Korean Food

Aside from the live squid swimming in front of many restaurants, or the spicy food that puts New Orleans spicy cajun to shame, the food here is...growing on us.  We do like seafood, but only certain types and cooked in certain ways.  Kelly and I already have weak stomachs from a bad sushi experience last year, and the stong aroma of many seafood restaurants can be tough to stomach at certain times of the day.  Seaweed is usually an instant stomach churner for me, and once I put it in my mouth I can feel my mouth start to numb and salivate more in preperation for a stomach acid explosion of biblical proportions.  If one piece of seaweed can give me the sensation of being full for over 4 hours then that is a good indicator my stomach is restricting all access for that sort of stuff to come in and ruin my day.

     Korean restaurants, in general, have great food and an even greater atmosphere.  The traditional restaurant that we have seen just about on every corner is known as a Galbi restaurant.  Essentially, a galbi restaurant involves a table with a grill built in the middle.  You usually order a variety of meat that you personally grill, and there are many side dishes including rice and the ever so popular kimchi.  The first time we went to a galbi restaurant we were, needless to say, leary about the bomb the food was about to drop on our digestive system.  After we started grilling the meat and enjoying the very spicy and challenging side dishes, we realized that the food was a lot better than expected.  The most difficult experience of these type of places is mastering the steel chopsticks.  If you think you have chopsticks mastered in the states at chinese restaurants then you got another thing coming.  Steel chopsticks are in a whole other realm than wooden ones. 

Kimchi

Kimchi is the Korean icon here as it is pretty much eaten at every meal.  Kimchi is very very spicy and while there are many forms of it. Its greatest form is in the form of pickled cabbage.  Apparently this stuff is one of the world's "healthiest foods".  While it may be healthy, it sure is a pill to swallow as you are gauranteed to drink about 2 liters of water by the end of the dish.  The way I understand it, Kimchi is pickled cabbage and fermented in the ground for months in these Kimchi pots.  I recently had heard that one of the most common illnesses in South Korea is stomach cancer.  The reason is because the food here is so spicy, it will literally destroy your stomach. 

         Kelly and I did have one bad experience the other night at a galbi restaurant.  We were at one of my favorite places, as it has some of the best meat I have had in a while, at least.  We were with a couple of friends and we decided that after we had indulged in the delicious ribmeat we came to love we should branch out and try another dish.  This particular restaurant did not have pictures on their menus so we had to go off plain intuition.  This moment was one of those moments where intuition failed us.  When we pointed to order another platter of raw meat, the server gave us a weird look as if God himself  had given us a moment of escape of the perils that lie ahead of us.  We ignored the servers questioning and ordered the dish anyway.  When he came back with the tray of meat, I immediately thought it looked like chicken.  As we placed the meat on the grill we came to the conclusion that it was not chicken.  Without a doubt there was cut up intestine on the grill, and several other pieces of what looked to be organs.  We choked down as much as we could until two gentlemen sitting next to us noticed our trauma.  They were nice enough to take our animal guts for themselves giving us their delicious rib meat.  I could not stop thanking them.  Needless to say, there are dangers out there at galbi restaurants and you need to keep your head on a swivel.

Kelly and I at another galbi restaurant popularly called "The Lettuce Palace" by the foreign teachers.

  

    

Seoul Nights

          Seoul is a city that refuses to sleep.  Not far from our aparatment in Ilsan is a shopping strip/district called La Festa.  This strip, like every block in the Seoul Metropolitan area, has every inch of its exterior covered in neon lights.  From dusk until dawn, Seoul successfully lights up its city as if the sun never went down.  The stimulus overload can drive even the simplest form of ADD into sheer madness.  One of the things that makes Korea so fascinating is its night life.

     The other foreign teachers at our school have been very welcoming, taking us out to dinner about four times this past week.  One thing we have learned about dinner thus far is that people do not consume dinner at typical hours in which we are use to.  It is very common to see people such as an older couple or business men having dinner at a Galbi (Korean barbeque) restaurant at 1 or 2 am...on a Monday.

    

I just had to take this picture of a neon tiger prowling alongside a skyscraper in downtown Seoul.  I would find this less humorous if I knew the significance behind the neon tiger because it was surrounded by Christmas decorations and other Christmas lights.  Perhaps Father Christmas has a giant tiger helping him deliver presents in SoKo?  I could not help, however, but marvel at this sweet lighting display alongside a massive tower.  They went into great detail even to have a tree and clouds above the tiger.

