We Did Some Other Stuff, Too

It wasn't all about cute kids, though. We did other stuff. Among other things, we visited Insa dong, Seoul's upscale antique and art gallery district; went to church (really); and toured a small portion of Changdeokgung Palace. Here are some pictures, in reverse chronological order.

me, adopting my creepy, Terminator-style paparazzi persona:


Here's the dope throne-room:


and the best tour guide attire ever:


I got some free lovin':


and I watched this guy beat the shit out of some traditional Korean food:


It's called dduk, and it's... all right. It turns out looking like this:


Here they just roll it around in some rice flour, but it tastes better fried and dipped in sugar, or wrapped around a sweet bean paste center. Even so, it was a pleasure to watch the guy lay the smackdown on it with a big mallet.

Seoul: an embrace and a wallop with big wooden hammer. Can't wait to go back.

O.K. I get it. Kids are cute.

All right, I'm falling behind on the postings. Sorry.

It's slightly amazing to me that I've done more noteworthy stuff at this point than I've had the time or capacity to write about. But I do have an excuse for this particular lapse: I've been in a super-saccharine, cute kid-induced coma for the past few weeks. It all started with these guys:


This is June, my Amazing Korean Friend, and her new husband. Unfortunately for us Jinju-ites that know her, she's moved to Seoul. But we can still visit, which is just what we did two weeks ago, although (thanks to and error on my part) on the wrong day. So Tracy and I ended up bombing her apartment on a random Saturday.

A Saturday, as it turned out, when these guys:



were visiting. That's Eujin and Chang Min (Julie and Annie, respective English names), June's nieces, enjoying some corn-cheese. Yes. I said corn-cheese. It's a curious delicacy that involves canned corn, tomato sauce, shredded cheese, and mayonnaise. And not only is it not disgusting, it's actually pretty good. Enhanced, of course, by the fact that I was sitting across from two supernaturally good-natured Korean kids.

Just to make it even more sickening, I bought us all some gum, and we blew some bubbles together:


Needless to say, these kids really cramped my misanthropic style. And there were even MORE cute relatives the next day! But I will refrain from posting those pictures here, and just say,

"O.K. Korea. I understand. Your kids are the Cuteness. Stop throwing adorable little tykes at me. I've got it, already! Damn!"

Sugar Donut - Loser

They say these guys are the Korean Weezer. I don't know about that, but I what I DO know is that I was up at three o'clock in the morning rockin' the devil horns in my underwear listening to this song at maximum volume recently. I'm afraid the video's not much to get excited over, but the song is punk-pop at its finest, Korean or otherwise.

Dinner!

A few of you have been asking me about the food here, and, in the spirit of directly answering your questions, I thought I'd post a sumptuous photo of some of the cuisine I've run into. Here goes:

A typical dinner at the office. Though I d0n't always look forward to a long night of teaching, I do always look forward to the food from the joint downstairs, and the many side dishes that overtake the table every day. And this is a pretty good spread here. There's a little variation on the main dishes, along with some characteristic side dishes. I'm about to eat a kind of tuna stew called chom chi chigae. Those are my coworker Eddie's beautiful hands opening up the prize. Chigae is definitely my favorite Korean dish. It's hot, spicy, and it varies just enough from place to place to keep things interesting. The kind we get from work is particularly good, so I was likely drooling a bit as I took this photo.

The other main dish there is called dduk guk, or rice cake soup. The rice cake in question is more like a large, flat, medallion-shaped rice noodle. A few handfuls of these are thrown into the guk(soup), which is based on a mild seafood broth. Throw in some seaweed, shellfish, and tofu (or dubu, in Korean) and you're all set. As for side dishes, we've got the world-famous gimchi (the red pickled cabbage in the small dish, center-right); gimchi jeon (the red pancake underneath); one fried fish (pretty good, despite the gross-out factor); a kind of pickled cucumber (basically another kind of gimchi, of which there are several); odang, or something very much like it (chopped and pressed fish - not bad, but, in my opinion, only when warm); and sweet beans (a particular favorite of my coworker Beth's). There's also some sugared seaweed back there (top left); and some spinach stems in sesame (I think they're spinach. Anyway, they're good).

All in all, a good haul, though this is by no means the most plentiful. Sometimes the food barely fits on the table.