Jump the Ravine

2009 February 14 - Also, Fish Tacos

2009-02-15T21:13:00.003-06:00

The San Diego area is said to be famous for fish tacos. My first foray into the genre was at Wahoo's Fish Tacos, a little joint plastered in surfing and skateboarding stickers about 1/2 mile from my current digs. The fish is blackened, the tortillas are corn, the shredded greens not lettuce, but rather cabbage. The smoky house hot sauce ties it all together.

2009 February 14 - La Jolla Aquarium

2009-02-15T20:45:00.005-06:00

La Jolla is home to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a world-renowned research institute. Associated with Scripps is the Birch Aquarium, a small but lovely living-museum right on the coast, focused on the underwater miracles gracing the Pacific coast of North America. Here are some of its critters:

2009 January 31 - NYC Graffiti

2009-01-31T18:02:00.004-06:00

Found myself in Manhattan for a few hours this afternoon...

2009 January 23/24 - 24 Hours of Food

2009-01-31T16:37:00.004-06:00

Armed with the book Roadfood by Jean and Michael Stern, Wi-Fi at stops along the way and a GPS, we discovered several key dining establishments during the roadtrip to California. Here, I feature a few from the Southwest stretch.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, two stops: Bert's Burger Bowl and the Plaza Cafe. Bert's is renowned enough that the Food Network had just been through to tape a show featuring its famous chili-cheeseburger. Really, the place is not a Bowl at all, but rather, a no-frills shack, pretty reminiscent of a Chicago hot-dog stand. You order, they bark, you pay, they cook, you wait, you leave, you eat. What, you want service? With no indoor seating and it being too cold outdoors to enjoy the patio-style seating (which surprised this naive Northerner), we ate in the car. Though you can't see the beef patty lurking under all that cheese and the pile of spicy-tangy chopped chilis, I can assure you it's there, exuding smoky goodness right through its burned edges, a signature from time spent on the ancient wood-fired open grill. The fries were exceptional as well. The Plaza is... right on the plaza in downtown Santa Fe, and was buzzing with wholesome early evening diners, mostly families, enjoying heaped plates of local speciality dishes and ridiculously gigantic slices of house-made pie. We, however, were there for the sopapillas, a delight I hadn't truly enjoyed since I was a child and we would wolf them down greedily at South of the Border restaurant on Roosevelt Road in Glen Ellyn. I don't know why these simple fried pillows of dough are not consumed as a staple food. They are served steaming hot, and are yeasty and utterly irresistable no matter how full of chili-cheeseburger and fries your belly is. The idea is to tear them open and drizzle (OK, glob) honey into / onto them and eat them as quickly as you can, all the while going "MMMmmmMmMMmmm," licking honey off your fingers and occasionally taking a sip of coffee, that, mostly for appearances.

Next morning in Las Cruces, it was Andale Cafe, for a revelatory plate of Huevos Rancheros. Corn tortillas are topped with two perfectly fried eggs, one smothered with pungent, smoky, spiky red chili sauce, the other with decadent, creamy green chili sauce. Flavorful beans accompany, along with a flour tortilla that put all other flour tortillas I'd ever eaten to shame. I'm not sure I can actually eat another flour tortilla. This one had attitude, heft, style. Not the flavorless, pasty-yet-somehow-still-crumbly variety we are used to up North. The chorizo rounded the whole thing out in a way that only sausage can. Not pictured: basket after basket of dark brown tortilla chips-that-meant-business accompanied by a variety of salsas from the salsa bar. This, for breakfast. Truly this is the promised land!

Lunch was in Tuscon, Arizona, at El Charro Cafe, famous for their air-dried beef, or "Carne Seca." Strips of seasoned beef are hung in cages above the patio where we dined. The place was full of festive brunchers enjoying their Sunday feast along with refreshing margaritas. Alas, sobriety is the one drawback of roadtrip dining! We consoled ourselves with a giant bowl of menudo brimming with hominy and tender beef in a sustaining broth. The Carne Seca plate was enough of the flavorful beef (shredded and combined with chopped tomato and onion), beans, rice and onions to make us 3 tacos each, and the 6 for the road. The flavor of the Carne Seca is slightly beef-jerkyish, in the best possible way, with lots of lime and garlic and chile.

In summary, Yes to the food of the Southwest.

2009 January 19 - Two Wisconsin Things to Miss

2009-01-19T09:30:00.004-06:00

First, Friday Fish Fry. This shot was taken at Toby's Supper Club, which they say has been around since the Depression era. Not this depression, the one back in the 20s. It hasn't changed much since then! Toby's layout features an oval bar in the middle of the room, patrons thronging around it, surrounded by very simple tables. This layout is perfectly designed to support the tradition at Friday Fish Fry, which is to sit at the bar with your party, drink awhile, and eventually place your order with a wandering waitress. The iconic Wisconsin drink order at fish fry is the Brandy Old Fashioned; there are many ways to customize this cocktail and the condiments that get splashed into it - sweet, sour, press, mushrooms, onions, olives, cherries. Can also be made with whiskey. A few cocktails in, when your order is ready, the waitress points you to a table where your first course is waiting. The first course is your choice of an iceberg-lettuce salad, coleslaw, cottage cheese or tomato juice. Then comes the fish. What you see piled on plates at right and left is fried Lake Perch, small, fishy fish. Squeeze lemon over them, dip in rich tartar sauce and you're off. Yes, that's right, we dip deep fried foods in mayonnaise. Upper plate pictured is cod, which is also generally offered at fish fry, as is walleye and pike, sometimes shrimp. Other standard items pictured on our table include the basket of soft dinner rolls and bread sticks (Matt had already consumed all of the bread sticks), pats of butter and margarine, giant pile of hash brown potatoes, numerous kinds of booze (gin, brandy, wine and beer in this case), pickle dish and romantic candlelight.

Second, mornings like today, when every branch of every tree is coated with frosty ice, transforming the landscape, making you pause and stare and feel magical. The ice draws attention to the breathtaking beauty of the simplest, most stoic trees. The drama of this effect is temporary, therefore precious. These shots were taken at the Yahara River and Tenney Park in Madison, blocks from my condo.

2009 January 13

2009-01-15T14:30:00.003-06:00

Observe how the natives eat steak in Wisconsin. You can begin to get a sense for its size by comparing it to the objects surrounding it. Notice the potato-to-steak ratio is roughly equal. Notice also the complete lack of vegetable, unless you count the fried onion ring topping the thing. We did enjoy gigantic salads smothered in blue cheese, blue cheese dressing and french dressing (yes, two kinds of dressing) preceding the steak to insure our daily recommended allowances were achieved. In the end, I could only eat about half of this 21 ounce T-Bone! In my hey-day it would have been nothing at all for me to consume this entire portion, and then finish what was left on the plates of others at the table. I guess that's a sure sign of age.

The dinner pictured was Kathy's generous treat for my victory in our fitness competition, though, in truth, it was just a gift because we didn't actually keep track. It also became a celebration of my impending departure! After 3 weeks of unemployment post-Korea, I am lucky enough to have accepted an incredible job in La Jolla, California. I have my sister and Ami to thank for teeing this one up for me at APDF in a thumb-wrestling competition (long story!). It's kind of spontaneous, but I guess my sense of adventure is deeper than I knew! We are driving there next week, I officially start Monday January 26th.

Will I succumb to the environment and... learn to surf? Get breast enhancements? Bathe in Chardonnay? Wear my bathrobe to the supermarket? Get fat on In-and-Out burgers? Stay tuned for more of my adventures, this time brought to you from California.

2009 January 5

2009-01-05T14:51:00.008-06:00

It's a New Year and a new life for me. I am unemployed (for now!) and exploring possibilities both near and far. I feel lucky to have such interesting opportunities in such a dismal business climate; though I do think that change is in the air, and the appetite for innovation this year will be huge if the right people can connect with each other and with the right business opportunities.

I started this blog, of course, to document a very exciting part of my life, my experiences in Korea. It looks like that phase of my experience is over for the time being, so it's time to reinvent my blog! I intend to maintain it (how consistently remains in question), but now with the goal of documenting the weird and wonderful in my everyday life, no matter where I am. After all, one person's weird and wonderful is another person's perfectly normal.

Exhibit 1: The view from my patio door on Christmas Eve morning; or, More Snow than even a person who voluntarily lives in Wisconsin wants to deal with.

Exhibit 2: Our perfectly normal Christmas Eve dinner consisting of herring bits served 4 ways, black rye bread and cold vegetable salads. Our family enjoys this traditional Lithuanian fare (called Kucios) on Christmas Eve every year, so of course it seems perfectly normal and delicious to us, though to anyone else along for the ride its definitely in the realm of the weird and maybe not-so wonderful. It is meat-free because apparently Jesus doesn't like us eating certain kinds of flesh on his birthday (Mom knows this), and herring-full because, well, that's what was available back in the day and Lithuanians are resourceful, seemingly! I guess we're just lucky it wasn't eel. Other than the traditional dishes, and the no-meat rule, the other stipulation is that there must be at least 12 dishes on the table to represent the 12 apostles, though I don't think Judas should get one, doesn't seem right to me. This year we counted candy canes as one of the qualifying dishes. So we all break bread over this sumptuous feast, putting a little piece of the bread into each dish, I am not sure why, probably because we're somewhat tipsy. This year, right in the middle of Mom's toast to the memory of our ancestors, my sister came out with the quote of the year (squeaking it in at the last minute like a field goal with :03 left on the clock!), angrily directed at her 11 year old daughter, who was distracting herself by pouring drips of water onto her plate, "Grandma is talking about dead people and you're spilling water ON PURPOSE!"

