mercy of whatever was available on board. As luck would have it, the 'doshirak' (도시락), or lunchbox, was purty darn good. For about 7 bucks, this is what I got:In the lunch box, from top left moving to the right by row, sauteed dried anchovy sidedish, 2 tater tots (!), kimchi, sauteed mushroom sidedish, 2 cherry tomatoes, stewed beef, steamed broccoli (a new veggie to Korea but one that's become very popular of late) and the main dish, baby octopus stir-fry. Yum! Included was some water, rice and dried crispy seaweed you can use to wrap up your rice with. Yum yum!

This meal highlights one thing I really like about Korea. No matter where you are chances are you can get some 'real' food. And by that I mean unprocessed, with actual vegetables and cooked by someone by hand. That's good eats.

Fruit and Veg Creations

2007-02-26T00:44:00.000+09:00

Wow how cute are these guys! Go here to see more creations.

Today's Lunch

2007-02-24T17:15:00.000+09:00

Today's lunch, home delivery style. Pork cutlet with cheese inside. Yum! Cost = 5000 won (about $5.00).

On the topic of bribery

2007-02-24T16:16:00.000+09:00

I thought this was an interesting article on the 'etiquette of bribery'.

What would YOU do?

2007-02-24T16:11:00.000+09:00

Living in a different country naturally poses its challenges and whatnot, but with patience and an open mind, there is usually very little conflict between ones 'native' values and those of the host country. What is interesting is when you discover a value you had previously considered to be fairly universal is in fact not.

I have been teaching what's referred to as Freshman English for a year now, and one of the more important differences between this type of class and the conversation classes I had been teaching previously is that these are credited university classes where I am fully responsible for assigning the grades.

Now, I am an educated person and I come from with a reasonably well-educated populace. Koreans too are generally well-educated; in fact the average Korean probably spends a great deal more time in school and studying than the average educated Canadian. On the surface it would seem that educational values would be of a similar degree between the two countries. This is the case only when the idea of education remains unchallenged and unanalysed.

Since being directly involved in an institution of higher education I have had occasion to question what is meant by 'education'. A recent incident sharply brought into focus differences in the way 'an education' may be administered within a given society and caused me to strongly identify a belief which has turned out to be culture specific.

About the third week of December 2006 saw the final days of the semester, replete with exams and final assignments. Final grades were due to be input into the central university system by December 27th. The student body then has about a week to check their grades, and if they wish, contact the relevant professor or teacher to ask about a grade.

Cultural difference #1: It appears to be the custom that if a student is unsatisfied with their grade, they may ask the professor for a higher grade. There are no particular grounds necessary for doing this. Basically the formula seems to be something along the lines of 'Dear Professor, I worked really hard and thank you for your teaching, but I got a B. Could I please have a B+ or an A?' Apparently this approach works because many students do it.

Now there is a special variation on the above, and that is for fourth year students, particularly males. Men here are generally a little old when they graduate (around 26) due to their mandatory military service of 2 years. This in addition to a very competitive job market (especially for jobs that don't really suck) means that these students are very very eager to get a job straight after university. So eager in fact that it is not unusual for some of them to get a job BEFORE they've graduated. This in itself is a little hard to grasp for a lot of the western teachers as none of us have every felt such a pressing need to get a job so very quickly at the end of our university career. Furthermore, said job would certainly interfere with concluding our studies.

So what happens in these cases? Well, it would seem the convention is, if a student gets a job at some point during the final semester of their studies, it is understood that their professors will unilaterally award them Ds so that they may graduate. Apparently, if the students don't graduate they will lose their job.

Now, I came across this situation twice last semester and since I was unwilling to simply pass them, I told one student to switch to a night class (this was early on in the semester) and the other to do some makeup work. In both cases the students willingly complied with my requests, so in both cases they were able to get their marks and presumably graduate (the class I teach is a degree requirement for all students).

This month (December) myself and the other foreign teachers are working at a special intensive English program for university students. Last week, we were regrouping in the teacher's room after a busy morning of teaching. The two TAs were their talking with a man, and as I entered around their collective gaze moved in my direction. I walked over to see what was up. One TA explained that this man was my student and he was here to talk to me about his grade. I looked the man in the face and said, 'My student? I have never seen this person in my life.' I waited for explanation where upon he turned to the TA and asked in Korean if she could translate for him. She said that this guy had received an F and needed a D since he had a job and needed to graduate lest he lose his job. Furthermore, he claimed to have previously given me a certification of employment and the reason he hadn't contacted me during the semester is because he was too busy with his job. At this point I became quite angry. Though the students I teach numbers in the hundreds I have a pretty good memory for faces and I knew that I had never once met this man, and had certainly not received any documents from him. Secondly, here he was showing up in person (most students email first) THE DAY BEFORE the last day to change grades. He kept looking at me expectantly like it was a simple matter for me to agree to his request. At that point I said something about talking to my boss if he wanted his grade changed cause I certainly wouldn't do it and moved to extricate myself from the situation. I sat at my desk, but he continued to talk at length to the TAs, presumably about his 'situation'. This further infuriated me since the TAs certainly have nothing to do with his 'situation' and they clearly looked uncomfortable. I told them to tell him that at the end of the day I would go to my office, review this guy's file and render a decision at that time. Still furious, I went to lunch with my coworkers thinking the matter to be concluded.

