Bar I Saw on My Run

Saw this bar as I was running through a neighborhood and I was like "Hmmm this is the type of bar that will get visitors based solely on the picture."  IE Whenever mom and dad come to town I think this will be one place that she'd like to say that she had an appetizer at or something.

The other thing that I'm curious about is why wasn't one BAR enough for the sign?  BAR BAR BAR seems to make the point extra clear.

Paying Bills at the ATM

I love the simplicity of being able to pay bills at my bank's ATM machine.  Just slide the bills in and slide your card in and presto - Bills Paid.  Very cool concept.

I also enjoy the fact that one of the front ATM entrances to one of the banks also has a shredder by the door to drop your receipt in after you're all done.  Bravo.  Little things like this definitely make me happy.

Pride in Functionability

So I had a ridiculous runny nose again.  I was super pissed about it.  Just clogged up for miles and it just came out of nowhere and bit me in the butt.  Really affected my running too :-(  But I'll talk about running in another blog.  So this morning I was like I know what to do.  I went to free translation.com got the translation for pharmacy then went to google maps and found one in my little neighborhood.  I've explored my neighborhood on Sunday's but nothing's open.  Today however everything was open and I had a blast.  Went to the pharmacy and brought the box from the last time (oh yeah I'm a thinking man) and then did some cryptic charades to tell the guy I needed something like icy hot and made my purchases and bolted.  Heck Yeah.  Then I went to this little teeny tiny grocer that was next store and got some milk, I had run out, and some add-ins for my tuna salad with some ice cream.  I'll be buying my ice cream from here from now on as it was about a dime cheaper per ice cream bar than the place that I typically purchase it from.  Good day indeed.

Construction Update

They've been making steady progress on the buildings outside my classroom.  One of them is finished and they started on the next floor of the other one.

A Little Flair in My Apartment

The flags are the flair.  Not the socks.

A Korean Van

These size vans are pretty typical in Korea.  If a minivan is a minivan, what in the world would this be classified as?  What made this one necessary of a picture is the hilarious label on the back of the van.  Made me chuckle.

So Of Course I Had To Try

My first time didn't go exactly top notch.  There was an excessive amount of cursing so that video exactly won't be posted.  Here's the second go at it.  The best was when this drunk Korean came up, much evidently to his girlfriend's dismay, and showed me the right way to do it.  It got even better whenever he stayed on the street and cheered when I got it done.  Heck yeah!!!

Korean Street Carnival Games

Do Koreans try to find the queen of spades on a cardboard box?  No.

Do Koreans try to shoot an over-sized basketball into an under-sized goal? No.

They break boards for stuffed animals.

Korean Signage

So I saw this sign on a bridge on my run and was wondering.

WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO PREVENT?!?!??!

Is there an excess of James Bond style driving antics?  Do cars typically attempt to leap from bridges onto the train?

So I Know It's Not Later Tuesday, But the Rest of Mardi Gras Update

I guess it's about time and appropriate for me to finish the update of the Mardi Gras blog. I decided that the only Southern thing to do was to put on a full on Cajun meal for everyone. Crawdaddies were hard to come by, actually they were an impossibility. But, I did score some beautiful looking shrimp that were on sale and these were going to be perfect. I also got a good deal on a awesome can of tomato sauce and a chicken. I was set.

I woke up early on Fat Tuesday and put the chicken in the rotisserie. This was quite the adventure because I had seasoned the bird and had turned the oven on to preheat it, which also automatically turns on the rotary. So here I am trying to slide a bird into the notches while the oven is on and the hole is spinning. Quite funny for onlookers I can imagine. Finally succeeded, but determined that when I removed it, in order for the simplistic approach I was going to wait until the time ran out and I would remove it while it was standing still.

Everything else went without a hitch. Dirty rice, white rice, boiled shrimp, shrimp with creamy alfredo sauce fettucini, and to top it all off a nice big pot of gumbo. When I put the chicken in I immediately washed up and started working on the roux. It at first had too many chunks of flour in it, but this was quickly remedied with a strainer and came out tasting fantastic. Added some grilled sausage, some shrimp, some celery, kidney beans, a little minced onion and it had this fantastic rich flavor.

When I packed it all up and was carrying it down to the street to catch a cab, it was an awesome sight because it was snowing. Made me very happy that I was bringing warm food on a what looked like a chilly day. Nobody knew that when I said I was bringing Mardi Gras eat-ums to work that I meant that I was bringing a feast. Haha. I got there in perfect time too. There was enough time for everyone to dig in prior to going to their class.

