Seorak-san National Park

If you think about it, National Parks in South Korea are about the equivalent of State Parks in North Carolina.  South Korea is similar in area to NC, and thus the many national parks cannot all be like the ones in the entire USA.  This was definitely true with Gyereongsan  National Park near our city in South Korea.  However, in our last week in South Korea, we visited a national park that would be worthy of that title in any size country, Seoraksan National Park.  We barely scraped the surface of the miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) of hiking that could be done in this park.  It is a huge mountain range in the NE corner.  From this mountain range there is a continuous slope to the Pacific Ocean.  Its amazing to climb up the mountains and then view the ocean.

We stayed at the town of Sokcho (famous for squid), and bused to the national park.  Sokcho is amazing in itself having once been a park of North Korea before the war moved the border North.  Many North Korean refugees settled in the area, so the food is supposed to be a mix of North and South.

Some of Sokcho's famous squid

Back to the mountain climbing, we decided to climb the rocks on the edge of the park to get a good view of the rest of the park that we didn't have enough time to explore.  On the way we climbed past two places where you could stop and eat.  It was very strange, suddenly there were a lot of outdoor tables, a bathroom, and a restaurant with ladies trying to sell you water and rice wine.

Right before the extremely steep part was a small Buddhist cave and a famous rock that you were supposed to try to wobble.  Apparently large groups are able to shake it, but it never will fall.  We were not strong enough to move it, but we tried.

Trying to wobble the rock!

 Oh, and I forgot to mention that around the temple, carved into the surrounding rocks were poems!  Lots and lots of poems, in old Korean i.e. Chinese.  We couldn't read any of them, but they were still pretty.

Next came the steep steps that went up and up and up.  We finally made it to the top, and the view was amazing!  Every direction there were forests and mountains, until the land evened off towards the ocean.  Even more amazing, there was a little shop at the very top that sold coffee and ramen.  The person who runs that little shop must be in really good shape.  The rest of the park was really pretty, someday we have to go back and explore the rest.

The view from the top

Later we hiked up a river to a waterfall.  It was also beautiful.  Also not to be missed is the local history museum!  They have architecture from different areas of North Korea, and we got to see an amazing performance of the spinney hat drum guys!  It was the best one I have seen in Korea, and the only other people watching were kindergartners, so we had a great view!  This is probably one of the most remote and most beautiful areas in all of South Korea!

Membership Training

Membership Training, or "MT" as it is called in konglish, is a time where labs or departments go off and bond.  Traditionally, there is no actual "training" involved.  Usually, it is a time for students to get together and bond without professors, and there is lots of alcohol involved.  Our lab is very very odd in that the professor actually wants to get to know his students outside the lab, and that he does not drink alcohol.
When he decided that our lab should have an MT, the Koreans in our lab had no idea what to do.  We found it amusing because there are hundreds of little team building games that we could use, but the people planning had trouble thinking outside the traditional "MT" box, especially when they learned both our professor and the new research professor wanted to come along and participate in the games.  Having fun with your professor is a scary thing for some people.
We also needed to have a different MT because two members of our lab are Muslim and don't drink, and one of the guys brought his wife and 1 year old son with him.  It was a lot of fun having them around, and the traditional MT wasn't going to work.
We ended up going to a "pension" (a large, rent-able vacation home) in a very beautiful part of Korea.

The view behind our pension.

Behind the pension was a giant mudflat full of oysters.  When you walked on the path between them, the oysters would squirt at you.  It was a drizzly day, so the clouds looked amazing!
There I learned many new things about my labmates.  First of all, the Korean guys like to dance to k-pop (even dances done by girls).  Secondly, Koreans are afraid of moths because their mothers told them that the dust from their wings are toxic (NOT TRUE!).  And last, singing is a common talent.  We ran out of games and switched to a talent show.  Everyone either sang or danced except me (I played spoons).
The next day we went to the shore and saw a famous rock feature while playing in tidal pools.

Dr. Yim, Irfan, and Riley in front of the famous rocks.

Then we ate tons of clams and went home.  It was really nice.  Even though this was a different sort of MT, I think the Koreans still had a good time.  Our professor is trying to change the culture of the labs one person at a time!

But wait, there's more!

Some of you may know that Riley and I are actually moved back to the US and are no longer in South Korea eating kimchi.  Though this is true, this does not mean we are done with this blog.  The last few weeks in Korea were hectic, so there is a small back log of blog posts that I did not get a chance to put up.  Coming soon will be a description of our lab's "MT," a visit to the most beautiful place in South Korea, a list of what we will miss (and not miss) in Korea, and our reverse culture shock experiences! 
Before the back log of posts, I thought I would update you on how we are doing.  Riley now has a master's degree in Nuclear and Quantum Engineering (the quantum part sounds cool, but we are not sure what it actually means).  He is currently applying to lots and lots of jobs, and today he scheduled his first phone interview!  Where we will end up is still unknown, but we will be within at least one day's driving of all the parents.
While Riley applies to jobs, I get to run around and do all the little stuff that needs to get done when you switch countries.  We bought a car!  We have independence!  Job-wise, since I can get jobs in many places, but Riley can only get jobs in a few places, I have to wait.  After we figure out where we will live, I will be applying to lots of places!
Meanwhile, we are staying with my parents, so if you want to visit look for us there.  There is lots of room and its beautiful here!
One tidbit of reverse culture shock, when we bought our car and had to sign our names, there was plenty of room and we didn't have to squeeze our signature into the little box they use for the official red stamps.  Its little things like that that will stick with us for a while.

