Ready for Autumn

Hey!  

Check out my newest update from the weekend and first two weeks of school.  

Here I am last Tuesday, prepared to brave the winds of "typhoon" Bolaven.  Pretty much just wind, not even lots of rain.  :(

I got pretty excited when I went to the store last week and found asparagus.  But alas, it was not to be so.  It looked okay, but was only 6-7 stalks for 2,290KRW which is about $2.00.  So I decided that I should skip it and have other veggies instead.  

I bought a new eyelash curler, after needing one for months.  It was definitely amusing when I found one that said, "Beauty makes happiness.  The first present nature gives to women."  Now, all people are beautiful no matter what.  But it just seems strange to find it on makeup packaging.  

Today we visited Gamcheon Cultural Village.  It was very picturesque and had lots of artsy bits to seek out.  

A floating poem.  

A sly wolf peeks around the corner, waiting to surprise the goose!

 I found a recipe on pinterest for crockpot chicken with taco seasoning and salsa.  Not having my trusty crockpot here, I decided to mix it up a bit.  I also didn't have salsa, but used some bell pepper instead, and it turned out delightful!  For dinner I had it in a flour tortilla with rice and fresh slices of bell pepper.  I even forgot the cheese, I was so excited!  When I had the leftovers, I just had the chicken over white rice and put cheese over the top of it.  It was delicious!  I will definitely make this again sometime!

 My Korean friend took me to a Japanese soup restaurant.   It was quite small, and we waited for about 40 minutes to get a table.  We ordered as soon as we sat at our table and they brought out our soup (below) to cook.  They also brought out some pork (left) which I could not really figure out what it was.  It definitely looked like pig skin on the one end, but the rest of it, I am pretty sure that I don't want to know.  I didn't really like it.  The soup was much spicier than we anticipated, but had great flavor.  I was surprisingly not surprised when my friend told me that there was intestine in it, along with the pork sausages.  I tried every part of it, and it was pretty good, though I was sweating up a storm from the spices.  :)

Having tortillas and cheese on hand makes it very hard to not have quesadillas all the time.  Above, my taco chicken quesadilla and below my breakfast quesadilla with egg and cheese that I had with salsa.  Delicioso!

My First VLog

Hey!

Hope everyone is doing well.  I tried my first video update this week and I think it turned out alright. 

Enjoy.

Ahh, I miss that smell.

Not of Busan.

And I do miss the smell of MN, but not as poignantly as I probably will come fall.  

I miss the smell of books.  There is something about a book, that smell of the pages when you open it up, it always seems to be the same, no matter what.  I forgot about the smell.  My kindle does not have that 'book' smell.  It's awesome that I can carry nearly all my books with me in a convenient package.  But it doesn't quite provide the satisfaction that the smell and feeling of a book provide.  

I found this book while we were in Seoul.  My friend probably thought that I was absolutely bonkers, I practically hit the ceiling with my excitement.  It's not often that I forget the title AND the author of a book, but somehow with this book only the storyline sticks with me.  I have been trying to track it down for several months, wracking my brain for either the title or the author to no avail.  In the bookstore, the distinctive cover art jumped out at me, causing me to literally knock a stack of books off the shelf.  Now I have my very own copy, and won't have to worry about forgetting it again.  :)

Less money, more time on the train!

 Hi!  
Since my last post my vacation has started, which has been relaxing and fun so far.   I haven't been cooking as much, as I've been meeting with friends often; but I did make some 'hotdish' about a week ago.   I hadn't purchased hamburger yet since coming to SK, but found it in the Woori Mart that I shop at and was excited to try something new (new for my life in Korea).  
I cooked the macaroni in water while the hamburger was browning.  Then I mixed together the cooked noodles, hamburger, some pasta sauce and some shredded cheddar cheese.  Since not having an oven puts a bit of a dent in the cooking process, I put it in the microwave for about 5 mintues until the cheese was melted.  
It was delicious!

Last weekend I went out with some friends on Saturday night.  We had some fried chicken for dinner and then went out for drinks.  It was a lovely evening!

I think Kimmy makes a great pirate!

Mmmm.  Beam.

 I made it to the 13th Annual Busan Rock Festival last Sunday.  There was a good mix of people there, many of which you would expect to see at a rock festival.  It sounds weird to say something like that, but conforming is much more likely here than dressing for individuality.  There were also people of all ages, from older couples to teens to young children.  The music that we encountered was pretty good, one from a geeky looking band and then a more traditional looking Korean rock band.  The last one was a British band, who though seemingly loved by the Koreans was not appreciated as much by us waygooks.  

Regarding the pic above right, yes, there was a woman taking video on her ipad in the very front row.  A terrible video might I add, the band was definitely not video-worthy.

