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Thursday, September 30, 2010

I'm a korean housewife!

I don't know what's gotten into me lately, but I've been cooking Korean food - from scratch!  I've never been one to bake or cook, but it seems I've been hit with the cooking bug and I like it!  Tonight I made a korean inspired dinner for Aaron and I!


Tonight's Menu was:
* Dwenjang soup
* Brown rice with oats
* Spicy pajung
* and chicken, potato, garlic, onion, carrot, and go-choojang stew 
(As a side note, I bought an entire raw chicken at the open-air market after work tonight and watched the lady chop it into pieces and throw it in a bag!  Then I cooked with it when I got home!  Best part was, it was only $2.40!  NO JOKE!)
***

Baby Clemence!

Two of my dear friends, Jeremiah and Shelly Sazdanoff, who I've known for the past 7+ years are some of the most gracious, caring, compassionate, artistic, socially passionate, and wonderful people I know!  This is a picture of them that I took years ago, when they first began dating and everyone was so excited they had found each other!

They have been married now for 4+ years and I am beyond ecstatic tonight, thinking about the fact that there's a baby inside Shelly's belly that's a MIX of the 2 of them!  God is probably having a hay-day creating this one!  

I knew that I wanted to send something special to baby Clemence as soon as I heard Shelly was prego.  I had a hard time thinking of just the right gift for such a special girl... and then it dawned on me: a Korean Dojong (name chop)!  I've blogged about these before, and how much I love mine... so I decided Clemence needed one of her very own!  Why? Well, because, let's get real - with parents like Jeremiah and Shelly, she's bound to be creating art from a VERY young age!  So, now she'll have her very own signature stamp to stamp in the bottom corner of her masterpieces!  Heck, she can use it before she even knows how to write her name!

So, last night I went on the search for a dojong stand and found this kind Korean man in the center of downtown Seomyeon! 

I wrote out Clemence's name in Hangul (Korean language), picked out the stamp that I liked, and 20 minutes later, her name had been carved into it!  

There's not another one like it - in the whole world, which is why I think it's so perfect for baby Clemence!  It's one of a kind... just like she'll be!
Can't wait for you to get here baby girl!
Love you!
Auntie Jillers!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Trip to the gyno!

I had heard horror stories of foreigners visiting gynecologists in Korea and have been terrified to book my yearly exam!  Did you know they only make you take your undies off, and you're not given a gown?  So, if you're wearing jeans, pants, shorts (you get the idea) the doctor will walk into the room and you'll be naked from the waist down! haha In Korea, you're always supposed to wear a skirt or a dress to the gyno!  Who knew?!

I did a little research online and stumbled upon a medical tourism agency called Medina, who offers a completely free service to English speakers!  They set up a doctors appointment for you, meet you at the appointment, and translate everything the doctor says!  All for FREE!  How awesome is that?!

So, I e-mailed the company and received a response from Shinji, their company translator, within about 5 minutes! (Free and quick!  I like it!) 15 minutes later, my gyno appointment had been booked for the following day, and she was telling me where to meet her!  We ended up totally hitting it off!  She's a native Korean, 26 years old, cute as a button, and speaks english more fluently than any other Korean I've met to date!  I felt completely at ease at my first ever Korean gyno appointment because of her!

For anyone living in Busan who would like an english translator to help you with a visit to the doctor (any kind of doctor), contact Medina!

Thank you Shinji!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Hajeema!

하지마, pronounced ha-jee-ma, is one of my favorite Korean words!  It's the english equivalent of "Don't do that!" 

 Sometimes I've yelled "hajeema" because my students have done something that shocked, scared, or angered me at the time, but when re-telling the story to friends, over dinner or drinks on a later date, the stories seem to bring belly laughs to all around!  This blog is dedicated to some of the stories that I've heard that have given me nice long belly laughs!   

So, thanks, in advance to Gill, Aaron, Truchen, and Jenna for being the brunt of these stories and for sharing them with me so I could share them with the whole world wide web!

This is Gill... and her story takes place in an elevator!
Gill was on an elevator one day and an ajuma (older korean woman) got on with her.  That day, Gill was wearing a low cut shirt, which you will NEVER, in a million years, see a Korean girl wearing!  (They never show cleavage!)  Gill was standing, staring at the ceiling of the elevator, when all of a sudden, the ajuma reached up and squeezed her right boob!  Shocked, Gill turned in surprise and gave her a dirty look!  The ajuma then disapprovingly grunted at her and walked off the elevator!  Gill thought, What, was I suppossed to do?!  Let you just freely squeeze both of my boobs and then say Thank you and bow as you left?