Lots of surprises, lots of thank yous and one of the other teachers who has family in Louisiana was eating as much as he could because “this was definitely the real thing”. Made me happier than any thank you, although those were appreciated too.

Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures that I got were of the aftermath. But, I think the pictures speak for themselves as to how much everyone enjoyed. When I end up with minimal leftovers going home, always a happy feeling.

Fat Tuesday

Just had an awesome Mardi Gras Cajun luncheon before work today.  More details to come later tonight, but food, laughs, all the work crowd and the fact that it was snowing outside made it super fun.

Korean Golf Club Across the Street from my Apartment

Found this interesting.  Whenever you think of golf clubs, or greenhills for that matter, you never consider them being on a different floor.  Sure enough though this golf club sports a third floor residence.  

New Food Posts

Roasting and Stuffing Mushroom Caps

In Korea it's a pretty common soup topping to see strips of egg.  The cool thing about it is that they separate the egg first and cook the yolks as a sheet and then the whites as a sheet and then proceed to slice and dice til  it almost has a resemblance to cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  Tastes really good too.

Added some pan-seared mushrooms to it and oh boy was it tasty.

SH!T

When we were reviewing the vocabulary quiz today in my upper level class one of the words was "stuff" as in referring to "the right stuff" with the original Mercury astronauts.

I was baiting them and I was was talking how this vocabulary word refers to the qualities of men and that it is also a frequently used word in the English language.  *crickets chirping*  Then I added further that it began with an "S".

One of the students then chimed in "SHIT?".

I laughed on the inside.  There were a couple of students who laughed out loud.  I quickly said no, stuff.

Just another day.

HUMAN PIN CUSHION

Today I had my first acupuncture treatment. My manager had been raving about how he had worked out a deal with the acupuncture clinic that's in our building and he thought that some of us should go and support the other businesses in our building. I can definitely understand this logic. Support them and they'll pass on business to us as well. Makes sense.

So I was the first to go. It's kind of like sky-diving, you have to go at least once eventually. So I went and this was the first time I felt virtually paralyzed by my lack of grasp of the Korean language. It's improving, but not enough for the rate this nice lady was talking. So I motioned that I was going to take the form and head upstairs and get help from my manager's wife while he was in a meeting. She was awesome and started helping me and he got out of his meeting and was like “I'll go down with you”. Awesome I thought. He explained to the ladies that I wanted treatment for my shoulders and my knees.

They had me lie down on my back with a neck roll pillow while I had a heating pad on my shoulders and on my knee and a heat lamp on my stomach (IDK why, but I didn't care because it caressed me into my own LA LA land). I don't exactly know how long I was like this, but because my head was a little tilted back with the roll pillow I felt like I was spinning in and out of awesome, dreamy, consciousness. They then removed the heating pads and it was hilarious watching these ladies try to explain for me to take my shirt off. I did and laid on my stomach. They then started with these suction cup things all over my spine and shoulders. Reminded me of what experiencing an octopus on steroids might be like.

After leaving these on for a short period of time they returned and then I got a short intense shoulder massage. She really was able to find the knots and kinks around my blades. She then proceeded to use what smelled like Icy Hot (too many years of cross country to know instantly what it smells like). She then drew with a small marker where exactly the big knots were. Then came the doctor.

He was a nice guy. First he did what seemed like a chiropractic adjustment. OMG if the session was over right after that I would've felt like a million bucks still. He leaned in with his forearm on the side of my head and I've never heard my neck pop that much. Then he did the other side. Holy smokes. Then I felt his fingers over my shoulders. It wasn't until he got to my arm that my head was tilted and facing, that I realized he was already putting pins in me. My arm one was the last one, then he left, and two ladies came in. They were fiddling with stuff where I couldn't see and then I heard what sounded like a butane torch (for like crème brulee).

After a while (I don't really know how long as I didn't want to turn my head as there were a couple in there) they returned and pull them all out. I turned over. Put on my shirt, and hiked up my jeans over my knees. They then put the heat lamp on my knees for a few moments. The doctor came back, rubs my knees a little bit (shifted my cap like many doctors have done and of course I winced). Then he proceeded to start pinning my knees. These I COULD FEEL. There were some definite sharp pinches as he was putting them in. I then got front row seats to what evidently went on on my back. The ladies returned to put rubber washer looking things around the pins. The ones on my knees were having trouble staying on, so they had to put tape on them to add some extra hold. Then came the butane torch. They had these small little incense noodle looking things that went over the pin, rested on the rubber washer and were smoking.

