So the other day I was telling a friend about this lady in Colorado that makes yarn out of her pet dog’s fur. And then this from a website we visit daily, as told. And you know what, why not? If we can take hair from a total stranger and wear it, why not from our beloveds?
Just hope it doesn’t rain or snow when you’re wearing your new sweater.
Yesterday we went on a field trip with our kindergarteners to Milk School. Milk school. To learn about milk. One thing I already know about milk–it’s gross. But not everyone thinks this. Some people love it:
Especially this cow, I’m sure. She was probably wishing she was a mule deer, or a gazelle. No one does this to a mule deer. She was stuck in there all day, enduring this:
That blue leather jacket he’s wearing came from her sister, Bessie. Kinda messed up.
But it was great to be outdoors with these kids. When no one was looking, we actually ran around together and looked for bugs and got a little dirty. It. Was. Awesome. We got to feed baby cows (called CALVES, teacher), have a picnic, go for a tractor ride, make ice cream, and breathe in the fresh fall air. And we were chauffered by this number which made the trip there and back so freakin’ classy:
Note the detail work in the velcroed-on novelty curtains. What you regrettably do not see in this picture is the flashing yellow, pink, and powder blue light show on the ceiling of this blue beauty that started up every 20 or so seconds. I. Mean. Wow
In other news, we have a wedding to attend this weekend, and we will be doing a little shopping for that and other sundries. A nice relaxing weekend, especially now that we don’t feel like crying every time we step foot outside. We actually had to wear jackets yesterday, which brings a little tear of joy to my eye.
Buddies, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
Eric (on the left) and Bryan are largely inseparable. Except when I make them sit on opposite sides of the room so that they have a chance of paying attention in class. Here they’re busy making songpyeon.
I got my hair cut yesterday and it did not end in tears. But really, it couldn’t have been worse than it was. My homemade haircut’s novelty was wearing thin, and now I have real layers and a real chance of being asked to the Fall Dance.
On Saturday we chilled at home and by that I mean played dress-up and took pictures:
This is actually an “after” picture–Jake wanted to show just how much weight he’s lost since he bought this t-shirt–over 200 pounds!! Either that or his mom bought this for him thinking he was 3 times bigger than he really is. Which is kinda cute if you think about it.
Yeongjongdo Wharf, the A**hole of Korea, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
We were trying to get to a beach somewhere in Korea while my mom was visiting. I put together a plan to go to a beach on the western end of Yeongjongdo Island, the island where Incheon Airport is located. After a late start, the plan went pretty smoothly until we reached Yeongjongdo Wharf on the eastern end of the island and discovered that the place was significantly nastier than described in the Lonely Planet guide to Korea. The plan was to catch a bus from the Wharf to the beach, but…let’s just say we didn’t make it to the beach.
When we got to work the next day and told the Korean staff where we had taken my mom, they gasped in unison and said, “You went to Yeongjongdo? No one goes there!”
The wharf itself is rather run-down looking. There are a handful of fishmongers lined up next to a few tall corrugated metal walls that sort of act to block the moldering ruins located just behind them. The walls do nothing for the pervading smell of old urine and drying fish. If you’re thinking that these ruins are left over from the Korean War, they’re not. Plenty of evidence suggested that they were of more recent construction. I guess this area just hasn’t received much benefit from Korea’s economic growth. I can’t say that it was a lot of fun to visit Yeongjongdo, but we did get to see something that probably few tourists in Korea see.
That being said, if, for some reason, you should decide to go to Yeongjongdo Wharf, be sure to bring a lot of toilet paper. And get a tetanus shot.
Traditional Hanbok, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
This weekend is Chuseok, one of the biggest holidays in Korea. It’s kind of on par with Thanksgiving in the States. However, instead of sitting around all day while watching football, drinking beer, and eating their weight in potatoes, Koreans dress up in colorful outfits called hanbok and go visit their parents.
We presume they then spend the day kneeling on the floor, drinking soju, and eating their weight in kim chi.
This week our kindergarteners came to school wearing hanbok a couple of days before the holiday. We responded by calling them cute and feeding them sugar and songpyeon. The kids then proceeded to lose their minds, run around in circles, and wonder why they had to come back to school on Friday.
On a side note, I’ve trained my kids to say “traditional Korean dress” instead of “hanbok,” since any time someone says a Korean word like “in-line skates” or “potato chip” around them, they spend the next 5 minutes singing “uh-uh-uhhh Ko-rean, uh-uh-uhhh Ko-rean” over and over.
Sausage While-U-Wait, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
There are easily 20 little restaurants/butcher shops like this in the…food court or whatever you might call it at the Dongdaemun Market. The ladies running the stands were busy simultaneously making sausage and serving food to hungry people like this guy who had a craving for pig nostrils.
Fancy Pants, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
While walking over to Jookjeon Station, we came across this specimen, dressed to kill. The wrapped bundles in the web are evidence of earlier success. Some things not evident in this picture:
1. This spider is 2-3 inches long.
2. The web was just above our heads.
3. The web was over a sidewalk.
4. This was not the only spider in the web.
5. This was not the only web in that tree.
6. This was not the only tree on that street.
7. To keep all those spiders fat and happy, there must be an awful lot of bugs around here.
8. It’s hard to get a clear shot when your skin is trying to crawl off your body.
Hi there,
your auntie is old so it took her like 2 days to figure out how to post a video on this here blog. Turns out it accepts jpegs, mifs, docs, coms, rifs, dofs, and difs, but DEFINITELY NOT movs, so there’s your problem right there. Duh. What’s funny is that this probably makes sense to you. Love you little dude.
Kim Chi, originally uploaded by Jake & Kristin.
To my surprise, I’ve actually come to crave kim chi from time to time.
I always thought that kim chi was just spicy pickled cabbage, but it’s really much more than that. You can make it out of any type of vegetable, it can range from throat-searing spicy to safe-for-babies mild, it isn’t always super stinky, it’s really more pickled and fermented, and it does indeed cure some ailments, like hunger, one way or another.
Some of it is terrible, but some of it is really awesome, like the kim chi at a Korean soup restaurant near our school. A few leaves added to a bowl of soup is plenty to spice up the whole thing. I think that is at least one thing we’ll miss when we go home.
K
J