Camping Korean Style!

This blog post could also be called Sapshido 2, since we went to this island last year for a service trip, but this year we went early to go camping.  This was the first time we went to an actual campground in Korea, before we just found a nice place on the river.  This time we had a site, a shower, a bathroom, a small store that sold ice cream and bottled water, and neighbors.  This is all very normal things when you go camping.  So, you are wondering, what is different about Korean camping vs US camping?

Well, it seems Koreans view camping differently than I am used to.  (Disclaimer: Please remember that all this is compared to how I (Margaret) have camped growing up.  This will affect some of the opinions about why you should camp, but I do at least have extensive experience with various styles of campgrounds.)
Anyways, Koreans like to sit outside and cook lots of food on their nice gas grills that they brought, then they sit at the table they brought, sit on the benches that they brought, and eat.  Then they lay back in their open tents and nap while the kids run around.  The campground was next to a nice beach, so between the large meals and the snacks, the kids went to the beach and the men went fishing or clam digging.  The wives, between cooking and cleaning up, would just nap.

What I have failed to mention is the most obvious strange thing about Korean camping.  The reason I have such detailed information on how Koreans camp, is because there is no space between sites.  Tents are set right next to each other.  You also have to bring everything because your site is a 12ft x 12ft square of ground.  That's it.  The one we were at didn't even have sites mapped out, you just had to squeeze it in where you could.

Each tent is on a separate site.  You can't see our tent, but its a lot smaller than the tents you see.

Camping was a lot of fun.  We spent the morning peering into tidal pools and finding anemones, and spent the afternoon hiking all the way around the island (it took about 4 hours).  After our busy day, we went swimming at the beach.

Now, the other difference between US and Korean camping is the idea that there is only one way to camp.  (The idea that there is a "best" way to do everything pervades society here and explains a lot about Korea generally.)  We stood out in many many ways, and this caused concern for some, and we got lots of strange looks.  It didn't help we had the site closest to the edge that everyone had to walk by to go to the store, cars, shower, bathroom, and beach.  Every time people would walk by, especially when we were cooking, we would get long looks out of the corner of people's eyes. 

One evening it started raining, and all the men grabbed their shovels and dug trenches.  We are assuming that they get all their camping skills from the military.  It didn't matter to them that we were camping on sand and the rain didn't even leave a puddle, much less be affected by trenches.  We had trenches dug for us, since we obviously had no camping experience or adequate camping equipment and were basically considered to be helpless foreigners.  After the rain stopped, we had a concerned guy come up to our tent who was extremely concerned that our trenches were too shallow and our tent too small.  He was also worried that we didn't have a lantern hanging up somewhere.  We tried to convey that we were fine, everything in our tent was dry, and we didn't have a lot of stuff because we carried everything there on our backs.  Seeing that we put our backpack on the bare sand, he gave us a lot of giant plastic bags to put our stuff in and our bags on.  He even put our bag of plastic bags in a bag.  It was all very nice, but it conveys how concerned they were that we did not bring a huge tent with tables, benches, and the kitchen sink.

So in summary, Korean camping is car camping with a lot of food and relaxing, but not in seclusion.  This may be similar to what other people do (though how you can go camping and not explore stuff is beyond me), but the two major differences is that the sites are closely packed and anyone who does things differently is considered very strange.

Our tiny tent with our tiny stove and our tiny "table."

Grading and Parking Garages

Even though we have lived in Korea for almost 2 years now, there are still little things that surprise me.  For example, the concept of tissue paper is foreign here.  Whenever I asked for it they started heading to the Kleenex. 

Two other little things have caught my attention.  Riley got his papers back from one of his classes, and they were covered with 0s.  It looked like he had gotten no points at all for most of his answers.  This was extra strange since he got 100 or greater on all of them.  We found out the a 0 is the same as a check mark here.  Xs still mean the same things, but triangles mean you get partial credit.

The other thing I saw recently is the amazing parking garages!  I don't know if this is a city thing everywhere, but the signs in the parking garage I went into were better than any I had ever been to before.  As you are driving around, each aisle has a little light up sign that tells you if there are any free spaces down that way.  If there is a free space and you turn to go down the aisle, you just look for the green light on the ceiling that indicates there isn't a car below it.  Once you park, the light turns red, and the aisle number goes down one.  This solves the drive around in circle problem common to most parking garages!  Alas, they have not come up with an easy way to remember where you parked your car.

Sam Gye Tang!

There is a soup that you are supposed to drink here in the summer.  I know, I was skeptical about soup in the summer, but this soup is so delicious that it is worth eating any time of the year.  The original Korean calender had 24 months, and on the first day of the three hottest months, you are supposed to eat this soup.
Ok, the English name is Chicken Ginseng Stew.  You get a whole little chicken in a bowl with rice and ginseng.  The chicken is stuffed with garlic, a chestnut, and a jujube.  The soup is supposed to give you energy to face the heat of the summer.  The protein and ginseng are energy foods.  However, the soup just made us really full and happy.  This is a recipe I will definitely try to make in America.

