Photos of culinary delights: Part 1

So I have finally got some photos of some of the lovely dishes I have been describing in the blog.
To begin, the takeout lunch in Seoul: Enter at left the three boxes and two bowls...

My first Korean meal in a restaurant was kal gug su: a type of soupy noodle dish. The soup contained whole mussles/clams of sort which one fishes out with chopsticks and removes the contents - with chopsticks, difficult! This was accompanied by the usual side dishes: kimchi, cooked rgrass (I don't have a proper name for this yet!), fresh cabbage leaves, etc.

My ineptness with chopsticks seems to be quite a talking point when we're eating in a restaurant: great aught and offers of wooden chopsticks or a fork. Only little kids eat with forks, embarassing!! We now have wooden chopsticks at home to practice with. The metal chopsticks in the restaurants etc are really a nightmare to try and eat with, just so slippery!

This is the dreaded rice cake. This was a stall at the Sangju storytelling festival where they were making ricecake - very proudly so and offering tasters to all passers-by - could not refuse! I must admit that it is slightly better when fresh as it is a bit more tender-less rubbery!- and goes down easier! But as you can see, it needs to be beaten with huge mallets to make it at all edible, this stuff is crazy!
On Sunday (12 Oct) we went out for 'Korean Bacon'. This was really tasty. We had a little cooker/plate in the middle of our table (at which we are of course sitting on the floor!).
We fried the bacon and sliced mushrooms on the plate, then rolled it up in a piece of fresh lettuce with various combinations of soybean paste, garlic sauce, chilli, radish, kimchi (of course!!), marinated beef, quails eggs, 'cooked grass' dish etc. This was really tasty. Topped off with rice and tofu soup. A lovely meal indeed, very edible!
(P.S. The peace/V symbol is important when taking photos in Korea - you can see Jules is leraning quickly! And instead of saying 'cheese' in photos, the Koreans say...well, you guessed it...Kimchiiiiii!)

Home Images: our apartment and city in a few pictures

It's difficult to capture the atmosphere of the place one lives in photos. I think this first attempt may not be that succesful, but let's give it a go.

This is our apartment: It is small. probably about 8mx5m. It's a studio apartment so except for the bathrrom, it's all in one room - We sleep in our kitchen/cook in our bedroom depending on what mood we're in! (But whatever mood we're in, there's always a pink undertone lingering...with a faint but distinct sewerage smell creeping up through the plumbing!!)

Additions: some photos of our apartment block and city.

Our Apartment Block "Beautiful House" - Isn't it just! :) (My bicycle outside!). You can see our little window on the top/3rd floor on the left. Around the corner (out of the photo) is our larger window.

On the right: the view from across town towards Homever and our area.


The beautiful yellow rice fields on the way to Jules' school.

A festival, a visit to Seoul, a visit to the hospital...

On Wednesday afternoon Lucy took me to a story-telling festival in Sangu.

It seems festivals are very popular in SK. A festival is kind of what we know as a show (Royal Show, Bathurst Show, Rand Easter Show etc) on various scales. I would say the one we went to is somehwere in the region of the Bathurst show in size.

Lots of stalls: cultural, agricultural and commercial. Lots of food and drinks to try: Koreans are very proud of their culture and I couldn't turn down any of the offers of weird and wonderful food, drink etc.

I have decided that my least favourite 'Korean-favourite' is the rubbery rice-cake thing I wrote about the other day. It is so rubbery and tastes funny - they love it though and I think I will just have to get used to it. They often cover it in bean flour - which I got a chance to try and grind: photo right!

More pics will follow - our laptop is now up and running but alas still no internet at home until we are officially registered as 'aliens' hopefully next week!

Yesterday (Thursday) we went on a school outing to Seoul. We saw a musical show called 'Nanta' (English version apparently a broadway hit and is called 'Cookin'). It was very well done - minimal use of language so I could share many laughs with my teacher colleagues and the students. What a bunch of giggly girls. We too the Grade 2 (14yrs) class - they are so enthusiastic and I had so many of them approaching me to try their English and to ask me questions - very sweet. We then had picnic lunch in the park. We got take aways (errrr US=takeouts!) Another new experience for me. I will post a photo soon but let me describe this meal to you: 3 boxes and 2 plastic bowls with foil covers.:

Box 1: rice (K rice is sticky and like styve-pap almost - fortunately, as one is expected to eat it with chopsticks!)

Box 2: sheets of seaweed. (To wrap around rise: it is dry tastes like seaweed and adheres to the top of your palette -yum!:()

Box 3: An array of K culinary delights: Kimchi (2 types - one looks just like cooked grass with flecks of chili, the other red-pepper cabbage-NATIONAL FAVOURITE), pickled ginger (*nice!), marinated beef (vaguely familiar!), small whole dried fish with chilli, small sausages and processed meat patties in batter, whole chillies in batter (a trick! they're disguised but HOT!), gimbap (suchi-style rice in seaweed with fish - nice and plain but tasty - definitely my favourite so far), yellowy yoghurt: very sweet.

