Monday, November 22, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
at 16:00 in Korea July 10, 2010...
People stop for a bit to eat at a Korean rest stop...
(C'mon America when will you serve ramen in your rest stops?)
Friday, July 16, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
at 16:00 in Korea July 4, 2010...
A picnic is held on top of a building in spite of the U.S. holiday...
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
at 16:00 in Korea July 1, 2010...
The city of Gyung-Ju has so many antient royal burial mounds they have lost track who is in them...
Half way there...
At this point I am halfway through the tale of my trip. I am dissapointed with myself so far for falling behind. Even the full blog posts are not up to my great standards. They are to much like "And Then we... But then... and now this happend....". I can and will do better. It has been difficult because I have either been on the road seeing some of the most amazing things I have ever seen or sleeping in the next day. All the while snapping away with my camera. Through here and my facebook page I have shared less than 1% of my 1200 and growing photographic library with what I think are about 200-300 really worth while ones...
So this is what I will do, give you (with captions) a gallery of my favorite images...
Remember to click on them to embiggen
But of them all this is my favorite...
So this is what I will do, give you (with captions) a gallery of my favorite images...
Remember to click on them to embiggen
A decorative water wheel in the Ilsan lake park.
The statue of the great King Sejoeng who had the Korean alphabet created.
A nice shot of seagulls off the bow of a ferry begging for food.
Even Monks got to eat. The larder of the monks at Bomunsa temple.
The rooftop gazebo on the Seo's apartment building.
Come and dring to your health at the heath spring.
The anacranisms leap out to me. I love it.
Somtimes when you are in such a beautiful place as in the Royal Joson dyanasty palace in downtown Seoul all you need to do is to point and click ro get some amazing shots.
at 16:00 in Korea June 30, 2010...
Though artificial, a small island enjoys the solitude of man's non-interferance...
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Almost the end...
This Picture is special because it is the one that nearly made me lose my cell phone.
I was standing on a rock near the stream to take a picture of the staircase. A fly came along and landed on my hand which I swatted at.* This made me drop my phone onto the sloping boulder. The back flew off and both pieces started sliding toward the edge. I luckily was able to grab the phone before it Thema and Louised it into the waiting pool. The back of my phone was not so fortunate and I could not talk it down before it took the leap. And unlike Kenny in the Platte the water was deeper than it looked. When I climbed down I found that the water where the Phone back was was deeper than my knees.
Cleverly I found a boulder and put it in the water to provide a stepping stone with which to stand while I reached into the arm deep pool. This was not nearly as cleaver as it seemed because the rock shifted and I nearly baptized my self calling out to God and everything. I had to try again, so I went for the thing a second time steadying myself on the boulder. I touched it but also a leaf that was decomposing in the cold liquid. I drew my hand back thinking some evil creature was about to attack and was forced to do one of those silly dances you do when you do not quite have your balance. But in the end, as we say when a that is the number of tries requred "Third time's a charm". And just as a universe could not be contemplated without being the kind of universe to support life that could contemplate it, this blog continues under a similar, but equipment based, anthropic priciple
*To those Gammaristas I know this is ambiguous, but I swatted at both my hand and the fly so bite it.
at 16:00 in Korea June 28, 2010...
The waterfall of Gu-gak-pot-po is beautiful even if it is calm this time of year...
at 16:00 in Korea June 27, 2010...
Saturday, July 10, 2010
at 16:00 in Korea June 25, 2010...
The summer is cooled by the Korean treat Pat-bing-su: fruit and sweet red bean paste over shaved ice...
at 16:00 in Korea June 24, 2010...
Boston is now home of the Rad Socks... and was founded 30 years earlier than thought...
Friday, July 9, 2010
Another old one written on my phone but only published now...
Bu-de-ji-gae
June 24 2010
We ate bu-dae-ji-gae today for lunch. What is this you might ask? The name is translated as "Army Camp Stew" and is Korean junk food. It is derived from American food but would be nearly unrecognizable to my average countryman. Basically the best way to describe it is to say take the canned goods on your shelves and dump the pork and beans, SPAM and any other sausages or luncheon type meats that you might have all into a large shallow pan with water. Place in some ramyun (ramen) noodles, minced garlic or onions if you like, Kraft singles are also common. Add the obligatory go-chu-jong (red pepper paste) and boil.