Delicious Samgyetang!  Your own personal chicken in a bowl.

Happy Feet!

There is a health trend in South Korea that took us a while to figure out.  It has to do with your feet.  Apparently, if  you treat your feet right, the rest of your body will follow.  For instance there is a type of clay that is good for your feet.  They make long trails of it to walk on barefoot.  Its supposed to cure you of indigestion, diabetes, memory loss, and various other diseases.  Its supposed to be the clay that cures you, but I suspect the long walks have something to do with it.

The next foot treatment feels really good.  Here is a picture of us on one.  Riley is in front just wearing socks, and our Slovenian friend Anton is next.  He and I went on it barefoot.

Riley and Anton healing their bodies with their feet.  Its a foot massage path!

It feels so good!  Its a path of smooth rocks that vary every now and then with different sizes and styles of rocks.  You just have to look out for sticks and insects that may have fallen, but they are usually kept pretty clean.  You can find simple ones in lots of small parks, this one was a little more extensive because is was near a tourist spot.  You can see the sign on the right of the path that shows you what part of your foot will affect what part of your body.  All your body parts correspond to a section of your foot.  I'm not sure how true all these feet things are, but they sure feel nice on your feet!

Health Check!

So, before we go back to America, we wanted to have a complete check up in Korea to make sure we were doing ok.  I scheduled a "Plus" health check which was the middle-sized package.  I wasn't allowed to eat for 8 hours beforehand because of the blood test and the endoscopy.  I showed up at 9 in the morning, and was told to go to the locker room and change into the clothes I would find in the locker.  It contained a comfortable linen pants and shirt.  I also had a pair of comfortable sandals to wear except they were for Korean feet.  I had to go to the front desk and ask for bigger shoes.  The lady tried to find me some bigger women's sandals, but I ended up getting men's sandals.  They fit perfectly.
Then the testing began.  I went from station to station getting my height, blood pressure, muscle mass, hearing, blood, and heart checked.  Besides the blood test, all of the exams were automated.  I was hooked up to various machines holding metal things or covered in suction cups.  It was all very quick and efficient.  Then I went to get the extra stuff done.  Vision, chest x-ray (standard to check for TB), and abdomen ultrasound.  I wasn't really expecting the abdomen ultrasound.  It was strange to have someone looking at my kidneys, pancreas, liver, gall bladder, and spleen.  It also tickled.
Then was the endoscopy.  Endoscopy is a horrible experience, if you've never had one, but the nurses were very nice and efficient.  As soon as it was over, I got to go over and see nice color pictures of my stomach.
It was a whirlwind of tests, I barely had to wait for anything.  I haven't gotten the full report back yet, but I am healthy as far as the immediate tests go!  But even better, the whole thing cost $120 without insurance!

Why so many Koreans get their PhD

Koreans are crazy about their college degrees.  More than half of young adults have a college degree and you almost have to get a masters to work in a company.  A high number also get their PhD.  Since Riley is just getting his master's degree, many people ask him why he is not getting his PhD.  His fellow Korean graduate students are all getting their PhD, why not him?
We just recently discovered the answer to why Koreans almost expect everyone to get the PhD if they decide to get any graduate degree.  It lies in another aspect of Korean life.
Many of you may know that South Korea is still currently at war with North Korea.  In day to day life this fact does not affect life very much.  However, every South Korean male is required to do 2 years of military service.  This is dreaded by most of them, and from their stories it doesn't sound like much fun.  Lots of physical labor and strange tasting food.
So what does this have to do with getting your PhD?  If you get your PhD, you only have to do 4 weeks of basic training.  The mystery is solved!  Of course this doesn't apply to Riley, but I think its a subconscious aspect of life now for South Koreans.

Something I never expected

One of the most fascinating things about Korean life, is how much of it is influenced by the western world.  You really have to go to specific places to get souviners because in regular stores anything decorative can be found in America.  Most things try to look fancy by having random English writing on it.
Even though I knew about this influence, I was still very surprised by something we saw at a festival a few weeks ago: a jazz saxophone band.

They were pretty good.  Most of the Koreans just sat still, staring, but a few of the older men and women were really getting into it.  I thought the surprise of finding out Korea has saxophone bands was the end of it, and then they started to play "Play that Funky Music, White Boy."  It was awesome!

Traveling to North Korea

Last Saturday, during a visit from Laura and John, we decided to take a tour of our neighbors to the north.  For those of you who may be concerned, we went on a tour that was officially run in accordance with the Joint Security Area (the US and South Korean military run this area together).  We were fully protected by soldiers, and there are tours from both sides almost every day.  Here is some of our protection.