And finally, Exhibit 3: The immediate family, who is definitely Weird and Wonderful, and in English too!

2008 November 22 - Two Shots

2008-11-22T17:56:00.002-06:00

2008 November 14 - Disappointing Octopus

2008-11-22T17:46:00.003-06:00

OK Usually I love the food here, but this one tasted just about as good as it looks.

2008 November 9 - Bali Meal

2008-11-16T07:08:00.003-06:00

This meal of chicken, beef and pork satay with a beer (ok two beers) was so tasty and cost about $10. The view was second to none.

2008 November 8 - Ubud Sacred Monkey Forest

2008-11-09T03:12:00.004-06:00

The Ubud Sacred Monkey Forest is unreal.

If you ever do get the chance to go, I say do it. Buy bananas for the monkeys. They will cling to you, try to climb you. It's deliciously terrifying. After a few minutes I resorted to just throwing the bananas at them. They are everywhere and, frankly, they are creepy.

There was some kind of cult-like monkey worship ceremony going on. When the music crescendo-ed the monkeys went wild in the trees above. The monkey-man chanted, I swear he was directing it at me, with a secret monkey message, at the same time the priests and priestesses were intoning and burning incense, women were making offerings. It was an out of body experience.

2008 November 5 - Obama!

2008-11-06T18:42:00.002-06:00

The computer screen in this shot, taken in the Texas Western Bar in Seoul, reads, "Change has come to America." Well, it also came to Americans in South Korea. Wednesday was wonderful. As I enjoyed a dimsum lunch with the team I was previously leading, Obama declared victory, McCain conceded and everything changed. The emotional shift could be felt as far away as Seoul, almost physically. A mix of curiosity, joy, support and amazement were expressed by Americans... Canadians, New Zealanders, Italians, Koreans, Australians. I will never forget the savory flavor of the dumplings I ate as a new America was born, or the cheers of "Yes We Can!" as we lifted shots of tequila, giddy.

But the buzz wore off, of course, and we all woke up the next morning, many complaining of wicked hangovers. Some of the people I celebrated with called what had happened on election day the "Saint Obama Day" celebration - it's true there's a lot riding on him. Will it be possible to live up to the promise of this historical moment?

2008 November 2 - Post-hike Dumplings

2008-11-02T17:16:00.002-06:00

King Mandu, before and after! Our hiking party waited in line for these considerable creations at a little joint in Samcheongdong. The stuffing of pork, Korean leeks and glass noodles was as light and dreamy as the clouds that day. Perfect, with a couple Hite beers and some kimchi.

2008 November 2

2008-11-02T17:10:00.005-06:00

Scenes from Bukhan Mountain on a fine Sunday afternoon.

2008 November 1

2008-11-02T16:57:00.003-06:00

Saturday was spent slowly wandering and noticing things on an archetypal Fall day, sans pumpkins. I walked around neighborhoods that are now familiar to me, looking at them rather than just walking by them.

2008 October Halloween

2008-10-31T21:59:00.004-05:00

Lucky enough to snag invites to the "Alien" Halloween party at the spectacular Austin-Powersesque W last night, Mark and I enjoyed the VIP treatment. DJs from Tokyo and London rocked the house, and we danced and danced along with droves of gleeful Koreans. Bottles of water were W10000 (about $8), same as bottles of beer (Heineken only, for some reason). Upon arrival we were given a blood-red Jaegermeister and grenadine concoction served in an IV bag (see me attempting to drink from it below). Parliament cigarette girls adorned kiosks selling the smoky treats. Koreans are new at the Halloween thing, so costumes were nothing like what's being seen as I write this at Sherry's legendary bash in Watertown, WI. Most people (including us) were not dressed up at all. After the party we taxied over to Dongdaemun market (the Night market) and met up with a friend dressed-up as Karl Lagerfeld where I bought a pair of True Religion jeans at about 4 AM for W40000 (about $35... US retail value about $300). Rolled in around 5AM thinking "My feet hurt!" but what a fabulous night!

2008 Whenever

2008-10-30T07:19:00.001-05:00

This is from months ago but what a dog!

2008 October Seoul Design Olympiad

2008-10-30T07:05:00.003-05:00

I recently attended the Seoul Design Olympiad (!!) and W.o.W. (world of weirdness). The Olympic Stadium from 1988 was the site. It was adorned with draperies of recycled plastic containers (a design element featured on this blog previously, but here to much greater impact. Imagine Soldier Field festooned thusly). Inside the track-and-field had some commercial installations that were not interesting-seeming enough to wait in line for, but I did go to the Design Competition, which had about 200 entries, mostly consisting of posters. Despite the Science-fair feel, there was some real ingenuity on display, and I was truly inspired in many ways. The last picture on this post was a gorgeous book which seemed quite out of place and transcendent. The whole affiar was grandiose yet primordial. It also featured gigantic blow-up mice, not pictured.

2008 Mid October Saturday Lunch

2008-10-30T02:04:00.002-05:00

It's been way too long since I did a straight-up food post! On the 11th and 12th floors of the posh Lotte department store are a bunch of nice restaurants, ranging from Korean to Thai to Italian (oddly, that one is called Rice Rice, though naturally they serve pasta). I enjoyed lunch with friends (stressed-out Katie and bored Boyd!) a couple of Saturdays ago. For 30,000 won (which is about $22 now...) we had this amazing spread of tofu, pork, smoked duck, mussels and shrimp, other stuff we didn't understand, fish stew, and an array of odd side dishes. And rice. And leaves for wrapping. Something for everyone. Boyd thought the mussels were truly disgusting, scaring Katie and I away from even trying them, but everything else was very tasty! The dead fish bottom left was my favorite.

2008 October 12

2008-10-12T08:39:00.001-05:00

A few random pictures I took during wanderings over the weekend... picture 1 is Itaewon, others are from Insadong.

2008 October 4 PIFF

2008-10-05T06:44:00.003-05:00

I ventured forth from Seoul for the first time this weekend, to the Southern reaches of Korea, in very good hands. My incredibly gracious friend Luca made a day at the Pusan International Film Festival possible for me. Since film festivals are my thing, those who know me well will know that this provided inspiration and satisfaction, escape and connection. At film festivals, or any other kind of art-absorption exercise, I think what everyone is doing is searching for expressions of humanity. Sometimes those recognitions can be found in the art, sometimes through the interaction with your companion, sometimes with the meta observations of other people experiencing the work (What does it mean to be moved? How do we talk about those feelings? How do we deal with being disappointed?). Despite all the requisite posturing, it's ultimately humane. I enjoyed the 3 films I saw. Their creators made me think. And feel. Did I see a masterpiece? No. But I did get glimpses of things that are beyond my everyday experience, those things that resulted in me looking at a Korean seascape this morning as a palate rather than a canvas. Here are a few pictures of Pusan, the second largest city in South Korea. Photo 1: my hotel room, at the "Noblesse." If they say so! Photo 2: outdoor film screening of a film from Japan, Sky Catchers, skyscraping Korean dwellings as a backdrop. Photo 3: Haeundae Beach.

2008 September 20

2008-09-21T08:36:00.003-05:00

Incredible. Adorable. Precious afternoon.

2008 September 13 - Recycled Curtains

2008-09-18T07:10:00.006-05:00

Interesting art installations at a small shopping mall near where I live. Visually, I'm not so sure of the first approach (looks like a driving range net that got in the way of a hurricane), but the hippie-style room divider curtain made of giant, plastic disposable objects is good. I think the curtain has a great effect of both physical and mental suspension. Objects just overhead are either irrelevant visual whimsy, or about to crash down upon you. (Kathy, this one is for you.)

2008 September 13 - HI

2008-09-18T07:10:00.002-05:00

Hi Korea. Saturday morning, jet lag, little funny creature greeting me. Welcome back.

2008 September 04 through 11 - San Francisco

2008-09-14T02:18:00.003-05:00

I got to head back to the States again, this time to San Francisco, where I worked hard but also had a very nice time in the city. I had not been there since I was in my 20s to see the Grateful Dead; I was definitely seeing it through different eyes this time around!

Scoma's Restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf (the little orange sign in the center) was my
destination for dinner one evening, where I enjoyed Oysters and Scallops and some
fine California wines. What a great place! Very old school and classy but down to earth.
A little hard to find - slightly off the beaten path (Pier 49) and a little more local-seeming than
the neon-clad joints on the main drag.

Seen on the stroll through Fisherman's Wharf on the way to Scoma's.

Some exotic sea creatures had washed up on shore, spotted
during a walk with friends on a beach along Highway 1
(look closely).

