Kimchi Stew and My PS3 - Mar-18-2010

Random Korean Cultural Trivia

- Do/도 = Island/Province (ex- Jeju-Do)
- Si/Shi/시 = Major City (ex- Seoul-si)
- Gun/Goon/군 - County (ex- Wando-gun)
- Eup/읍 = Town (ex - Wando-Eup)

After four months of living in Korea, one thing in particular that I missed the most was a Playstation 3 and most of all Street Fighter IV with the guys. I found out that my plane ticket reimbursement was deposited early (rather than with my first paycheque on the 25th). So the first thing I did was go online to G-Market and bought a 120GB PS3 Slim. When I co-owned a PS3 with Dennis, it was the older 80GB bulky model. While this new model is way better in every way, it doesn't look as high tech. haha Earlier this morning I had roughly 30 rounds of SF4 with Godfrey before I started work at 11 and it was well worth the four month break period.

Kimchi Stew (김치 찌개)

(I know I'm a bit late coming into this, but here it is = my weekly cooking attempts/recipes.)

2 Shots of Soju (19.5-21%)

1lb of Sour Kimchi with brine from the Kimchi

400g Pork Belly

2 tbsp of Sesame Seed Oil

2 Blocks of Tofu

1-2 cups of cold water (depends on how spicy you want it)

optional - Green Onions, Mushrooms, Bean sprout, Ramen noodles, Egg, Spam, Dumplings

1) Cut the pork belly into small bite-sized rectangular/square strips

2) Put the pork at the bottom of a stew pot and coat with sesame seed oil

3) Cover the meat with the sour kimchi, pour the juice/brine from the sour kimchi to about half the content

*sour (신김치) kimchi is used because fresh kimchi does not have the brine and the cabbage will not soften and will remain a bit stiffer, you want the cabbage soft*

4) Pour the cup(s) of water

*less water = spicier/hotter and vice versa*

5) Add the shots of soju

*will make the soup taste richer in flavour and will help tenderize the meat*

6) Cover the pot and put on med-high flame for about 10 minutes, around the 8-9 minute mark cut the tofu into squares about 1.5cm thick

7) Uncover and add the tofu as well as any other extra ingredients you want to put into the mix

8) Let it simmer for about 3 more minutes with the lid covered.

9) Done!

There are various versions of this (Budejjigae/부대 찌개) as mentioned before, tuna kimchi stew, cheese kimchi stew and some others. I'm a racial purist when it comes to food, I believe adding foreign ingredients into traditional recipes spoils it. I tried it at a friend's house, we heard that there was a cheese one and she wanted to try it out. Simply put, it just tasted horrible and I had indigestion for about two days after. (yea, thanks Jasmine -_-) Well anyway, serve with rice and whatever side dishes you want to eat along with it. =)

Wando and My Experience Teaching Children - Mar-16-2010

Random Korean Cultural Trivia

- 회식/Hwe-Shik - This is the new staff members welcoming party. Simply put, you eat good meat, drink lots of alcohol and sing lots of hours drunk off your ass. It happens twice, the first time is paid for by the staff that's been there already and the second time is paid for by the newbie crew.

I moved into Wando County on the first of March and was placed on school residence. Basically its a little strip of about five single room houses that comes with a puny kitchen and a puny bathroom.

 Another teacher had been using it (until he transferrred) as a sort of relaxing place and the place was a horrible mess. You know when you watch TV and it shows dark scenes in gray where things seem dark and gunky? Well yea, that was what it was like before I busted my ass for four hours scrubbing, dusting, re-organizing. At first there was no gas line,, no laundry machine, the boiler was broken and there was no independent internet line. I managed the get gas connected on the first day, but it turns out the boiler was out of goddamn gas. So I called a company to re-stock about $100 bucks worth, which should last me 'til summer (by then I should be using cold water because it'll be so hot). It stopped functioning the day after but then started working again the day after that.

They gave me one used laundry machine that another one of the teachers had before they transferred. You know that episode of Simpsons where they had to get a new machine because it was loud and kept moving on its own? Mine was kinda like that, except it stood still thankfully. I managed to wash stuff for one round but then after it just didn't work. After trying for two days I said fuck it and I had it moved outside where the garbage guys will take it away. Soon after the boiler broke AGAIN and I had to call the guys to fix it for good. I signed up for the KT internet service here, the other option would've been to share the school's line but it would be very slow so I decided to get my own line so I can play some proper Super IV in April.