I was invited last week to help celebrate a friend's birthday on the beach.  We had a great night chatting on the beach complete with 3 dozen doughnuts and fried chicken.  

 

On Wednesday we left to go to Seoul.  We took the long train there, which took nearly 6 hours, but was most cost effective.  It was a long trip, but beautiful while the sun was still out. We had a great time talking and laughing the whole way there.  

On our way to our hostel.  

 Thursday was our first day in Seoul, and we had a great day despite the heat.  We had heard that there was Taco Bell in Seoul and were delighted when we found it.  I myself had been craving Taco Bell.  Strange when I barely even eat it at home.  It was nearly as good as I remember.  After not having tacos for so long, I completely forgot how I order them, without lettuce.  So it was packed full of lettuce, of course.  But the nachos bellgrande were good.  :)

After leaving Itaewon (where we shopped and ate Taco Bell) we took a bus to Namsan Tower.  

 

At Namsan Tower there are locks, as declarations of love.  There is an old belief that if you declare your love on Mount Namsan that it will last forever.  So many people have linked locks together and thrown away the key so that their love will last forever.  In Busan, there is a place where many people do this as well.  Some of the locks are old and rusty, but some are brand new.  We also saw some people possibly trying to find the locks that they had linked together in the past.  I'm not sure if they were successful in their search though. 

Georgina adding our lock and message (on a cheap phone case) to the lot.  

Our Busan group, the Toffee Otters!

On Friday we took a DMZ tour.  In the past, I had felt completely ambivalent about doing a tour of the DMZ, I decided that if the people I was traveling with wanted to do one, then I would as well.  If not, oh well.  When my friends said that they definitely wanted to do one, I stuck with my plan and was in 100%.  It turned out to be a good tour, they picked us up from our hostel, and then we took a bus with other waygooks.  First we went to the Odusan Unification Observatory.  From there we could see North Korea on the other side of the river. Because it was a bit foggy, they showed a video, which seemed full of propaganda.  They are very quick to denounce the propaganda that the North Korean government share with North Koreans, but didn't even present the most up-to-date, accurate information (i.e. that Kim Jong-il passed away nearly a year ago and his third son Kim Jong-un has inherited the communist regime).   Now I'm not saying that North Korea is right because the video was propaganda, but I am saying that I think that there are other ways to get the message across, possibly using more refugees' stories rather than just bits and pieces of stories. ** 

The shoreline opposite is North Korea.

Shown below are images near the Freedom Bridge, where only 13,000 refugees were released from North Korea from South Korea after the war.  The train on the right was sitting in the DMZ, and is now on display in all of its' rusted glory.   

 

After seeing the Freedom Bridge we drove a bit farther until we reached the outskirts of the DMZ.  The DMZ stands for De Militarized Zone.  This is somewhat ironic due to the fact that the border between SK and NK is the most heavily fortified border in the world.  Anyways, the DMZ is 4km wide and runs all along the border between SK and NK.  2km of the DMZ is considered SK, and the other 2km is considered NK.  The border directly in the middle is called the MDL the Military Demarcation Line. There is one location that falls in both territories, the JSA.  The JSA houses the one place where the leaders of SK and NK can come together to negotiate, though it is not often done.  

In the JSA it is important to follow the orders of the military personnel who are there strictly for our safety.  We were assigned two US Military officers, one for each bus of our tour.  They stayed with us the entire time and helped to guide appropriate behavior.  There are many limits in the JSA, as to what/when you can take pictures and no pointing/making rude gestures of any kind.  Pointing is considered rude in Korean culture.  

My guest pass at the JSA.

The concrete slab between the two buildings represents the border between North Korea (left of the slab) and South Korea (right). 

This is the table where the leaders of SK and the UN (left) and NK (right) come together for negotiations.  The microphones and flag in the middle of the table represent the SK/NK border.  

Posing with the Korean soldier.   

Soldiers faced the North Korean border at all times, for our protection.  

On Friday night, after a day of touring the DMZ, we were all knackered and a nap was in order.  We wanted to try some Korean food after eating both Taco Bell and Subway the day before.  We decided to try Shabu Shabu, which none of us had had before.  

According to a recommendation by (possibly) the owner or at least the nice gentleman who helped us, we ordered half/half.  This just means two different kids of soup.  It is pictured below on the right.  You can see the different kinds of soup, the one on the left was sort of smoky in flavor, while the one on the right was spicy.  Both of them were delicious.  It started as just broth, and we got to add our own assortment of bean sprouts, mushrooms, dumplings rice noodles filled with cheese and beef.  There were also some noodles that came with it, which we added after our first round of veggies, and had some rice as well.  Delicious!

