again...

This weekend, I decide to try to take it easy. I went to bed fairly early on Friday, and on Saturday, Alicia and I ventured into Seoul for some shopping. The weather turned out to be terrible though and it started raining almost as soon as we got there. We're talking cold, miserable rain. We got pretty wet, and spent awhile looking for a Mexican restaurant in Itaewon. Saturday night was pretty early as well...I was in bed by midnight. On Sunday, however, I woke up with a terrible cough and an achy, fevery body. I'm still fighting a fever even today at work :( I'm just glad that Swine Flu hasn't made it to South Korea yet. I'm sick of being sick!!

Dinner and Blogs of Note

Hello....

Well, you'll be happy to know that I went shopping yesterday and found a BUNCH of new ingredients. I first went to the imported goods store, "I Love Cookie" and found some jalepenos, capers, chili seasoning packets, and some dried italian seasonings. After school, I went to a more upscale Korean grocery store, found some fresh ginger, cilantro(!!!!), bay leaves, curry powder, Hoisin sauce, and a few other things. Last night I made a delicious Asian salad with tofu, lettuce, cilantro, corn, and onions. For the dressing, I mixed together lemon juice, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, sesame oil and a little white wine. Yes, it had some powerful flavors mixed in there, but it was delish. I would have taken a picture, but when I mixed the tofuin, it kind of fell apart, and didn't look that pretty. Anyway, tonight, I'm making Chili, we'll see how that goes.

I didn't even plan on writing that much about my dinner! On another subject, you may have noticed to the left I have some links to various friends' blogs I read. They are all worth taking a gander. I just received permission to tell you about Bethany's blog too. I may be a little biased, but its maybe my favorite right now. :) Read it.

Your Help Needed

OK, this is a desperate situation folks. After weeks of spending a lot of money eating out and eating the same 3 things at home, I NEED to start cooking more and becoming more creative with my cooking. I just can't seem to get going though. The first couple weeks I found myself just buying the essentials at the grocery store and I find my meals are odd combination and often repetitive. I like to cook, and I think this is a great time to experiment. So here is what I have to work with so far(note: I know I will need to do some shopping in the near future!):

Currently in my kitchen fridge:
*Kimchi(obviously)
*Yogurt
*Milk
*Kiwis
*Sliced Ham
*Chicken tender pieces(I have a lot of this frozen-from Costco)
*Tofu

Currently in my cabinet:
*Canned Kidney Beans(again I have a lot of these from Costco)
*Rice
*Cereal
*1 can of tomato sauce
*1 can of corn
*Peanut Butter
*Cereal

Spices/Condiments I currently have:
*Soy Sauce
*Garlic-Sesame sauce/marinade(pretty good with chicken, but I'm sick of it)
*Korean chili paste
*Garlic
*salt & pepper
*Sesame seeds
*Sesame Oil
*Olive Oil

What I have to work with in my kitchen:
*a stove top
*no microwave
*no oven
*a small frying pan and a small sauce pan(I think I might invest in bigger ones)
*a washing machine(hmmm...)

What I have to work with in Korea:
*Limited cheese availability
*Limited spice and herb availability(haven't really investigated this fully, but the spice section at the store is minuscule, all I know is that I haven't found cilantro yet)
*abundance of vegetables, mostly sold in bulk
*abundance of seafood and meat


So, help me out. Give me your ideas as to what I can cook. It would preferably be as healthy and protein rich as possible, and be able to be stored for leftovers. So far I have made a lot of grilled sesame-garlic chicken and rice, cabbage soup, grilled ham and cheese, tofu and sauteed veggies. I'm planning on trying to make Chili this week with some of the kidney beans. So, have at it! Help out a single lady trying to survive in a different country!

the oddballs.

Ok, so in my travels, I often think about perceptions and misperceptions regarding culture. I think our awareness of the oddities in any particular culture become heightened when we are outside of our own culture or one we are familiar with.

Along the Tancheon River by my house recently, I've noticed a lot of older women down on the ground picking some kind of plant. I totally just assumed this was a weird Korean quirk. I snooped a little and then looked at the grocery store to figure out what exactly it was that they were picking. I figured out that they were picking Dandelion plants. Not the flowers, the leafy part.