We had two Hwe-Shiks and I gotta say it's actually pretty fun drinking with older people (and three ppl in their 20s thank god). There's like a ritual that the vice-principal and principal have to do during the first one, where they go around to each staff member and exchange a shot of Soju. Because I'm the school's first foreign teacher all the staff members exchanged shots with me in a 30 minute time frame (also counting the rest of the time in the restaurant, karaoke and another restaurant.) The principal turns out to be my uncle's distant cousin and therefore my aunt in some ways which is pretty cool. Now during the second party, the newbies have to go around exchange shots with every one of the original staff. Because I was the youngest I had to go first. There were about 25 staff members and I don't get a break period, I go from one person to the next and so on. In the course of five-ten minutes I downed about 20 shots (a few didn't drink that night) and I was feeling a bit tipsy. About an hour in the female staff started oggling and chatting with me o.O. I dunno if it was because they were drunk but they're like 'OMG HE'S SO CUTE!!!~~~' I wish I heard it more often from girls closer to my age LOL, kind weird hearin it from people who are like 10-15 years older. -___- The first party I don't remember how I got back, I just woke up in one of the teacher's homes on the floor in my underwear along with four other teachers in their underwear. (Yea, major awkward moment). The second time I got back home surprisingly but as soon as I got in, I turned on the comp and passed out. xD

 I go to work every weekday except Wednesday, being assistant teacher to the main curriculum English classes as well as being in charge of the after school English classes. Almost every other TaLK member has a university student co-teaching with them, but sadly no one wants to come all the way down to bum-fuck Wando. So I'm left in charge with about 20-25 kids per class usually. Because my school (청해 초) Cheong-hae Elementary is new to the TaLK program they don't have shit figured out from previous teachers. They also have a special feature where they have after school classes that include piano, dance, violin, art, taekwondo, science and of course English. Reason being is because we're stuck in a poor area and the kids' guardians don't have the time/money to take their kids to after school academies.

Now because of this stupid system, they mixed the students participating all over the place and as a result there's an even blend of students in grades 1-6 in every class. Anyone with a brain can tell you that there is no way the kids can all learn properly when there's such a huge gap in English level and age. So every lesson I'm stuck with half the class being bored/irritated = start yabbering in class/fighting/goofing around.

They seriously need to get this shit figured out because so far each class has been far less productive then it should've been. They gave me a pointing/beating stick, but suggested that I refrain from hitting the children considering my strength and status as a foreign teacher. So for now I use it as a scare tool, when I yell at the kids I'll usually point the stick in their face and wave it up and down a bit implying that I'll hit them if they screw around. So far I had to take one smart mouth kid every day after classes end to yell at them. You know that one mouthy kid that always disturbs the peace of the class? Yea him, so I've been quite frustrated with how work is going so far. If they would just fix the schedule and assign students to a set class/time then there wouldn't be a problem.

The school also feeds the students and staff lunch everyday in their cafeteria. As an ex-trainer I can say the meals are very nutritionally balanced and are damn tasty. It's not like the shitty caf food I had to eat in Jochiwon/조치원 but this time it feeds us restaurant quality meals every day. An example, today we had pork ribs, rice, kimchi, seaweed soup, spinach side dish, cherry tomatoes, an orange and a carton of milk. Yea you see? Props to the lunch ladies for their superb cooking skills. =D

I also met and acquainted myself with the after school dance teacher and my god she's a damn hot beauty. Every model like description you can think of, she has it so I don't have to go into detail. xP Sadly she works on Wednesday (which is my day off) but whatever I live literally five seconds away from the school. xD Come to think of it, the Kindergarten teacher is kinda cute.. hell in general the women in Wando are at least average and above. The term 'farmer's daughters' can be applied here literally and figuratively. Maybe me being alone all the way down here as lowered my standards but hell I ain't complaining. xD

An Epic Battle At Lotte Mart - Feb-27-2010

Random Korean Cultural Trivia

- Lotte is a Korean confectionary conglomerate founded by Shin Kyuk-Ho in the 1940s when he was selling gum to post-WWII kids in Japan. Now it is one of Asia's largest conglomerates in food, branching into other businesses like managing sports, hotels and Lotte World (Korea's national theme park)

I'm back in my hometown of Mokpo to relax at my relatives' place. Since I was given four days of free time I didn't want to stay in Wando with nothing to do, so I hopped on the next bus back home. I went to the bathhouse with the local thugs (not on purpose) and I finally caught up on other things.

I went to Lotte Mart (think of it as a Korean walmart) this morning to shop for my living essentials and any other things I may want to get before I leave for Wando. When I got there, there was an incident right across the street involving roughly five thugs and about three other guys. I moved a bit closer to the Song's Beer bar right beside them and lit up a smoke pretending to turn a blind eye to the situation.