After lunch, much to my delight the man reappeared. He walked into the office bearing a box of vitamin drinks and offered them to me. I refused to accept them and sat down at my desk. He came over to my desk and put the box next to the desk and left. My first bribe!! Another teacher asked what was in the box, I said it was drinks for the teachers and to put them on the snack table. I would have nothing to do with those tainted beverages.

At the end of the day the man was still around and presented me with a hand written note (click on the image to make it larger) presumably explaining his situation. I again told him I would go to my office and review his file. At my office, I found no documents from him, no record of any emails from him and the attendance records showed he had not once attended class.

As I reflected upon why I got so angry I realized I was in the midst of a genuine cultural values conflict. The crux of this was that as someone raised within a 'western' education system, the link between receiving a grade and doing work is immutable. In the Korean system this is relation is clearly a lot more flexible. Most Koreans I asked about the Special Case of the Fourth Years admitted that it was a 'delicate' situation, hinting that they were aware of its inherent contradictions but proceeding to explain that this is basically how things were done.

Though I was aware of this fact, this particular student approached me in a manner which so flagrantly and shamelessly exploited this flexibility that I couldn't help but become angry and disgusted. I am conscious of the fact that I am not in Korea to assert Canadian, Western or whatever other values in the face of my employer. At the same time, however, I do believe this practice to be fundamentally flawed. It is disrespectful not only to the teacher as it devalues their work but also to the other students who have attended class and worked hard. Furthermore, it undermines the integrity of the institution as it means that grades are effectively awarded arbitrarily. But the roles of institutions and how they are constituted is the subject for another entirely too long post.

So, what do you think I did…?

Korean cooking 101 - Seaweed Salad

2007-02-19T00:39:00.000+09:00

Badges of Merit

2007-02-18T01:34:00.000+09:00

Remember those badges you could get in Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts? Well, a group from UBC known as the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique have come up with a set for adults involved in the sciences. They're pretty cute. See them here.

Notice how I'm not in the picture...

2007-02-16T23:07:00.000+09:00

This weekend is Lunar New Year in Korea (Seollal) and wow is it a busy time. Seollal is basically the equivalent of Christmas for Westerners in terms of significance as a time to get together with family. Families celebrate in various ways here, but one of the common threads seems to be offering up thanks to ancestors through ritual. This may be accompanied by a kind of gambling game called 'Go-Stop' played with mini pictured cards, and the elders giving pocket money to the kids. The offering made to the ancestors (세배) involves setting up a table with an elaborate spread of different foods symbolizing various things. A nicely detailed article on this can be found here. A lot of food and preparation is required. For the past week or so doing grocery shopping has been a nightmare as families have been stocking up on fantastic quantities of food and gifts. Today at the street market it took me much longer than usual to navigate as a there were all kinds of people doing last minute shopping.

Of course one of the biggest effects this holiday has is that of temporary population relocation. A constant source of fascination to me is what happens when almost 50 million people all decide it's time to go back to Grandma's house for the holidays. With approximately a quarter of the population in Seoul, when many of these folk head out to their hometowns sprinkled around the peninsula it creates some magnificent traffic jams. The drive from Seoul to Busan on a good day should take about five hours. Traffic authorities predict it will take over eight hours this weekend as an estimated 30 000 000 (just under the population of Canada - yay!) will be on the move. Yikes! Many people opt to try and minimize these woes by chosing another form of transport: bus, train and plane tickets are sold out months in advance and general pandemonium erupts at most major stations and terminals throughout the country. That's why I thought I'd point out I'm not in that picture - I'm safely at home visiting my family and friends through the modern wonder of the blog!

Wasting time, la la la~~~

2007-01-31T16:35:00.000+09:00

Definitely one of the fun things about living abroad is having the exotic become familiar. Case in point: persimmons. While living in Canada it's doubtful I could have picked one out of a lineup, but in Korea they can be found in abundance come harvest time. Driving through the countryside on our recent trip to Jirisan, we saw lots of trees overburdened with persimmon fruit, with piles of ripe fruit fallen to the ground. Also, we saw rows and rows of fruit strung up to dry, and in a market area huge boxes going for mere pennies (or wons I suppose).

Little did I know that one of the uses for way too many overripe persimmons is to make dye. I'd often seen orangey cloth and clothes for sale and as it turns out, it's been dyed with persimmon. I recently learned this from an article with lovely photos, one of which you see above. For the full story, check here:

Persimmon dye

Shopping List

2007-01-26T12:41:00.000+09:00

In a blatant effort to procrastinate, here's my shopping list! This is the list for 'Mega Mart', the very big grocery/everthing store I go to once every few weeks. It's where I buy primarily 'Western' products, but occasionally a few other things make it on the list. I was just wondering if my shopping lists have changed much from when I used to live in Canada. I guess the main thing here is that I sometimes write items in Korean. Trying to figure out why I do it with some words only, I think word length is one of the deciding factors. That is, if it's shorter to write in Korean I will do so. Examples: 빵 = bread, 닭 = chicken, 오이 = cucumber. Exceptions: 생강 = ginger. No difference in word length there, think I just like the Korean word. 미역 = brown seaweed. The one really Korean item on my list. I use the Korean word cause 'brown seaweed' sounds stupid. I love this stuff. I make what is effectively salad with it and eat it all the time. Any other weird stuff you notice here? One bummer discovery when I actually went to fill this order - Parmesean (a la Kraft) is now over 8000 (~$9.00) per container. Yeouch.

