Monday, March 26, 2012
vending machines
So we are on our way to Seoul via the train and I was feeling parched so I tried to buy a coke from the vending machine. It didn't want to take my 5,000 bill and a nice Korean guy came over to tell me that the writing said "1,000 bills or coins only."
So I went back to my seat and got my coins. I didn't have enough for the coke so I pushed the buttons corresponding to the little bottles of water 600 won. The super fancy vending machine elevator went up and a little conveyor belt shoved my water bottle out onto the elevator. The elevator returned to the bottom with my water... but it failed to move the bottle to the retrieval area. Now all of these Korean people have gathered around to try to help. None of them speak English. Finally this little lady points to me and says "your water" or something resembling that. I say yes and she walks off. I stand there not sure if she wants me to follow her or not until she comes back with two watters for me. Everything in Korea is an adventure!
Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android
Sunday, March 25, 2012
No Car Day
On Saturday morning Dave and I had plans to take the train up to Seoul to buy a car. Our plans however were thwarted, when the car dealership sent us a text message at 3am letting us know that they had an emergency and that the dealership would not be able to show any cars that day. So... instead, I took Dave down town to the market to show him all of the exciting and weird things that they sell!!!!!
Here are some pictures of what we saw this weekend. Enjoy!!!
Jinhae/Chinhae Train Station platform sign.
The Whole (sale) Mart is the little grocery store just off of base where we buy most of our produce. The sell amazing stuff including Korean Pears, Songi mushrooms (the name of the weird mushroom from my last post) and lots of other exciting things.
The pictures below are of the "Jungang Traditional Market" in downtown on a Saturday. The market is open every day, but there are more products out on the weekend than on the week days.
Obviously a fruit stand... The strawberries don't look all that spectacular, but they are wonderful!
This picture below is a Kimchi stand. Each bowl is filled with a different type of kimchi.
Some dried fish, cabbage, seaweed....
Weird fish or live octopus anyone???
They were trying to get out of the bowl. Yikes!
Though some of the fish were really scary looking most of the fish was incredibly fresh and sometimes still alive.
See scary fish below.
If you look closely, you can see these guys' teeth.
Everything you need to make your own kimchi.
More kimchi stands.
Dried fish, mushrooms and eggs. Not sure what type of eggs the tiny ones are.
Live fish for sale. I wonder how you take one of these home....
There are also lots of stores that sell clothing including several that specialize in making the traditional formal Korean dress called the Hanbok. You can have them custom made with the fabric of your choice. The inexpensive ones run about 200,000 won or about $180.00 and you can apparently easily spend 6 or 7 hundred dollars on one for a wedding etc.
This is a photo of the Jinhae train station.
PS I am uploading more videos to my YouTube page, so check it out! :)
Here are some pictures of what we saw this weekend. Enjoy!!!
The pictures below are of the "Jungang Traditional Market" in downtown on a Saturday. The market is open every day, but there are more products out on the weekend than on the week days.
Obviously a fruit stand... The strawberries don't look all that spectacular, but they are wonderful!
This picture below is a Kimchi stand. Each bowl is filled with a different type of kimchi.
Some dried fish, cabbage, seaweed....
Weird fish or live octopus anyone???
They were trying to get out of the bowl. Yikes!
Though some of the fish were really scary looking most of the fish was incredibly fresh and sometimes still alive.
See scary fish below.
If you look closely, you can see these guys' teeth.
Everything you need to make your own kimchi.
More kimchi stands.
Dried fish, mushrooms and eggs. Not sure what type of eggs the tiny ones are.
Live fish for sale. I wonder how you take one of these home....
There are also lots of stores that sell clothing including several that specialize in making the traditional formal Korean dress called the Hanbok. You can have them custom made with the fabric of your choice. The inexpensive ones run about 200,000 won or about $180.00 and you can apparently easily spend 6 or 7 hundred dollars on one for a wedding etc.
This is a photo of the Jinhae train station.
PS I am uploading more videos to my YouTube page, so check it out! :)
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Driving and Shopping and Eating Oh My!
We have had a lot going on lately so I will do my best to recount all of our latest adventures.
Driving: We took a trip to Daegu on Saturday to Camp Walker. Chuck (the guy Dave is replacing) drove us, and though the driving style is rather different here than anywhere else I have ever lived, we are blessed to have pretty minimal traffic here on the southern most part of South Korea. Yesterday Dave and I went and took a written test, on base, to get our Korean driver's licenses. We both passed and now can venture out into the streets... yikes! We are going to try to buy a car soon and are thinking of getting a car like this one.
The car is very small (which is important for parking) and you get a 50% discount on all of the toll roads if you have a super compact fuel efficient vehicle. Which is always a good thing. We thing we can get one that is just a few years old for under $2,000.
Shopping: While in Daegu we bought lots of things we needed for the house (cleaning supplies, printer ink etc.) but I also got a new mobile phone! I have rejoined the world. As much as I wanted to be like everyone else back home... I couldn't get the iphone 4s because they couldn't activate the phone on a weekend, and I wasn't going to be able to come back up to Daegu for a while. As a result, I ended up with the next best thing, the LG Optimus EX. The phone is an Adroid smart phone and it is quite fancy. I am having a bit of trouble learning how to use it because the user's manual is all in Korean, and so are several of the applications on the phone. I am learning though...