All I could think of was Bill Engvall talking about smoke rising from his legs. I was laughing because that's definitely what it looked like. The other part that added to the uncomfortableness was when they were doing this they moved the heat lamp off of my knees and temporarily directed it at my groin. Only problem is they left it focused in that direction. Just a little toasty.

When I was leaving the doctor was like “I see you tomorrow”. I laughed and was like “how about next week”. He got a chuckle of his own as I was taking off my slippers and putting on my boots. Glad I could provide entertainment as well.

The whole process took a hour and a half. The financial damage? 8 and a half bucks. At first I thought my receipt said 87 bucks which I would've been fine with. At that rate though it'd only be a once a month experience.

I spread the word at work so I think there will be a couple other takers. Another hilarious moment out of this whole experience is during the younger kid's class my partner teacher and I were switching rooms and she goes “something in your room smells like it's burning.” I responded “it's me!” To which I got the most confused look imaginable. I then explained that they had lit stuff on fire on my back and all I was able to smell for the last hour or so was burning stuff. She got a kick out of that. I'm now at 9 hours later as I write this and this is still a burnt aroma. I can smell other stuff now though.

Tricky Fish, Boring Flags, Mother's Mother's Birthday and Anglo Mean Eye

 Lots of little updates. Sorry about the delay. :-( I'm trying to be better about it, I just get doing other stuff.

I've used my oven to toast bread, haven't done anything else in it as of yet, but when I get cupcakes or rotisserie success everyone on here shall surely know. I'm glad I started out with toast though as there are little things about the toaster oven I hadn't considered yet. For example, the temperatures are in Celsius as you'd probably expect anywhere but America, but I just hadn't considered it.

I went to use my fry daddy the other night and it popped the power converter that I was using. In all respect to the fry daddy it wasn't entirely it's fault as I plugged it into a converter that I had just been using in order to charge my beard trimmer (It's awesome how easy it is to change over things that charge via USB and computers were just as easy so besides the fry daddy {which I bought over here and was surprised to see an American plug} the beard trimmer is the only American plug object I have. Just an observation really.) Anyways I got a power transformer and everything is good now. :-)

My older students and I had studied the Katrina response two weekends ago. It was a good discussion, and I learned things that I didn't know about the response (or lack there of). I was trying to get across to the students the culture and the food of New Orleans and so the next Saturday I brought in some shrimp creole and dirty rice for them to try. You would've thought it was the boys and me at Razoo's and the was a plate of tricky fish in front of James. It got me thinking though. Barbecue, burgers, steak, Italian food, Chinese food, Thai food, Indian food, etc seems to spread well industry wise throughout the United States and even around the globe to some of your major metropolitan areas. Cajun food however really doesn't. Interesting.

Had a wonderfully relaxing weekend. Shined my boots and cleaned my apartment. I also read a little and went for my usual run.

Speaking of runs there is a 10K that I entered in the end of March. Yay. It was either that or a marathon so I paced myself. :-) I'm trying to get it where I'll be able to run longer than a year at a time without being injured. That also means that whenever I start doing “fun runs” I need to keep them “fun” and not be sooo competitive to the point that I injure myself again.

When I was speaking one of my older classes I was asking what they did that weekend. One of them responded that it as his mother's mother's birthday and that they typically have a party in Korea when someone turns 60. Leftover tradition from when that was a long lifespan they continued to explain. One of the other students gave him a hard time for not calling it his grandma's birthday. I got them off his back by saying it was also my mother's mother's birthday. I also explained to them about how happy I was for the internet and the fact that I was able to send her flowers from another continent. They thought that was pretty cool. I then told them about it being my brother's birthday and one of the girls asked if I sent him flowers. No. Sorry bro. Haha. I did send him something pretty cool though.

I made an awesome version of tuna salad this weekend. I've been taking a sandwich in a storage container to work and there have been a couple jealous eyes watching me eat it and it has sparked a couple conversations. I think one comment was “that's a serious tuna sandwich”. As if I would make anything less.