What would YOU do?

2007-01-07T10:05:00.000+09:00

Rain or shine

2007-01-04T08:23:00.000+09:00

Aren't they cute? This is how the mail is delivered. I'd say these guys are pretty good at what they do considering most of Korea doesn't have addresses and many residential areas consist of wormy windy streets, nooks and crannies. These guys were riding for New Years.

Your very own hobbit hole

2007-01-01T09:55:00.000+09:00

Isn't it the cutest little home?

How to build your own hobbit house

I am a superhero

2006-12-31T17:08:00.000+09:00

Living in Korea one expects not to be able to get every little thing that's available in one's homeland. For the most part, I've either been able to find or get over most of the stuff I really miss. One thing that I've been unable to find and unable to get over, however, is pita bread. Rummaging around online one day I came across a recipe for pita which claimed to be easy. I was very skeptical, since the recipe called for yeast - a substance of magical properties which I've always stayed away from. Finally the day arrived when I was ready to try. With the help of a little stove top cooking device Ian kindly sent over to me my first batch turned out pretty durned good. Even if the texture/ size was a little off, they actually tasted like pita! Oh happy day! One of the tricks to preparing pita is to get them to puff on the stove. My second batch I had even better results, as you can see here. Woohoo!!!

Trip to Jirisan National Park

2006-12-30T13:02:00.000+09:00

A few months ago, on a long weekend, me and my 'team' set out for one of the more famous national parks in Korea. The park's name is Jirisan, and has South Korea's tallest mainland mountain, CheonHwangBong (roughly Heaven's Royal Peak), just under 2km tall. Here we are at the entrance of the park.

We started our day pretty early, getting on a bus at around 7am, bringing us to the starting point around 8am. It was pretty cold, but of course walking upwards rapidly warms one up. Here's some nice scenery from the hike:

This last picture is on the way down. Notice how perky Jon and Justin are, and how worn out the guy sitting down looks. From the base to the peak it takes about 3 or 4 hours, and the incline is quite relentless. The path often has sections of stairs or big rocks that you have to gingerly scramble over. Death to all leg muscles, knees and ankles.

As it happened, we didn't make it all the way to the peak. After hiking vigourously we reached a rest point, where it was REALLY REALLY COLD due to howling winds. We had some food, looked up at the peak behind us, and decided against going the rest of the way. We figured we might have the energy to make it up, but maybe not to make it down again! Here's Team Glute* with the peak behind us:
By the time we got back down we were thoroughly worn out. Thankfully, at the base of every popular mountain in Korea there's food and drink aplenty. One of the best drinks is unrefined rice 'wine' called makkoli, or dongdongju. Here we are enjoying a bowl along with the remnants of our snack. Yum.

After our big hike we were ready for some serious relaxation. We took a taxi (yes there are taxis in the middle of the mountains in Korea) to a nearby spa. We checked into the adjoining hotel and proceeded to soak for several luxurious hours in the lovely baths.

The next day we went to the southern part of the park known for its green tea cultivation. We visited the first site of tea cultivation in Korea, which was basically a patch of overgrown tea bushes.
We then had to get ready to embark on a series of bus trips to make it back to Busan. Unfortunately, due to a local marathon, the first bus we had to take was very late. Here's Jon and Justin waiting at the 'bus stop'.

* Team Glute: Composed of members Anninator, J-Dog Justin and Strapping Jon. United in the common goal of activiting the glutes as well as partaking in the many gastronomic delights of Korea rounded out by many bawdy and nerdy jokes.

Long time no....

2006-12-30T13:00:00.000+09:00

Yes it's been a while since I've posted on Ye Olde Blogge. Busy etc. You understand ~
Anyway, the spirit moves so enjoy some new entries.

Down in the southern part

2006-10-17T23:18:00.000+09:00

Busy as usual so haven't gotten around to any interesting posts lately. I was, however, greeted with the 'Breaking News' headlines on the BBC World Service last Monday as they told the tale of Kim Jong-'Kaboom'-il's most recent foray into more explosive endeavours. Well, seeing as it seems inconclusive as to whether or not the bomb detonated was in fact nuclear, the whole event seems shrouded in uncertainty and hence less significant than it might be otherwise. Particularly since I'm pretty much as far away from Pyeongyang as can be while still being in Korea, I'd say for the most part no one round here is overly concerned.
That is not to say that the powers that be are taking the situation lightly. A male colleague received notice that if called to duty he would have to be in Seoul within 56 hours (all men here serve two years of military duty and then are in the reserves for a good long time after that). Also, there was a surprise air-raid drill on Monday afternoon which gave myself and my students quite a start (it's loud). There are actually routine drills here, but always at the same time on the same day: Friday afternoons at 2pm, about every 2 or 3 months. During these drills you can here the sirens blaring, and all traffic comes to a halt for the duration, bout 10 minutes or so. At the univerisity, the main gates close, and in addition to vehicular traffic, all pedestrians within are barred from the main throughway. So yeah. Things between the North and South are tense, but things in Busan are pretty much as usual.