So how did this eclectic dish get named "army camp stew"? Well along with one of the only stomach able way of eating spam there is n interesting tale that accompanies this dish, a sort of folk legend. So fumble with your chopsticks at I tell you its sad history.
It was the early 1950s while America was consumed with poodle skirts and soda fountains the Korean peninsula had had its war be fought from Pusan in the far south to Pyong-yang, the current capital of North Korea. Each side in this conflict had pushed the front back and forth all across this ancient land. Consequently many many people were uprooted from their homes. These people were hungry. They pillaged a sure source of food, the American Army Camps. There they found Spam and Pork and Beans and other such food items. However they could not just stroll up to the cam and ask for food and they often had to rummage through the garbage to find the leftovers. They were wary of this but were really hungry, so they boiled the new, gross, food they had scrounged with extra pepper flakes to hopefully make it safe to eat. They might have some noodles or wild plans to throw in this stew as well. Thus this dish was born.
This is how my wife tells the story, another version is here...
http://web.archive.org/web/20060113025356/http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200412/kt2004123016521111720.htm
June 24 2010
We ate bu-dae-ji-gae today for lunch. What is this you might ask? The name is translated as "Army Camp Stew" and is Korean junk food. It is derived from American food but would be nearly unrecognizable to my average countryman. Basically the best way to describe it is to say take the canned goods on your shelves and dump the pork and beans, SPAM and any other sausages or luncheon type meats that you might have all into a large shallow pan with water. Place in some ramyun (ramen) noodles, minced garlic or onions if you like, Kraft singles are also common. Add the obligatory go-chu-jong (red pepper paste) and boil.
It was the early 1950s while America was consumed with poodle skirts and soda fountains the Korean peninsula had had its war be fought from Pusan in the far south to Pyong-yang, the current capital of North Korea. Each side in this conflict had pushed the front back and forth all across this ancient land. Consequently many many people were uprooted from their homes. These people were hungry. They pillaged a sure source of food, the American Army Camps. There they found Spam and Pork and Beans and other such food items. However they could not just stroll up to the cam and ask for food and they often had to rummage through the garbage to find the leftovers. They were wary of this but were really hungry, so they boiled the new, gross, food they had scrounged with extra pepper flakes to hopefully make it safe to eat. They might have some noodles or wild plans to throw in this stew as well. Thus this dish was born.
This is how my wife tells the story, another version is here...
http://web.archive.org/web/20060113025356/http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/culture/200412/kt2004123016521111720.htm
at 16:00 in Korea June 23, 2010...
The World Cup Party...
On the night of the 22nd Hiyoung and I went Seoul City hall to watch the game on the giant screens there. It was amazing. We got there at 12:00 A.M. (the 23rd) and got a place to sit in the road.
We tried to get there a little early to get decent seats because the Game started at 3:30 A.M. local Korean time. The giant screen looked pretty small. In the picture it is hard to see because there were lights to illuminate the crowd because the gathering would recorded for TV. We were out of the range of these lights. At one in the morning the show started. The had 4 or 5 musical groups that were of a variety. They were all suporting the Korean soccer team in some way, from wearing a red uniform, to the shirts that the everyone was wearing. And plugging the country name all the time. The first group (I am not sure of the name, Hiyoung did ot know and I have not found the the program from that night on the internet.) was a boy and girl singer with backup dancers and I have seen them on TV a few times since then. Then they had a rock group whose singer sounded like the guy from AC/DC. Then a strange rock/rap group that dressed somewhat like a clockwork orange. Then came a rock group that I could get into. They kinda rocked and the Woman singer sounded pretty good. On the screen I could see that they were called "Cherry Filter" Then particular sang started a song that was really popular, especially with the girls. This was "Romantic Cat" their hit from 2002, and I must say it rocks.
After that was After School which is the ROK's response to the Pussycat Dolls. Enough said.