After the Cajun food the subject that Saturday was 9/11 and the US response. It was really a great conversation because there are so many topics about America that sometimes it's hard to get a good debate, much less a decent conversation, going during class, but the students were able to really surmise how the 9/11 attacks really affected the world over. I then told them about my millimeter machine experiences while traveling over to Korea and how I didn't see anything wrong with them and the fact that they can ask about chapstick being in my pocket with them (very cool in my mind), but I also told them that they arise a lot of controversy in the US, as if anything doesn't nowadays. At the end of the lecture and discussion I showed the Boatlift (thanks mom) and they were all in shock. They had no idea about the dust, but they also had never considered that it was an island.

During that lecture we were talking about flags and patriotism and how many flags around the globe basically use the same three colors in some form or fashion: red, white and blue. It made me laugh when I was telling them about Toby Keith's song “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue” and I told them it was really about Korea. They weren't fooled. We were then discussing how some flags are more interesting than others. Flags that incorporate something such as Korea, the United States, Austrailia, and the we were talking about Kenya and the awesome fact of putting a shield and spears on theirs. Then we discussed more tame and boring flags such as France and then I mentioned even Japan is pretty boring with just a dot. That got a good laugh. It was then that I learned that it didn't matter what I said, as long as I periodically worked in a dig on Japan, Japanese people or Japanese culture it didn't matter.

I got a mean eye when I was walking to work the other day from a couple of unknown Anglos. Didn't really understand it, nor can I explain it. Just something that wasn't typical as even if you don't know them I've always gotten and gladly either started or returned the white head nod and “how's it going?”.

This is a sign that's posted on the back of my classroom door. I told James that this would be a great sign for the inside of his work truck.

I picked up a Korean face mask. I see them all the time walking around town. It is pretty practical because it keeps my nose and cheeks out of the bite of the wind whenever it is chilly.

These are my awesome hot pads.

I had a review session with one of my older classes on Tuesday. It went amazingly well. I preplanned the board and also made up sheets on Publisher (one of my favorite programs) to go along with the spaces so that the students could toss out their fillers to complete the board and could also script notes as they were following along. I could not have asked for better participation. Nights like this make me very happy.

This is a shirt that Scott and I saw when we were wandering around Osan.

This is a bar in Osan that I thought had a pretty awesome name.

On the way home from Osan we stopped for ice cream and Scott and I saw this car that had this graphic on the side. We thought it would be mildly appropriate to spraypaint an RK on the end of it. We didn't have spraypaint, but I do have a photo editor.

Other pictures of my classroom:

Snow Today

It has lightly flurried the last couple of days, but today during class it began to flurry harder and it was quite beautiful.  There were little traces on the ground when I walked home here and there, but overall the sidewalks were clear.  Not something we see this many times in a row in the CenTex area.  I can't wait to see more and more of it on the ground.  That being said when I was up north with Scott and Heana there was lots of it on the ground.  Scott said that they'd got 3 inches or so before I had gotten there.  Only problem with that is walking on packed snow and ice is a royal pain in the ass in leather soled boots.  Haha.  Not so much in Pyeongtaek (where Scott lives) but in Suncheon, I'm pretty sure that there's some Korean's laughing at the white guy that nearly busted his ass walking home yesterday.  There's a restaurant near work that drains its fishtanks on the sidewalk and they created a nice patch for me to hit.

So, typically when I've been seasoning my soups I'd cut open the noodle packets and just save the noodles and add two or three packets to a batch of soup.  This provides me with several open packets of individual noodles when I've been using the bulk bags.  What to do.  What to do.  I don't want to end up with endless single servings of just noodles.  So then I found it.  Haha.  There's an aisle of the store that just has soup seasonings pre-mixed and stock materials.  I thought it was pretty ingenious considering Koreans eat so much soup.  That's about all the thoughts for this post.  Not going to be another rant about my soups.  Haha

Hilarious Stages of Drunkenness Glass

I took some guesses at what these faces might be trying to represent.

Gorilla "Fun"

These were the “Gorilla Benches” outside of the Children's Hospital from I can discern here in Suncheon. I think they're supposed to appear as though some of them have gotten hurt while they were carrying the benches and the others appear as though they are carrying the bench in a stretcher like scenario. I'll leave the interpretations of these statues up to each individual.