Quack quack

2006-09-11T22:20:00.000+09:00

A pleasant addition to the friend roster, Strapping John is valued for his good natured and straightforward approach to life, and also his enthusiasm when approaching all things edible. He had told about a restaurant that not only served up a tasty duck dish, but was set in idyllic surroundings amongst mountains and along a lakeshore - right within the city limits! So our intrepid bunch set off by taxi, and as was foretold, found said restaurant a mere ten minute ride away from a busy subway station. Turns out the lake is in fact a reservoir, I gather for the city's water. As you can see from the pictures, it truly was a most peaceful and lovely place. The food was pretty durn tasty too~!
That is Adam, John's friend, who has since departed for the fabled shores of Jeju Island. The big pot in the middle is the duck surrounded by the typical multitude of side dishes. Yum!

Local Scenery

2006-09-10T00:15:00.000+09:00

Went out to the busy neighbourhood round Pusan National Museum a while back and saw this sign for a club. Again, the English usage sorta makes me giggle. It's a little small in the picture, but it reads like this:

"R U READY?"

U MUST HEAR THIS MUSIC!
U MUST SHAKE UR BODY!
U MUST HAVE A FEELING!

"WHERE?"
"IN DA CLUB ASPIRIN!"

Last Saturday

2006-09-02T22:52:00.000+09:00

Last Saturday me and my neighbour/co-worker Justin decided to go on a mini-adventure. We knew there was a big stone Buddha somewhere sorta near our place and so we decided to go find it. Along the way it became necessary to seek sustenance. We stopped at a bright and clean place to eat up some 'naeng-myeon' (냉면). This is a very popular summer time dish in Korea, and consists of these weirdly chewy noodles in a cold broth accompanied by a few slices of boiled meat, some boiled egg and maybe some radish or something. I don't actually like it that much (I find the noodles strange) but I do usually have it once or twice a summer. This place served up a pretty good one, though the broth was strangely sweet. Here's us eating the noodles:

After filling our bellies we found the big stone Buddha place with little difficulty. The temple compound it was part of was also beautiful which matched the beauty of the day.
The scale of the structure is hard to see here, but this is a very large statue. It can be seen from quite a distance.

On our way home we decided to stop in and see friend/coworker Shane, who was cleaning up his new digs in prepartion of a house move the following week. When we caught up to him, he was bleach stained and weary, taking a beer and smoke break in the corner of his very clean new place:

West Coast Stop-Off

2006-08-31T22:43:00.000+09:00

On my way back to Korea, I decided to stop off in Vancouver for a couple of days. Not only did this ease the stress of the Eternal Flight back to Busan, but it allowed me to visit with Tanya who I met at my first teaching gig in Ulsan. We had a super awesome time eating good food, shopping and drinking coffee. Here's Tanya at one of Vancouver's typically artsy cafes (Tanya herself is quite artsy so it works out well~!).Another super fun part about hanging out in Vancouver was driving around in her big bitchin' pimp-mobile...Nowadays with the price of gas and all I just assume most people I know would choose to drive a small, fuel economical vehicle. Not Tanya! Check that sweet sucker out:
Even though the car is a million times larger than Tanya, she drives this thing like Steve McQueen in Bullitt! Awesome!

Nature

2006-08-31T22:36:00.000+09:00

I am a big fan of nature. I grew up with lots around me and it makes me feel calm and comfortable. During my Canadian sojourn, Rich was kind enough to arrange for himself, myself and friends Yan and Daisy (the adorable dog) to go up to his folks' cottage. It's somewhere west of Ottawa, and it's a lovely quiet place to spend a weekened swimming, fishing, lounging and eating. Here are some cottage scenes:

Local scenery

2006-08-29T22:45:00.000+09:00

The university I teach at has two campuses, but it was only last March that I actually visited the second one, Yongdang Campus. It is quite isolated (read not much goin' on over dere) up on the side of a hill, but wow do I love the view!! My students must wonder what's wrong with their teacher as I often catch myself just staring out the window during a lull in class. What I'm looking at is a lovely composition of distant mountain (Young-do), sea and shipyard - Busan Harbour!!! Some find the shipyards ugly, but I revel in the colourful uniformity of the heaping stacks of containers. (click on the image to see a larger version)
This guy represents a pretty short lived enterprise from a few months back. It's hard to see from the picture, but this is a one man show whereby he's got a canister of fuel on his back and a grill suspended in front of his mid-section where he roasts up 'German traditional hotdogs' for about a dollar a piece. My friend tried one. He said it wasn't very good.
Finally, some of you heard about my encounter with a bodily fungus which goes by the ominous name 'ringworm'. Well here's who gave it to me. At the time of this photo she was about 3 or 4 months old, and encaged for treatment of the whole fungal affair.
While I was away, Xena continued to get into trouble in various ways. She nearly burnt down the Teachers' Residence by somehow landing my hairdryer in the ON position in the open toilet - NOT good! This was followed by the oatmeal incident, where I guess she thought it would be fun to tear open packets of instant oatmeal and then play with them, thus spreading oatmeal throughout my room. There are still traces.

