teaching the kids

Some of them can write the letter F!

Dinner with the Hongs

I wish I were a better photographer. This food was beautiful.

Learning Korean

On Saturdays I go to Korean class. It is free.

Here are some of my classmates at dinner after class.


After dinner some of us went for makgeoli.

Here I am in Asia. Check it. Bamboo.

Here I am drinking some makgeolli, which is a Korean rice wine and my favorite of the Korean alcoholic beverages, while studying some Korean at a flea market. Makgeoli usually comes in a gold teapot thing but things are not so classy at the flea market. You drink out of bowls! So much more fun than drinking out of cups.


Here is Katie drinking from her bowl. We were also very excited to find that a bottle of makgeoli only costs 2,000 won (less than $2.00) at the flea market. Bargains galore.


Here are some pictures from a previous evening out with Katie and Ji Soo. We met up after work and went for fancy schmancy drinks.

Then we got the weirdest assortment of foods imaginable at some restaurant/bar.

Here we have some mashed potatoes with sprinkles. And maybe some cabbage?

Corn salad and a variety of meats. This was the normal part I guess.


And my favorite: cornflakes, red beans, shaved ice, a tomato and more sprinkles. It wasn't that bad, really.

J likes the egg soup stuff. And by that I mean just kidding, I ate the entire bowl.



Tonight Kyle and I are meeting up for dinner. I will try to remember to take pictures. Hope all is well!

Lotte World

To celebrate the snow day on Monday Katie and I decided to go to Lotte World which claims it is "the world's largest indoor amusement park." The people who claimed this had clearly never been to Camp Snoopy, though, so we decided to just wander around and not pay to go into the actual amusement park.

This raccoon thing is the mascot for Lotte World. Lotte owns everything in Korea. Including Lotteria, the McDonaldsesque fast-food place I wrote about earlier.


Here is Lotte World. It clearly has nothing on Camp Snoopy/Nickelodeon Universe. I wanted to ice skate, but I don't think skates come in my size in Korea. :(

This is me in front of this fake version of Trevi Fountain that is in the basement of Lotte World.


This is me in front of the real Trevi Fountain in Rome.


Toilets in Korea have way more options than American ones. Note the control panel. I am still too afraid to push any of these buttons.


This is a Christmas Tree made of old pop bottles with what appeared to be wishes inside of them.


There is Krispy Kreme in Korea. These donuts were really cute. Korea lovesloves donuts.

Snow Day!

Or: Watch as Korea Battles a Blizzard Armed only with Brooms and Umbrellas!


On Monday I woke up to discover that Seoul had been buried in several inches of snow while I was sleeping. It didn't seem like much to me, so I headed to work. It was unusually quiet when I got there, only one of my coworkers was there and the Korean Teachers were answering phones like crazy. When no one had really shown up by the time we were supposed to have our staff meeting, Devon and I decided to ask what was up. SNOW DAY!! Thank you South Korea for not owning snow plows!

On my way home I took some pictures:

Here is a picture of the same tree at the end of my driveway buried in about 6 more inches of snow than last time.

Umbrellas actually seem like a kind of good way to combat snow. I'm not sure why I had never thought of this before.

Note that that is a broom and not a shovel that that woman in using to clear her walk. She clearly didn't grow up in the Midwest.

Me in front of a snow-buried bike rack.


Now of course we have to make up for the snow day by working next Saturday, which is really unfortunate but I guess maybe it was worth it for the extended holiday.

Blizzard of 2010!!!!!

Check it: I survived the worst blizzard Seoul has ever seen.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122206774

Seoul Buried In Heaviest Snowfall In 70 Years

by The Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea January 4, 2010, 08:22 am ET

Seoul residents slogged through the heaviest snowfall in modern Korean history after a winter storm dumped more than 10 inches (26 centimeters) Monday, forcing airports to cancel flights and paralyzing traffic in South Korea's bustling capital.

The snow and icy roads snarled traffic in and out of Seoul, and at least three people died in traffic accidents. Many commuters squeezing into packed subway trains to get to work, and a regular Cabinet meeting also was delayed Monday because ministers were stuck in traffic.