ROK (South Korean) soldier in a modified taekwondo position

The door behind the soldier leads to North Korea.  This guy was tensed and did not move at all the whole time we were in this room.  It was amazing!  Ok, now that you know we were safe, let me start from the beginning of our tour.
We drove about an hour north of Seoul to get to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).  To even get close to the DMZ you have to first pass through a checkpoint.  We picked up a couple of US soldiers there.  They briefed us on this history of the Korean War and the area where talks are held.  Then we were able to enter the DMZ.  We had our passports checked at almost every opportunity. 
The DMZ is very beautiful.  Besides the barbed wire and the mine fields, there is not very much built up in it.  If there are still tigers in Korea, they would be there.  There is also a little villages in the DMZ.  The people there do not have to pay taxes and the men do not have to do military service.  The only stipulations are that only women can join the village from the outside.  They have a curfew and some of the fields can only be tended with an armed guard.  The people think its worth living there, and they do get about $85,000 a year tax free.
The first stop was the panmunjon area.  It is where talks are held.  This was the point we could just go over the line in a building and technically be in North Korea.  It was like being in a shark tank and waiting for the sharks to come.  Here is what it looked like:

North Korea.  We went in the blue building on the left.  You can see the line where the color of the gravel changes, and there is a North Korean soldier on the steps.

 This is where the ROK soldiers were standing for protection.  You can't see many North Korean soldiers because they are only there when there are tours on that side.

The next stop was a couple of observation towers.  It was like looking over the edge of the world.  There weren't many trees and there was a large empty town built on the other side to pretend to be just like the one on the South Korean side.  It was built to be fake, a lot of the windows and doors are painted on the buildings.  They also built the largest flag pole in the world in the fake village to be taller than the flag pole on the South Korean side.  I have pictures, but it was a foggy day so you can't see much but the giant flagpole.

Then we went to the last station in South Korea.  It is a huge, modern station that was built with donated money from hopeful South Koreans that someday it will be used to travel from South Korea all the way to Europe. 

The last stop of the tour was a tunnel that the North Koreans had dug under the border.  They never broke through the top, so you have to walk down a steep tunnel into it.  Its hard to stand up straight in it.  They had also painted coal on the walls to say that is was a coal mine, but it rubs right off.  You could walk along it (trying not to bump your head) until you get to the first of three walls built in defense.

It was all very interesting.  Especially the multiple souvenir shops where you can buy North Korean wine, DMZ t-shirts, and lego tanks.  They haven't had any incidents there for 50 years, and they never even stopped the tours for the recent unrest.  It is all very usual and normal for tours to take place at the border, and that was the strangest thing of all.

Cute ROK soldiers.

Ser-bis-sa

Last weekend Riley and I went out to dinner at a small restaurant in the countryside. The countryside here is Korea is really beautiful.  It is also not frequently visited by foreigners, so we stood out a lot.  This means we got a lot of "service" which is pronounced "ser-bis-sa" since there is no "v" or silent "e" in Konglish.  "Service" is a concept that I find very interesting.  Shop owners, restaurant owners, market venders, and pretty much everyone who owns a business give the customers free things and call it "service."  I think its to create a good feeling and have return customers.  Some people will not even buy from a vender that doesn't give them some service.  Some examples are an extra handful of lettace, and few more sticks of glue for a hot glue gun, and not charging for extra food at a resturant.
This brings me back to that restaurant we went to in the countryside.  There were only 3 employees, the owner, her son, and a cook in the back.  Each employee gave us "service" in their own way, mainly due to the fact we were foreigners.  We ordered the house special, the best sam gap sal (Korean barbeque) in Korea.  As service the owner gave us an extra cut of meat, or I should say, fat.  It was the part of the pig belly that was all fat and skin.  This is probably not unusual to those of you who grew up on a farm, but it was strange for us to eat something that we could identify as a female pig.  It wasn't too bad...
Then her son gave us service we were used to, a bottle of coca-cola.  This is very common. 
The last employee in the back gave us something we had never gotten before, scorched rice.  Its a little hard to describe.  When people make a lot of rice, they leave the cooker on a while, just scooping out the middle.  This means the layer on the bottom becomes kind of hard and crispy.  This is traditionally served as dessert in a soup, or you can just snack on it.  So, when we ordered rice to go with out meal, the rice was at its end and the lady in the back decided to give the leftover scorched rice to us.  We had to hide it from the rest of the customers because it was a really nice thing to give and they didn't want other people expecting something similar.  This restaurant gave us the most service of any we have been to before, so we need to go back sometime.  That's how it works.

N Korea

Many people have asked us about the reports of N Korea being upset, and worrying about the eruption of round II of the Korean War.  Therefore I am going to allay your fears

1) North Korean's aren't stupid

Many people worry that N Korea is not smart enough to realize what trouble they would be in if they attacked the South--but they know.  We normally like to portray our enemies as crazy idiots in order to make ourselves feel better.  This allows us to feel less worried about them winning, and it also allows us to be less merciful when dealing with them.  However, it would be wrong to say that Kim Jeong Eun is stupid.  He might be young, but he has managed to rule as a dictator (or at least pretend to rule) for a year without getting killed.  He also received his education in Swizerland, so he knows we aren't joking, and that N Korea would quickly lose (cease to exist), although it would be absolutely awful for both sides.

2) China doesn't want war & they don't like N Korea

We may not be comfortable with China, and China might not be comfortable with us, but this time around, China does not want N Korea to get into a war for several reasons.  First, China does not want a war on its border, with 10 refugees sure to flee to China.  They already see N Korean's as a social problem (they way many Americans see Mexicans), so they do not want any more N Koreans in China.  Second. China knows that N Korea would lose, resulting in a unified Korea.  The unified Korea would naturally fall under the American sphere of influence, and would still contain numerous US bases, except, that now there is no N Korea to act as a buffer for the American threat.

