Din Din

I have been trying lately to make myself dinner more often than eating out. I think I am doing this mostly because my appetite has lost interest in eating Han's Deli and "spaghetti" over and over.

I use to do a lot of cooking back in college to save money, so it is not like I don't know how to cook. A few weeks ago I made a chicken dinner that turned out pretty well. I used Jiffy cornbread mix from Hannam supermarket and taco seasoning to coat the chicken.

I was bit too nervous worrying about not cooking the chicken enough that I think I overcooked it in the end. It still tasted pretty good.

Those are "Spanish" olives in that salad!

The next day I shared the left over cornbread with my coworkers. They were pleased, so now I think I will get around to making banana bread and share that with them.
If I am not cooking up something "western" I put together a quick remyeon and rice meal. Eating in saves money too!

Trivia Time from Chris Round 3

Here we go again....let's see if I know anything.

31. McDonalds, Burger King, and Dunkin Donuts are just a few well-known American food places with many locations across Korea. Name three well-known food franchises from America that you cannot find in Korea (without a military base pass, at least!).

In and Out Burger, Checkers (Florida), Jambu Juice...it's a franchise and owned by Starbucks...the smoothies come fast...fastfood.

32. What is the approximate percentage of alcohol in soju?

Enough to rip the guy out of me.

33. One of the tallest buildings in Korea, known as '63' ('yuk-sam') was once the tallest building in Asia. Until it became known as '63', what was the three-letter name of the building?

Dunno

34. Cell phone stores are everywhere, but only three cell phone companies provide service to those thousands of phones. Name the three cell phone companies.

SK, uh uh ah darn

35. Where is Wolmi-do?

Some Island...

36. Dokdo is ours! Or so Korea says. The only way to get to Dokdo from Korea's mainland is by a ferry from what island?

Womi-do only taking a guess.

37. The 2008 beef protests started shortly after a report from a Korean TV show? What was that show called?

>< ?

38. If you're here teaching English at a hagwon or in the public school system, you're probably on an E-2 visa. Which visa would you need if you wanted to be a college professor?

Same...no????? Professor..hrmmm

39. You're taking a taxi to meet your friends, and you ask the driver to drop you off at the 공원 입구 (gongwon ibgu). What or where is that?

Oh for Pete's sake!

40. How many baseball teams are there in the Korean Baseball League?

And to think I actually watch them...uh uh maybe about 6 teams

41. There are several dynasties and kingdoms mentioned in Korea's history. Name two dynasties or kingdoms.

Silla, Paekjae

42. In 2000, the Korean language was revised to make Romanization easier despite some protests from the Korean people (surprised?). What did they change? Bonus points: Named after two of the linguists that helped create it, what was the previously used system called?

Wow... I think you need to get some rest Chris...try to wing it like the rest of us.

43. Approximately how large is a 평 (pyeong)?

I'll Show you mine if you show me yours.

44. Who or what is 막걸리 (makgeolli)?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-h

45. One of Korea's most famous leaders, who is on the front of the manwon (10,000 won) bill?

King Sejong

(Banging head against the wall)... ask me anything about what school children like and I am all on it!

Dancing Inmates

OMG!

Red, White and Blue

Back home in America people are celebrating Independence Day. Maybe not every last American but I am sure most of them.

For me I have been without JH this weekend due to that he had a business trip in China. Yesterday I thought there was another Tomatillo taco gig going on downtown, but after I got there and saw no one around realized I had the date wrong. So one thing led to another I ended up at Kristen's to chill out.

As for today I am having another chill out day. But I am enjoying this Independence weekend by listening to A Prairie Home Companions July 4th Special and feeling like one cozy American.

The whole thing though makes me miss my family and my country. Yet I end up feeling like I appreciate America more than I ever did when I lived there.

What happens to be the most interesting part of all this is when I am out and about around other Koreans watching as they go by without a recognition of my country's holiday. Which makes sense, I wouldn't expect them to care about every country's major holidays.

Ah well..

Happy Birthday America!

Louis Vuitton Soundwalk

Have you ever heard of a Soundwalk?

Perhaps not. But let's think about this for a moment. Imagine if someone walked you through their neighborhood describing every detail including sounds and scents.

Via the podcast To The Best of Our Knowledge segment "Sense of Place" I went to this website that features very lovely soundwalks by some enchanting voices.

Take the time and use your ears for a moment and listen to these soundwalks. If you have extra time then take a listening to that podcast as well. Both are very enlightening on our sense of place and home. Something as an expat I wonder and think about often.

Plush Orange Lounge Chairs a Story

This story begins when I first moved into my Office-tel building. My office-tel is cheap and that means that the hallways and residing decor looks cheap and used. In some ways this is positive, for example I can put out my little bag of trash in front of my door until I am ready to dispose of it properly, and no one complains.

But within the chambers of my office-tell hallways lay another tale. When you exit the elevator you are greeted with an open space where the walls are covered with a wall paper picture of a lovely forest. An image that mocks the rest of the surroundings. In this space were plush orange lounge chairs. Four of them to be exact and they faced each other two by two with a small ash tray stand and table in the center.

From time to time I would see other residents sit on the chairs and enjoy a smoke. Never did I really consider it a concern until I thought of what would be the results if someone left their cigarette on the couch potentially causing a fire. But time went on and there were no fires.

Last month, however, I started to notice this trend with the orange plush lounge chairs. At first it was just one young lady but then sometimes there were more. For awhile there I would walk out of my building to go to work and notice a young 20-ish woman sleeping in one of the chairs, and not a lite sleep either a deep snoring sleep too. My first thoughts were maybe she was in a fight with her boyfriend and she got locked out.

But then I started to see her more often. Plus I started to see her when I left my home and when I came back. This made me wonder why she was still there. I made the conclusion that maybe she was stalking her ex boyfriend and was waiting for him to come home. Indeed, there were times when I saw her talking to another man and their conversation sounded serious.

I would see this gal frequently and wondered if she had a home or a life for that matter. We never really exchanged words, but sometimes I felt like giving her a thing of ramyeon to see if she would take it.

Then one day I was leaving for work and the situation with the lounge chair area was different this time. There were 4 girls there of the same age and an Ahjosshi was quite fiercely yelling at them and trying to pull them off the lounge chairs. A lot of bad Korean words were exchanged, but as I got into the elevator so did the other girls. We went our separate ways and I never saw them again.

I figured that these gals had nowhere to sleep at night and perhaps not enough money to hang out in jimjilbang or wherever else, found our lounge chair area and decided to use it as a place to crash.

But I guess it wasn't too long before one of the tenants or the building owner got fed up with it and did something about.

When I came home that day the plush orange lounge chairs were gone. Now there is just this empty square space with the forest wallpaper blaring away.

I kind of appreciate this event because I didn't really like the lounge chairs, considering tenants used it as a smoking spot which stunk up the hallways.

But when seeing the empty space I am reminded of those gals and wonder where they ended up and what they were doing all that time. All I know is that I will likely never get the answers.

Anyways, RIP plush orange lounge chairs.