This is Aaron... and his story takes place in the boys bathroom at his school!
A little background for ya: There's a 4th grade girl at Aaron's school who's, lets just say, freakishly special!  So special in fact, that she has her own personal teacher who follows her around to make sure she doesn't kill anyone.  (I'm not exaggerating!)  There are no special school's in Korea for mentally unstable children, or those who are a danger to society, because Koreans chose to ignore mental health issues!  So, unfortunately this VERY scary young girl is amongst hundreds of other children and teachers who are all terrified of her! Aaron compares her to the freaky girl in The Ring, and I would agree!  I saw her one time!  

So, here's the story!  Aaron was using the urinal in the boys bathroom at his school one day, and had just zipped his pants, when he heard a loud slam in the bathroom stall next to him.  Shocked, he turned to see what was happening, and all of a sudden the bathroom stall door swung open and that crazy girl came out with her pants pulled down to her ankles and her shirt pulled up to her chin, grunting and jumping around!  Needless to say, Aaron went running down the hallway like a schoolgirl!  

This is Truchen... and her story takes place in her kindergarden class!
Truchen was sitting with her darling little kindergardeners, reading a story, when all of a sudden she felt something on her leg.  She moved the book out of the way, and looked down to see what it was.  One of her kindergarden girls was actually humping her leg! 

This is Jenna... and her story takes place during recess!
There's a thing in Korea we call "Dong Cheem!"  It's nothing you ever want to experience, and luckily it's almost always the boys who do it to the male teachers!  It's basically where students put their pointer fingers together, come up behind you, and shove it where the sun don't shine!!!  Yes, I'm serious!

Jenna was talking to one of her students during recess, when all of a sudden one of her female students (elementary age) came up behing her and, as she recalls: "popped me right up the butt with the infamous poop needle!"  She was shocked, as she should be!  So, she took the girl to the side and told her not to do that to teachers!  Obviously it didn't stick, because a week or so later she struck (literally) once again!  Long lived the "dong cheem!"


Last, but NOT LEAST!  I'm going to leave this person anonymous!  Sorry for all you inquisitive peeps out there, but you're just gonna have to deal with it!
This story also takes place in a kindergarden class!  At the end of my friend's class, his students always run over to hug him goodbye!  This time, though, one of the little boys ran over to hug him and went head first into his penis and bit it!  Needless to say, that kid got a big push out of the way and a well deserved "hajeema!"

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Jess and Carlos came to town!

On Wednesday afternoon, Aaron and I were talking on skype with our friends Jessica and Carlos and said, "Why don't you guys come to Busan and hang out for a couple days!"  8 hours later, they were knocking at our door, and 4 days after that we were sadly saying goodbye, only because we all have to go back to work tomorrow!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from their stay in Busan with me!  We all love having PJ time and lounging around the apartment!  We played a great game called Celebrity the first night, where Jess and I beat the guys!

The next night, the 4 of us (plus Stella, one of our dear Korean friends who we met back at our orientation in Feb 2009) all went out to a cool Dong Dong Joo Makoli place in the heart of Seomyeon!

Makoli makes us all a little fiesty! :)


We had a great time, drinking, laughing, and eating the leftover pa jung from the couple sitting next to us who got up and left it uneaten! mmmm  It may, or may not, have been my idea! **

On the last night in town, Jess decided to grace us with her incredible cooking skills and made all 4 of us, plates full of delicious home made chicken curry!


I love this girl for so many reasons!!!  It was so nice to have her around!

We had some really delicious wine with dinner, and ended up feeling a bit uninhibited, hence the dance party these two had in my kitchen!

After about 45 minutes of dancing, we decided to get dressed up and head over to Kyungsung University area for some real dancing!  It's been a LONG time since I've been at a dance club with my 3 favorite people!  It was great!  (and no, Aaron didn't really wear his sunglasses at night!)

I did a little photo shoot with Jess before we headed out that night, and thought I'd share this pic with you!   Is she not drop dead gorgeous?!

It's been quiet tonight, around my apartment.  I imagine this is what the empty-nesting-parents feel like when their kids all leave after a big holiday...  On the brighter side, Jessica and Carlos are contemplating moving back to Busan next school year to be closer to Aaron and I!  Hallelujah!  

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Chuseok Dinner!

Rememebr last year, when my Vice Principal invited me over to his home for my very 1st Chuseok experience with his family?!  If not, here's a reminder for ya!