Also along Highway 1...

The Bay Bridge, seen from outside the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero.

2008 August 31 - Nike Human Race

2008-09-02T05:22:00.002-05:00

Last Sunday I spent an incredibly enjoyable afternoon at the Nike "Human Race" 10K Run event in Seoul. I didn't run it (didn't find out about it or register in time and they ran out of spots - 20,000 people registered!), but my friend Kevin did, and he invited me to join him and hang out. This was a serious event, staged in many (30-ish) cities all over the world on the same day, so it was quite a party. One thing different here - the race started at 6PM, unlike our races which start god-awful early in the morning. The evening run: so civilized!

I had been skeptical of these registration numbers, as I rarely see Koreans running outside in the city. When I run here, I receive glances ranging from sympathetic to slightly confused to amused, but yet here they were in force: Korean runners! And most were incredibly fit and up for the run, having a great time, all geared up. Korean people do things all the way. The registration and swag area featured a gigantic sound stage with DJs and a performance by the famous Korean hip-hop dance troupe (gang?) the B-Boys.

After Kevin finished we went out for a couple beers, or "hof" as they are called here (refer to earlier post). Kevin pointed out that the use of the word "hof" to indicate beer is a bastardization of some German word, but that hof does not actually mean beer in German, it means well or church or bicycle something, I don't quite remember. Too many hof (hofs?) I guess.

2008 July 11 - Food that Moves

2008-08-30T00:33:00.002-05:00

This video is not for the faint of heart! It is from awhile ago, but I finally figured out how to put video on my blog. Enjoy!

2008 July 26 - Rainy Day, W Walker Hill

2008-08-29T21:57:00.006-05:00

This is from awhile ago - a nice lunch with Matt and Reyne at the W Hotel, which is so highly designed you almost expect Austin Powers to round the corner. Lunch was an amazing Japanese feast. The movie below is me walking by lobby art called, "Wooden Mirror." It's composed of wooden slats which move in response to the movement going by it. There's nothing actually reflective about it.

2008 August 29 - Beer Meets...

2008-08-29T21:48:00.002-05:00

The best name I've seen for a bar, ever: Beer Meets Food. It says it all. What an enticing promise, especially on a Friday. I'm sure some would argue that "Bikini Bar" is an even more appealing concept, forget the food!

Beer meets Pooh! Does Disney know about this? Oh, bother.

(Hof = Beer; Soju = Toxic Korean Booze)

2008 August 23 - Welcome McGlenns!

2008-08-23T20:16:00.003-05:00

Tess wields chopsticks. Look out Korea! Dumplings = Yummy for Tummy.

2008 August 23 - Been Awhile!

2008-08-23T19:56:00.004-05:00

My blogging hiatus has ended. I missed it!

Last night I had a lovely dinner with a few friends in Itaewon (took a stroll on "hooker hill" after dinner, pictured above... yikes), which we followed up at a cool club/bar called Bungalow.

We were sitting on the outdoor patio enjoying a bottle of wine at the moment that Korea defeated Cuba in the Olympic gold medal baseball match. A roar erupted from the Korean people in the bar watching on their phones, and was echoed from people all over Seoul watching in bars and restaurants and homes and on more phones. Celebration ensued.

2008 July - Plastic Food

2008-07-21T07:39:00.004-05:00

There is no shortage of fantastic plastic food dioramas throughout Asia (above: Seoul Incheon Airport), which entice the passer-by to enter and enjoy a reasonable facsimile of the depicted dish. These are both helpful and strange. I have found them to be surprisingly reliable, visually.

In Japan, they add another layer of temptation. Restaurants pipe the sounds of the bustle of food service and lively conversation happening inside the establishment right at that moment, out onto the street, speakers situated right above the display. Who can resist the dual promise of idealized food and drunken camaraderie? When Matt and I passed by this one (above: alley in Fukuoka Japan) we were quite full and therefore somewhat less susceptible to the cumulative effects of these enticements.

2008 July 21 - Last Week in T-Shirts

2008-07-21T07:18:00.003-05:00

I have begun writing down some (some!) of the great and funny t-shirts that I see people wearing around town.

- Authentic, Wonderful, Bejeweled
- Shining Ice Man
- Healthy Candies Girlzook
- Chain's Steels Open Horizons for Design Engineers; Nice Town, Philadelphia, PA
- Wagon Car Guy, I Like Wagon in All Cars Sunday
- The Deer Which Runs a Flower Garden
- Prink Oneself Pleasant
- The Puppy Amused Us
- Brimming Hum
- Food for Ages 0 - 100
- Hope, People Need Loving
- Bibendum Au Podium (ok, I did some research here, apparently "bibendum" is the name of the Michelin man mascot... does this make it weirder, or less weird? Look it up on wikipedia... especially you, Fowler.)

Last Week's Ringer (and what started this whole thing): "Once Again Back Is The Incredible"
This was spotted on my way to work, sported by an older rugged man, wearing many layers despite the heat, which signaled to me to believe that either this guy's some kind of bum or some kind of urban farmer. What's so great about the line on this t-shirt is that though it may seem to make no sense at all, its actually a line directly lifted from a Public Enemy song "Bring the Noise" from the 1988 album "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back." How many people in Seoul that day got THAT soulful sample? Recognizing this brought me untold glee.

2008 July 11/12 - Japan

2008-07-14T06:12:00.003-05:00

Below are two pictures of food we enjoyed on consecutive evenings in Fukuoka, Japan last weekend. The first, one course (of a meal of 8 courses) of incredibly refined sashimi, impeccably prepared and served to us at a hidden upscale sushi restaurant by wonderfully gracious, kind and helpful people. The second, at a street stand famous for Tonkatsu Ramen (the pride of the prefecture) also impeccably prepared in its own way, but served at a street stand by a gruff and largely silent man. The sushi master and the ramen master were both among the finest offering these delights in the city, possibly even in the world. Yet the experiences could not have been more different. I loved them both equally.

2008 July 8 - Why Simpsons?

2008-07-09T09:10:00.002-05:00

Walking home the other night. Completely by accident was enticed by the strange entryway into this little weird bar in the basement of a random building on a side-street. Walls covered with Simpsons murals, some of which had back-lit pin-holes outlining the figures. Pretty well done, too! I ordered a White Russian. Got a Black Russian. Asked for milk to add. Got a stir-stick. Close enough.

2008 June 22 - Menu Clarification (OR ~ Why, then, does this dog look so sad?)

2008-07-09T09:05:00.004-05:00

One of my Korean team-mates has tactfully informed me that this sign does not mean dog is ON the menu, it means the menu is FOR dogs... or rather, they are selling dog food.
(Thanks Seongho!)

2008 July 5 - Lunch

2008-07-05T02:10:00.003-05:00

Lunch today was on the 11th floor of the luxurious Lotte department store, where one can choose from a collection of lovely restaurants serving foods of the world. This is no food court. Our choice today was a Japanese sushi bar featuring creative, freshly prepared sushi, tempura, fruit and the occasional fish head, all of which cycle past diners on a conveyor belt. The price is signaled by the color of the edge of the plate. We had sweet shrimp, tuna, salmon, seared fatty tuna, thick slices of a generous crab roll coated with tobbiko, inara, and sweet potato tempura... served with a bottomless cup of miso.

(Strange but true: The Lotte department store caters to extremely rich Korean and Japanese women, who are very, very tiny people with itty-bitty feet. Any attempt to shop here for myself is cut short when salespeople are forced to tell you in broken English that they don't carry their goods in my big American sizes. Which is just as well... shopping at Lotte pretty much requires a bank loan. I did manage to purchase a scarf for myself at Lotte once!)

2008 July 4 - Lunch

2008-07-05T01:16:00.003-05:00

This amazing spread, just another lunch in Seoul, was what Matt and I enjoyed on the 4th of July. It seems like a celebration of food, but honestly I've had this lunch several times with the team and it's nothing out of the ordinary. The meat is very thinly sliced non-American beef, which comes to the table still frozen. It is grilled along with mushrooms and garlic. This only takes a minute, and when its done, you dip the beef in sesame oil and eat it wrapped in lettuce or sesame leaves with bean paste. After you make your way through the meat course, the staff brings out individual metal bowls of rice and stone pots boiling with rich, smoky, spicy luscious soybean paste stew which is thick with chunks of radish and beef and tofu and onion. Following that, incredibly sweet watermelon wedges. It was funny to have a traditional American summer fruit at the end of that meal. Though I guess there's nothing more American than grilling meat on the 4th of July!

My food was making faces at me.
This is a bowl of cool, plain, refreshing soup.

2008 June 23

2008-07-05T00:51:00.003-05:00

This is all graffiti seen in the Hongdae neighborhood a couple of weeks ago while Matt and I were wandering around aimlessly, shopping and drinking coffee and tea.

An unflattering portrait of South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, a president
with even lower approval ratings than our own W, largely due to his handling of US Beef imports.
Oh wait! There's W now!

Abe Lincoln, in a beret?
Other questions arise.

