Brunch

On Sunday I had the girlies over for a potluck brunch, which was just lovely. As you can see, we had soooo much food, and it was all delicious!
It was so warm out, we decided to meet up with a few of the fellas and spend the afternoon in a nearby park:
And...spring is springing here in Korea! These trees are everywhere, full of huge, cream-coloured flowers! I also saw purple Azaleas in bloom on the mountain! Yahooooooooo!

Oh My Land

It was strange weather today!

The morning was hazy, as I mentioned in previous post. In the afternoon I was sitting in a Korean friend's apartment. She has huge windows (floor to ceiling glass doors leading to a balcony). All of a sudden, the sky turned a very dark, dirty YELLOW, the wind picked up, and it started to hail, thunder, and lightning! Her kids all started exclaiming in Korean, and the only word I could understand was "Gobi," as in the Gobi Desert in northern China. They all knew exactly why it was yellow out. Yuck! I wish I had a picture of that sky. I've never seen anything like it. Felt like end times.

In related news, I have a sore throat today...guess my throat doesn't like eating dust. :)

Yellow Dust

The desert has rolled into town.

Every year, spring wind storms blow the deserts of China and northern Mongolia into Korea. Last year was the worst storm in four years. So, in addition to the smog, the air fills with the tiniest particles of what is called yellow dust. Although you can't really notice it when you are breathing, you are basically inhaling dirt and sand, and risking your respiratory health.

Yesterday was the first bad day of yellow dust. Take a look at what the RAINDROPS left on this car after they dried (this car did not get splashed by mud):

This is what the haze looked like yesterday:
And today:

Sorry, I know those aren't the best pictures, but take my word for it, it's hard to see the nearby mountains...very hazy.

So, nothing doing, this morning I went out and decided to join the fashion parade:
I can mail some masks to Canada for anyone feeling left out. I can even get different colours, and prints for kids.

Do you see a difference?

I see a difference!

"Before" Number 1:
"After" Number 1 a) daytime:

b) nighttime:

"Before" Number 2:
"After" Number 2:
Yahoo for not living in a hole anymore! I love my apartment.

Gyeyang by Moonlight

The sun set hours ago; the mountain is a silent, dark shadow against the haze of sky-glow, unnoticed by the masses of young people moving through the city on this weekend evening. I make my way to the base, adjust my hiking poles, strap on my newly-purchased headlamp, and begin my ascent. The air is cool, but heavy and humid. It reminds me of my childhood on Brier Island; damp and foggy. I am surprised by the amount of light; the headlamp proves largely unnecessary for the climb. Five minutes in, I hear two hikers coming toward me; I am delighted. One can speak English and tells me of Korea's number one mountain: Sorak. I repeat it over and over so that I can look it up later. The two men say good-bye and I continue on.

There is no breeze tonight. The crescent moon hangs low over the peak, its glow softened by the mist. Every now and again I pause to see if I can hear other hikers, but nothing moves. The higher I go, the quieter it gets. Or should I say, the more the sounds of the city merge into a background hum. I feel as though all below has become a collective; one breathing, thinking, glowing entity. I pause often to take in the clusters and lines of tiny bulbs and large black shadows that I know are mountains and fields. Massive highways dotted by parallel rows of twinkling, orange lights snake away into the distance, often rising toward the heavens before disappearing. What funny things we are...creating our own dirty haze to mimic the sun, shutting out the gentle light of the stars and moon.

I do not meet another hiker. The summit is lovely and breezy and refreshing. I look toward Seoul, toward North Korea, toward Incheon, toward the sea. It is pleasant to be here alone. I would like to stay, but time is getting on. The descent is slightly trickier and I am glad for my poles and lamp. I leave this familiar mass of rock, dirt, trees, and sleeping birds and head for home, happy.

If there's one thing I miss from home....

...it's the public washrooms. I know, I never thought I would hear myself complimenting public bathrooms in Canada!! I avoided them as much as possible. However, after using the public washrooms (I use the term loosely) here, the ones from home seem sparkling and luxurious in comparison!

Hm, where to start. Ok, well take a look-see here at what a typical girl's stall looks like:

Yummy huh. I don't mind so much squatting, except that the floors are always wet and the bottoms of my pant legs always get wet. I just love wearing other people's pee for the rest of the day! Plus, you are not supposed to flush toilet paper...hence the wee garbage can. This, combined with the wet floors (that are hosed down every now and again) make the entire place stink to high heavens. There is never any toilet paper either; you are supposed to bring your own.