It's imperative to have the following things on the table when we celebrate Chuseok here in Korea: Rice (of course!) Bulgolgi (beef grilled with onions and carrots), a grilled (or baked in our case) fish with the head still attached, sliced melons, a sliced pear, kimchi, and songpyeon (rice cake filled with a red bean mixture)!

So, this year, Aaron and I decided to have our own little Chuseok dinner at my place!  We learned how to cook everything and had ourselves a proper korean Chuseok meal!  We even handmade our own songpyeon with my neighbors late last night!
  
The last picture doesn't do our little fishie justice, so I'll give you this picture too!  We bought it from a nearby market yesterday and asked them to scale and clean it, but to PLEASE KEEP THE HEAD AND TAIL ON!  Aaron baked it in my easy bake oven with lemon slices, butter, pepper, salt, and garlic!  It turned out delicious!

Last but not least, Chuseok in Korea is all about honoring deceased family members... but instead of bowing and imaginerally (sp?) offering them food and wine, Aaron and I told special stories about each person in our family who has passed away, so each other could get to know the people who we loved and are no longer with us.  It was really special.

To top off the night, Jessica and Carlos made a last minute trip over to Busan to stay at my place for a couple days!  It was such a great surprise and made for a very memorable Chuseok!  
***

Monday, September 20, 2010

Jeju Adventure! (Numero dos!)

Aaron and I decided to take a last minute trip to Jeju-do this weekend!  So, Friday, after work, we jumped on the ship and headed south!  This was the view of the harbor, in Busan, as we were leaving on the ship to Jeju!  We left at 7pm and arrived in Jeju at 6:00am!!

We reserved a 10 person room on the ship, which really probably only could have fit 5 people comfortably!  We had heard nightmare stories of people being in these rooms and having tons of old korean men and women, drunk and staying up all night, acting crazy!  So, we were really excited when we realized we didn't have ANY ROOMMATES!   While we always like to have funny stories to share, we were more than happy to have a quiet room to get some sleep in! 

We arrived in Jeju as the sun was just coming up!  So, we jumped on scoot and headed for Hyeopjae Beach, which we had read was great for camping!   When we arrived, we knew this was the perfect spot, and set up camp here, right on the sand!

Aaron, being the mountain man that he is, played Bear Grylls all day and fashioned a spear out of a piece of wood he found on the beach!

... and then went out into the water...

... and caught himself a nice lil crab! 

and then... a fish!  I couldn't help but laugh the whole time, as this fish took a good 5-10 minutes, and 15 or more attempts, for Aaron to spear!  We both had a nice celebration dance when he finally speared it!  (Sorry for all the animal rights people out there reading this!  We did end up laying the fish in a pool of crabs and smaller fish for them to feast on though... so, technically, we helped the other sea creatures, right?!)

Since Aaron didn't spear anything worth cooking, we walked into town and found this "Big Burger" restaurant!

... and when they say "Big Burger" they aren't kidding!  This was actually the "couple burger!"  There was one even bigger for families!

mmmm, mmmm, mmmm!

After lunch, we went back out the beach and did some exploring in the tide pools!

and then Aaron drew a nice picture for me!  (With no probing on my end!  Yes, he really is this sweet!)

On the other side of the street, from the beach, there was a big park called "Hallim Park." The signs at the entrance alluded to the park having beautiful waterfalls, palm trees, peacocks, lotus flowers and all things tropical!

Unfortunately, it was a bit misleading and this was the most beautiful thing the park had to offer!

What experience isn't complete without a picture!

After only about an hour, we decided we had seen enough of the place and headed over to the nearby grocery store to pick up some food to grill for dinner!  We ended the night with a humble campfire on the beach, grilled hotdogs (which were paired with small dinner rolls!), and a bowl of grilled potatoes, carrots, peppers, and onions!  mmmm, delicious!

We woke up early in the morning as the sun was coming up, jumped in the water and chatted for a while, and then decided to have some breakfast down the street (rameon, a tuna kimbap triangle, and some strawberry waffers!  It's how we roll!)  We loved our little spot on the beach, but decided to pick up camp and move up the coast!  First stop was mysterious road!  We didn't get a good video of it, so I found this one to show you how it works!  It basically looks like your driving uphill, but when you put your car, or in our case, scooter into neutral, it rolls forward, appearing to be rolling uphill!  It's really awesome!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trErzkq20xs

We found this beautiful road off to the side, and snapped a quick picture of scoot!  What a trooper this little scooter is!  He has gone over 2,000 km's already!