2008 June 29 - Dinner

2008-06-30T09:08:00.002-05:00

Matt captured the moment as I enjoyed a spoon full of tasty spicy seafood stew for Sunday dinner. That giant bowl cost W4000 (about $4) and was smoky and satisfying. In it swam mussels, octopus, shrimp, summer squash, onions and dumpling-like "wheat flakes."

Visible through the window to my right is police presence - they are a constant and now bored, sulky and tired group of young men "protecting" this charming neighborhood against the dwindling protests. I feel sorry for them. But not so sorry to be distracted much from my meal!

2008 June 22 - No, I didn't.

2008-06-30T09:02:00.002-05:00

But Matt wants to! (Don't tell Kathy.)
I have no logical objection to eating farmed meat, as anyone who knows me will attest. I guess I have an emotional objection! Though I've heard it's quite tasty...

2008 June 17 - Waffles

2008-06-27T21:31:00.002-05:00

After a dinner of kimchi stew, chili pork and a seafood pancake in a neighborhood near our house, Matt and I wandered down Samcheongdong to a coffee shop called Beans N Bins, where they serve... waffles. Waffles smothered with ice cream (usually Haagen-Daz), whipped cream and various fruit sauces. This is a very popular offering at the coffee houses around Seoul, and we finally broke down and tried it. There's a banana hiding under there! It looked like way too much food, but we finished it off, no problem! This is a ridiculously delicious treat, and Matt and I are definitely going to bring it to our dining room table upon our return.

2008 June 15 - N Seoul Tower

2008-06-15T20:46:00.002-05:00

Matt and I spent a relaxing day on Sunday. The day included a trip up Namsan Mountain, which is right in the middle of Seoul, and is the home of N Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower is one of the icons of South Korea. The trip up the mountain is accomplished by cable car, and a little bit of low-grade hiking and stair-climbing.

At the top it's a festive scene - Korean weapon demonstrations, food and toy vendors, shops... and the padlock fence. A chain-link fence at a scenic look-out point has become a shrine to love. Small padlocks and pens to inscribe them are for sale at a small stand. Friends and lovers compose messages onto the locks, add their locks to the fence and throw the keys over the edge into the forest below. Matt and I added to it!

Also at the top of the mountain is the entrance to Seoul Tower. A quick elevator ride and we were at the tip-top of the city, at last able to truly see with our own eyes how vast it is.

2008 June 14 - Matt's Here!

2008-06-15T20:42:00.003-05:00

Took Matt to a cool train-themed, heavily graffiti-ed tea house for a caffeine fix when he arrived.

2008 June 11 - Team Outing

2008-06-12T08:49:00.005-05:00

The team I am working with went out tonight... amazing, crazy dinner followed by a brief, fun (but way too sober!!) karaoke. At dinner, a casual and frenetic joint loosely translated as "Pearl in the Mud," the 7 of us gathered around tables with built-in grills; my team-mates ordered what turned out to be THE WORKS. Excellent choice! First, the wait-staff put burning (as in, to flame) hot coals into the grills, then regularly came out with trays of clams and scallops and mussels and shrimp and other things I'd never seen, some still alive thrown right on the grill, some opened up and stuffed with onions and cheese and various other toppings. Then they brought out the octopus and abalone, one of which was squirming though dead and chopped into pieces (octopus, below), the other of which was squirming violently because it was quite alive when put on the grill in its shell (abalone - just to the left of the shrimp in the bottom picture). I ate the octopus, but I did not eat the abalone. (I tried to attach movies of the squirming but for some reason it didn't work... I'll try to get to the bottom of that. It's really something!!)

2008 June 11 - Smoked Duck Makes Life Worth Living

2008-06-12T08:45:00.001-05:00

Feast your eyes!

2008 June 10 - Protests Update

2008-06-12T08:33:00.003-05:00

The protests on the night of June 10th, with all those crazy preparations, drew anywhere from between 60,000 and 400,000 people, depending on your source. The gathering, as far as I could tell, was peaceful. It was actually festive - bands were playing, and people were chanting slogans... but it was orderly and almost celebratory, with a slight tinge of outrage. Many young parents had brought their children, and the place was teeming with high school and college students. Overall, a very middle-class protest, featuring little of the drama that had been hinted at in previous demonstrations. By the way, those double-high shipping containers that were welded together to keep the protesters at bay? They were also greased, come to find out. Very thorough measures. I wandered down to street level for a few minutes at about 10:30PM and took some very bad pictures.

2008 June 11

2008-06-11T07:26:00.000-05:00

2008 June 7 - Random Side Dish

2008-06-10T06:13:00.002-05:00

Boiled octopus and steamed broccoli. The exotic beside the mundane.

2008 June 10 - Still, a girl's gotta eat!

2008-06-10T06:07:00.002-05:00

All this protest in the air makes me hungry! This was today's lunch. Giant mandu (dumplings) in a soup with mushrooms and onions and tteok (rice cake) and pepper. We ate on the patio of this gorgeous little restaurant in the mountains behind Gyeongbokgung Palace (this is the palace I can see from my window, that you can see in the pictures on my previous post). One of the members of the team I am working with decided we deserved a nice, long, luxurious lunch. Which we did. The dumplings are filled with ground meat and green onions. Delicious!

2008 June 10

2008-06-10T05:58:00.003-05:00

Preparations for the protests expected to occur tonight: full size freight containers stacked two high and WELDED together. 100s of buses of riot police (all of whom are about 20 years old, doing their mandatory 2-year military service) dispatched throughout the neighborhoods surrounding the Blue House (which is off in the distance of the second photo, and is where the President resides). Streets in the area completely blocked off by police.

2008 May 26 and 31

2008-06-10T05:31:00.003-05:00

I've mentioned before on this blog that for several weeks now 1000s of people in Seoul have been gathering at candlelight vigils and marches (almost nightly) to protest the deal that the South Korean Government (led by President Lee Myeung-Bak) has made with the US to import beef. Many people here are very concerned about mad cow disease - an invisible disease that can kill you. It's turned into a very emotional issue. The government has not been seen as sympathetic to the demands of the protesters, so now protests have now evolved into anti-government demonstrations, and there has been some violence (police harming protesters, protesters attacking police and damaging police buses, use of water cannons to dispel crowds). Tonight is the 21st anniversary of the birth of the modern Korean democratic era, which was spurred by demonstrations in the streets, and a giant march is being staged (ending at the intersection right under my window, as usual). Preparations for that have been amazing (my next post will include some pictures). Later this week is another anniversary - in 2002 US Marines accidentally ran over a girl in South Korea, killing her, and outraging Korean citizens. This anniversary is being marked with protests as well, later this week, and some here are concerned that it will be tied in with the Anti US-Beef sentiment and general Anti-American feelings will burgeon.
There's a really weird feeling in the air here!
I plan to stay in my apartment and monitor the situation from inside.

Posters like this one are all over.

These pictures are from three different protests from May 26th through May 31st.

2008 June 2

2008-06-01T16:36:00.002-05:00

Last week sucked. It was a week of death, distance, disappointment and rejection. This little dwarf was beating on me with his hammer all week.
This week I have to raise my team, and myself, back up. I have had great support from friends here, so despite it all, I feel good. I have some (lame) pictures of the protests that have been going on here to post - I will try to get to that later today!

2008 May 26 - Auntie

2008-05-26T08:33:00.003-05:00

This post is outside of my usual topic area. Today my Aunt Theresa, wife of my mother's brother, my Uncle Leo, died. This is quite literally impossible for me to believe as I write this, though they tell me it is so. She was a beautiful woman married to my wonderful Uncle (the two were peas in a pod, inseparable) who raised an amazing family (her kids, my cousins - Nina, Leo, Jennifer - all brilliant, hilarious, determined, fun-loving, headstrong and beautiful), worked harder than I am capable of even imagining, and was mischievous enough to secretly fed me squirrel once when I was 9. Her passing seems impossible to me, as she was always a force to be reckoned with and if she would have told me she was never going to die, I would have believed it. She taught us all to say what we believe and believe what we say. The woman never pulled a punch.
In these postings I usually position Seoul as this exotic place where things are phrased in unexpected sometimes funny ways, everyday life is a cultural lesson to absorb, and sometimes the food is still moving when you eat it. All these things are true, but it's also a long, long way from home, and today I feel further away than I ever have here before.