From what I could understand, the three guys in the sedan tried to cut off the van full of the thugs and of course crashed into them and left a scratch on their van bumper. I know the people here never follow the traffic laws (red lights, car lanes, speed limit are all suggestions as pointed out by Eliza), but damn those guys chose the wrong van to try to cut off. Anyway there was about two minutes of swearing, arguing saying the other was at fault.

It seems those three idiots didn't understand their position in the situation as there were three of them and five gangsters. The 'leader' of both sides were doing the arguing, soon after the gangster (who seemed like a Judo expert) grabbed the guy and threw the guy, slamming him against the road pavement. He put his knee on the guy's chest and started bashing the guys face in. I estimate the thug leader weighed about 220lbs, about 190cm in height, which is about 80lbs heavier than the guy he was thrashing, plus the thug was wearing these gold rings on his fingers.. ouch.

When I went to Seoul a few weeks ago, I saw a bunch of pussy kids pulling on each other's hair and shoving each other. Now I clearly see why the Mokpo people laugh at how weak the Seoul people are. THIS is a fight, not pulling on each other's goddamn emo hair. To be fair it wasn't even a fight, it was a massacre of the idiots who tried to fight gangsters.

Instead of apologizing and trying to get their friend out, the guy's two friends tried to help him and of course get similar punishment. The pounding continued for about 20 seconds and goddamn I've never seen anyone get that bloody that fast. When they stopped the gangsters spat on them and gave them a quick lecture and they all left. Soon after the local people called for an ambulance I guess and that was the end of it.

I'm surprised they allowed them to just get away with a near fatal beating. I kinda expected them to say something like "I'll come back to collect money for scratching my car" or something like that. Soon after I walked into the store and got my shit and went back home. I got here two days ago and I've already encountered two groups of gangsters doing their shit. o_O

Last Couple of Days in Mokpo - Jan-31-2010

Random Korean Cultural Trivia


- The name Korea comes from it's second last dynasty, the Goryeo/Koryo kingdom (918-1392). One of the top universities in the nation, Korea University (고려대학교) is actually written as Goryeo University.

It's my second last day in my hometown Mokpo before I leave for teacher's training in Jochiwon (조치원) in Korea University. I've stayed here for a little two months and a lot of things happened. For one thing my Korean got tons better and I gained about 15 lbs from all the alcohol and good food I've been eating. I've lost roughly 25lbs since then so we can just say I lost 10lbs. =)

I've been hitting the gym 6 days a week and I've climbed like twenty mountains if not more, including the nations second tallest. In the long and short, it's just drink, eat, workout, meet people and sleep lmao.

Since I've been working out like a madman I've made a huge improvement in my strength. My last 'peak strength' was in grade 11 and after like six years I finally got past it. Sadly today was my last day at the gym (which turned out to be much more impressive than I thought). I'm gonna miss the gym owner (관장님), he's a pretty cool guy and gave me a lot of new exercise ideas that I never even imagined. And of course I'll miss all the beautiful young girls keeping their bodies beautiful. LOL. But yea here's a little rundown of my new peak strength.

Barbell Bench Press - 110kg (6x)
Tricep Pulldowns - 130kg (20x)
Seated Rows - 130kg (20x)
Chest Flys - 130kg (20x)
Leg Press - 180kg (8x) damnit.. I used to do 500 lbs back then D=
Dumbell Curls - 25kg per arm (8x)
Lat Pulldown - 100kg (20x)

I forgot the rest but you get the idea.

Anyway, I'll be heading over to Korea University in a couple of days for 3 weeks of teachers training. I'm really looking forward to it and I hope to meet a lot of great people there. Apparently we're staying at the University residence there for two weeks and then splitting off into groups based on provincial placement. I hope they have internet there and preferably a gym where I can still maintain my progress.

When I go to my placement in Wando County, I'm given like 3-4 days to get my apartment and stuff organized, as well as getting an idea of what's where in the city. When I went there last week I went around the harbourfront. All I saw was an endless strip plaza of seafood restaurants, convenience stores and fishing marts. Literally after two miles of walking that's all I ever saw. I walked into what looks like a mini supermarket and they had like nothing.

I haven't been to the main city yet but I'm gonna be scoping for four very important things.
- a gym (with heavy weights and nice looking girls? XD)
- a GOOD supermarket, (one that sells in good variety at good price)
- a convenience store (for snacks, drinks and the like)
- an electronics store (preferably one that sells games and other stuff)

When I move into my apartment in late Feb/early March I'm gonna start cooking again. =D It'll come in a variety, but mostly Korean and Western food, once I run out of those I'll try following other recipes I find online and give it a success/fail rating.