Job update: I have applied for a job on base, after being chased down by the school principal. They are apparently in desperate need of a substitute teacher and so I will likely become the new base school sub. It pays about $100 a day and I might get to start an after school club choir! :) I will keep you posted on any updates.
Cooking: Though cooking has been a bit more difficult than usual due to our lack of kitchen tools (our stuff may still be a month more before we see it) I have been trying to use some of the local produce/ingredients at dinner. I have been talking to some of you about these amazing mushrooms. I don't know what they are called, because the signs at the grocery store are always in Korean, but here are some pictures. You can get a sense of size in the image on the right.
So... I decided to make a vegetarian vegetable noodle soup the other day. They don't sell vegetable stock on base and I wouldn't know what to look for out in town, so I decided to make my own. I got lots of local vegetables and chopped them up, and about 3 hours later I had a pretty darn good stock. At about that time, Dave came home and he tried the stock, agreeing that it was indeed a good stock especially since I was winging it without my cookbooks. I decided that it would make a better soup if I cooked the noodles in the stock. The noodles cook pretty quickly so I had Dave's meat and my tofu already cooked and set aside. Once the noodles were cooked, I lost my mind and was in such a hurry to make sure that I didn't overcook them, that I strained them into the sink... which means that I dumped my 3 hour stock/soup base down the drain.... Now, at this point, I don't have time or even the vegetables to make another stock, so I threw a few vegetables in some water, boiled it and threw some soy sauce in the liquid and called it soup. Once all of our vegetables, noodles and tofu/meat were added to our individual soup bowls, it actually turned out pretty well, but I was rather disappointed that stupidly strained my soup base down the drain. Oh well!
And now for something completely different:
The Monty Python rabbit lives outside of our house. He is quite clean and well fed, so we think he must be eating the locals... or maybe just some carrots.
And, last night while we were walking to the noodle restaurant just off of base, we saw the very first cherry tree blossoms starting to bloom! Spring is coming!!!!!
This is the Noodle restaurant. We at there again last night. Our total dinner for noodle soup and dim sum was less than $8. And it tasted fantastic!!!! :)
Driving: We took a trip to Daegu on Saturday to Camp Walker. Chuck (the guy Dave is replacing) drove us, and though the driving style is rather different here than anywhere else I have ever lived, we are blessed to have pretty minimal traffic here on the southern most part of South Korea. Yesterday Dave and I went and took a written test, on base, to get our Korean driver's licenses. We both passed and now can venture out into the streets... yikes! We are going to try to buy a car soon and are thinking of getting a car like this one.
The car is very small (which is important for parking) and you get a 50% discount on all of the toll roads if you have a super compact fuel efficient vehicle. Which is always a good thing. We thing we can get one that is just a few years old for under $2,000.
Shopping: While in Daegu we bought lots of things we needed for the house (cleaning supplies, printer ink etc.) but I also got a new mobile phone! I have rejoined the world. As much as I wanted to be like everyone else back home... I couldn't get the iphone 4s because they couldn't activate the phone on a weekend, and I wasn't going to be able to come back up to Daegu for a while. As a result, I ended up with the next best thing, the LG Optimus EX. The phone is an Adroid smart phone and it is quite fancy. I am having a bit of trouble learning how to use it because the user's manual is all in Korean, and so are several of the applications on the phone. I am learning though...
Job update: I have applied for a job on base, after being chased down by the school principal. They are apparently in desperate need of a substitute teacher and so I will likely become the new base school sub. It pays about $100 a day and I might get to start an after school club choir! :) I will keep you posted on any updates.
Cooking: Though cooking has been a bit more difficult than usual due to our lack of kitchen tools (our stuff may still be a month more before we see it) I have been trying to use some of the local produce/ingredients at dinner. I have been talking to some of you about these amazing mushrooms. I don't know what they are called, because the signs at the grocery store are always in Korean, but here are some pictures. You can get a sense of size in the image on the right.
So... I decided to make a vegetarian vegetable noodle soup the other day. They don't sell vegetable stock on base and I wouldn't know what to look for out in town, so I decided to make my own. I got lots of local vegetables and chopped them up, and about 3 hours later I had a pretty darn good stock. At about that time, Dave came home and he tried the stock, agreeing that it was indeed a good stock especially since I was winging it without my cookbooks. I decided that it would make a better soup if I cooked the noodles in the stock. The noodles cook pretty quickly so I had Dave's meat and my tofu already cooked and set aside. Once the noodles were cooked, I lost my mind and was in such a hurry to make sure that I didn't overcook them, that I strained them into the sink... which means that I dumped my 3 hour stock/soup base down the drain.... Now, at this point, I don't have time or even the vegetables to make another stock, so I threw a few vegetables in some water, boiled it and threw some soy sauce in the liquid and called it soup. Once all of our vegetables, noodles and tofu/meat were added to our individual soup bowls, it actually turned out pretty well, but I was rather disappointed that stupidly strained my soup base down the drain. Oh well!
And now for something completely different:
More updates to come, stay tuned!
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