Dance Master’s Delight

So we were just on vacation for eleven days wherein we did nothing much, hung around, drank coffee, chilled, read books, and intended every day to catch up on posting, uploading pictures, and generally keeping our fan up to date on the goings-on of our final days here in Korea.  Alas, we never did.  Because we were too busy not doing anything productive whatsoever.

On another note, Hillstate, the giant construction project located directly across the street from our apartment, is officially almost complete. This is due largely to the efforts of the diligent construction workers that like to start every day of the week (and weekends!) at 7 am by dropping 1 or 2 scaffolding pipes on the ground ever 10 to 20 seconds for 2 hours before taking a well earned break.

The signal that construction is nearly complete? The first delivery of kimchi refrigerators.

Keeping your kimchi fresh.

From LG in a variety of colors to suit your lifestyle--the new Dios Built-In.

A view of a section of Hillstate including scaffolding pipes.

Health Food!

Most days, one kid or another’s mom drops off some sort of food for the teachers. Most of the time it’s a sugary sweet treat, but this week somebody cared enough to bring us health food. With vitamins even!

*Non-nutrative food varnish and flavor enhancer may increase risk of heart disease, rectal leakage, and space madness.

The Refreshing Taste of Pine

Last week I went to the store to pick up something bubbly. Right next to the grape pop that I was looking for, there were a few cans of this stuff sitting there and looking lonely. So I bought one.

“Since there are so few on the shelf, maybe beverages infused with the taste of pine needles are delicious,” I thought.

After a few days sitting in the fridge, we decided to crack it open. The slightly greenish liquid appeared innocuous, but its scent reminded us less of a forest breeze, and more of Pinesol. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much what it tasted like, too. Not that we’ve tasted a lot of Pinesol. Maybe it is an acquired taste.

Attention

Cream of Coconut is not Coconut Milk.

Eating a Persimmon

Not a tomato.

This is a persimmon.  We hadn’t seen too many of these things before we came to Korea and neither of us had ever tried one. When we got one in a fruit basket from one of our students as a gift for Chuseok, we didn’t really know what to make of it. The thing was rock hard, but it looked ripe, so we tried eating it. The pulp of the fruit looked like coffee grounds, had a horrible gritty texture, and tasted like nothing.

Undeterred, we got some help from our friendly local organic grocer and ended up with this jewel:

A ripe persimmon.

Apparently, this particular variety of persimmon is not actually good to eat until it feels more or less like a water balloon. The insides of this one were sparkling orange, had the texture of smooth custard, and tasted kind of like a not too sweet vanilla pudding. Very tasty and incredibly messy.

Sticky and sweet.

Gooey.

Aaaaah, Brewskies

A delicious and nutritious bevvie we call "My Other Lover."

It's good in bed, too.

These are oldies but goodies (greaties?) of our first homebrewed beer.  It was a stout and it was delicious and we miss it something awful.  We miss the rug we detroyed in the process of making this little darling, too.

Here’s a picture advertising the beer we have the most immediate access to here in Korea.  I’m pretty sure “Tok” means “pee-pee flavored.”

"Fresh" in this case means "made yesterday and has no possible chance of having any flavor."

A Great Weekend

Last Saturday we were shopping in Seoul and heard these guys playing:

and did some sight-seeing which was cute pretty:

And then dinner in Jookers which was downright yummers, complete with salad, pizza, and a glass of wine. No pig’s bladder tonight, people!!!

And finally a ride in this, which was great because there’s no better way to end the day than by saying “F*%k you” to poor people:

Surprise Party

A package arrived on Tuesday that could best be described as awesome. It contained a complete birthday party in a box. Tiny candle-holders, tiny candles, balloons, a streamer, cards, pecan bars, and a simply magnificent pound cake. Excellent.

Glorious.

Better Than Adequate for Human Existence

Today was the first day that the weather didn’t make us look like we fell into a swimming pool by the time we got to school. We normally face one of two realities in the morning: 1) sauna-like conditions that leave us soggy with sweat and smelling like week-old ham or 2) horizontal rain against which our umbrellas valiantly fail to provide any protection. Today there was no rain. It was sunny, but I didn’t sweat. At lunch time there was a hint of coolness in the air. After work it was actually even more pleasant. For the first time since June 11th, I was not covered in a layer of sweat all day long. This is a severely under-appreciated experience in the glorious dry Colorado air back home.

A further weather note: Helga, I noticed that it was 27.3 degrees C at the pizza shop on Daecheon Beach on Sunday afternoon. It felt hotter.

I was almost too preoccupied to notice however, as a new inconvenience has come to demand much of my attention in the last few days. My handler says that I’m not allowed to talk about it, but here is a picture of one of the items I picked up at lunch on the daily coffee run:

Korean pharmacies are great.

It’d really be great if they can counteract all the rice gluten. Either way, there’ll be a lot of cabbage on the menu for the foreseeable future.

Let’s Take a Moment to Thank Ol’ Swaddling Cloth for a Safe Return

And Here’s Why:

I don’t know if you can tell, but the driver of THIS taxi don’t need no one telling him what to do, or where to go, or what a RED LIGHT means. If he wants to watch women’s Olympic Handball while, no, wait, there’s a channel change/lane change, no, not sitcoms…commercial…commercial…HONK…o.k. um…women’s handball again….FINE, women’s…SWERVE…handball it is…well by gosh far be it from ME to tell a man when and when he can’t watch television. I’ll just sit back quietly and pretend that I could not care less about dying. After all, we would be ending on a high note. We were at the beach all weekend.

And what a great time it was! We stayed at a bunker with wallpaper small motel…

…which was right, RIGHT off the water, which also means right, RIGHT off the swarms of people and the various sea life those people eat. It was cool to be part of this world for the weekend. I don’t need to mention here that we lived off of pizza.

Afore Mentioned Various Sea Life:

And just to clarify, that’s shark, sea penis, and two entire schools of fish.