On Saturday a couple of foreign teachers took Kelly and me out to see a little bit of Seoul. First, our day started out by waking up and doing some much needed laundry.  While we were waiting for our friends to call us, I was flipping through the terrible, terrible Korean drama tv shows until I stumbled upon a slightly better movie.  It was Matrix Revolutions.  I realize there are better things to do with my time, but since it was in English, it was the only thing I could divert my attention to.  Anyway, after Neo saved Morpheous and the keymaker from an exploding semi-truck, Kelly and I went with our friends to Itaewon.  Itaewon is a shopping district that is mostly populated by foreigners.  Mostly everyone there speaks English and there are many markets that supply those with the most dire homesickness with basic needs such as Prego spaghetti sauce or Campell's soup.  There are also a lot of fantastic restaurants and pubs that serve more than quimche(I will get to that later) or galbi. 

After Itaewon we went to this market in the backstreets of Seoul (note the two pictures above).  The above left picture is a great representation of Seoul.  Packed.  This market, like many markets that sell cheap, off- brand products was packed.  I felt like I was part of a colony of army ants furiously scurrying around taking out everything in my path trying to feed the queen ant (in my case, my need to buy crappy souvenirs that will sit on a book case or inevitably wind up broken by the hands of my children).  One thing I found interesting was that Korea is just as cold as Minnesota, if not colder at some points in the winter.  It was about 12 degrees that night and there were still that many people out shopping.

(I found this completely necessary to post a picture of a woman chopping the head off a frozen fish with a cleaver fashioned 400 years ago...not really.)

Great Expectations

Voila,

     We finally now have internet at our apartment rendering it possible for an update that many of you are waiting for.  I suppose it was possible earlier in the week to publish a post, but I did not find it soothing nor apropos to write a blog in a dark, testosterone filled PC room with nothing other than pre-teens and grown men furiously playing World of War Craft and Starcraft.  I was already reluctant enough to bring Kelly in there, as she quite possibly could have been the first woman some of those gentlemen have ever seen.  That is, other than their fictional female fairy avatar counterparts who wields nothing but a sword and longbow.
     (Korea is famous for these "PC rooms" which are basically really advanced internet cafes with really nice computers, but they are usually filled with gamers.  Many Koreans love gaming and are obsessed over the game Starcraft, even to the point where our school director's wife, who must be in her 40's is familiar with it).

     None-the-less we are here in Seoul.  Korea in many ways is everything like we imagined while at the same time nothing like we imagined.  This place is jam-packed with people and neon lights. 

     We arrived Friday night Kora time which is approx. 15 hours ahead of the central time zone in the US.  So yeah, jet-lag is giving us a run for our money.  Our school director picked us up at the airport, late, and brought us to our apartment that evening.  Just as expected the apartment is very small but comfortable.  Like everything else in Ilsan, it is in a high-rise; so it all has to be crammed into the smallest of places for it to fit.  I cannot complain about free housing for 14 months.  Seoul is one of the biggest cities on the planet and we can clearly see why.  We are living in Ilsan, a subdivision of Seoul which is about a 55 minute subway ride from downtown and it consits of about 1 million people. 
     One thing that was nice about arriving Friday night is that we had the weekend to unpack and adjust.  We actually did not need much time to unpack, because we woke up around 3:30 a.m. to unpack all of our things thanks to jet-lag.  The directors wife, who also works at the school, took some time to show us around and offer answers to our endless questions.  One thing about Korea is that Confucian values and teachings are deeply enbedded into the culture, making just about everyone over here insanely generous and gracious...unless they are drunk.  Anyway, she took us to several markets and malls to buy things for us.  We felt a little spoiled when she offered to buy our Christmas tree even though I tried to make a plea bargin for her not to.
     The school is nothing like we had imagined.  It is on the 6th floor of an office building and consists of about 400 highly, highly, highly energetic Korean children from about ages 6-12.  One thing that is interesting about Korean age, is that they are automatically 1 year old when they are born, and age another year after the Lunar New Year.  So technically, a Korean can be born mid-December and in Febuary be 2 years old as opposed to 2 months old.
     We have been doing training all week long and like everywhere else, training blows.  We are learning a lot from the Korean teachers and the foreign teachers alike.  One thing that is nice is that there are about 9 other foreign teachers here (seemingly all from the mid-west (must really suck there) and there is a really awesome network of foreign teachers.  We all went out for dinner on Monday and they seem like very fun and interesting people.  Some of our co-workers hail from a different land, such as Ireland, Australia and Manchester. So far they seem great.     
     A lot of gray area that made us nervous while we were living in the States are getting clearer and clearer.  So far from what we have heard, we are employed at a very reputable and elite school and there are absolutely no issues with the director.  They literally take care of everything.  They pay us on a timely manner and pay all of our bills for us such as internet, cell phones, cable, health care, national pension, etc. (Out of our own paycheck of course.)