Not only that, but in some buildings, the men's and women's bathrooms are together in one room!
But the worst part is that there is never any soap with which to wash your hands. If there is, it is a dirty old cake of soap, and there is never, ever any paper towel (or driers either), which makes me think my hands are actually germier after "washing," since I had to touch the taps. Most of the time there are sinks, but in this one below, this was all that resembled someplace to wash your hands:
Well on that note, enjoy your weekend everyone! hahaha!!!! No one is allowed to say anything bad to me about the washrooms back home! Ok, I have to mention, not all bathrooms are as bad as the one I posted above. I have been in one or two that are fairly nice, with toilets, and even soap.

Korean Countryside

As I mentioned in my previous post, Saturday saw me and some friends driving through the countryside. Our destination was an island, but the journey there was really the destination, and well worth it. I got to see a Korea I haven't seen before...lots of fields, mountains, and....houses! Yes, houses, and not too far from my city. The road was 2-lane, windy, and felt very New Brunswick-y. :) All told, we probably drove for 2 hours there and 2 hours back. After poking around the higgelty piggeltys, we stopped to see these Buddhist temples. They were stunningly beautiful...below is the one at the entrance:
And here is the tunnel through the wall that you can see in the above picture:
The wall:

The NBers on the wall:
The decor:
Once past the first temple and wall, there were several other temples around a courtyard:

A young dad and his young son:The old and the new:
As the sun set, we drove to the beach. Here are a couple of views of the country along the way:
The sun set just as we arrived on the beach:

A lovely, refreshing way to spend St. Patrick's Day! I feel so privileged sometimes. :)

Higglety Pigglety

Don't ask me what these things are...we found them on our way through the Korean countryside today.

Black Day

Ok, so I was talking to a Korean friend of mine today, and I learned about yet another uplifting love holiday here in Korea: Black Day!

On April 14th, those who are single and did not receive any gifts for Valentine's Day or White Day get together to commiserate and eat Chinese black noodles. From what I gather, they are called Jajangmyeon: noodles topped with thick black bean paste. I have no idea whether they are tasty, or whether they taste the way they look and are supposed to represent your inner pain at being, oh horrors, single! Someone also told me that eating these noodles is supposed to bring good luck for next year. So get out your chopsticks all you singletons!

White Day

South Korea is no stranger to the mega-corporation love machine! In fact...it has three mass-marketed love holidays, not just one (just to make all those single people feel even better about being single!). Haha, I'm kidding. Sort of. Here is how they work:

~Valentine's Day: February 14th. Much the same as back home in Canada, except that it's the girls who give boys chocolate on this day. If you're a teacher, you might get some chocolate even if you're a girl, but male teachers will for sure be swamped with loads of goodies!

~White Day: March 14th. Today. Today is the day the boys give girls candies (mostly to reciprocate their Valentine's Day chocolates). Does this seem fair to you? One teenage girl I spoke to complained that while chocolate is delicious and expensive (V-Day treats for boys), candies (White Day gift of choice for girls) are not delicious, and cheap!

~Pepero Day: November 11th. This is the real cream of the crop as far as marketing goes. There is a company that sells these candy sticks called Peperos, and on November 11th, everyone buys boxes of Peperos and gives them to each other.

Anyway, a fun White Day for yours truly...how can you be anything but happy when you have adorable kids giving you candies and wishing you a "Happy White Day?" :D

So, Happy White Day ladies!

The Studio

On Saturday night, us girls went into Seoul to see Charles, a French-Canadian singer/songwriter from Quebec! How cool is that! We went to a studio to watch him record a couple of tunes. It was quite interesting to see the process. You can visit his website here...he sings mostly rap in French, Spanish, and English.

Here he is at the mic:

And here he is with the recording engineer cutting, pasting, and overlapping bits of the song. We stayed in this room with the engineer, while Charles went back and forth between this one and the one he actually sang in (pictured above):

On the picture above, you see the topmost screen? It was a video of the recording studio. So this was our view of Charles for most of the time we were there:
Then it was our turn!



We're in the process of cutting our record deal now! teehee

Good-bye Lady

Safe travels back to England. xo.

Dokk Galbi

For those of you who haven't already realized, I am totally loving Korean cuisine. It is so flavourful, filling, and healthy!

Recently it was my pleasure to try yet another scrumptious dish: dokk galbi. This is also a dish that is cooked in front of you, like the other galbi that I posted about a long time ago. The man and woman who run the place come over and fill your cooking platter with a mixture of chicken, veggies, and dokk. Remember dokk is that ricey pasta stuff. While it is cooking, they come and stir it up every once in awhile:
While we waited, we munched on the delicious little side dishes. One of the sides was these bugs:
No, I'm kidding! Besides those gross larvae thingys that I showed you before, Koreans don't eat bugs. The above are peanuts, and are now one of my fave sides. They were covered in some kind of sweet soya-like sauce and sesame seeds.

We got to practice our peanut-chopstick talents:
The finished product:
Mmmmmmm........