Bowl 1: water (yey!!!_)

Bowl 2: yellowy soup with leeks and spinach and traces of fish (not too bad actually!)

All in all the meal was fine. I tried everything and could avoid having too much of the less enjoyable and could focus on the rice, gimbap and soup. The ginger was also nice!

After lunch we went to the Kyobo Bookstore in Seoul: It is huge! Exclusive books, step aside! Also a large foreign books section (yey!) so I could get us some dictionaries and more phrasebooks: If we are to feel at home here we need to learn the script and the language as a No1 priority, there's no way around it. I went to buy tea the other day - decided to drink green tea s it tastes OK and is about 1/10th the price of normal tea. But alas I didnt; buy green tea I bought brown rice flavoured green tea - um, not very nice. and now the whole grocery cupboard smells like it. hmmm. might have to get used to it but please, not yet!

I did notice that signs etc in Seoul had more English translations (even saw some westerners on the street!!) etc but Sangju really is quite rural for Korean standards and hence pretty much NO English around.

So, we get to the hospital visit. To get the essential 'alien registration' we need a clean bill of health from the Korean authorities. So this morning, off we went to the hospital. It looks good: quite high tech, clean and well-run. Rural Sangju even has an MRI machine - weird?! So I get told to go into a little closet/room and take off my cloths and put on the gown. The gown is short!! Lukcily there were pants too (tight and short!!) so when I emerged into the reception area I was almost decent. Go to the chest x-ray machine. 'Please remove your brassiere'. back to closet, remove bra. back to chest x ray machine. X-ray. Done 'Please put on your brassiere'. back to closet put on bra. back to lady at x-ray machine. 'no put all on' back to closet, put on all clothes, leave tiny gown and pants behind. relief. less for the ppl in recepetion to stare at! Then blood pressrue, weight, height, blood sample, urinate in a little stick with colour indicators (just got enough out!)

They had told us not to eat and drink before the health check for 12 hours which we had done. The lady now gives me a cup and wants me to produce more urine! Is she nuts? Well I tried, to no avail. Get told to drink water. How fast does she think my kidneys work?? No results. walk around a bit. nothing. drink more. nothing. Julian and our tecaher waiting. After 20mins, GIve up. Take cup to school and try again later! Gosh, what a palaver, and all with hand signals and gesticulation and minmal vocab. This is a crazy experience!

Cheers for now, thanks for the emails, replies etc x

NOTE: a list

Have a look on the left hand side of this blog page (under the photos) for an interesting list of things/experiences!

(Well, interesting for us anyway!)

South Korean Adventure: Day 2

Ladies and Gentlemen...I present to you: Jessica's experiences and impressions in Sangju thus far:
I am probably repeating some of what was in my first email but let me just note down some of my ideas thus far.

My first impression of SK is that it is a well-run and organised country. The people here seem friendly, and generally happy and content. They are keen to get to know people from different cultures and countries. They appreciate every tiny bit of Korean one tries to speak! The sewers are smelly!! Maybe the population grew too fast and the sewerage system couldn't keep up?

I have felt very welcome in my new school, especially by my co-teacher (the local Korean English teacher) Lucy (or Mrs Song). My main school is Sung-Shin Girls Middle School. I will be teaching here 14 hours a week, and for 8 hours a week I will be teaching next door at the Commercial Girls High School. There my co-teacher is Mr Kang, also very helpful and approachable.

I start teaching next week, and my first lesson is an Introduction: introducing myself and getting to know the ss a little (ss=students - this is TEFL jargon!)
There are 6 classes in every level/grade. I am teaching level 1 and 2 (=Grade 7 and 8 in SA) in the middle school and level 1 (=Grade 10 in SA) in the High School. This means I prepare 3 lessons a week, each of which I re-teach 6 times: a little boring an repetitive probably, but at least I don't have to prepare too much.

I am expected to prepare lesson plans based on the prescribed textbook. The Tb is divided into a number of sections, but I ma only teaching sounds and talking - yey, so this probably means I don;t have t teach Grammar. What a relief. And even if I did - wel, the standard of English here is relatively low: even the local English teachers (KT=Korean Teacher, NT=Native speaking teacher) do not speak English all that well. The key is to speak slowly and simply. I am sure I will master this art quite soon.