The Chinese also find North Korea an embarrassment.  The Chinese people are even free to insult the N Korean government (this is a big deal because there is no freedom of speech in China).  They call Kim Jeong Eun "The third fat Kim," because his dad and grandad were also fat while their people were starving.

3) We have anti missile technology

Our anti-missile missiles might only be 90% accurate, but we can shoot 2 and be 99% accurate.

4) You can't even mail a nuke from N Korea

Mail doesn't really travel between N and S Korea. May be they could get Seoul with a cannon-nuke assuming they can make them that small.

5) S Korea doesn't want war

If there were a war, South Korea would probably lose millions of people as causalities.  This is because Seoul is less than 30 miles from the border, and has lots of cannons filled with bio and chemical weapons pointed at it.   Luckily, we are not in Seoul.

6) S Korea has a potentially angry big brother

Lets face it, if N Korea nuked anyone, we would have no problem wiping them out.  Russia and China don't support them, so there would be no consequences if we did.  The South Koreans call us their older brother, and they say that when older brother is angry it's like coming home to a house where the gas has been leaking for several hours.


And that is why there won't be a war.  The US and S Korean governments have both made a point that this is a paper tiger, and that no one should be worried.  The only reason we are sending weapons is to appease the voters.  We also want to keep the N Koreans thinking that their threats are taken seriously, so they don't try and prove that they are serious.  That would be bad.

Hopefully you have stopped worrying.

-Riley and Margaret

This is a American made video that is essentially fake N Korean propaganda it may be funny depending on your sense of humor: Adventures of Kim Jeong Un

Back in South Korea

We just returned from a wonderful trip to the US where we saw lots and lots of friends and family.  I talked so much my throat got sore!  Besides being big and all the food tasting like butter, there were two other things about America that really stood out this time.  The first was the diversity of faces.  I kept wanting to just stare at all the people I met.  This would have been a little strange and creepy, so just glanced around a lot.  There are so many shapes and colors of people's faces!  I know I did not notice them before I left for Korea, but I miss the diversity and the fact that people treat you relatively equal (compared to Korea where across a lawn yesterday we were spied out as different by a pre-school class and they yelled out "hello" to us). 
The next thing about America that hit us this visit was the news media.  We knew what was going on with North Korea before we left, but we didn't realize how sensational it was being portrayed on the news.  No wonder people were concerned!  Over here, no one really cares too much about what is going on.  No one thinks that North Korea will attack at all.  Like the BBC said, the farther away you get from South Korea, the worse the news gets about North Korea.
Now we are back in our tiny apartment (which feels big to us) and life is back to normal.  We have already had our kimchi!

Riley's Beard Experiment

The "grad student/living in the woods" look

Last month, we had a discussion with some of our foreigner and Korean friends about why Koreans do not grow beards.  This came up because our Korean-American friend grew a massive beard and gets strange looks from other people.  People say Koreans don't have beards because they can't grow them, but we know this isn't true because every Korean drama set in the ancient times, as well as the famous Koreans on their money, all have beards.  The Koreans dressed up in historical clothes "guarding" the palace in Seoul even put on fake facial hair to look the part!

See, Koreans used to have nice beards! (and cool hats)

So why is it Koreans today rarely have beards?  We have heard two reasons:

1) Communists wear beards.  This was from an older Korean that said during the war, any North Korean left in South Korea had to live in the mountains to hide.  As everybody knows, living in the mountains causes you to grow a beard.  Thus, anyone with a beard was assumed to have come from the mountains and be a communist.

2) Girls think beards are dirty.  This may have come from the above reason originally, but the bottom line is Korean girls think guys with beards are dirty.

In light of this discovery, Riley decided to grow a beard to see people's reactions.  It so happened we attended a dinner where many of our friends we hadn't seen in a while gathered and saw Riley's beard for the first time.  The Koreans said "wow" and most at least said they liked it (some were being polite I think, but a couple of them watch too much American tv).  The foreigners didn't seem to notice much, except for one group.  All of our Chinese friends told him to shave.  One of our friend's first reaction was "have you not left the house all week?" 
In short, the experiment was a success!  We also discovered that Riley cannot pull off an Asian beard.  Alas, the beard and long hair had to come off due to a presentation this week, so Riley is back to normal.

Yummy stuff

Before I get into the delicious food we have found in Korea, I want to note some of the foods that did not get on either list.  This past week we had raw salmon, sea cucumber, jellyfish, and raw beef.  It wasn't horrible, so it doesn't make the nasty list.  However, they don't quite make the yummy list either.  Now for the yummy stuff...

Kimchi김치

The national food here is kimchi (fermented cabbage), and it is eaten at every meal, and Koreans love it about 3x as much as North Carolinians love their barbecue.   But when I first tasted it, it tasted rotten (probably because its fermented.)  But now I love it almost as much as NC barbecue.

Sam-gyahp-sal 삼겹살=Giant bacon stuff of paradise

This is probably my favorite food in Korea.  It is part food and part experience.  Because it is hard to sue people in Korea (both a good thing and a bad thing), resturaunts have little grills at the tables, so you can grill your own food just the way you like it.  It's like giant bacon!!!  I love bacon, but as an American I think bigger is better, so giant bacon is awesome.  It's also a balanced meal, so it's delicious and nutritious.  You grill it with onions and garlic, and when you are done grilling it, you cut it into little squares, and you take a square, and dip it in sauce, and put it inside a piece of lettuce, and add onion bean sprout and/or kimchi, and pop it in your mouth, and it is gooood.