She's been doing much better since I've been back though. She's also lost her kitten fuzz and is maturing into a sleek, long-legged feline, albeit a still largely insane one. It seems her signature moves are the Halloween Cat Pose and the Spastic Summersault. And now she doesn't bite me every single time I try and pet her! Only every second or third time! Good job Xena!!

Oops - Not dead~

2006-08-29T22:42:00.000+09:00

Well, I guess I got busy folks! You know how it is....

It was nice to hear that people had actually noticed that my blog hadn't been updated in many moons. I guess that means at least some people periodically read this here stuff!

I'd like to finish with my Middle East pictures, but due to technical issues those shots are (hopefully) temporarily not retreivable.

So, we'll just have to settle for some local news then won't we!

Damascus, Syria

2006-04-02T01:14:00.000+09:00

Damascus was the main destination for my trip, though it sort of ended up being a jumping off point to other places. I wanted to visit Damascus because a) I wanted to see the Middle East and b) my very long time friend Tessa has been living there for a while and we hadn't seen each other in a few years. Seemed like the makings of an exotic yet social vacation!

Syria being a somewhat less than a '1st world nation', there was a lot of worry that I wouldn't actually make it into the country. You see, a lot of the information I found concerning entry into Syria said that it was necessary to get a visa at a local Syrian embassy beforehand. This was a problem since South Korea doesn't have a Syrian embassy (though strangely North Korea does). Tessa had also warned that customs officials could be a little whimsical in how helpful they would be for a foreigner. Other sources, however, indicated that I would be able to receive a visa upon arrival.

I was feeling a little concerned upon landing at the airport, but after waiting in a queue for a long time, and having my passport relinquished to an officious looking man in a small, smoky office for some period of time, these matters were taken care of. With the payment of $56 US dollars, the customs officer proceeded to work a little arts and craft magic and glue a big stack of stamps into my passport.

So I took a taxi which seemed like it might fall to pieces any minute into town and finally arrived at the American Community School where Tessa and husband Eric teach. This is what their apartment building looks like. They live on the lowest floor in a very spacious and charming apartment:
Do you see that groovy old car out front of Tessa and Eric's building? This was a definite trend in Damascus: groovy old cars (Busan has mainly only new, Korean made vehicles). I arrived in Damascus mid-week, and Thursday night (think Friday night N. Amrican style - Friday, Saturday is the weekend there) we headed off to Beirut, Lebanon, but a short three hour drive away. Though public buses were available, for a few extra dollars the preferred option is 'service'. This works by heading down to the 'terminal' where drivers shout out the names of destinations in neighbouring countries. When you meet a driver matching your destination, you go sit in his car till it fills up, and then you're on your way. The funny thing about this mode of transport is that it's all big 70s American muscle cars (Dodges, Chevies etc.), usually with bright yellow paint jobs :
This is the car I took to Amman, Jordan, and a 'truck stop' on the way. I bought dates for a snack, but could have bought fresh fruit, stuffed animals, carpets and all sorts of other stuff.

I'll leave Lebanon and Jordan for further installments and get back to Damascus, where one of the biggest attractions was the 'Souk Hamidieh', or Hamidieh Market. At this point I feel it should be mentioned that Damascus lays claim to being the longest continuously inhabited city in the world. When I visited the market, I really got that feeling, though it was surely a mixture of ancient and more recent history. The corridor where I entered was of the latter, as you can see form the aluminum roofing. It is punctuated with tiny little dots which are in fact bullet holes, which if my memory serves correct were created in a joyous response to the end of the French occupation in the first half of the 21st century.
The most antiquitous area was to be found at the end of this corridor, where the remains of Roman arches could be seen (under the pigeons and behind the cars):
Just in front of the Roman remnants was the Umayyad Mosque, one of the oldest and largest mosques in the world. From the mid 7th century to mid 8th century , Damascus was the centre of the Umayyad Caliphate, and the mosque completed in 715, remaining largely untouched until present day.

The market had lots of wares; particularly beautiful was the vast array of carpets. I also really enjoyed the spice markets. Endless containers of all sorts of wonderful, colourful looking things.

As for the geography of Damascus itself, on one side was a long mountain with housing rising up from the base. The city was always busy with tremendous amounts of traffic.

Bits and Pieces of Dubai

2006-03-12T01:10:00.000+09:00

This is the final entry on my time in Dubai, where I've compiled a gallery of assorted images. First off are several pictures of the Creek, a partial river (it's not very long) running through the middle of the city. We paid a ferry driver a little extra to take us up and down the Creek for an hour before dropping us of on the other side. On the other side we visited the city's main souk, or market. There were several areas selling different things - gold, shoes, scarves etc. I scored some cool stuff in the spice area. I actually got some frankincense and myhrr!! I'd always wondered about these things that the three wise men had given to old J.C. on the day of his birth, and it was very exciting to be able to have some of my very own. As I later found out, they are both basically tree saps, but when burned (on charcoal) are very aromatic.