2008 May 25 - Anti US-Beef Protests

2008-05-25T06:46:00.005-05:00

This is all happening right outside of my apartment building. I will post some pictures later. It's quite dramatic. The protests are continuing again tonight - there was commotion all night last night. Kind of surreal since I am occupied 24/7 with project work here at home or at the office. Emotions are escalating here, though I have not yet experienced any anti-American sentiment. This might change after this weekend.
(Yonhap News Agency) Police round up 37 people for occupying streets in U.S. beef protest
SEOUL, May 25 (Yonhap) -- Police apprehended 37 people Sunday for occupying a downtown Seoul street and attacking riot police in protest of the government's decision to resume imports of U.S. beef, despite lingering concerns over mad cow disease. They were just some of the thousands of protesters who spent the night in a Jongno street after attending a candlelight vigil, police said. Police will consider seeking arrest warrants for some of those apprehended, Han Jin-hee, head of the National Police Agency (NPA), said. "We will select those who masterminded the illegal acts of refusing to disperse, occupying roads and attacking policemen in the course of their apprehension," he added. They will be charged with obstructing traffic, attending an unauthorized rally and violence, Han said. Han dismissed accusations that police overreacted and used violence in dispersing the crowd, insisting, "We were obliged to disperse the protesters as they went beyond attending a candlelight vigil to take to the streets, and paralyzed traffic from yesterday until today."Police are trying to figure out who actually masterminded the illegal rally involving violence, the first of its kind since the first candlelight vigil was held in April, when South Korea and the U.S. signed a deal to resume imports of U.S. beef despite concerns about mad cow disease. The protesters attended the rally from 7 p.m. Saturday and tried to march toward the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, hours later. Confronted by riot police in front of Cheong Wa Dae, the protesters, mostly in their 20s and 30s, took to the streets, chanting slogans opposing U.S. beef imports. Early Sunday morning, police dispersed hundreds of protesters occupying downtown streets to make way for traffic. Tens of police vehicles were mobilized to prevent protestors from taking to the streets. Representatives of the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the country's two major umbrella trade unions, and several other civic groups held a press conference in front of the NPA to protest the apprehension of the protesters. "We will launch a strong anti-government protest together with the people if the government pushes ahead with the plans to make the agriculture minister announce a public notice for resumption of U.S. beef imports," they said in a statement. Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun is expected to announce the notice in an administrative procedure for official resumption of U.S. beef imports on Tuesday, one day after a South Korean team presents a report on its on-site inspection of U.S. meat-packing plants. Quarantine inspections of some 5,300 tons of U.S. beef that have been stored in a container yard in the southeastern port city of Busan since last year are expected to resume immediately following the minister's announcement. South Korea started importing U.S. beef in the 1970s, but banned all shipments in December 2003 after a mad cow case was confirmed. Seoul resumed imports in April 2007, but halted them on Oct. 5 after banned backbones were discovered in a shipment. South Korea, however, signed a deal in April to lift almost all restrictions on U.S. beef from cattle younger than 30 months old, including restrictions on parts that present a higher risk of transmitting mad cow disease, a move that triggered widespread public protests over the safety of the product. The beef deal is not part of the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement awaiting parliamentary ratification on both sides, but Washington considers it a precondition for the free trade deal's ratification. The beef deal was signed on the eve of President Lee Myung-bak's Camp David summit with U.S. President George W. Bush, the first of its kind for any South Korean president. Hundreds of activists from civic and student organizations staged sit-in protests and rallies in the plaza of Cheonggyecheon, a stream running through downtown Seoul that was restored under Lee Myung-bak when he was mayor of Seoul. The activists demanded that the government suspend the official announcement of the resumption of beef imports and begin renegotiations. Saturday's candlelight vigil is the 17th of its kind in the past month, and the first in which police intervened. "It is very sad to see a breakup of the tacit agreement between police and citizens that the candlelight vigil is a cultural event," professor Kim Ho-ki of Yonsei University said. "Street politics is not a desirable phenomenon, and I fear that the situation is getting worse to the point of a division in society."

2008 May 20 - Not Squid

2008-05-24T08:00:00.002-05:00

For dinner on Tuesday night my colleague Kris and I stopped at a little corner bbq dive joint that we pass every day on the way back and forth from work. They spoke not a word of English. We speak only a few words of Korean, none of which were helpful on this particular evening. The experience started off with a wait of about 25 minutes, outside, in line. Always a good sign when people are lined up! Finally we were seated, at plastic chairs around a little round table with a hole in the middle with a fan/vent that pulls down towards the hole (pictured at the top of the photo below). They fill the hole with an iron container of red-hot embers. We tried to order chicken. No luck. With a little help from the table of young executives next to us we ordered eel. Not pictured. Long, skinny slabs of eel marinated in chili sauce slapped onto the bbq, seeming to squirm as they cook and shrink, cut into little pieces with scissors, grilled until burnt on the edges. That was interesting and alright, though a little chewy, we thought. We found out soon that we didn't know chewy! Feeling pleased with ourselves, a couple beers and some eel under our belts, we called the waitress and pointed at the table next to us, who had just gotten a pile of squid tossed onto their bbq and gestured that we will have what they are having. She gave us a deeply skeptical look, but we assured her. As she walked away it dawned on us that... maybe... it's... not... squid.

Not squid. Pig intestines. Pig intestines! We gamely ate the whole pile, telling each other that it's not bad, not bad at all! Actually it wasn't bad. But it was chewy. On Wednesday night Kris and I went out for pasta.

2008 May 18 - Brunch

2008-05-17T23:59:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm back to documenting my meals! Sunday brunch consisted of this beautiful bowl of chicken rice porridge with spices and ginseng at a "wellbeing" restaurant on the second floor of a building on Insa-dong. The little bowls starting at the upper left are, kimchi, cold boiled beef (seasoned with soy), hot bean paste, and cold radish soup. The little bowl in the lower right is for spooning your porridge into to let it cool a bit. I ate the whole thing! I was on my own for this meal. It's very unusual in Korea for people to eat by themselves, but in this instance there was another woman in the restaurant - a Korean woman, even - eating by herself also, so I didn't feel as much the oddity as I normally do when dining alone!

2008 May 17 - Saturday Stuff

2008-05-17T23:35:00.002-05:00

Went for a walk to Myung-dong, a chaotic shopping area about 20 minutes walk from my apartment. Bought a belt. Saw a bunch of crazy stuff along the way.

The accordion-looking things are potato on a stick - it's just one potato spiraled out and deep fried, sprinked with salt. Kind of a cross between potato chips and fries. $2. Delicious! In the cups on the right is some kind of dried squid, I think. Haven't been brave enough to try that yet!

2008 May 17 - Funny Korean Stuff

2008-05-17T05:15:00.004-05:00

Spring: Twinkle Twinkle Sunshine & Fuming Flowers! Enjoy happy spring!

Below are the instructions to the air conditioning unit in my apartment. Some of my personal favorites are:
9) Plasma button: Function for diamond cluster heat exchanger
10) Direction of air: control the direction
12) Chaos swing button: Select the particular direction for wind
When it gets hot enough for me to attempt to use it, I think I can unleash some pretty dramatic weather conditions in here.

Lots of clothing and T-shirts here say things in English that are just... not quite right. But interesting to ponder!

2008 May 15 - Dinner

2008-05-15T08:19:00.004-05:00

For dinner tonight I suggested that we stop by a place that we have passed before called "All About Tofu and Kimchi." Happily, despite the name, the restaurant was all about bbq meat! The waitress set up the BBQ in the middle of the table and slapped the meat on, along with pineapple, potato and onion... on the bottom of the grill is kimchi. (Oh, there's the kimchi!)

3-layer pork before...

...and after!
Yeah, it's just bacon, basically. But not smoked.

The meat is served with a sauce, salt with sesame seeds, and just plain garlic. The garlic is put on the grill to roast. Along with this meat you are given baskets of greens (lettuce and sesame leaves). Grab a piece of cooked pork, dip it in the salt, put it on a piece of lettuce, throw on some garlic, slather on the sauce, roll it up like a burrito and down it with some soju. Not bad.

Dad, you are going to love "All about Tofu and Kimchi!"

2008 May 11/12 - Shanghai

2008-05-15T08:07:00.003-05:00

Here are a few pictures I took of Shanghai... this is a view of the city. You can see how the neighborhoods where people live are interspersed with the gigantic skyscrapers, and it just seems to go on for-ev-er. The big earthquake took place while I was there, but luckily for me I did not feel a thing. It was big, big news in Shanghai but did not seem to effect any of the daily activities as far as I could tell. Shanghai is only 1 hour 40 minutes from Seoul by airplane, but they are really different worlds. I was so very happy to get back to Seoul and its order and kindness and unique food. I missed Seoul, even though I was only gone for 2 days!

This is a building on "the Bund" which is where a lot of the colonial "visitors" built their administrative structures (trade, government, etc). This building and many like them face the...

...Huangpu River, where glittering buildings frame highly decorated tour/restaurant boats that slowly meander up and down, providing incredible atmosphere. The walkway is thronged with people aggressively selling and begging and walking and taking pictures.

I learned how to say hello "ni hao" and thank you "xiexie" (pronounced she-shay near as I could figure). The whole time I could hardly believe I was in CHINA. Wow.

2008 May 10 - Noraebang

2008-05-15T07:56:00.002-05:00

It's true that these pictures are no good. However, what you are (kind of) seeing is a noraebang room, or a Korean karaoke room. We were invited by a group of consultants who the company I am working for here in Seoul is affiliated with. First we went out for a Korean BBQ dinner, where people who were being... honored... were forced to stand in front of everyone and drink out of giant bowls filled with a mix of beer and soju (Korean liquor). Some being honored were just arriving on the job, some were leaving, some had just been engaged, I think... seems like any excuse was good enough! I gathered that the more junior people drank first, and it was more honorable to drink more, so that your superior would not have to drink the rest of the bowl. However, when the it came time for the superior to drink he would just refill the bowl and start again! This went on for awhile, then we went to the Mann noraebang. There were many of us in the party, so we took up a giant, elegantly decorated room. They brought ice cream and snacks (dried fishes, nuts, god knows) and beers and bottles of whiskey. The bottom picture is a game where you line up and fill beer glasses, then balance shot glasses in between the glasses, and fill the shot glasses with whiskey... then you tap the end and all the shot glasses fall into the beer and then you drink! And then you sing. They picked out "Let it Be" for me and Doug to sing and we also sang some Korean songs and probably Sweet Caroline at some point. Who can remember? I felt in the good company of many others who cannot sing, but for the evening were willing to believe and live the dream! I think I actually sang Play That Funky Music White Boy. Yeah, I did.