On Saturday night, I had dinner with one of my students mothers and I asked her about this. She kind of laughed and said, "hmm, that's weird, I would think those plants are very dirty." My thoughts exactly! Think of all the dogs that have peed on those weeds. She even told me that a whole bundle of them only costs about $2.00 in the store. Which led me to believe that even a lot of Koreans find this behavior to be a little odd.

Anyway, the point of writing about this is that I think it's important to realize that there are really weird things and behaviors everywhere, but it does not mean that the whold culture is like that. Culture shock causes a hypersensitivity to the behaviors of those around us, and also I think often leads to a negative criticism towards that culture. Gosh, if there was somone visiting California, I really would hope they wouldn't group all Californians with some of the crazies we have there!! People can just be strange. Anywhere. And that folks, is my insight for the day!

Awesome Blossom

This time of year is absolutely beautiful here! I was going to try to go to a festival this weekend in Seoul to look at cherry blossoms, but apparently "festival" just means a very large crowd walking along a street to look at blossoms...and that just didn't sound appealing. The other day after school, I was on a walk since the weather has gotten so beautiful, and came across some pretty amazing trees. Here are a few pictures from the day:


















The only problem with them is that I think they make me intensely allergic. I've been sneezing and coughing, and have a terribly stuffed-up nose the past few days. Either that or I'm just sick--again. I'll be headed to the doctor during my break tomorrow to try to get over it, either way.

old classmates and learning Korean

I meant to write about this earlier, but a couple weeks ago, I got to hang out with some of my old classmates from JBU, David and Kyle. It was great and also a little surreal to see familiar faces from my past in a foreign country. We got some takgalbi--my new favorite Korean food consisting of chicken, cabbage, rice cake, noodles, hot sauce, and other vegetables, all cooked on a giant frying pan in front of you. Delicious. Then, David took us to an "international" party, where we met a lot of interesting people from around the world....actually no, most of the people we met were from Korea. There were also some other English teachers and some Army guys there. It was fun to talk to some new people.

Here we are at the party:

Anyway, David offered to connect me with a girl he knows who is studying to become a Korean teacher for foreigners. We've met 2 times now and Alicia, Mariko and I will start meeting with her weekly to learn Korean. I'm stoked about this! She was amazing last week. She had prepared flashcards of the alphabet and some basic words. I already have learned the basic alphabet and will start to be able to read words! yay! (Don't worry, this isn't actually all that impressive, as the Korean alphabet is pretty simple). Its good to have friends there also as motivation to keep studying. Thanks David! Oh by the way, David is also motivation to learn. Hyemin, my Korean teacher, said that David speaks Korean better than any foreigner she's met. Nice!

Cuteness Award

Bethany elected me for this cuteness award thing. I guess I will do it for lack of anything else I want to write about right now. I'm supposed to write 10 not-so-cute things about myself, so here goes:

1) I burp quite often after drinking orange juice. My burps are pretty impressive too. Not very lady-like and I'm sure they are very unattractive.

2) I tend to leave 1/3 of a glass left over of most things I drink. I find I just really don't like to finish that last little swig. It can be annoying for people who live with me and find lots of almost finished drinks laying around.

3) I have extremely flat feet. It means I'm a little awkward and not very cute in heels.

4) Like Bethany, I don't floss regularly(sorry for stealing that one)

5)I get annoyed very easily and let it show a little too often to the people I love.

6) I get very crabby when I haven't had enough sleep. My required amount is about 9 hours a night plus the quite frequent nap. I've always been this way.

7) I procrastinate with important tasks.

8) I can be lazy when it comes to my work. I'm working on this, honestly.

9) I like to share things, so when you are eating with me, I will want to try whatever you have. I try not to do this with strangers

10) I don't wash my sheets more than once every three weeks, more often than not, its less than that. If I'm the only one who sleeps in them and I shower every day, what does it really matter??

So, for those of you reading this, you can tell me if you agree. I now elect the following people to do this, even if you think its lame:

Marian, Angela, Jenna(you guys should do it on facebook)