Someone's pictures from a Samgyeopsal resturaunt 

I love you giant bacon!!!

Bibimbap 비빔밥 (Boiled rice) /Dolsotbab 돌솥밥 (StoneBowlRice) /Things with lots of side dishes

Rice with mixed vegitables is another one of our favorite Korean foods.  We don't eat it as much as Samgyapsal (giant bacon) or kimchi stew, but we do like it.   The first time we had this stuff, we were given a raw egg in a little bowl.  We were eating with Dr Yim (our boss), and we were wondering if we had come to Korea with a crazy man who eats raw eggs straight, but he and his wife showed us that you mix the egg with the rice, and the rice is so hot that it cooks the egg on the spot.  A traditional thing to do after the meal is to scrape the burnt rice out of the bottom of the stone bowl and eat it because it is crunchy and delicious.  I know it sounds strange, but don't knock it until you try it!

A resturaunt in Gongju

Mandu 만두 (Dumplings)

These are dumplings and they are delicious!  You can have them steamed or fried, and they can be filled with Kimchi or meat and onions, and they can be bite-sized or huge!  They are hard to make from scratch, but if we buy the wrapping at the store they're not hard to make at home--but the mandu lady makes the best ones, so we always get ours from her dumpling shop.  We found the shop during our first month in Korea, and the dumpling lady was always very gracious with all of Margaret's pointing and squeaking.  (Ironically all that pointing and squeaking that Margaret does, has come in very handy here in Korea when we don't know how to put things into words.)

The red ones are Kimchi and the green ones are onion.  Yum!

Kimbab--김밥--Literally translated as RiceSeaweed

This is one of the cheapest meals you can get in Korea.  In America, you'd probably call it a California Roll, but its not sushi here!  And if you call it Japanese, you will lose your talking privileges!  Its basically the Asian version of a ham sandwich with rice and seaweed wrapped around ham, cheese, egg, and random vegetables.  On field trips with Koreans we always eat it for breakfast.  Our favorite type is the triangle kimbab, which we buy at the convenience store for 80 cents a bab.

The Kim in kimbab is the green seaweed.  The bab in kimbab means rice.

Gross stuff

Food in  Korea is interesting.  Just like American food, some is awesome and some is disgusting.  I'll start with the gross stuff first.  Next week, we will have the delicious foods.

Our parents brought us up right.  Eat all the food on your plate--no questions asked.  Also, when someone gives us food, we feel obligated to eat all of it.  If it's gross, may be we'll come to like it in the end.  Other times, we wonder if we have some sort of psycological problem becasues we find our selves eating stuff that is totally gross--that we knew was gross to start with--and will continue to be gross after we are finished.  After all, insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result eventually.  Here are some gross foods we've encountered, and the sometimes awkward social situations that always accompany gross food.

Fermented crab

 Our landlady is a wonderful person.  She is always very kind and gracious, and she always has extra food to get rid of.  We have gotten many yummy things from her when we pay rent.  Once she even fed us dinner! But normally it is just some yummy fruit such as persimmons, apples or jujubes (yes they are a type of fruit, they taste kind of like tiny apples).

But one day we got some fermented crab (A Korean delicacy).  They said to eat it with rice, so we did, but it had a strong smell of ammonia and it was hard to eat and hard to breathe because of the smell.  It was squishy, and hard to crack open.   When we got done, we smelled like ammonia for the next several hours.  Incidentally, when we asked our Korean friends about this food, they said that they loved it.  Some times I really wonder about this country.

DARE Just say no.  Even though it is on a fancy plate and all the Koreans are eating it, stay away!

Raw sea squirt

Once we went out to eat with our lab group for a bonding experience.  We had lots of fun, and played kick volleyball (it's hard but its popular here.)  You lower the net so that the ball can actually make it over.  Anyway, since we were at the beach, we had to eat seafood.  So far, our seafood experiences hadn't been very positive, but this time we had roasted shellfish which wasn't that bad.  Of course, it being a special trip, we also had to have delicacies.  This means raw seafood.  We had raw fish and raw shrimp, but the weirdest one was the raw sea squirt.  It tasted like snot.

Squishy persimmon (감)

 Persimmons here are much bigger than in the US.  They taste like an pear, but with the texture and structure of a tomato.  They are very yummy.  One month our landlord gave us some to take with us, and we were happy.

The next month after paying rent, we got some older looking, squishy persimons.  Not wanting to be rude, we took them and thanked our kind landlord who is always good to us.  We wondered if we should eat them, and we decided we should because our ancestors didn't have refrigerators, and this is how they ate, and they probably survived on squishy fruit.  After all, jelly and jam are really just squishy fruit.  So we ate the squishy fruit, and despite being grossed out, it was good and sweet, and it was good to spread on toast--like jam.