2008 May 4 - Lotus Lantern Parade Video

2008-05-07T17:32:00.002-05:00

This video will convey some sense of the feeling of the parade, I hope!

2008 May 4 - Lotus Lantern Parade

2008-05-07T17:17:00.004-05:00

The Lotus Lantern Festival Parade was something amazing to behold and to be a part of. The parade lasted over 2 hours, and kept coming, as far as the eye could see. These are just a few of my hundreds of pictures. That morning a bunch of us from the team signed up for "Lantern Making for Foreigners" organized by the Dharma monks at the Jogyesa temple, so we spent a couple of hours in the afternoon, in the midst of a giant street festival, creating our very own lotus lanterns. The parade itself started at 7PM, and the city had organized a whole bunch of great seating for foreigners, so we had a great view of the festivities, sitting next to a band of Tibetan monks, who were enjoying candy throughout the festivities! I don't know why, but I thought that Buddhist monks eating Tootsie Pops was brilliant. I think there were more people in the parade than there were watching the parade! Near the end, the monks who helped us make our lanterns earlier in the day encouraged us to participate in the parade, so we did! The last picture is not a great shot, but that's me in the parade (the lantern pictured is not the one I made... that one didn't make it into the shot. But Stacy, behind me, is holding up the one she made.)!

2008 May 3 - Lotus Above and Below

2008-05-07T08:20:00.003-05:00

These images are the lantern canopy, organized into the shape of a lotus flower, from above (from the rooftop of the Somerset) and from below (from the courtyard of Jogyesa temple) the day before the Lotus Lantern Festival. I could see this pattern take shape over the course of the past week or so, as I gradually realized the intent of the design.

2008 May 1 - Changdeokgung Palace and Biwon

2008-05-03T23:07:00.002-05:00

On May Day afternoon I went to the Changdeokgung Palace and the grounds behind, which is the Secret Garden, or Biwon. Beautiful buildings rich with history, this is where the royal family lived from the 1400s on.

2008 May 1 - Samcheongdong

2008-05-03T22:53:00.002-05:00

Thursday was a holiday here in Korea (and is across most of the world, I understand) - May Day. I spent part of the day wandering around a great district of shops, galleries, restaurants and wine/coffee shops nearby to where I live called Samcheongdong.

2008 April 29 - Lunch and Learn!

2008-05-01T16:52:00.003-05:00

Tuesday started out as a typical lunch... very yummy. What you see below, upper middle, is raw fish on shredded radish, and on the extreme left is cooked fish pieces in pepper broth. Other dishes are various kimchi banchan. To go with all this, they brought us big bowls of rice with seaweed, small pieces of raw fish and bean sprouts, which you mix up with pepper sauce. It's a kind of bibimbap. No, I have no idea what kind of fish it is! In any case, there were four of us at lunch, and it was kind of a quiet lunch, as usual. Kris and I tried to make conversation but it really didn't go anywhere, as usual.

Afterwards Jerry and Kevin, our teammates, suggested that we go to a traditional tea house; an offer we eagerly accepted. The larger bowls in the picture below are tea bowls. The upper middle is jujube (a kind of apple-like fruit) tea, and the one lower left is a 17-herb tea. I had citron tea which was very sweet and had shredded lemon and orange in it. The puffy things are cookies (not super sweet), also pictured is candied ginger on the little square plate, and the tube-like things are tteok (rice cake) with honey for dipping. A bowl of tea is about W4000 ($4).
We had a great conversation! Kevin and Jerry (most Korean people have English names also) took this opportunity to educate us about some Korean etiquette. Korean people do not talk much at lunch - this is for a couple of reasons, they speculate. One is that there are so many people having lunch at the same time that the restaurants and the people just want to get in and out. The other theory was that the practice is based in Confucianism. Kevin told us that he was discouraged from talking at the table, and told to thank the farmers and thank and contemplate his ancestors during mealtime. The time for conversation is after the meal, at a teahouse (or in more contemporary times for younger people, Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or Holly Coffee...), where people can relax. We told them that in American mealtime is considered social hour and we were expected to fill the time with conversation and interaction. So there you go! This was a huge relief and we were much consoled that our conversational skills were perhaps not as lacking as we had thought.

2008 April 26 - Jazz Story

2008-04-26T20:15:00.002-05:00

Saturday night I went to a tiny club with 5 friends called Jazz Story, a very hip and unique joint, decorated with eclectic furniture that looks like it came from the curb on moving day in Madison, with exposed brick, angled shelves, walls plastered with old movie posters... a very casual, bohemian feel. A 6 piece band (maybe more?) of very young people sang and entertained. I wouldn't call it jazz exactly, but they were a lot of fun. One of their numbers was "Le Freak, C'est Chic!" Upon arrival the staff explains that you each have to pay W5,000 (about $5) cover charge, or it is waived if you order a snack for the table. We went for the snack. The fruit plate pictured below was W35,000 ($35). It's not deep fried cheese curds or anything, but I guess it will do for bar food. It was surprisingly architectural and elaborate, which was not in keeping with the vibe of the place at all! Along with a pretty nice but pricey bottle of Argentinian wine (W90,000!!!) it was a lovely evening. Everyone who comes to visit me is getting a trip to Jazz Story! Not to be missed.

http://www.seoulstyle.com/bars-clubs/jazz-story-samcheong-dong.htm

2008 April 23 - Love Coffee

2008-04-24T06:58:00.001-05:00

Its pretty hard to be in a bad mood when you are drinking coffee out of this cup:

2008 April 20 - View

2008-04-20T07:09:00.003-05:00

This is the view from the window of my apartment. The big complex you see with the traditional-looking rooftops is Gyeongbokgung Palace and the National Folk Museum. In the upper right, with the blue-ish roof is the Blue House where the President of Korea lives. It's the equivalent of the White House in America. I ran around the palace perimeter today: it's about 1.75 miles or so. The area is incredibly meticulously maintained, and armed by Korean police and Secret Service, who were surprised to see me jogging around and gawking on an early Sunday morning!

2008 April 19 - Temple at Night

2008-04-20T07:03:00.003-05:00

This is another shot of the lanterns at Jogyesa that I pictured a couple of days ago, this time at night, lit. Even more ethereal. This was at about 10PM. There were many visitors and worshipers all over the temple grounds.

This is not a particularly great shot, but outside of the temple there are tents set up where people are hand-crafting the more elaborate lanterns for the celebration.

2008 April 19 - Hiking

2008-04-20T06:25:00.004-05:00

Saturday's event was... hiking! It was a glorious day, in the 70s and sunny. The Somerset organized a lovely (and free!) day for about 16 residents, friends and spouses (whoever signed up on the sheet outside the residents' lounge) - we left the "residence" at 9AM, for a bus ride of a little over an hour, to Cheonggye Mountain, which is Southwest of the city. We disembarked in front of a restaurant featuring the items pictured below: Abalone and Mudfish. We did not pause to enjoy these tempting treats, rather straight to the mountain we went, a multi-cultural spectacle to behold.

At the fringes of the mountain are a bunch of shops, restaurants, coffee houses and so forth.

We hiked for about 2 hours; it was envigorating and beautiful. People of all ages in Korea love to hike! At the top of the mountain we found vendors selling watermelon ice cream and rice wine, among other things. The man pouring in the picture below is serving rice wine. About $2 (2000 Won) for a big bowl full. Pretty good, and makes the trip down just that much more enjoyable!
We were provided by the Somerset with a little bag including a sandwich, water, a banana and two (that's right, TWO) Snickers bars for the hike. After we climbed up and down all 375M we piled back onto the bus, having lost only one resident, which we thought a really fair outing. We headed to a park in the area for lunch. This picture is of this great water area in the park near where we had our picnic, where the local kids were just having a ball.

We soaked our aging, weary feet.

The park we were taken to is in commemoration of a Korean patriot who killed a some Japanese at a crucial moment (he has big hands. huh?)...

Well, the park was beautiful anyway, and in bloom, and we were fed Korean pancakes with salad of bean curd and greens, along with plenty of beer and rice wine. What a great event, a tremendous way to spend a Saturday, and, did I mention, free? All 5 colleagues I'm working with went along for the ride and a good time was had by all. Best of it - no injuries! Just a few sore calf muscles to report come Sunday.

