Funny Sign

Why on earth would they name a little convenience store “Gag story”….. maybe I won’t be shopping there….

Korean BBQ

Korean Bar-B-Que is nothing like BBQ as we know it in North Carolina, Basically they just like to cook meat at the table in front of it. It comes with really good onions in a vinegar sauce. I always put my meat in it.

Here is the table view, you get all kinds of side dishes, including rice, cooked egg, pasta salad, kimchi, kimchi sprouts, radish, and Kimchi Jigae (stew)

Joseph always grabs the tongs and and is the Meat master for the night. He likes his stuff more cooked than I do, I like it a little more rare, so I always steal my pieces off with my chopsticks before his are finished cooking.

Another way to eat it is to dip the meat in your sauce of choice, put it in a lettuce leaf, maybe throw in some kimchi or other side dies, wrap it up tight and shove it in your mouth.

All for now, it is so hard to believe we will be coming home soon, and won't be eating at our favorite restaurant anymore....

Monsoon

Monsoon season has it good points and bad, Good, that the tempatures are not nearly as high here are they would be in Raleigh, but bad because it is so humid the next day (worse than Raleigh, and I didn't think that was possible) Also all the water is causing HUGE earthworms to invade the streets, since their homes in the ground get flooded... I saw the beauty and it was longer than my foot... and there are close to 100 of them as we made our way home from school the other day. Creepy!

Love my students

They speak English but apparently they don't know English that well... It is very common to see kids wearing shirts with meaningless sayings, but it is quite another when your 4th grader is announcing he is really a party animal! I didn't put him in the picture to protect the innocent.

This country is so funny.

Army Base Stew

Way back in December, Joseph and I were both terribly sick with awful runny noses, coughs and sore throats.... you name it and it ached..... our Boss found out and took us, as well as our co-workers, out to a lovely lunch at a restaurant called Nolboo. It is actually owned by one of the parents of a student I teach at the Hagwon. They have several different types of this stew with different ingredients, but the idea remains the same, Get a hearty filling meal with what you have around you. It was quite spicy but unlike some korean food it had many ingredients that we could identify! It is easy to forget that not too long ago this country was at war with itself. (heck it still technically is at war with itself..... ) But for that time, many of the South Koreans lived on food provided to them from other countries. Army Base Stew, also called Meat and scraps stew, consists of mostly processed or potted meats(aka hot dogs and spam), baked beans, noodles, rice cakes, green onions, gochujang (spicy korean paste), musthrooms, tofu, kimchi and any vegetables they could find. Joseph and I have taken to this particular resturant and find ourselves here at least once every two weeks or so. We keep coming back and though we are probably VIP customers, this is the first time I actually remembered my camera.

As always, with any traditional Korean food, you get several side dishes. Kimchi (always) coleslaw ,which they called "a salad" (nope.....sorry guys) and depending on the season, you might get fish strips, fried quail eggs or acorn jelly.... sometimes, as in the night I took the pictures they bring one or two that I have NO CLUE what they are... Then they bring all the ingredients in a big pot and throw in some broth and let it begin cooking right in front of you.

You get a side of rice to help take away some of the spice. I have learned if it is too spicy, add some rice and that will help take it down a notch. I have grown accustomed to the spicy stew and can now just use the rice to soak up the broth after the main items have been eaten with chopsticks.

Delicious stew cooking right at the table. You have to be careful when there is a burner in the middle of the table, that burn I got on my arm several weeks ago has healed for the most part now, but I am sure I will have a scar for the rest of my life.... I burned it worse than I thought... Ooops!!!

You get a small dish and you dish out a few spoonfuls, you can see I got some spam in there and Joseph usually goes for the tofu or rice cake noodles. Some people think Spam is gross, but I have always been fond of it. My mom used to make spam sandwiches when I was little.

They have also re-vamped the menu recently and added a few new items to the menu, so we got some mushroom dumplings, Joseph and I love dumplings. The Korean word is Mandu.... or in this case Mandusa (little dumpling)

We love going to this particular restaurant because, as I said previously, the owner is a parent of one of my students. Nicole has been doing really well lately in class, so I have happily been giving her 100's on her work.... also around this time we started receiving free pepsi's with our dinner. Maybe we are VIP's because we go to this restaurant so much or maybe that is a thank you from a parent... I don't know... All I know is I always write cute messages on Nicoles homework! Yes, I can be bought with free Pepsi! (Although Nicole is really smart and doesn't need my help much anyway!)

That is all for now!