After the pictures of the Creek are some shots of the Royal Mirage luxury hotel which we visited on two separate occasions. The first time was in the morning, where we wandered around and had a drink at the outdoor cafe. The grounds and interior of this place are most beautiful, and the guests seemed to consist mostly of Europeans. We returned another night to spend some time in the Arabian Courtyard. In this warmly lit place with its tents and fountains it really had an otherwordly feel. We each had our own shisha and as Kubba had claimed, it was a very good one.

After the Royal Mirage photos are some random shots of random places around town.

View the gallery here.

Eat and Drink!

2006-03-02T22:41:00.000+09:00

Of course eating is arguably the most important part of my day, and on a vacation possibly more important, as I love to leisurely sample local cuisuines. Dubai had some great food on offer, and also some lovely dining venues. The first place we dined out at served Lebanese food. I hadn't eaten Lebanese food in so long I almost cried with delight when the dishes started to arrive. This is food that is really really difficult or prohibitively expensive to buy or create in Korea. Here we had a selection of mezze, including my perenial favourite hummus and as always accompanied by pita bread. We also shared a mixed grill of various meats. Soooooooo yummy!!

This next dinner scene was from a classy Iranian restaurant. Kubba had the dill flavoured rice with a big hunk o' lamb, and I had okra and lamb stew with the accompanying crispy topped rice. Sooooo delicious. After this meal we were served sweet black tea in small glasses that look a little larger than your average shot glass. We were also served a few dessert nibblies, and it was one of these that gave me perhaps the most orgasmic dessert experiences I've ever had. This is notable because generally speaking I don't have much of a sweet tooth. The sweets in question were small balls of what seemed to be a lightly baked nut dough, and reminded me of my mum's Christmas speciality, pecan puffs. These were so very delicately flavoured, and seemed to explode into a fine powder of scrumptiousness upon chewing. Soooo delightful.

Breakfast was usually at home, where often the maid(!!) would prepare something for us and the kids. The kids here are Kubba's cousins; from the left, Kubba, Faisal (13) and Hadi (11). The food here is simple but yummy, again with foods that are next to impossible to get in Korea such as pita, certain salty cheeses, and fresh mint. Oh how I love fresh mint.

Even something as simple as going to the local grocery store to pick up some juice yielded unexpected delights. Look at the fantastic tropical flavours of these drink boxes. Yummmmmm.

Here is more Lebanese food. Look at Kubba's fantastically pink pomegranate juice. I was also served instant coffee in a tea pot. Interesting. As you can see, this was an outdoor eatery on the banks of the semi-river that runs through town known as the Creek.

One evening we stopped at a resto-cafe, again along the Creek, and had some tea and a shi-sha (the big waterpipe he's sucking on). Kubba said the quality of this one wasn't so good, but I couldn't really tell. I can tell you, however, that these things are very fun to smoke. A piece of charcoal is place atop flavoured tobacco (in this case apple flavour) and then the smoke is drawn through the water chamber, which smooths the taste as you draw it in. Shi-shas are commonplace in cafes round these parts.

Another evening we went to the fancy golf club for drinks. I just loved seeing these guys dressed in customary Arab dress propping up the bar. Yes, most people in the Middle East are Muslim, and no, they are not supposed to drink. But then again Christians are meant to go to church every week - everything on a spectrum...

One of the most delightful places Kubba took me to eat was an Iraqi restaurant. He tells me that Iraqis specialize in making meat tasty. If the kebabs we had were any indication, Kubba was right.

More Signage

2006-03-02T10:07:00.000+09:00

Alert reader Colin sent me this image of a bakery down the street from his house. Yummy!!

First stop - Dubai: Part I

2006-02-23T22:48:00.000+09:00

My original destination on this trip was Damascus to visit long time friend Tessa. The flight I got was with Emirates Air so I had to transfer in Dubai. I'd heard a lot about Dubai from Tessa and also Kubba, so I decided to stop off there for a few days to check it out. Imagine my delight when I found out Kubba would also be in Dubai at the same time, staying with his aunt and uncle, where I was graciously permitted to stay as well.

The flight from Seoul to Dubai was long - over ten hours. Since the flight left Seoul at 12:30am, I basically slept the entire way which was fine except for the tremendous kink in my neck when I awoke. Our plane landed a little late at Dubai Airport (apparently due to excessive air traffic) at about 6:20am. After walking what seemed like five kilometers to Passport Control, was undewhelmed to see HUGE lineups. Incrediblely, at this wee hour, at least ten flights had landed within a few minutes of each other, from all reaches of the world - Europe, Africa, India, elsewhere in the Middle East. What a busy place. After finally making it through and picking up my bags, I left the airport to find Kubba who had so sweetly agreed to come get me at such a painfully early hour. It took a while to find him as the exit from the terminal was a little chaotic, and I didn't notice him at first because of his big beard!!!

We dropped of my stuff at his uncle's house, and then went for a drive about town. First stop was the Emirates Mall, the fanciest mall in town. It also has the recently built Skidome. Yes you too can go skiing in a desert country! Amazing.