A Little Context

2008-04-16T07:40:00.003-05:00

This is the courtyard of the Somerset, where I am staying. Every season is expressed through the landscaping in this small area. Very architectural and structured yet lyrical. Note the Starbucks sign peeking through the foliage! They have a "sausage croissant" that is essentially a mini-hot dog wrapped in dough. Yeah, it's a pig-in-a-blanket.

The Jogyesa Buddhist temple across the street from Somerset is planning for something - could be advance planning for Buddha's Birthday which is May 12th (national holiday), or maybe there's a lantern festival before that? The lanterns form floating ceilings, which create an overhead carpet-like effect, which somehow make you feel like you are underwater, so you're not sure which side of things you are on. The whole area is being transformed, while Buddha smiles on.

T

First Day of Work

2008-04-14T16:25:00.004-05:00

The first day back at work was amazing, and the welcome we received thrilling. It made missing everyone back home a little easier. This picture is of oxtail soup, which was for lunch! It was mild and comforting, but difficult to eat with nothing but metal chopsticks and a spoon, let me tell you! This picture doesn't show the actual oxtail, which was submerged in the broth, in a chunk, bone and meat. To eat the meat you have remove it from the bone. The bone only jumped out of the bowl onto my lap once, which I accepted as a major victory. The red things floating in the soup are dates. Oxtail and dates, together at last! It was quite yummy. The weather today was even better, in the high 60s I would say, and sunny.

2008 April 12 - First Day Back

2008-04-12T17:44:00.007-05:00

This picture is a great example of the juxtapositions you see around

you all the time here - beautiful old traditional building (I think it's some
kind of official building) with the alley winding behind it, and the building
under construction in the background. The old and the new intermingled.
This is just around the corner from where I am living.

It's great to be back! The weather here is just lovely - in the 50s and 60s - and I arrived just in time for the last days of the blossoming trees. Jet lag still has a hold on me; woke up at 5AM Saturday morning despite having stayed up until about midnight Friday night unpacking. After more unpacking and settling in and working out I spent the day wandering around with Doug and Roy (2 other Doblin team members who arrived on Friday) to Namdaemun Market, where I scouted handbags, and then for a great lunch of 3 kinds of grilled fish with banchan in "fish alley." This cost a grand total of W5000 ($5) each.

Good call on the lunch spot Doug (right)! This is Roy's first
official meal in Seoul, which he enjoyed a lot more than his
expression in this photo would suggest!

After a nap I took the subway to Itaewon to meet up with a friend I made on my last trip, Dee, and her husband Jim and a couple of other people she knows for a couple of drinks and a lovely meal at OKitchen, where they really do make a mean Papardelle Bolognese (house-made noodles and all). We went for a drink after dinner to a really cool place called Bungalow. It's a small 4-story club with great little nooks and crannies for hanging out with friends, and I guess they have a beach with real sand on the rooftop. I kept thinking, "I can't wait to take Stef here!"

It really is terrific to be back on the subway, zipping around Seoul, getting stared at and waved at by small children!

2008 April 10 - Airport Hot Dogs

2008-04-12T17:28:00.004-05:00

It was a moment full of all manner of emotions as Matt and I bid each other farewell over Gold Coast Chicago style hot dogs (which don't hold a candle to yours, Dad!). This was my last "meal" in America before my last trip also (are hot dogs at 10AM considered a meal?) so we're building continuity. The flight over was good... somehow 14 hours in a plane was made bearable by the excellent service of Korean Air. And a goodly quantity of wine. And 3 movies (The Savages, Michael Clayton, Lars and the Real Girl). And almost fully reclining seats. I arrived back at the Somerset (my residence in Seoul) at about 7PM on Friday night, and enjoyed my first Korean meal of 3-layer pork with lettuce and sesame leaf wraps there at a cute little place on Insa-dong. Sorry no pictures of that!

Dec 2 - Almost Home

2007-12-02T21:47:00.000-06:00

My time here is rapidly drawing to a close. This seems strange! In some ways it feels like I've been here forever; in others it seems I just arrived. I haven't had time to post lately due to being extremely busy and also trying to squeeze as much social activity as possible in between the busy spots. It all caught up to me this weekend; I caught some kind of bug. Feeling better now that it's Monday, and I'm sure by Tuesday I'll be back to normal. Here's a few pictures of me and the team partying last week at the Norae-bang, which is Korean Karaoke. We had the greatest time! We laughed, we cried. I was all shy at first... all, oh I couldn't possibly SING in front of all these people! Little ol' me?? Next thing you know I'm up there belting out I Shot the Sherrif and other greats. Never say never, that's all I'm saying.

Nov 8 - What's Pizza Like in Korea?

2007-11-11T05:39:00.001-06:00

The pizzas pictured are from Dominos. Yeah... Dominos. The first one shown is shrimp, squid, shredded potato, curry and pepper pizza. The one below is "Irish" pizza - potato wedges, ham, corn and mushrooms. Really good, actually. Pizza is a premium food here, with each of these pizzas costing about $20.

While we didn't order from Mr. Pizza this time, he obviously does know the way to a woman's heart.

Nov 5 - Monday Was Good

2007-11-11T05:24:00.000-06:00

Lunch was ginseng chicken - a whole young chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng root, served up in this bubbling pot of rich, savory broth. I think this could cure anything. Also included in the stuffing is one date, and a 1/2 a chestnut. Again, a bit hard to eat with chopsticks and spoon, but well worth it!

In the evening, a few of us from the project team went out and played ping pong! This place was up on something like the 5th floor walk-up building smack in the middle of the city, and had 6 nice tables. It cost us about $10 for two tables for an hour, including paddles. The place was packed with young men as well as middle aged guys in business suits. They have different Korean style paddles, but had some Western style for me and Doug to use. We had so much fun! I think I impressed the Koreans with my passable skills. The older gentleman who runs the place (ping pong Jedi master) came over at one point and just toyed with me, tossing me these slow serves with such ridiculous spin I think I returned like 1 of 10. Everyone was cracking up.

04 Nov - Sunday Brunch is Whole Fish

2007-11-11T05:18:00.000-06:00

It's a little hard to eat something like this with just chopsticks and a spoon, but it is possible!

03 Nov - More Namdaemun Market

2007-11-11T05:07:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I went back to Namdaemun Market, a sprawling and confusing warren of shops selling, well, really selling anything you could imagine ever wanting, including pants, as you can see. Except for popcorn. Can't find that anywhere. In any event, below are some photos of the food stands down one meandering alley. I started to think of these as the rough equivalent of a diner in America. Only here the diners are all down one alley, have plastic displays of the food to tempt you, and much of the food is cooked in big pots, which is even more tempting than the plastic likenesses.

What to say about the pig head?

I did not require this broth on this particular visit, though I did take a mental note in case a need arises in the future.

27 Oct - Mount Bukhansan Pictures

2007-11-05T06:36:00.001-06:00

When this picture was taken we had already been to the two peaks / rocks that you see behind Mrs. Kim, and we were about 1/4 into the hike. The views were so spectacular, so vast.
So many people! Small groups and big groups, people of all ages, out to enjoy and be challenged by the mountain and have some fun together. The mood was jovial on the trails mostly, until you got to the more treacherous terrain, when the mood turned quite serious. We saw several emergency medical helicopters during our hike coming up to fetch people, which apparently is not unusual, since there were several clearings with helicopter landing pads on the way up the mountain. This detered neither young nor old.
Holy rocks!

The path we hiked was dotted with temples, gates (12 total... this picture is of the decorative covered roof of the gate below) and for a portion followed along a long (12K) fortifying wall, seen in the background in the picture below. These were built many hundreds of years ago during times of invasion to protect the people of Seoul from invading forces. Getting to the top was not always easy.

But we did it! Mr. and Mrs. Kim at the top of the mountain!
Me at the top of the mountain! Then we had to get down! Yikes (more hikes).

And at the end of the trail, fortifying traditional rice wine. Slightly frothy, a little bit sweet and just exactly the right thing at the right time. Total exhaustion rewarded.

Lovely, lovely dinner at the end of a long day hiking!

Potato pancakes, just like Grandma used to make, but these are served with a dipping sauce of soy, rice wine (I think... something a bit sweet), green onion and sesame seeds instead of sour cream. Both are good!

I have over 100 pictures of my adventures on Mount Bukhansan. If you are interested let me know and I will send you a link to them on Snapfish!

