kimchi

Fall here in Korea means Kimchi making time, and for our trusty band of foreigners that meant getting together the ingredients and heading over to Paul and Aubry's house so that we could make this staple of Korean Cuisine.
For those of you who may live in a black hole and not know about kimchi it is a slightly spicy fermented cabbage dish that is served at literally every Korean meal from breakfast to a late night snack.
While the main ingredients of chili powder, fish sauce, dicon, and cabbage stay basically the same, the periphery ingredients can include all manner of seafood and other asian vegetables. Even though it takes a little while to get used to for some people it almost invariably grows on people and you get to the point where you cannot envision a meal without it.
Pictures-
1. The ingredients we would be using.
2. The sacred red pepper powder, a stable of every, and I mean every, dish in the Korean cookbook.
3. At work, mixing up the goodness.
4. The finished product.
5. Ruthie sampling

thanksgiving one

Thanks to the greatness of Costco we were able to have thanksgiving party at ECC, where Ruthie works, with all the trimmings. It was great to have turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, and everything else people brought from steamed pumpkin to Etheopian grain (thanks Jen!) A totally awesome thanksgiving with some great friends.

pictures

1. The sacred bird

2. The table all layed out.

3. Everyone ready to eat, Brits, South Africans, and Americans.

4. Brian holding the newest addition to his family.

thanskgiving two

Ah Thanksgiving, a time for friends, family and everyone to be togethor. Unless of course you live in Korea and you can leave the family out of the equation and have a pot luck. Anyway, both thanksgiving celebrations that I went to were really nice international affairs bringing together Americans, Brits, Canucks, and of course, the obligitory Koreans. Good times were had by all.

At this celebration at Paul and Aubs we had pizza, roast chicken, stuffing, a lot, and I mean alot, of mashed spuds, three differant kinds of salad, gravy, and my pastry filled sausage rolls, along with pumpkin pie and cheese cake.

Pictures-

1. Ruthie getting ready to eat chicken.

2. Babbi, Kelsey, and Rebacca

3. A portion of the mass of food on the table

4. Seaumus ogles a really nice piece of cheese cake all dressed up.

up on scary mountain

I wish I could take credit for this post but Ruthie gave such a good description of life up on Scary Mountain that I decided to just use hers, it is better than I could do anyway.