But the next month after we paid rent, we got even older looking persimmons.  This time, they were even more shriveled, and they had white stuff on them!  Now we were thinking of how our ancestors had short lives--probably due to all that squishy fruit.  We decided that it was probably unhealthy to eat, and regretfully threw the squish fruit in the compost can.  Incidentally, a few months later, we saw some shriveled up fruit with white stuff on it in high-end packaging at the Seoul Train Station. 

Top: The yummy fresh persimmon
Bottom: The scary dried persimmon.  It may be
good for all we know, but we are too afraid to try

Boiled Seafood

On a trip with our chruch, we went to this island (SapShiDo), and while we were there, all of the a-joo-ma-s (Korean word for aunt) cooked us yummy food, and gave us the best stuff becasue we were foreigners who had never eaten it before.  It was all delicious, and we definately gained some weight.  But, on the way back everyone went to a seafood restaurant.  We did not know what we were getting, and we trusted that the food would be equally as delicious as what the a-joo-ma-s had cooked for us.  But...  we got boiled seafood.  It consists of all the yummy sea creatures that we normally eat along with some squid etc.  But what anyone who cooks seafood should know is that you should NEVER NEVER NEVER boil entire sea creatures.  The problem with boiled seafood is that all the gross stuff that is included in a sea creature gets dissolved and goes everywhere, and your tongue know this, and it is not pleasant to eat at all.  I (Riley) normally get a little sea sick on buses, and on the bus back, I was sea sick--but luckily nothing bad happened.

A Korean's Pictures of Yummy--Not boiled--Seafood

번데기 (bohn-dae-gee)

 One day we went to a spring festival to hang out with our friends and eat the street vendor food--which was delicious.  But we saw something that looked out of place--insects, so I got half a cup of them to try.  The first few tasted alright, but after about five of them Margaret decided to stop helping me eat them, and after about 10 of them, I started getting a stomach ache.  I finished the cup, and decided never to eat this type of insect again.

 Stay tuned!  

       Next week, we will tell you about our favorite foods!

"Gangnam Style" Explained

Since I have had this song stuck in my head most of today, I thought it would be a good time to finally explain what this South Korean piece of pop culture that made it across the world is all about.

If you do not already know, "Gangnam Style" is a song by Psy that is extremely catchy and comes with a new dance move where you pretend to be a cowboy.  However popular it became in the US, it is much more popular here.  You hear it in stores and on tv all the time, and every single child knows how to do the dance.

First of all, its pronounced "gahng-nahm" with the "a" from "father."  It has nothing whatsoever to do with gangs.  "Gangnam" or "Kangnam" is a neighborhood in Seoul where rich people live and work.  Its known for having lots of high-end expensive stores.  The name actually literally means "river south" or "south of the river" since it is located south of the Han River.  I have a Korean friend who told me that you know when you are in Gangnam because all the women look the same.  Apparently when you are rich you always get "the one most beautiful" kind of plastic surgery. 

 The actual content of the song is pretty basic.  Its a guy singing about what kind of girl (yo-jah) he likes and what kind of guy (nam-jah) he is.  There isn't anything bad or profane in it, and the chorus "oppan Gangnam style" just refers to himself (oppa = literally older brother, but usually its what girls call any guy older than her) acting like a person who lives in Gangnam (i.e. professional during the day and partying at night)

Maybe I should also explain "style."  This is a konglish (Korean + English) word that Koreans use to describe more than just a person's clothes.  It can also be a person's attitude or personality.  For example, if you met someone you would like to date instead of "they're my type" you would say "they're my style."

Gangnam Style is one of the better k-pop (Korean pop) songs that exists.  Riley and I aren't a big fan of most k-pop because to us it all sounds the same.  Its usually a group of girls or guys in weird outfits singing and dancing to a song about a girl or guy with random English phrases thrown in, like "shiny boy" or "I'm yours nobody." 

We do like Gangnam Style, though, and even though the craze is mostly over, I hope you now understand what its all about.

Oh yeah, I'm in a foreign country

Riley and I have been over here in South Korea for about about a year and a half.  We are used to the food, the tiny apartment (that feels big now), and can understand Korean enough to get around.  We have lots of friends from all over the world, and if English is their native language, we feel that we are almost from the same culture. 
This week I had an experience that made me realize how much I still don't know about the world.  I was discussing cooking breakfast for supper with a fiend of ours from Ghana (West Africa).  English is his native language and we watch the same television shows, so we assumed we were talking about the same food.  I asked him what he would cook for breakfast and he said it was probably the same as what I cook, eggs, toast, tuna fish salad...
It was then I realized we were not quite on the same page.  It turns out Ghanian breakfast is very different from American.  Yes, we both can eat pancakes and eggs, but they also eat sweet fried dough, yam and cassava dishes, and spicy porridge (with the occasional tuna salad sandwich).  The porridge part was interesting to me, since I picture porridge as oatmeal, but the pictures of their porridge was very different.  I found a way to make it using flour and had my friend taste it.  It was close enough to give me the idea of what porridge is to a Ghanian, its like pudding more than oatmeal.  Its very very smooth and not very thick.
Another interesting part was that Ghana has spring rolls, and my friend didn't know that China has them too.  We always assumed they were a Chinese food (we don't have them in Korea), but now we aren't so sure.  We are not really sure how they got to Ghana in the first place either.  We made some anyway, and they turned out delicious, wherever they are from.