Beef for our Shabu Shabu.  

 

After dinner we found a nice hookah bar to settle in to.  Here I am with some Baileys.  

On Saturday I met up with some friends from Busan who were in Seoul as well.  We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace.  

Chinese Zodiac, I'm a rat!

It was a great weekend, though exhausting.  I was very glad to get home to my apartment and sleep much of Sunday away.  :)  I'm just about rested and ready for more adventures.  :)

**The thoughts and knowledge contained herein are mine alone. The information is as correct as I understood it to be from my tour, however if it is incorrect then it is due to my ignorance not the lack of the tour and I sincerely apologize.  

Summer camp....

Hi!
This week is summer camp, which means only a few students.  I can't tell if they are bored or just hate me, or really don't want to have anything to do with school.  My guess is that it is a combination of all three.  I have tried to make a really fun summer camp, Lord of the Flies/Survival themed, but they seem to not care, which I completely understand.  And since I've had about 4 students each day, all coming in somewhere between 9:15 and 10am (we're supposed to start at 9) it's been pretty quiet.

I don't have a whole lot (or any) as far as pictures go for this week, but I've definitely been out having fun.  I had dinner with some friends on Monday, delicious as always.  Tuesday I did some shopping, it was high time that I get at least some new t-shirts.  I don't want to wear out all of my clothing before too long.  We started early, so by 6 it seemed quite late and we headed home.  I stopped at the kimbap place near my house for a quick take away meal.

On Wednesday I went to the beach with some friends.  I haven't been spending nearly enough time on the beach, which frustrates me a bit.  But it is different too, because I'm not used to taking a bus and having to carry all my beach stuff with me.  First world problems, I know.  But something that does come up.
An anecdote from Wednesday.  Living in Minnesota, there are not many (or any that I know of) saltwater anything.  In fact it would take an airplane or many hours by car, bus or train to get to an ocean or Great Salt Lake in Utah.  Every time I swim in the sea it is a surprise that it is salty.  Now to clarify: I am well aware that the sea is salty.  But in the final moments when I'm walking into the cold water I lose all sense of ocean and don't think about the saltiness that will momentarily occur.
When I said something to the effect that I am always surprised at how salty the water is in the sea, my friend from the UK laughed and told me that one of my fellow minneapolitans always says the same thing.  And she thinks it's strange because in England they have only the sea so it would be weird if it wasn't salty when swimming!

On that note, I'll leave you until next week when I'll hopefully have some fun stories and pics from the weekend!

Rainy Season?

I think that one of the questions that I get asked the most by friends and family is what the weather is like here in Busan.  As shown above, it is not all that different from Minnesota.  It is slightly more temperate than MN though, with milder winters.  I have missed home, though I am glad to not experience the record breaking highs that MN has had this summer. 

On Wednesday it was a special day to celebrate the hot summer.  On that day in Korea they eat Chicken Soup, because it is healthy and hopefully will help to ensure that the old, young and sick will make it through the hot weather in the coming month of August.  I think I was extremely lucky on this day because I got to have it at school (a blessing after having terrible soup for the last few weeks with less than mediocre lunches in general lately), and my friend Hee Jung invited me to her house.  Her mom's Chicken Soup is her favorite, so I was very excited to try it!  She made my favorites, dried cuddlefish with honey-pepper sauce and bulgogi (not pictured below).  The Chicken Soup shown below is the one that Hee Jung's mom made, it was much better than the one we had at school!

Dried cuddlefish with a honey-pepper sauce.  Mashisoyo!  Delicious!

A delicious Chicken Soup to celebrate the warmth of summer.  

This past week was the last week in the semester.  There were many classes that were cancelled due to ceremonies and whatnot.  On the last day of the term there were no classes at all, just a ceremony to celebrate.  After the ceremony the students left and most of us teachers got on a bus for our teacher's outing.  

We drove about an hour and a half out of Busan to a valley that was quiet and very green.   We ate bibimbap for lunch and had makkeoli, which is a type of rice wine.   After lunch we had some coffee, waded in the stream and played some games.  We had dinner here as well, pork and duck BBQ and then soju and beer.  It was so much fun!

On Saturday, I went to see The Dark Night Rises with some friends, which was fantastic!  Afterwards we went out for drinks to celebrate the engagement of Caroline and Andy.  So happy for them!  I was glad to join them, because I'd been feeling terrible about the fact that Caroline's now-fiancé has been here since mid-May and I hadn't met him yet.  This is mostly due to my pneumonia, but it is no excuse for the end of June and some 20 days of July that has passed since then.  :)  

Laura and I, she wanted to see what she looks like with a mustache!

Friends Georgina, Andy & Caroline.