Halla Mountain and Horse Meat - Jan-07-2010

Random Korean Cultural Trivia

Kimbap - "Korean sushi" seaweed wrapped ricerolls that has assorted veggies and meats for stuffings

If you come to Jeju Island, the main attraction is to go up Halla Mountain (한라산). The volcano is Korea's 2nd tallest mountain (after Baekdu in the North) and the South's national natural monument. Apparently it's a rare opportunity to go and not many are able to do it, including the island locals too.

Anyway along the way near the base of the mountain is another of the island's strange mysteries. There's a particular road that goes down into a countryside area. If you put your car in neutral, the car will automatically start moving UP the slope no matter which way you face. It's an unexplained mystery and it's one of the main attractions before you climb up. At the time we tried it there was about 10 cars all doing it.

To begin the climb up you have to drive half way up on this highway that goes up, otherwise it would take you forever. The climb up takes about 3 hours and the climb down takes an hour and half, all in all about 5 hours including a 30 minute break. The climb is divided into two sections, the first half is a forest and the second half is a mountain valley. It was decided that I would be carrying our supplies, about 15 rolls of kimbap and about 5 litres of water plus some other stuff. (Roughly 35lbs in a bag)

Anyway, let me tell you about the path up Halla Mountain. It is the cheapest, most twisted, cruel and most unfair path you can ever walk on. To begin with there was heavy snowfall and strong freezing winds, that alone is a pain in the ass. The first part is the forest section, basically you climb up what is possibly the longest set of stairs in the world through a forest scenery.

Because of the heavy snowfall the staircase isn't a staircase anymore. It's become a slippery ice slope that you have to walk up praying not to slip, fall and slide all the way back down. Oh yeah, the slope you have to walk up is on an 80 degree angle, I'm not kidding the slope is THAT steep. It's not a straight path up either, it's a twisted path which makes moving difficult and there are random points where a fallen tree log obstructs your path.

Halfway up you reach a mid resting point, where you can drink clean mountain water and take a lunch break. A lot of the people brought gas cookers and they use the mountain water to cook ramen noodles. They say that the mountain water makes the noodle soup taste a lot better. By this point my legs are dying and I can barely walk as it is. So to lighten my burden we took a snack break and drank our fill. In the end the bag weighed about 10lbs and my dad carried it for the rest of the journey.

By this point the air really starts to thin out so breathing gets a bit difficult, especially in the cold wind. The second half of the journey is on the mountain slope itself. By this point we're in the clouds so the area is all gray and snowy making it really hard to see where you're going. The path is now guided by these red flag markers. There's also warning signs telling people not go by themselves. About 20 or so meters from the path, there's the edge of the cliff where you'll fall to your death.

This time the steepness is a lot more lenient (probably a 50-60 degree angle). To make up for it, there are random sections of the path where there are sharp bulgy rocks that you have to step on in order to continue. There are also areas where you have to jump down a ledge and climb back up another ledge, all roughly a meter in height. The worst part of the whole thing is probably the snow pitfalls. Since we're so high up, the snow falling is massive and it quickly built up patches of light snow where if you step into one it'll suck your leg in completely. I swear I must've fallen in like 50 times before I reached the summit.

Well finally after 3 sore hours of climbing we reach the summit. There's a rest house that doesn't really serve any purpose. It's just a wooden shack with tables/chairs stuck to the ground. No restaurant or workers, just a small cafeteria and washrooms for people to rest and eat.

Well technically this isn't the summit since there's an extra 2km left, but this is the point where everyone turns back. The path up here was about 5km and the real summit is on the 7km point. I'm gonna call it the summit, I don't care what any of you guys say, you can call it w/e you want but I'm gonna call it the summit. Fuck you. =)

On the way down, it's a lot faster and easier but it's still annoying because of the terrain. The whole time I'm trying not to slip and fall otherwise I'll go sliding and crashing down the mountain. On the forest part we found out that a girl had a wipe out and had to be taken out by a stretcher with ER people.

For dinner we had horse meat at a local bar. It came in a variety of forms: raw, cheese steakburgers, grilled, rib stew and soup. The meat itself was quite good and melts in your mouth every bite. (drool) The amount of protein they say nearly doubles that of beef or chicken. It's also good for your body joints apparently and strengthens your leg muscles. (Most of it comes from horse leg) The restaurant also had a service where it takes you back home for free. o_O What kind of restaurant does that?

