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.