Hi, All!
It has, yet again, been quite awhile since I have updated everyone on my travels. After the weekend I just had it is a good idea to let you all that I am happy, healthy, and still enjoying myself. Two amazing things happened to me this weekend, the second of which changed my life and made me part of a very "elite" club that I am not sure I am proud to be a member of... read on, if you think you can handle it!
On Saturday, Ara and I decided to take a drive up north to an area called the Punchbowl. This is an area famous for a huge battle that was fought during the Korean War. It is named the "punchbowl" because it is surrounded on all sides by mountains, and does indeed resemble a bowl. It was a beautiful drive and we stopped frequently to take pictures and sample homemade mandu (wontons) at a road side stand. Around 2pm we decided to try and find a quaint place to enjoy some traditional Korean food. We needed to head south towards Inje, which is one town away from Sokcho to the north. Ara gave me the choice of taking the high road through the mountains or continuing back the same way we came. I thought the mountains might provide us with some beautiful photo ops of the Punchbowl, so I chose the high road. I guess I am taking all responsibility by saying that...haha
Everything was going great, and we were having a blast singing along with his iPod- until we were more than half way up the mountain. It had been lightly snowing the whole time were in the Punchbowl, but we didn't think anything about it because we are both from places that get a lot of snow. The snow was not laying on the ground and I didn't figure the fact of snow into my decision to go into the mountains (in my defense). Anyway- here we were, half way up a mountain and all of a sudden it starts snowing really, really, really hard. Ara eased up on the engine and we started getting nervous when we came upon a parked car that took off in front of us and couldn't stop from fish tailing. The car pulled off shortly and we continued on at a very slow pace. Things went from bad to worse when the white out conditions started as we reached the peak. I convinced Ara that I should drive because I have more experience driving on hills in snow, although my track record for driving in the snow is not that great, he consented and along we went- for another 200ft. As we rounded a bend we were approached by a police man who told us in broken English that we could wait for an hour to go down or we could turn around and go back. As we were trying to communicate with him, Ara looked in the rear view mirror to see an Army truck doing donuts behind us in an attempt to stop.
The Koreans decided to sit and wait for an hour and we decided to not let things get worse- we wanted out while the getting was not too awful. On the way back down we flagged down the few cars that were trying to do the same thing we had been and told them the road was closed in our very limited Korean. They all seemed surprised, although we couldn't decide if their surprise was from the fact that foreigners were actually speaking Korean to them or if the road was closed even though they couldn't even see it...
We dubbed the mountain "Scary Mountain," and changed the words to old songs on the way back down professing our undying respect for this snow covered death trap. This lifted our spirits and calmed our shaky nerves. On the right side of the road was a drop off that we could not see the bottom of, and the switch backs were unrelenting, as they had been on our sojourn up.
Forty-five minutes later we finally reached the bottom of the Punchbowl safely, and were surprised to see that it had not started snowing any harder than it had been when we started up. This time Ara made the decision to take the generally flat road back to Inje.
The next item for business was finding some place to eat. I had noticed a small little mom-n-pop on the way and when I saw it again, I suggested that we stop here for dinner. Once again, I am assuming responsibility for this decision and the "elite" club to which we are now members...
We walked into the restaurant confidently, and did our best to read the sign in Hangul. By the looks of the tables we were in a traditional Korean-style BBQ place were the meat is cooked in the center of the table in front of you. I might add that the sign indicated that this was a "Best Restaurant Eatery." We had never been let down by these signs before so we decided to stay and give it a try. Neither Ara nor I recognized any of the names of the dishes, but this is not unusual. We were greeted warmly by the owners and tried our best to tell them what we wanted. We ended up getting "tang" or stew-like soup.
Once the meal arrived we were so hungry that we both dug right in, and were soon singing the praises of this delicious stew. We both commented a couple of times about how lucky we were to have stopped at the first place we saw and get such a great meal on a chance... after our hunger had been satisfied a little we both started to wonder out loud what kind of meat it was. Upon first glance it looked like beef, but it was way too stringy and soft to be beef. Ara thought it might be pork, but there was skin still attached to some of the pieces and it was way too oily to be pork. I kinda got sick at the idea that we might be eating pork in which the skin had been left on. That is so dirty!
We ruled out other meat options and both stopped and looked at each other with horror in our eyes- we both realized at the same time that we were eating- AND ENJOYING!!! dog meat. To be sure, Ara called a friend of his who is fluent in Korean and has tasted dog before, and asked him to describe what a tasty bowl of dog soup would look like. He described exactly what we were enjoying and raving about. To be sure, Ara took a picture of the sign on his cell phone and sent it to his friend. The text message that came back read, "You monsters-you just ate dog- welcome to the club you horrible people!"
Under any other circumstances I don't think I would have ever tried dog, but now that I know what I am missing... I find myself eyeing up every little dog who crosses my path, thinking, I wonder... JUST KIDDING!!!!! To be honest I feel guilty for enjoying it as much as I did.
Well that was my adventure. I hope that you can find it in your hearts to keep me as a friend, even though I am a dog eater.
Hope all is well in the West. Have a wonderful holiday season!
Pictures

1. You have to both weigh limits on your signs here in the ROK both tank and truck. You never know when the Norks are going to attack.

2. Korea in the depths of winter.

3. Up on Scary Mountain.

4. What can happen if you go off the wrong side of Scary Mountain.

5. Ruthie, trying to figure out directions.

dog goodness

So here are some pictures of the wonderful puppy soup. And I am not kidding, it was really freaking good. A little oily and greasy, puppy is not known as a very lean meat but really tender. I think that they cook Fido a really long time to get it so soft. They also leave the skin on, this can be a little bit disturbing but over all, a great soup, not really spicy at all but good and hot. As with all foods in Korea it is served with kimchi, in this place we had three kinds, cabbage, radish, and water, onions and peppers to dip into red bean paste, rice, and some sort of sauce to dip the meat into.