The snowfall, which continued through Monday afternoon, was the worst since Korea began conducting meteorological surveys in 1937, the state weather agency said.

Gimpo International Airport in western Seoul canceled 224 flights before resuming service Monday afternoon when the snowfall stopped, airport official Choi Choon-ja said.

More than 20 flights between Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul, and cities in China were canceled, as China also coped with a snowstorm. More than 100 flights to other regions were delayed, Incheon airport official Kang Soo-kyung said.

Three people were killed in a traffic accident believed caused by icy roads in southern South Korea earlier Monday, according to Yonhap news agency. Yonhap reported the snowfall caused many other traffic accidents throughout South Korea, but officials said no deaths or serious property damages directly related to the snowfall were immediately reported.

About 3,600 workers were mobilized to clear the snow from Seoul's roads and sidewalks. About 5,000 soldiers also were dispatched to Seoul and surrounding Gyeonggi Province, according to the Defense Ministry.

The snow didn't stop 50-year-old Park Hee-soon from her job delivering milk and yogurt to homes and offices in western Seoul. However, Park — trudging through the streets in her regular yellow uniform — said the snow and ice were dangerous.

"I slipped on streets several times today, and my back hurts because of that," she said.

The snow forced American figure skater Michelle Kwan to cancel appearances in South Korea on Monday. The five-time world champion, visiting the country as goodwill ambassador for the U.S. State Department, had been slated to give a master class to South Korean figure skaters.

She is scheduled to meet with students, U.S. soldiers and participate in a Special Olympics event this week, U.S. Embassy officials said.

Beijing also was digging out Monday from a weekend winter storm.

More than 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of snow accumulated in the city center Sunday, according to China's National Meteorological Center. State media called it the highest snowfall in the capital in a single day in January since 1951. Upward of 8 inches (20 centimeters) was recorded in the suburbs of Changping near the Great Wall of China.

Hundreds of flights from Beijing were canceled or delayed Sunday because of the snowfall.

Primary and middle schools were closed in Beijing and the nearby port of Tianjin, and with snow plows in short supply, more than 300,000 people were assigned to clear snow in the capital with shovels, scrapers and brooms.

Heavy snow also blanketed Sapporo on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, forcing the main airport to cancel nearly 80 flights since last Wednesday.

In South Korea, not all complained of the snowfall, with some citizens taking to streets to take pictures of a snowy Seoul.

"It's something unique in Seoul," Kang Kyung-hye, a 58-year-old housewife, said after photographing the snow-covered statue of the 15th-century ruler King Sejong at Seoul's central district of Gwanghwamun.

———

Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this rep

boobi-boobi

On Wednesday night I went out with my coworker Devon to a bar called boobi-boobi. I was disappointed to find that everyone present was fully clothed. It was very luxurious nonetheless. And by luxurious I mean this chair made me feel like a princess.




















Here is Devon, my coworker, and the very adorably presented soju cocktail we purchased. Also, those little things in the bowl are some sort of Korean puffed rice or something snack food that are incredibly delicious and served at almost every Korean-style bar I have been to.















I like these kinds of places much better than the foreigner-style clubs in Hongdae and they usually end up being much cheaper even with the food that you are required to buy.

Also: Lord do Koreans like to go out. This bar is one of maybe 8 or 9 on the same block and one of maybe 10,000 in Seoul and even on a Wednesday it was full until 3AM.

In an attempt to be an adult...

I cooked my very first Korean dinner at home!

It only turned out okay. But being an adult takes practice I figure.

What I was attempting to make is called pa jeon and is more or less a green onion pancake. In restaurants they always put squid in it though and squid isn't really my thing. So, I used these crazy Korean mushrooms instead and that ended up working pretty well.

The ingredients: Look how weird the mushrooms are.




















The end result:















Maybe by the time I leave Korea I will actually know what I am doing. But this was a decent first attempt and a probably a better way to spend my Saturday evening than checking Facebook.