Lucky Seven!

Aaron and I decided to have a little date night at Seven Luck Casino in Seomyeon tonight... Glad we did, because I won $100.00, A won $190.00 and we both got a free dinner! I'd say that makes for a pretty sweet AND LUCKY date night!

Tonight's Menu-- Eel

Tonight was a special school staff dinner to celebrate the completion of the school talent show, which was awesome!   But, you'll have to wait to hear about that until sometime next week (I have about 300 pictures to look through, edit, and chose for the blog!).

With that said, after school today, all of the staff went to a beachfront restaurant in Taejongdae

(on the island) and ate... ready for it?? 

EEL!

Oy vey!

Well, that was the main dish.  I had never eaten Eel, so it was a bit interesting to me. (top left and bottom left picture). It came out raw and chopped up, and was then cooked at our table.  Then we dipped it in a red sauce and wrapped it in some lettuce. The grossest part about tonights Eel was the fact that the men sitting at my table not only cooked and ate the entire eel heads, they cooked and ate the stomach and intestines too.  Uuuuggghhh!

(photo's take with my phone)

When you need something at a restaurant in Korea, you don't raise your hand or try to motion for your server to come over... you simply yell "Emo!" or "Chogio!"  etc... During the dinner I heard another teacher yell "Sajang neem" to an older man working in the restaurant.  I asked Okk what it meant and she said it meant "owner."  Perfect, I thought, I'll have to remember that and use it in other situations.  Later in the night I was thirsty, so I yelled "Salang neem" to that same old guy.  When he didn't look my way I yelled it again, "Salang neem!"  When he realized I was calling for him, he looked over and gave me a really strange look.  Simultaneously, Okk was doubled over laughing next to me.  Turns out I said "salang neem" instead of "sajang neem," which directly stranslates as "My love", "darling", "sweartheart," etc... 

You get the idea!  LOL

After dinner, my principal set up an entire Karaeoke machine in the restautant and made almost everyone sing while he played his saxophone... including me!  Luckily Okk joined me and we sang a random English kids song... turned out to be a big crowd pleaser - thank goodness!  Could have gone either way.

Okk and I snuck out before everyone else left and ran in the rain (without umbrellas) about a mile to the bus stop, laughing the whole way with our scarves wrapped around our heads!  Luckily, another teacher had left after us and picked us up as we were almost to the bus stop and ended up driving us both all the way home... so nice!   It's great to have good co-workers... I just wish they liked going to eat Mexican food instead of Eels!  Can't have it all!

My friend Jess...

My friend Jess is awesome...  let me count the ways!  She's creative, beautiful, smart, compassionate, fun, adventurous, inventive, funny, authentic, devoted, inspirational, and just plain awesome!  How could you not love her?

 

With that said, I think she's actually become even more awesome in the last 10 minutes, if that's even possible!  

Why you ask?

Because I just received a package from her, and inside was a copy of her very first official cookbook, a longtime dream of hers!  I'm so proud of her!  Her and a friend/co-worker named Danielle created, wrote, designed, photographed, and published their very own cookbook full of healthy and sometimes even vegan foods!  It's going to be a quarterly, 

and I have the 1st one - Fall/Autumn, entitled SHARE.  

You can buy it here on etsy!

It's full of healthy and yummy recipes... a mix of Asian, Spanish, and all around health foods.  I'm especially looking forward to making Arroz De Leche, which Jess has made a bunch of times for me for breakfast!

I am so proud of her, and can not wait to cook up some of her special recipes!

Congratulations on making your dreams come true Jess!

Practice makes perfect!

As I stated in my last post, http://www.pinterest.com/ has completely inspired me to get creative again and shut my computer down in exchange for some creating... in this case; baking!  This was my 3rd baking adventure in the last 2 weeks, and finally, I got it right!  As they say, "practice makes perfect!"  I found a recipe for delicious looking red velvet and cream cheese cupcakes and absolutely HAD to make them I.M.M.E.D.I.A.T.E.L.Y!

1 hour later and 2 trips to the store for more ingredients, they were complete!  All 5 of them!  haha!  The recipe only makes 8-9 regular sized cupcakes, but since my holders are ginat sized, I only made 5... One isn't pictured because it was already settling into my tummy!

They may not look perfect in appearance, but close your eyes and take one bite and you'll agree that they're the most moist, creamy, delicious cupcakes you've ever tasted... and from SCRATCH! 

I was determined to conquer baking and I think I just might have done it with these red velvet delights!

Recipe credits go to Lick the Bowl Good!!

I love us!

To be honest, I've been feeling abnormally bored l in the last couple weeks.  I haven't been inspired to get up and go hiking, explore the city, check out new restaurants, or sip on coffee at hip coffee shops.  Ever get in one of those funks?  I will say though, thanks to http://www.pinterest.com/, I've been slowly being bitten by the creative bug and have been inspired to create once again!  Hallelujiah!  I found this darling sign on pinterest, courtesy, originally, of lovelylittlesnippets!  Darling, right?!  I loved the phrase, loved the look, and knew I could replicate it!

So, I did!

I went to Daiso, Korea's equivalent of the Dollar General back home and picked up a wooden tray ($1.00), which I flipped upside down and painted on the underneath side.  Since Korea's art supplies are limited, I had to get creative and resourceful!  With that said, I bought a white paint board marker ($1.00), 1 small tube of avocado green paint ($1.00), and an eyeshadow brush ($1.00) to double as my paintbrush!  Like I said, you have to be resourceful around here! 

For a grand total of $4.00, I happen to love how my little DIY sign turned out.

And lucky for me, I actually do happen to love us, so it works out quite nicely! (wink, wink)