Pictures

1. The spread all laid out.

2. Ruthie freaking out for some unknown reason

3. The soupy goodness.

A little Boat Trip

Well, since the lovely town of Sokcho sits on the now frigid East Sea, (Sea of Japan for those of you not influenced by Korean propaganda), there are a few boats that take tourists and locals up and down the coast for short sight seeing excursions. Because it is winter now and the fares for these little trips have been cut in half, due to the numbers of tourists dropping thanks to the cold weather, Ruthie, Ashley, Amy, Toby, and I decided to head out Saturday with a few bottles of soju (we had to keep warm somehow) on a little boat ride.
The day was a mixture of clouds and sun as we pulled away from the pier on the salt water lagoon called Chunchon-ho that sits in front of my house and we quickly made friends with the few other people on the boat, from the screaming women who seemed to have gotten ahold of some sort of bottled spirit of the lord, to the man who kept sharing his mushroom wine with us and saying how good America was.
The boat ride itself only took and hour or so but we got to see a view of Sokcho that we have not been able to see, due to the simple fact that none of us really has access to a boat. It was a really good time and after a few, okay many, bottles of soju and mushroom wine we finally wobbled off of the dock and headed out to eat, our appetites really enhanced from the cold sea air.
Pictures-
1. The merry crew getting ready to pull away from the dock
2. Heading out of the lagoon, the skyline of Sokcho, along with a few dozen squid boats.
3. A view from the stern, mountains, water, and alot of sea gulls following the trail of shrimp chips generously thrown over the side.
4. Heading in, the bridge to nowhere, (which is being extended to actually go somewhere!), and the Tabek Mountains.
5. Just a chance shot of a couple of local kids playing vids outside of a local stationary store.

the dmz

Last Saturday Paul, Aubrey, Ruthie, and I rented a Hyundai Sonata and drove to the far western part of Gangwon-do, about a three hour trip to check out the fall colours and sights of the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas.
After a quick stop at McDonald's in Chuncheon, none of us had had and egg mcmuffin for a year, and a couple slight detours we finally made it up to the border and the start of the security checkpoints.
After clearing the first checkpoint we made our way to where we could go into the main security area but were turned back by the soldiers who told us that we needed to obtain a permit first. We almost gave up and were driving around a little when I saw a sign for the town where said permit could be obtained and, when we realized it was pretty close, we headed over and were able to join that days last caravan heading north.
After checking in and having our passports checked and copied we joined a long line of cars and headed into the forbidden zone.
If there is one thing about the D.M.Z. that is truly amazing, other than the high security, the feeling of being watched, and the thought that all around you are thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, it is that everywhere you look you see all kinds of wildlife. Cranes, ducks, and geese filled the fields and the skies as they ate their fill of grain that they gleaned from the empty fields after the harvest.
The tour we were on passed through rice fields and small hills with many trees on its way to the first infiltration tunnel.
The D.P.R.K. has built many of these tunnels under the D.M.Z. to facilitate troop movement during and invasion. While four of them have been discovered there are supposed to be upwards of ten more that have not been.
After heading down some very steep stairs we finally reached the end of the tunnel, going down a long shaft with dripping water everywhere. While it was not really cool we were only 300 meters from North Korean soil.
After leaving the tunnel we went to an observatory to overlook the D.M.Z. Again, not much to see but soldiers and guns but across a line of trenches and barbed wire was the D.M.Z. and very close, so close you could almost touch it, was the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea
pictures
1. Very near the border, about seven miles from the D.P.R.K.
2. Getting ready to go through a checkpoint into the forbidden zone.
3. Deep in the tunnel a sign lets you know that the war is not over.
4. The entrance to the second infiltration tunnel.
5. That line of wire marks the southern boundary of the D.M.Z. and that little road is the only way in.