Archive for August, 2009
Chicken on a Hot Day
02 years ago
by JR
in Korea and Culture
Koreans have few certain types of the food that they eat on hot days. One of those is Bosintang 보신탕, which is dog meat soup, and the one that I will eat is samgyetang 삼계탕. It is basically a boiled stuffed chicken. The chicken is stuffed with rice, ginseng, fruit, garlic, and ginger. The soup if my favorite part. We have not had this dish for a couple of years. We just haven’t had a chance to eat it. JJ found this restaurant online and we got a call taxi to help us find it. If you live in Dongtan and want to check out this restaurant check out the map at the bottom. If you read Korean, you can check out this blogger’s review of the place. You can also check out the restaurant’s homepage here. If you are in Dongtan and can’t find it and wanna give them a call their number is 031-8003-3340This is one of my favorite Korean foods and I really hope that I have a chance to enjoy it one more time before we leave. I always feel like the chicken is undercooked, but have never gotten sick from it. Maybe, I am just paranoid. The whole meal is relatively cheap with the two of us eating for only 20,000 won.
Saying Goodbye For Now
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Having lived in Korea for over four years, I have said goodbye to a lot of friends. It actually does get eaiser as you come to expect that when you meet somebody you will eventually see them leave, especially if you have been here as long as me. Patrick and Alex have been here for almost a year and half now and we have become very good friends with them. Alex and I taught at my school and she was always willing to lend an ear to hear me bitch, moan, groan or gossip. Patrick and I are both addicted to photography and between the two of us there is no telling how much we have spent on camera gear. They will leave next week on a great European/Euroasia tour. I know that I will be keeping up with them via facebook and Alex’s blog.
We met them in Gangnam and ventured down to Castle Praha. Which if you have never been, you should check out. There are two locations. It seems that the Hongdae location is modeled after a castle. The Gangnam location is in the basement of the Pagoda building. You have to walk down a few flights of stairs to get to there. We ordered a couple of meters of their beer and had some overpriced food. The beer was pretty good, but they could have served bigger portions of food. We caught the bus back to Dongtan and decided to have some more beer and food.
We spent most of the time talking about our road trip. See we have decided to meet them in Denver and go on a little excursion. This started out as a simple trip to Las Vegas, but has morphed into a unbelievable trip across America. We kept adding new locations and before long JJ had to cut us off and decided that we can’t see everything on one trip. We don’t have much of the details worked out, but it was great talking about it and I am happy that we will be able to see them in the States.
Army Soup
32 years ago
by JR
in Korea and Culture
A couple a times a month JJ and I head to our favorite 부대찌개 budae jjigae restaurant which is a short walk from our house. This is a spicy dish that has pretty much everything in it. Rice cake, onions, cabbage, hot dogs, hamburger meat, spam, green onion, bean sprouts, mushrooms, tofu, kimchi, ramyeon, cheese, and made really spicy with the gochujang (고추장) or red pepper paste. . If you have never tried it, it probably doesn’t sound that appetizing. The soup has a great story behind it. During the war, when Korean people were very poor, they would take the scraps from the US army to make this soup; hence the name of army soup. You can read more about it here .
We had to order one of my favorite Korean drinks, Makegolli ( 막걸리). I don’t know if I really like it that much or if I just really like the way that it is served. I love drinking out of the kettle and metal dish. I usually only order this when we have Korean pancakes or pajeon, but I’m on vacation and a little makegolli never hurt anyone. I actually had this twice yesterday. We had dinner with some friends and ended up having some more with our pajeon.
Last Day Before Vacation
02 years ago
by JR
in Korea and Culture
My vacation has been moved to the middle of the week due to JJ’s mom’s schedule. I will spend the next couple of days getting some more dental work done(Yea!) and getting more of my winter clothes ready to be shipped home. I am also in the process of planning a great road trip for JJ and I when we get home.
The photo above was taken of a class that I have had for almost 6 months now. They were an interesting group of kids. The kid that is pointing at my head is on his last day at our school. I guess that is why he felt so brave. My Korean teacher felt like they deserved pizza, so she went out and bought it for them. I don’t know who was more excited about going on vacation me or them.
This class is having their class time changed. It has really caused a burden with the parents. Maybe 50% of the students in this class will leave our school. I ran into one of the students with his mom after class. She made me feel great. She complained that her son had really started to work hard in my class because of me pushing him. She was really upset that they were changing his teacher and time. She asked me to teach him privately. Her son interrupted and told his mom that I was leaving for America in 2 months and that I could not teach him for very
J7 class at break time. They are playing with the class clown
long. I was actually on my way back to school after a quick break and was walking back to the school while having this conversation. The mother tried to drag me into a sushi restaurant to have dinner with her and her family. After much protesting, she finally understood that I had to be back in class in 5 minutes and she reluctantly let me go. Sometimes my students parents can be a real pain, but she seemed to really appreciate what I have done for her son’s education.
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