27 Oct - Mount Bukahnsan

2007-11-05T06:13:00.000-06:00

It's long overdue that I write a bit about my hike (!!) on Mount Bukhansan. It was much more than a hike in the sense I have thought of hikes. It leaned more towards mountain climbing with a dash of rock climbing, surrounded by thousands of your closest friends. The picture below is at the beginning of the trail with my hiking companions, the gracious and lovely Mr. and Mrs. Kim. They picked me up at the Somerset (the place I call home here) at 8:30 AM last Saturday and after a brief taxi ride we were on the trail, by 9:00. Mount Bukahsan is one of the mountains surrounding and protecting Seoul, and is one of many mountains in Bukhansan National Park. We hiked for 9 hours, with intermittent breaks to catch our breath and enjoy fruit (Korean pear, tangerines, persimmons), coffee, and a beautiful picnic lunch prepared by Mrs. Kim. Lunch was taken in a little grove of trees, golden with turning leaves, and consisted of lettuce leaves used to wrap a combination of rice, sauces (one was a Korean caponata - anchovies, pine nuts, rich red chili sauce), kimchi and seaweed. We also had ramen and coffee. It was delicious, and perfect fuel for the hike. The hike itself was quite challenging! I am still not sure what was harder - going up or coming down. But once we did get all the way up and all the way down, it was 6PM and we enjoyed a terrific and comforting dinner in a district which has sprung up at the bottom of the mountain to nourish and clothe the hiking population. We enjoyed a nice big bowl of traditional Korean rice wine, fresh tofu with sesame seeds, a variety of amazing banchan, a tofu and clam stew and potato pancakes which reminded me very much of the potato pancakes that my grandmother used to make. After a bus ride back to my residence, at about 8:30, I fell into bed, exhausted. I was sore for a full week, but in that way that reminds you that you did something big and amazing that the body wants to dwell on for a bit while the mind works on organizing the memories. More pictures on the next post...

Oct31 - More Food

2007-11-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

Is that all I do? Eat???

In the clay bowl is a stew which is a byproduct of making tofu called Bizijigae (or something like that). Tasted kind of like slightly spicy mashed up matzo ball soup. The meat was served on a sizzling platter, and is like a salisbury steak kind of cut, marinated and very tasty. Difficult to eat with my marginal chopstick skills, but worth it.

29Oct Truckin'

2007-10-30T03:59:00.000-05:00

As I was walking home from work last night, I heard a song emanating from a building I passed. It was just kind of... coming out of the building, mysteriously. It happens. It was the all-too familiar strains of "Truckin'" by none-other-than the Grateful Dead. The line I heard as my feet beat the street was "You're sick of hangin around and you'd like to travel. Get tired of travelin' you want to settle down. I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin'. Get out of the door and light out and look all around." And as I walked on, smiling (smilin'?), the lyrics faded away, "Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me..." Strange, unsettling convergences! I wasn't sure which one I was anymore. Sick of hangin' around, or tired of travelin'. So I just kept on truckin'.

25Oct - Pork Spine Stew

2007-10-25T07:58:00.000-05:00

Oh, today I had pork spine stew for lunch. I didn't take any pictures. I was too busy eating.

24Oct - Shabu Shabu! Shabu Shabu! Genius of Korean Cooking!

2007-10-25T07:32:00.000-05:00

This makes so much sense. First you take a bowl of broth, put it on a burner in the middle of the table, and bring it to a boil. Once it's going, you add a platter full of beautiful vegetables.

Then you wait for it to cook. When the veggies are close to done, someone (in the picture below, this person is Mint... Thanks, Mint!) cuts up the bigger pieces and then you add super-thinly sliced beef a few pieces at a time. Little by little, you serve yourself from the big pot into your smaller bowls.

The flavor combinations are wonderful. The pace is relaxed. When the vegetables and beef are just about gone from the pot, you throw a plate of fresh pasta and dumplings into the hot broth. These cook for a few minutes and soon you find yourself enjoying the noodles, infused with rich, rich broth. The broth is pretty thick at this point, but we're still not done with it.

Now a porridge is whipped up. A bowl of rice mixed with minced mushrooms and various other tasties, is added to the remaining broth, a little more broth and an egg are added. Every bit of the broth is used. Every bit of food is eaten.

Divine.

What's amazing about these lunches is that it's about 5 minutes after you sit down that your meal is in front of you. Everyone orders the same thing, for the most part. Everyone in the whole restaurant, not just everyone at your table. The entire city has lunch out within the span of about an hour and a half.

23Oct - Afternoon Team Snack

2007-10-25T07:06:00.000-05:00

Tuesday afternoon we had, for our afternoon snack, brought in by team members, at about 3:30 pm - pig liver, pig intestines stuffed with glass noodles and some delicious sauce, and "dduk bok ki" - which is rice paste ovals (shaped and sized kind of like penne pasta, but no hole in the middle... consistency like something between pudding and jello but chewy - so good, so hard to describe) in a sauce of red chili and something else - kind of sweet and hot at the same time. It's a common street food, and for good reason. It's darn good. The "dduk" rice stuff is used in a lot of different foods, from savory like this, to beautiful confections dusted with cocoa or green tea powder, or sweet soybean powder. Anyway, this snack wasn't microwave popcorn or anything, but it was still OK, I guess... (AMAZINGLY GOOD).

I am actually working hard too, sometimes, between these well documented episodes of eating.

20Oct Itaewon (WARNING: Inappropriate Language!)

2007-10-22T08:34:00.001-05:00

Questionable word choice, yes... but it sure is an ambitious brand promise this boutique offers. (You may have to enlarge this picture to really get it.)

21Oct Korean Hot Dog Stand

2007-10-22T08:31:00.000-05:00

Did I mention the surprising variety of sausage available? But why no "Chicago style?"

21Oct Insadong

2007-10-22T08:20:00.000-05:00

These are a few shots I took yesterday while walking on Insadong, which is a pedestrian mall featuring countless shops (tea, ceramic, antique, calligraphy supply, stationary, toys, candy, musical instruments, clothing, crafts...), art galleries, street food vendors, restaurants, tea rooms. Alleys sprout from the main street, giving off a beckoning, mysterious air.

Stationary and calligraphy shop: Tea shop: Tea house down an alley:
Street food:

17Oct Lunch - Bibimbap Stew

2007-10-21T02:05:00.000-05:00

Thursday's treat was a different kind of bibimbap than I'd had before for lunch. In this comfort-food version you get a bowl of rice and all the things you can add are in small dishes. The main ingredient is this amazing, luscious tofu stew.

Ingredients to be added to the bibimbap bowl: lettuce, chili sauce, kimchi, salted pork, marinated sesame leaves, bean paste, radish, hot peppers. A soup was also served alongside. Say hi to two members of the team: Se-hoon and Mint!

17Oct Mackrel Lunch

2007-10-21T01:58:00.000-05:00

For lunch the project team walked about 5 minutes to this great place which sells only mackrel dishes. We each got a fish (crispy and caramelized on the outside, ridiculously tender on the inside)...

... banchan - kimchi, bean sprouts, tofu soup, cabbage, seaweed.

16Oct Life at Home

2007-10-21T01:53:00.000-05:00

Mmmm-mmmm. The packaged convenience foods here are really quite good! This was dinner for me on the 16th. Chicken breasts in spicy sauce, rice with black bean sauce, little individually packaged banchan (kimchi and some kind of greens). The wine is expensive here. This mediocre bottle was W18,000 (about US$18). Rationing is in effect!

Check out this machine in my room: it's a washer and a dryer in one. All of the controls are in Korean - the cycle takes over 3 hours!

14Oct Jogyesa Temple

2007-10-21T01:43:00.000-05:00

More images from the Jogyesa Temple near where I live. http://international.jogyesa.or.kr/default.asp

14Oct Namdaemon Images

2007-10-21T01:26:00.000-05:00

Food is everywhere. Sadly, I'd already eaten before this visit to Namdaemon, but when I go back I'm going to make sure I'm hungry! I'll definitely be sampling this...

...and this!

Sausages are extremely popular here. Check out the chunky looking ones standing up - the potato is applied directly to the hot dog and then fried. Yeah, it's fries AND a hot dog on a stick. It's only a matter of time before this innovation finds its way to the States!

Mushrooms.Ginseng.

What could they be advertising that could possibly make this man THIS happy?

14Oct Namdaemon Market

2007-10-21T01:11:00.000-05:00

Went to Namdaemun Market on Sunday the 14th after working a bit. There's pretty much nothing you can't get at the massive and sprawling Namdaemun Market. Acres of food and clothes, watches and jewelry, knick-knacks, beauty products, luggage, handbags, movies - and it's all cheap. There's a lot of "fake" designer product for sale. You see the poor quality knockoffs on display in the public areas; the really good knock-offs are kept in smaller back rooms: Coach, Rolex, Bulgari, Hermes. I'm not saying I did, I'm not saying I didn't.

13Oct My Views

2007-10-21T00:18:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of aerial shots. This first one is from my room / studio / home away from home. The mountain in the background is, I think, Mount Ingwansan. This and Mount Bukaksan are said to guard the city, and that is why they put the Gyeongbokhung Palace in between them. I have yet to get up to the mountains, or the palace, but hoping to next weekend!

This picture is taken from the office I work in, on the 10th floor of a building right in the middle of a very modern business district. But just like so much in Seoul, the new butts right up against the ancient. This building marks the center of Seoul, and is protected by guards in brightly colored uniforms. Every day just before Noon there is a changing of the guards, complete with music, flags and elaborate ritual.

11Oct Buddha

2007-10-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

I walk by this Buddhist temple every day, twice. Often there is chanting and always there are many shoes on the perimiter, belonging to trusting worshippers. I've checked it out; not much in the way of designer footwear. I find myself pausing to be amazed by the huge gold Buddha statues daily, and I find myself calmed immeasurably. It's becoming a habit. Am I a Buddhist? Maybe one of these days I'll consult a monk. They're everywhere.