Next, we spent some time driving around, checking out some of the stuff that had been recently constructed or was still under construction - a good chunk of Dubai is completely under construction. Development is rapid and intense, often with workers building around the clock. This is facilitated by the cheap labour imported from Pakistan and Northern India. The workers are all noticably not local and there are lots of them.

A lot of 'villages' have been built recently, such as 'Media Village' and 'Internet Village'. These are concentrated locales, with Media Village hosting offices for companies such as Reuters, CNN etc. Here's a sign we saw that was clearly part of the group, but didn't quite work out what was to be found in this particular village.

The Middle East - Not just bombs and fanatics!!!

2006-02-23T22:42:00.000+09:00

From January 31 to February 10, I took an epic and speedy trip to the Middle East - I visited Dubai in the U.A.E., Damascus in Syria, Beirut and surrounding areas in Lebanon, and Petra (and super briefly Amman) in Jordan.

*** Click on any image to see a larger version.

It's been taking me a while to organize my photos and compose my thoughts, so please bear with me. Photo galleries of my destinations along with commentary will eventually find their way onto this here blog o' mine.

Matrimonial Bits of 2005

2006-02-14T03:54:00.000+09:00

2005 was the Year of the Wedding. I attended three, but could have attended several others had I the time and travel funds.

The first (and most special!) was that of my brother to his long-time girlfriend, Margaret. The ceremony took place on a ridiculously hot and sticky Saturday afternoon in the yard of Margaret's parent's place.

View the gallery here.

The second was for my co-worker David Lee. His Korean name is Lee Yun-seop, and his wedding was the first Korean ceremony I've attended. Korean ceremonies differ from Western weddings in several ways. First, they rarely take place in a church, even if the couple is Christian. Most popular are wedding halls, usually found in regional district offices or hotels. The feeling is very much like being at a casual concert; people may wander in and out and there is usually a stage. On the stage is the MC, the wedding official and the parents of the bride and groom. Often the bride and groom must bow deeply before both sets of parents. Apperently there is no performative aspect to the ceremony, that is it is purely for show, and the legal aspects of the wedding may occur a long time beforehand. After the wedding, the guests are free to use the meal ticket issued to them earlier at a nearby restaurant. We had beef-rib soup at a restaurant across the street.

The third wedding was between my Canadian friend and former co-worker Bennett and his Korean fiancee Ji-hyun. Sometimes Koreans as a group are criticized for being unaccepting of foreigners, particularly those that marry their daughters, but there were only warm feelings to be found at this ceremony. The Korean component of the audience were particularly delighted when Bennett made the formal bow to Ji-hyun's parents. As I was one of Bennett's friends, I was allowed to observe the traditional tea ceremony performed after the main ceremony. This involved close family members only, grandparents and parents. Bennett and Ji-hyun were dressed MOST adorably in traditional Korean dress. For the ceremony itself, tea was served, and at one point Gran was tossing what appeared to be chestnuts onto Ji-hyun's lap; this is apparenlty to encourage the procreation of lots of kids.

View the gallery here.

So on the whole, three quite different and lovely ceremonies. Congratulations to all!

Four Countries in Fourteen Days

2006-02-09T15:31:00.000+09:00

Back in time to January 27th- twas the last day of kiddie camp, and the day that I finally submitted a much stress-inducing paper on the topic of the mental lexicon of second language learners (yipee!!!). That evening I headed to Gimhae Airport, where I flew up to Seoul. Transferred from Gimpo Airport to Incheon International Airport and hung around waiting for my 12:30 am departure for Dubai, where I was to arrive at the charming hour of 6:30 am.

Dubai was just the beginning of my whirlwind Middle Eastern tour - 3 days in Dubai with tour guide extraordinnaire Kubba, 2 days in Damascus, Syria at Tessa and Eric's house, 2 days in Lebanon with Tessa and Beirut friends, 4 days in Jordan - solo, then back to Damascus. (If that doesn't add up to 14 days it's because days spent travelling weren't counted.)

Naturally a great many more details will follow.

A big shout out to C. Coffin, the only one to enquire about my safety after hearing about the world headline news that there were massive demonstrations in Damascus where the Danish and Norweigian embassies were set on fire. I encountered no trouble by the way (thanks for asking).

In a fit of procrastination

2006-01-05T17:21:00.000+09:00

Trying to write a paper here. It's hurting my head so I thought I'd take (yet another) well needed break. Haha.

Last weekend saw the dawning of yet another new year. I travelled to the city of Jinju, about an hour and a half north-west of Busan, to meet up with some friends there. We had a relaxed evening, drinking rustic rice wine (dong-dong-ju 동동주), eating and dancing. Friends who have been living in Prague brought a European delicacy for us to share:
This stuff is VERY strong (70%) and there's this whole weird thing we had to do whereby we took a spoon full of sugar, dipped it in the absinth, set the sugar on fire, waited for it to melt, then plunged it into the green brew thus setting it on fire, and finally shooting the whole thing back (after extinguishing the flames of course). Interesting.