We couldn't help using the timer to catch these pics too!


We had heard a lot about Loveland; from friends and co-workers who had been!   It's basically an outdoor sculpture park which opened back in 2004, focusing on all things sex!  The park's website describes the location as, "a place where love oriented art and eroticism meet."

After the Korean War, Jeju island became a popular honeymoon destination for Korean couples, because of it's warm climate. Many of the couples had wed because of arranged marriages, so the island  quickly became a center for sex education.  

In the late 1980's, a travel writer  reported that some hotel employees on the island even performed as "professional icebreakers," featuring lap dances and other erotic elements, to help the newlyweds relax.  

It was a bit shocking, to say the least, to see all of these sexually oriented statues in Korea, since it's such a conservative country!  It was even more shocking to see just how many koreans were at the park!  Groups of women came together and giggled about the statues!  Young couples came and stared, some with babies strapped onto their backs, and once in a while, we saw older korean couples wandering the park hand in hand!  Besides an oversized penis sculpture, when you first walk in, this is the sculpture that welcomes you into the park! haha

For the sake of keeping things fairly clean on this blog, I'll leave you with this picture, and you can just imagine what the rest of the sex-action-sculptures were like. :)

Aaron and I had a contest to see who could jump the highest! ***

He was the winner!

Go this way!

Anyone thirsty?!

After we had had enough awkward laughs, we decided to mosey on over to our favorite Mexican Restaurant on the island, Zapatas!  Aaron took me here for my birthday last time we were in Jeju-do!  mmmm, Quesadillas!

Then, it was time to head over to find a new camping spot for the night!  We scooted over to Hamdeok beach, which we had heard was great for camping, but when we arrived, there were hundreds of people on the beach, and it just wasn't what we were thinking when we set out for a nice quiet camping spot!  So, we continued up the coast to Sinyang Beach, but it was just the same as Hamdeok, so we decided to head over to Sunrise Peak!   

By this point, we were both dirty, sweaty, and desperately in need of a shower, so we decided to forego camping for the night and checked into a Min bak along the coast!

*** As a side note, a small dog, with rabbies, was convulsing and foaming at the mouth in the Min Bak parking lot when we arrived and actually died as we stood checking in.  Very, very sad to say the least.

On the positive side, the place had windows overlooking the ocean and perfect views of sunrise peak!  The sun went down shortly after we arrived, and the blue sky was gorgeous!

We took a nice walk through town to find Black Pig for dinner... a specialty in Jeju.

We found it, and it was not quite what we had in mind!  There were literally black hairs poking out of the skin of the meat!   eeehhhhh!

In the morning, we woke up to a beautifully sunny day and a nice view of Sunrise Peak!

We packed up and headed over to climb the peak!  This is us, halfway up!  By this point in the day, the sun was blazing, and everyone coming down the mountain was literally dripping in sweat, so we decided to only climb half way up!  Call us lazy... we like to think of it as being a hygentically smart choice!

The view of the ocean was stunning from the peak!  We climbed down to the beach below and watched old Korean woman pick fresh abalone out of their shells to serve to visitors!

After climbing, we headed inland in search of another campground... but were unpleasantly surprised when the "campground" turned out to be a glorified park with tennis courts, perfectly manicured lawns, and all the amenities one could find in a large city!  So, we continued on our way and headed for Jeju City!  

At this point, we both new our idea of camping was not going to be a reality in Korea, so we made the best of our last day in Jeju and wandered through the markets...  This was a group of women cutting up HUGE frozen fish!



Then, we indulged in some Dunkin Donuts (Aaron's idea)!


... and then drove over to the harbor to load Scoot onto the ship and head back to Busan!

Our room was much nicer, and bigger on this ship!  Aaron and I claimed the corner of the room and played cards most of the night...

... while our 3 roommates watched TV!   It was actually really cool because everyone spoke English, and 2 of our roommates were Buddhist monks.  (Well, one was a woman, so she is technically called a nun.)  You can see her in the mirror of this picture!  Her name is Ann, and we chatted for a while about her life.  She became a Buddhist nun when she was 22 years old.  She's 37 now.  Her friend was a Tibetan monk, and they had traveled to Jeju to do some mediation hiking.  They actually hiked the HUGE mountain twice in 1 day (a 9 hour hike each way!)

We arrived back in Busan at 6:00am this morning, and were sad to have said goodbye to Jeju, but glad to be back home! :)
***