Anyway, that's all I gotta say about that. Happy new years!

New Years on Jeju Island - Jan-04-2010

Random Korean Cultural Trivia

Ssireum (씨름) - Korean style wrestling from the Goguryeo kingdom. Two opponents stand in a sandpit with sashes tied to their waists. The competitors would grab each other's sashes by the side hips and would try to take each other to the ground. Methods of winning are done by throws and sweeps using mind games and strength.

For New Years we went to the island province of Jeju. The island is a common tourist destination (mostly for Chinese and Japanese visitors) and is a favourite dating / honeymoon spot. We left at 6am and after a rough, noisy five hour boat ride we docked on the island. The island always looks different wherever you go. The main city looks like Florida where the sun shines and theres palm trees everywhere. Oh yes I forgot to mention, it's ridiculously hot over there even in the winter time. Probably because it's close to the equator but I actually got a mild tan as a result of it. Other parts look like the mainland with it's mountainous range and the coasts are high with strong waves and a strong fishing culture. Since it's a volcanic island, the land isn't very suitable for agriculture so seafood is the main food source.

The culture is much different then the mainland, especially their language. Most dialects I'd understand or at least figure out but over here they sound like gibberish. The island was only a part of Korea for about 1000 years when the Tamna kingdom was officially absorbed, much like Okinawa was to Japan. To serve the high amount of foreign guests most things are written in multiple languages (Japanese, Chinese and English specifically). Most of my time on the island, there was a Japanese tour group of about 20 people touring the island with us. The rest kinda came on their own.

The island is apparently very well known for three things: (1- Rocks) (2 - Wind) (3 - Women)

Rocks
- The island is formed by volcanic eruptions, resulting in tons of volcanic rock. With the exception of road pavements and cement buildings everything on the island is made of volcanic rock. There's so much rock that theres actually a stone monument park. It's common for people to go by the shore side and stack rocks on top of each other making little statues.

Wind (and weather)
- The city is damn windy, aside from the wind itself, the weather is really random. Weather can change in a matter of minutes. When we arrived on the island by boat it was snowing with strong wind, ten minutes later it was drizzling with rain and about 30 minutes later the sun was shining and later in the afternoon it was snowing again.

Women

- The indiginous people had a different social structure. The family system was run on a matriarch system where the matriarch would get most of the income and sort out the stuff of the house. Men apparently just went fishing and doing less important things. I did notice that the women here were particularly more brutish looking with a rougher personality while the men were really small and puny by stature, kinda like the physical appearance is swapped by the gender. Yea.. my eyes were depressed the whole time I was here.

We visited the Jeju Island Folk Village, basically its like a modern made village based on the people their from a few hundred years ago. There was music, folk dancing, restaurants with their unique cuisine.

I had a taste of the village's unique style of rice wine and green onion juhn pancake (해물파전).

For dinner we had Korean sashimi. It's basically raw fish of course but using fish that isn't normally seen in Japanese sashimi. Koreans use (go-doong-uh/고둥어) mackerel and (gal-chi/갈치) cutlassfish. I had a small drinking contest with my uncle and we downed soju and beer bomb mixed drinks. All in all it cost over $100 (100 000 won).. that's a LOT of bottles.




 


The most messed up thing I learned was that there was a way of raising livestock pigs which is quite nasty. The pigs (lit. s**t pigs) were fed s**t because they naturally cleaned it up and they grew on that. As nasty as that sounds it's actually a convenient way to feed them without wasting animal feed. There was a Japanese tour group of about 20 people touring the village with us. When they got to the pig part, I just heard a loud mixture of screaming, disgusted groaning and laughter. Can't really blame them, I feel creeped out as I write this blog. The same pigs are served as food today, but of course they don't raise them the way they did back then.

This rock... as you can probably tell is the shape of a penis. It's like a symbol of good luck, fertility and a healthy child. If a house owned one, it meant that they were planning to have children and that the parents were praying for good fortune.

The rock is not carved by people and is a natural volcanic rock formation.

There's also cultural aspects of the olden days of mainland Korea that was brought over. Probably the most notable one ssireum wrestling. There's also a set of pillars where contests of strength was held. Basically you climb onto the pedestal and try to lift an egg shaped stones. The lighter stones would be about 50lbs and the heaviest weighs about 200lbs. Back then, the young men in the village would show the young women that their strength is much greater than the other men and that they are more suitable husbands. I tried three times to lift the stone and believe me it's a LOT harder than you think. The egg shape makes it awkward to pick up, let alone hold in your arms. I picked it up and held it for about 10 seconds until my arms and back gave out.