The next day we had a crepe party at Brian and Hyun-ju's house. They were awesome tasty. The crepes that is. Here we are enjoying our food.
After stuffing ourselves, Colin and I had to head back to Busan. We decided that some pizza and a movie were in order. We headed to the Pizza Hut next to the movie theater, and ate some incredibly greasy pizza with a few tall glasses of cola. I got a stomach ache afterwards :( One thing about eating pizza in Korea, is that it's impossible to do so without being served a side order of sweet pickles. Pretty much every foreigner in Korea hates these blasted things, but it's like seving butter with bread here. In anycase, after we ate, Colin and I had some time to kill and so decided to put the pickles to good use. Here you can see we constructed a 2D pickle monster. We were quite proud of ourselves.

Scandal!!!

2005-12-23T21:31:00.000+09:00

It's been mounting for a while, but the scandal surrounding Professor Hwang Woo-suk and his stem-cell research seems to have hit a peak today, with Seoul National University's investigation concluding that 'the production of nine patient-tailored stem cell lines was a fabrication'. Hwang was basically a national hero prior to these accusations of fraud, and now a mood of humiliation and outrage mixed with sympathy surrounds him.

Showing just how quickly the impact of the Hwang debacle have filtered into public conciousness, I was told today of a new drink that has recenlty been invented. A popular drink in all-male drinking scenarios is the Bomb drink (폭탄주), where a shot of whisky is dropped into a glass of beer and then the whole thing rapidly consumed. Well, the new Hwang Bomb drink is similar, except instead of whisky, the shot is either of water or beer. Clever.

Update

2005-12-23T21:20:00.000+09:00

The end of November saw the passing of a close furry friend. Raistlin, or Fat Kitty as he was more commonly known, grew ill and passed on. He was about 15 years old, fat and gentle as ever, and is greatly missed. Unfortunately I don't seem to have many photos of him, but here is an artist's rendering. If you have any memories of Fat Kitty, like the time he sat on your hand and it lost feeling, I'd love to hear about it.

Traditional Dance Festival

2005-12-11T23:52:00.000+09:00

Back in October, myself and friends Chris and Su-jin took an inland adventure to Andong, known for its traditional dance festival. Though we didn't have too much time to spend there, we managed to catch some interesting sights.

View the photo album here.

November Field Trip

2005-12-11T23:34:00.000+09:00

This field trip was for international students and foreign teachers and was great fun. We drove off early in the morning to somewhere sort of in the southern-middle of Korea. We first saw one of the movie sets for the immensely popular film called 'Taegukki' or 'Brotherhood'. After that, we briefly stopped by a dam, and then went on to Haein Temple. Haein Temple is one of the three Jewel Temples in Korea as it houses the Tripitaka Koreana, which is a set of about 80,000 carved wooden printing blocks consisting of Buddhist scriptures. Sadly we ran into traffic on the way back to Busan and spent almost as much time in traffic as we had on sightseeing.

See the photo album here.

Absence

2005-12-11T23:16:00.000+09:00

It's been I while since I've said hello here on Anninator's Asian Adventures. Things have been busy, a little tense and sorrowful. Sadly, my faithful companion Fat Kitty has left this earthly plane for a place in Feline Heaven, where presumably there is more food. He is greatly missed.

Differing opinions

2005-11-18T18:19:00.000+09:00

Seems Oxford and I have different ideas about the meanings of certain words. Example:

jizz / n.
the characteristic impression given by an animal or plant.
[20th c.: origin unknown]

Squeaky Sound System

Little things...

Boo Butterfly!!!

Sunset Li

SKA!!!

3 showers a day

Anne's whereabouts

Me and Ed

Lunch overkill

Old Timers R Us

Little update

Ribs!!!

Kickass

Vietnam - Part I: Ho Chi Min City

What's new in Anne's world

USS Nimitz and Co.

Things I Love About Korea

Jesus!

For sale

Gangwando + Andong Fall 2007

Ocular Issues and Space Kimchi

Gangwando Fall 2007

Fantastic new additions

Dinner!

No sleep..

Ugh

Waiting

선날 2008 - 바다와 해운대

SPAM

What's in Anne's fridge today?

I *heart* eggs

Anne's Grumpy Christmas

Land's End - conclusion

Land's End cont'd...

Notes of a personal nature

A trip to... the End of the Land

Final Jeju post - Ancient provincial government grounds

Jeju stone grandfathers

Jeju City

Jeju - Udo Island scenery

Jeju sightseeing - Udo Island

Jeju sightseeing - Seogwuipo

More Jeju

And...we're back to the food

Jeju cont'd

Trip to Jeju Island - First installment

More good eats

Welcome to the neighbourhood!

Random find

Igidae Park / 이기대 공원

Two posts in one day. Whoaaaa....

Literary Notes

Homestyle eatin

That nasty construction

And...now for some more food !

Not dead, just away from the computer

Finally! A post not about food!

Mandu party

More food!!

Korean cooking 101 - Seaweed salad

Whoa nelly...!

Interweb shopping

Lunch of the day

Fruit and Veg Creations

Today's Lunch

On the topic of bribery

What would YOU do?

Korean cooking 101 - Seaweed Salad

Badges of Merit

Notice how I'm not in the picture...

Wasting time, la la la~~~

Shopping List

What would YOU do?

Rain or shine

Your very own hobbit hole

I am a superhero

Trip to Jirisan National Park

Long time no....

Down in the southern part

Quack quack

I heart eggs