Well that is just about all I feel like writing right now.  Sorry to those who were anticipating pictures on this post.  While you can be certain that I will be walking everywhere with my D90, I have not taken any pictures yet.  I have, however, taken a lot of video with my HD handheld camera, however Youtube will not enable me to upload them in Korea, and blogger does not have that function.  If blogger does allow uploaded videos, please do not hesitate to tell me how.

Anyway, hopefully my next post will offer a little more visual stimulation for those who have attention issues.

Parade of Homes

     There are now 6 full days left until Kelly and I depart to Korealand.  Since November 21st, Kelly and I have been on the road saying our last goodbyes to loved ones.  Our trip started with a quick drive/move of all of our junk down to Iowa.  There we were able to make precious moments with Kelly's parents and friends, decorating Christmas Trees, watchings movies about socially awkward offensive linemen for the Baltimore Ravens, a shopping spree at Kohls and SAMS Club, and eating.  Kelly and I had the pleasure of buying 270 tampons, yes a years worth of tampons from SAMS Club.  I figured that Korea would have feminine products such as tampons, but my lady would have none of that, and figured it would be best to have a full years supply.

      From Iowa we made the 8 hour drive to Chicagoland Illi-noise where we had the pleasure of meeting the Korean Consulate and spend Thanksgiving with my side of the familiy.  Meeting the Korean Consulate was an adventure.  The meeting started at 10:30am but we needed to be there at 10:10 according to the secretary.  The secretary also stressed about five times to not be late.  Being unfamiliar with Korean customs on punctuality, I figured I would please the Consulate and conform to their wishes of being early.  With that being said, we were 2 1/2 hours early to the meeting.  We did not want to take any chances.  We left my grandparents house at 7:00 am and got on the Metra train at the Palatine train station at 7:35, and arrived at Olgilve train station at 8:30.  It only took us 20 minutes to walk from the train station to the NBC tower, where we did not realize that on the 27th floor of the NBC tower is a metropolis of Korean government officials.  They must really love "The Office".  After waiting about 45 minutes in a Starbucks downtown, we had just enough time to burn in a Payless shoe store, of all the stores we decided to pick that one.  Don't ask, we had to make a decision.  After a long, awkward interview with the consulate, who asked us personal questions such as "what are future career goals were", we took the train back to my grandparents and then headed to Greys Lake to my Aunts house for Thanksgiving.  We had an amazing Thanksgiving with a lot of family and friends.  It was truly a great holiday, until Black Friday.

     Black Friday was the first and last time I will ever partake in the ridiculous consumer mindset that sweeps the nation like the H1N1 flu virus.  My 2 brothers, father and I decided we should get up at 2:30 a.m. to get into the line at Best Buy at 3am to buy $300 laptops.  That idea progessivly went from a bad idea to a terrible idea.  My middle brother Dave and my dad stood in line for about 5 minutes until they thought it was a dumb idea, and they sat in the car and went to Dunkin Donuts, leaving Nate and I to fend for ourselves in the line.  We waited outside in the cold for 2 hours just to get tickets.  Once Best Buy opened up at 5am, my brother and I stood in another line for about 3 hours.  All this for saving abotu $160 on a laptop.  Don't get me wrong, this is a really nice laptop, but I think I'd rather spend the extra money and keep my sanity.  I kept reminding myself of what Winston Churchhill once said, "Never, Ever, Ever Give Up".  Actually, I never said that to myself I am still trying to rationalize/validate my actions that morning.
     After our terrific time in Chicago, Kelly and I then flew down to St. Louis to see her grandparents.  It was a great, peaceful time in the Lou.  We had a great time visiting with her grandparents.  We also set her grandma up with Skype so we can talk with her while we are in Korea.
     After St. Louis we then flew back to Chicago, and then drove to Michigan where we now reside.  It is always great coming home, reminiscing about the olden days wondering what happened to certain people here while driving the streets.  I talked to the travel agent responsible for buying our plane tickets to Korea.  It is official as of today, we have a itinerary for Thursday December 10th.  At 7:45 a.m we will fly from Minneapolis to San Francisco and then a 13 hour flight directly to Seoul.  It is hard to believe that in 6 days (after tonight) we will be flying to Korea.  We cannot wait for this adventure and are extremely nervous at the same time.  There are a lot of unknowns to what we are doing and we can only have an open heart and mind.  Keep us in your minds, as my next blog will probably be focusing on how extremly small our apartment is.  Till we meet again.

Kelly packing for Korea in her room....Yeesh