Cereal

It is funny how some prices of things here can either be really cheap or really expensive. One thing I miss is breakfast cereal because I just cannot justify spending over 7 dollars on a box, but when it comes with a cool water gun, it makes me reconsider... I think a splash of cold water in the face might encourage our students to do their homework each night..... Hey It stopped the cat from clawing the sofa..... just saying!

Dear Korean Neighbor.

Dearest Korean Neighbor,

I know space here is limited, but I would reccommend that you NOT place your blanket out to dry on the power lines outside your window. It kinda scares me that we could possibly go up in flames. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely, the scared foreigner who lives above you.

Roll's Rice.

We went to Changwon this Independence Day, and found a cute little Korean/Japanese (I think) fusion restaurant called Roll's Rice. It is basically Kimbap and Sushi fused together in brilliant looking rolls! It was delicious.

We started the meal with an appetizer called Honey Bread, which was basically half a loaf of bread with honey butter mixed into it. We didn't know it would come first when we ordered it because it was very sweet, it much more of a dessert. Very good though, practically everyone in the restaurant was ordering it!

This was the one I ordered called the Alaskan, it had salmon, fish eggs and crab meat in it... way to much sauce, you could barely find the fish under the coleslaw (which was oddly tasty)

This one was called too much to love, If I remember correctly it had mostly just crab meat in it. And fried fish pieces on top. Not as much sauce, which was a nice change. We split both of them

It is always interesting to see what you are going to get when you blind order in Korea. It is usually pretty, and most of the time it tastes good too!

Market Day

July 2nd was Market Day at our school. All year long the children do their homework, and extra work to earn stars, the stars are then converted to currenty and every six months they get to use the money they have accumulated to purchase cool school supplies, Korean food prepared by their very own teachers and also fun snacks. It is fun all day long, and the kids go crazy. The stars are such a good incentive to get the kids to work harder. Plus we had so much fun!

They called me "Mrs. Many Money" when they saw me carrying my sack of the fake "won" that we would hand out to the children. They may use Korean currency but any transaction had to be made in English!

They had signs showing all the places you could go... and even though we have been here a year sometimes the Korean teachers forget to ask us to check over things... Oh well, this way to the "rounge" lounge! (darn that R and L for confusing them so)

Here is May teacher cooking up a storm. They served different combinations of rice cake, fish cake and hot dog either on a stick or in a spicy red sauce. They also have pork cutlets and your choice of sauce.

All over the school they posted sheets to help the kids with the transactions. They could tell us the items were too expensive and that they wanted a discount... That was the most fun. We could make the kids sing for a discount or answer a question in English. We got some very funny answers.

Joseph worked in the Snack bar, we had our own Family mart in the school! They also served fun drinks like fanta and cola.

I worked with Jenny teacher in the stationery store. This was the table before the sales rush!

Ack, here come the buyers, we were prepared, but it was also a little scary. So many kids screaming " How much is this?", "discount, please?" Oh and most said"Thank you"

So many cool items, they have a hard time deciding what to pick. It can be a very laborious choice between a new pen set and a notebook!

And there are still a few who can ham it up for the camera. Peter is a hoot!

FINSHED! Stationery store is closed for buisness, until the next round of kids comes. They totally cleaned us out.

One of my students named Grace and I before the next round of shopping started.

Lisa. She is brilliant and she loves the Simpsons....Hence how she got her name.... I am pretty sure at least.

Lora, Lina, Kelly and Gloria checking out the goods. Lina was mad I took a picture.

So Much Shopping.

Hanna is such a cutie!

After Market Day we decided to treat ourselves to a dinner out, since we had gotten off work early and I didn't feel like cooking anything (and in my defense we had not been to the grocery store in all the busy Market day planning) So we headed to Meat Home.... which is pretty much like the name suggests. All meat and then you go home and feel sick. It is a family restaurant so you have to watch out for the kids. We had a super cute little guy at the table next to us...until he started going crazy and dancing with an umbrella almost hitting Joseph in the face, then he was an annoying little bugger.

For 12,000 won you can enjoy all the meat you can grill and eat at your own table. They also have other stuff that is premade, but everyone goes for the meat! They have all kinds of seafood, pork, and beef.... sometimes even duck and quail... depends on the night.
(yes I got odd stares as I tried to get a picture of the meat bar)

Fill up your plate and get to grilling. Tongs and scissors are table cutlery at most korean restaurants.

Here we were girlling some Kimchi, sausage and sprouts.

Mmmmmm.....pork chops with mustard sauce... so delicious.

And of course you get a side of Rice.

Kimchi and Sprouts.

And BABY OCTOPUS.... we try at least one new thing every time... I surprised Joseph with this little gem, but we both tried it...

garlic and delicious paste sauce (I forget the name)

Octopus is very chewy.... not my favorite, but we had to try it!