As for life in our new home: We spent our first night on a quilt on the floor with a sheet, Samburu blanket and coats over use - feeling very much like poor students on an adventure! Yesterday we got a (brand new!) bed which our school bought, and a book shelf. Our home is now starting to look a bit more homely. Even if we were given bright pink floral quilts, not quite our taste but still, warm and useable. We are eagerly awaiting a fridge and table and chairs!
Our flat is in a block (which is about 5 stories in total) and we are No. 307 on the third floor. View? Well, the apartment block across the road! :) This is built-up Korea after all! Our flat is a 'studio- apartment' i.e. all in one room with separate bathroom. Quite small. Very small actually! It's a good thing we could only pack 30kg of luggage, any more and we'd be out of space to store it all!

We are located quite centrally: 4 min walk to the bus station and to "Homever": a large department store where we can buy groceries, home-ware, clothes (?size?) and much more. Even a pet Hedgehog if you like!:) My school is about a 20-25min walk and Jules probably a bit longer. We will try and invest in bicycles as soon as possible, until then walk or our co-teachers pick us up. Sangju is well-know for being a bicycle city: lots of people ride them here, especially as it is quite flat country. Look forward to some pleasant rides out of town at the weekends!
So we went on a big 'home-shop' yesterday to buy kitchen things (it's empty!) and some basic foods. Not that adventurous yet so bought pasta, tomatoes, spinach and mushrooms for supper. Yey, found salt and pepper but pepper is pricey and not in a grinder ;) Of course couldn't find all of that as easily as I though so was running around paging madly in my phrasebook for words!
One can also buy luxuries such as coffee, wine and chocolates but at quite a price. Our co-teacher took us to a coffee shop yesterday: coffee, iced tea and milkshake cost about R25-R30 each so that's a bit pricey but at least we can spoil ourselves like that once in a while!

So I am sitting at my computer at school at the moment. I have a nice desk and computer in the 'teacher's room/office'. There are about 30 of us in this room - everyone is quite chilled out, mostly working on lessons etc. Even if they are at times chatty this won't bother me much when I start working in earnest since I don't understand a word so it is truly just 'background' noise!

Tomorrow I am going on a school picnic with the Level/Grade 2 (SA Gr8) class to Seoul. Should be interesting - I am sure I will be exposed to many Korean culinary delights! This morning the Grade 2 teacher brought me some Korean rice cake - this is a light brown VERY rubbery 'thing' with dark brown beans sin it. It's quite sweet with a beany/ricey flavour and did I say how very rubbery it is? very! I wonder how my digestive system will deal with this delight?

Yesterday I joined Lucy and some of the other teachers for lunch at the school canteen. This was of course interesting: we each had a tray on which we could dish for ourselves the following: rice, pickled cabbage and spinach with onions, carrots and brown jelly-like blocks, boiled quail eggs with firmer and denser jelly-like blocks (what is this??), white-ish soup with onions, leaks and fish bits (??), crumbed squid rings (=calamari but tough!) and a red veggie sauce with chilli. Being keen to try it all I dished everything and most of it tasted pretty good. All this was finished off with a swig of barley water - ugh! After this, the soft brown jelly blocks were my least favourite-the colour and texture were just not so appetizing! So I have bought myself a 'booklet' of 10 meal tickets and this will expose me to all sorts of lovely local food I am sure. Should I maybe start a blog just with my food experiences?? :) (Will post it in a different colour for now!)

Ok, that's it for now will keep this updated as much as possible. We don't yet have a local plug/adaptor for our laptop, so cannot yet upload photos but will do so as soon as possible.
Keep in touch! x

Julian and I are (hopefully!) off to Korea!
We are making plans with an agency in Cape Town called TeachKorea, and will be doing a TEFL course in September in Cape Town.
I am hoping that this blog will be a useful and practical way of sharing my news and travels and photos etc with many people - well, at least those who are interested!
Am still getting to know how to modify and add thinsg to the blog, so apologies if it starts out looking very beginner-ish, can only get better!

I have just returned from a 2-week trip to Kenya.
The trip was sponsored by Earthwtach, an international conservation organisation. The invertebrate conservation project which I am currently working for is funded by Earthwatch. Earthwatch has a capacity-bulding programme through which they send peopel to other Earthwatch projects to see how they do their reserach. Through this programme, myself and a colleague of mine, Patsy Birkett, were selected to got o Kenya. In Kenya we worked on two projects:
1. Grev's Zebra Conservation: populations of the endangered Grevy's Zebra are in decline, and this project is monitoring populations and behaviour of the zebras to try an determine what factors could be reponsible for decline of the populations.
2. 'Carnivores in Conflict': This project aims to collecte data to help reduce the impacts which wild carnivores are having on the livestock of local communities in the Samburu district.

So we were very involved with the community directly which was great for getting to know the Samburu people: they really must be one of the few cultures wtill living a very traditional lifestyle: very un-touched by westernisation etc. Will try and post some photos soon.

Being in Samburu also meants seeing soe spectacular wildife and birds: Gerenuk (long-necked Impalas), reticulated giraffes etc.

Very Cool!

Will continue the Kenya Report some other time...and try and post some photos