Then the Game started and all the true insanity began. I am not a sports guy but I really can see the drama of "The Game". There were cheers, ecstacy and despair. Throughout the night the crowd was lead in chears of "dae-han-min-goog", clap-clap, clap-clap CLAP and singing "dae-han-min-goog" (the Korean name for the Republic of Korea) over and over to the melody of Ode to Joy. It ended up with a tie of 2-2 but that was enough to put them into he next faze of the tournament and as the dawn broke onto the scene it was one of joy.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
at 16:00 in Korea June 22, 2010...
Sleeping at that time so I could go to the 3:30am game showing. So I present you with this anniversary party picture instead...
Hana-Chomchi...
The 22nd was Hiyoung's third anniversary. We had already planned to go downtown to watch the third Korean game at the World Cup. So we went out for our anniversary dinner on the 21st.
We went to Hana Chomchi which is a specialty Tuna sushi restaurant. Hana Chomchi means "One Tuna." What makes this special is that it serves only Tuna in different cuts similar to how we cut up a cow and relish the different flavors and textures.
Review of One Tuna...
The presentation was great. We ordered the house special which is a variety of cuts. Usually the tuna used in sushi is the large fleshy uniform part of the body. The parts given here are the parts around the head, hearts, fins, and tails.
We were started off with lotus root (I think) and raw crab that Hiyoung slurped eagerly out of the shell. I on the other hand could appreciate the flavor which was a little salty and similar to other seafoods, however
anything that has the texture of snot and a not entrely unlike tast will make me gag and I fought to hold it down. But I did. I am here to experience new things and I try to jump in with both feet... but I reserve the right to back out with all my limbs.
These next two cuts are the area around the gills and around the heart respectively. (As an aside, the wasabi used was freshly ground wasabi and not the usual goup. Of course this may not be an improvement but it makes it feel fancy.)
The part around the gills was the best. The meat was pretty hard and marbled with fat.
The other one has a great texture and was the meat around the heart. It had different textures and tastes depending on where you bit.
Also in Korea they use the bones and etc. parts of the sashimi and sushi fishes to make a stew to serve as the last course. This is a spicy stew and at this particular place they had the same soup made spicy with spicy peppers that are green so that the soup is clear and not the usual red color.
Hungry?
Review of One Tuna...
The presentation was great. We ordered the house special which is a variety of cuts. Usually the tuna used in sushi is the large fleshy uniform part of the body. The parts given here are the parts around the head, hearts, fins, and tails.
We were started off with lotus root (I think) and raw crab that Hiyoung slurped eagerly out of the shell. I on the other hand could appreciate the flavor which was a little salty and similar to other seafoods, however
anything that has the texture of snot and a not entrely unlike tast will make me gag and I fought to hold it down. But I did. I am here to experience new things and I try to jump in with both feet... but I reserve the right to back out with all my limbs.These next two cuts are the area around the gills and around the heart respectively. (As an aside, the wasabi used was freshly ground wasabi and not the usual goup. Of course this may not be an improvement but it makes it feel fancy.)
The part around the gills was the best. The meat was pretty hard and marbled with fat.
The other one has a great texture and was the meat around the heart. It had different textures and tastes depending on where you bit.
After that I got tired of taking pictures and decided to just enjoy my anniversary dinner...We had some other side dishes and additional cuts of tuna. Which included extra slices of sushi that were served to us as we were sitting at the bar in front of the owner and sushi chef who, apparently, was feeling generous.
Also in Korea they use the bones and etc. parts of the sashimi and sushi fishes to make a stew to serve as the last course. This is a spicy stew and at this particular place they had the same soup made spicy with spicy peppers that are green so that the soup is clear and not the usual red color.
Hungry?
Am I lucky or what? An older post finally catchng up...
We went out to lunch today. It was a great spicy chicken stew in a country area. We then were going to go to a jim-jill-bang (A Korean sauna) but hiyoung's dad's car stopped working after pulling over for gas. While we were waiting to see what would happen I casually looked at a patch of clover. I hit the jackpot with two four leaf clovers. Too bad luck is not retro active. If it were, the car would never have broken down and we would have gone on our way never knowing that there were two for leaf clovers I would have found had the car actually broken down. Or it could be like LOST and you will see this blog flash back and forth between that reality and the real one. And you will be really interested what the point was but you will never know and I will say it is better that way...
Either way I am happy...
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