Tea

Last weekend we had the opportunity to visit a tea house and have tea in the traditional style.  It was even more surprising when you hear we were in a modern apartment in a giant apartment building.  We had been invited to have dinner with a family from church, and after dinner he took us to a room in the house (between the kitchen and the library), where you go in and are immediately transported to a rural traditional tea house.  It was wood-paneled (even the ceiling) with the traditional doors and decorated with various tea cups, pots, and tea-related objects.  We sat on the floor and had the traditional 5 cups of green tea.  The tea was put in warmed cups and made new each cup (though the water was from an electric hot water heater).  The room was also decorated with traditional paintings by the wife's mother, and by sayings in Hanja (Korean written in Chinese).  We ate traditional Korean food you eat while drinking tea, sugary cheese doodles without the cheese and sweet potato bites covered in sugar.  It was nice and relaxing.
Leaving the room back to the hallway was like stepping forward in time to modern Korea.

We finally went to Jeju-do!

The week after New Year's our boss told us to take a much needed vacation.  So, where do you go in winter on a short schedule? Jeju Island!  This little island is south of Korea.  They like to call it the Hawaii of Korea, but its more like the Florida and South Georgia of Korea.  It does have lots of volcanic rocks, but its not quite tropical.  We decided to take the ferry there to add more to our trip.  Riley had never been on a boat that long.  It was called the Pink Dolphin.  It was a small ferry with only passengers, so it went really fast.  This was nice to get there, but we both got a little seasick on the way.

This is supposed to be a dragon that was turned to stone for stealing something from the mountain god

Jeju has palmettos and volcanic rock everywhere.  Also, there is fish everywhere.  In front of every seafood restaurant there are usually fish or octopus, but in Jeju they were much bigger than I was used to.  The first evening we wandered down the waterfront past the restaurants and Ramada Inn Casino to see a lava rock in the ocean that is supposed to look like a dragon.

Lava Tube!

We traveled on the bus the next day to explore lava tubes.  The bus let us off about a mile from the lava tubes and we got to walk though a rural country side with woods and birds.  It was really nice.  The tubes were neat, and we ran into the one touristy place we went, a giant maze of hedges.  We even got lost!  I kept expecting to run into a spinx.

Riley lost in the maze

Then we headed off to one of the most photographed places on the island.  Its a volcanic crater off the coast.  Its almost an island,but its eroded its way back to the mainland.  You can climb up the side and watch the sunrise on the stands on the edge (its called Sunrise Peak).  It was really beautiful, but it seems smaller the closer you get to it.

Sunrise Mountain.  Believe it or not, the trail to the top is only 1km.

 The next day we headed off across the island past the Teddy Bear Museum, the Citrus Museum, the Glass Castle, horseback riding, Riply's Believe it or Not, and various other tourist traps.  This is one of the most popular vacation places for Koreans, so there are many places that cost lots of money.  We decided to go to our own tourist spot, McDonald's breakfast!  It was right next to our hotel, and real sausage was amazing!

Look!  Hashbrowns!  Real creamer!

The south side of the island was really nice.  It had a lazy feel to it with little islands of the coast and nice cliffs with a few waterfalls into the ocean.  We traveled to some cliffs that looked like french fries.  Somehow, cooling lava forms the shapes as it cools.

French fry cliffs

The next day we climbed the highest mountain in Korea, the dormant volcano that created Jeju Island in the first place.  Luckily, the bus drops you off halfway up.  We got up early and started as the sun came up.  It was covered in snow.  A beautiful 9.6 km trek through the woods.  There were lots of people with us, but the only animals I could see were these large crows that would sit in trees near the trails and stare at you, waiting to see if you would make it.  You had to make it mostly up the mountain by 12pm or they wouldn't let you up that last 2 km to the rim of the crater.  We did make it, and we ate lunch at the top.  You could see the edge of the whole island from the top.  The crater was huge and had a frozen lake in the middle.  Then we hiked the 9.6 km back.  There was a little mountain with a crater on the way down.  It had the best view of what we had just climbed.

Flat woods!  Don't be fooled, there were a lot of people on this trail.

Riley above the tree line

We made it to the crater!  I'm glad its dormant, its huge!

Where we just climbed.  Going down was a lot faster than going up.

Our last day we had a little more time.  So, we decided to go to a 800 year old forest to pass the time.  This is the only forest of its kind in the world.  The tree is called nutmeg, but its related to the yews.  The forest was really old and peaceful.  The trees were used for oil from their nuts, and the wood is very beautiful.  The wood was used to make a board for a game as a present for the king.  The king liked this wood so much, he declared this forest to be preserved.  Thus, the very old forest.

Old trees!

Then we hopped on the ferry and headed back.  We knew the ferry would be bigger because it held cars, but we didn't expect the seven eleven, cafeteria, bakery, coffee shop, concert, and arcade.  It was like being on a cruise.  We couldn't hardly feel the waves.  The dining room even had chandeliers on the ceiling.  We didn't get seat, but were assigned to a small room with about 10 other people to sit on the floor (or sleep as several of our fellow passengers did).  It was a very nice way to finish off our trip to Jeju!

The dining room on the ferry boat.

 Our trip to Jeju was a nice refresher to many of the things we miss here in Korea: flat woods, old woods, and sausage for breakfast!