Awesome Encounters, 300 lb Women in Thongs, A Small Wait and The HI & Run

Little kids have been awesome this week as they've given me a lot to write about. This isn't the kids I teach either that these funny encounters have been with, but rather with just random kids in Suncheon. First off their staring. The best was probably last Saturday as I rode the elevator up to work. In between the ground and the third floor where the girl and her mother got off this poor girl put a crink in her neck I reckon from the amount of looking at my face smiling then looking at my boots, then back to face, then boots, etc. I don't know exactly if it was the boots or the fact that it broke up the creepy constant staring at the face. It makes me think of when your parents tell you not to stare at a restaurant so you act like you're stretching or picking up a napkin just to sneak another peak. Another staring incident that makes me smile thinking about it and I was laughing hysterically at the time was there were two young girls that were at this small supermarket I was at and they were with who appeared to be their grandmother. They keep peering from either side of their grandmother as she was trying to checkout and pay just to catch a glimpse of me. This really started my wheels turning. What's with all the staring? Then I thought about even in a small town like Georgetown there is so much variety. Really the only thing that gets stares in Georgetown is the 300 lb women that think Spandex and a thong is appropriate for Wal-Mart. Here though there's really not a lot of variety. I can understand then the staring. I was never offended by it. Just intrigued.

The second thing that happened with little kids this week was with my Waffle Lady. On my days that I don't have a 3 o'clock class if I'm not in a rush to get to work I sometimes catch her when she's really busy because kids have just gotten out of their first academy. I went there on Thursday and asked for a Potato Tornado, actually just saying potato in Korean, and she started speaking really quickly. (Let me just note that learning Korean is a slow process and so even if she had spoken real-ly slow-ly I still wouldn't have had a prayer of understanding unless she speaks like mom and I do and uses her hands for about 85% of the conversation.) Anyways, one of the elementary school girls either saw my confusion (I was smiling and nodding my head so not so much confused as complacent) and giggled to her friend and then told me in English that she had said that there would be a small wait. I told her thank you. They just started cracking up. Then some middle school girls came into the awning and started talking to the waffle lady and one of them paused turned to me and asked “where are you from?” The odd thing though was she didn't wait for an answer as the waffle lady started laughing along with these girls and evidently it as extremely humorous (I was getting a kick out of it, but I highly doubt it was for the same reason).

The last thing that's been awesome about little kids in this small town is all this week more and more Korean kids have been telling me “HI” just to practice their English or be adventurous and talk to the white guy. Whatever the case may be it's be hilarious because they say Hi and that's it. If I say hi back they'll start laughing or they'll say Hi and then run back to whatever they were doing beforehand. It's like doorbell ditching in person haha. It always makes me smile though.

New Home Fillers

I got some new furniture this week. I got a small table and a rack for my kitchen. I opened the small table (looked like something that I've put together from Ikea for friends before) which came with 4 prescrewed legs and the top. I was amazed that they not only felt the need to include instructions, but they also felt that the legs needed to be labeled as part #2 and the top needed to be labeled as part #1. This provided at least 5 minutes worth of entertainment as I assembled it.

The kitchen rack was a little more complicated. I had almost finished putting it together and something just wasn't quite right about it. Read the instructions (or looked at the pictures as though were self-explanatory and didn't require a translation guide) and turns out I had been putting the shelves on upside down. Fixed my errors and the rack turned out sturdy. It was a perfect home for the oven. The oven is awesome I totally meant to write a blog just about it, but alas I forgot. It has a rotisserie skewer and turner included and I'm super excited about it. Plus it's got a ton of room on the inside. First probable dish? Biscuits and gravy. There's been a couple of my coworkers that have indicated that they're fans of the Southern staple and I make a mean version of it thanks to Grandma Davis and her mad skills.

Picasa Album

I kept meaning to mention that any pictures that I forget to publish are all available in my Picasa album online that you can get to at the bottom of this blog page.  There is a scrolling bar that you should be able to click on.

Meals To Go!

Not really, but I did start thinking that it is quite ridiculous that I get home at about 10:30 each night and then I proceed to cook dinner, which for those of you that have watched me cook I enjoy the process and therefore it can be quite time consuming, and so sometimes I'm not eating until midnight.  Thought about it long and hard on my walk and therefore I made a huge batch of soup and froze it in individual portions (thank you Top Chef and Mom for the idea) and that way I can come home, pop one in a skillet and be eating in about 15 - 20 minutes.  I got some delicious mushrooms on my walk so grilling those in the pan gave the soup this earthy flavor that is definitely appealing.

Sliced mushrooms on top.  Yummy!!!