Where do the ducks go?

Sangju is getting cold, really cold!

I experience this most acutely on my early morning and late afternoon bike rides to and from school.

As you know, most of my ride is along the river, which I have found out is the Nakdong river and is quite an important river in South Korea. I have been enjoying this as there are quite a number of birds and always something interesting to see along the river. There have been a lot of mallard ducks on the river and also some wagtails: they look a bit like our pied wagtails in South Africa but the black and white pattern is slightly different, I think they are Black-backed Wagtails (photos courtesy of 'the Internet'). And of course the ubiquitous and vocal magpies!

So this morning for the first time the river has started freezing over: it is not entirely frozen but most of the surface has a thin layer of ice over it, so I was asking myself: Where do the ducks go? I can dress up in my thermal underwear, beanie, scarf, windproof-gloves, layers of jerseys, coat and face mask (Now I know why the Koreans wear them - it's for the cold!) but the ducks can't, where do they go? And where do they sleep? The nights are even colder!

Out of interest, there is a bit of information on Sangju on Wikipedia, take a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangju

Dr Fish

This is one of the stories I've been meaning to share with you for a while. It is not a uniquely Korean experience, from what I have read, but a memorable one nonetheless!

A few weeks ago we went to Gumi - a slightly larger town nearby - to watch a movie. After the movie (Body of Lies: very gory and not the most imagniative story line) we went for a walk down the main shopping street. Gumi's centre has a lovely stylish almost Europen sort of atmosphere: lots of intersting shops, boutiques, restaurants and pubs. I even found the Body Shop, although it is unfortunately horendously expensive :( BUT here;s what this post is all about: Dr Fish. What a find!
Dr Fish is an experience to rememeber! There is a lovely coffee shop which serves all varieties of teas, coffess, ice creams and breads, delicious, and they offer the 'Dr Fish' experience!

They have tanks/baths sunk into the floor where you can sit and dangle your feet in: and surprise surprise a whole shoal of obliging little fishies come running, errr swimming, to eat all the dead skin cells off your legs!! What an incredible experience. Initially it is actually terribly ticklish and tingly but I loved the attention of course and quickly got used to it! The fish are soo cute and just so eager! They can't seem to get ebnough of nibbling at your skin. Jules unfortunately did not get used to it: he held out for a minute or two but it wasn't his cup of tea! (Photo evidence!)

Well, as you can imagine I had lots of questions about the fish, and there ws an info brochure but alas, except for the latin names of the fish, the rest was in Korean. The names mentioned were Garra rufa and Oreochromis niloticus (Nile Tilapia). For those ichthyologically inclined, you will of course wonder about the Tilapia...I've looked it up and there doesn't seem to be any reference to it feeding on human skin so that must be a mistake. But Garra rufa is a species of fish which was first found to feed on human skin cells in natural hot springs in Turkey. Very interesting!
Anyway, so that was Dr Fish, a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience which I really enjoyed, thanks fishies for the scrub! And thanks James and Barbara for the introduction!

Bar Snacks

The Korean Food advnture continues: in the bars.

Last Friday we went out for dinner and a couple of beers with some of the other English speakers in town - it was quite fun to sample some Korean night life. We ordered beers in large 3L pitchers to share - the beer here is not as good as in SA but it isn't too bad and is WAY better than Soju: that's just poison! It's purely chemical and tastes vile. Really, it should only be recommended for medicinal purposes.

Anyway, so with the beer always comes a bowl of sweet puffed treats - I mentioned these in the Noraebang episode: they are a bit along the lines of cheee puffs but are rings and are sweeeet - probably best used as pacakging??!

Anyway, the funny thing about these fruit-loops-cousins (hey, that's quite a good description actually...) is that most of them (in one bowl) are a pale brown colour. But there is are always one or two pink ones and one or two green ones. Always in that ratio - very odd (you can see thsi in the pic above). I'll let you know when I figure this mystery out!

Onwards... the other snacks one encounters are peanuts, sometimes cooked in sesame oil - quite tasty, small dried fish and a pack of seaweed sheets. The seaweed apparently goes really well with beer (I am told, but am not sure I agree...yet!) and the little dried fish, well, I think they're quite cute, shame! They're very salty and quite edible too.

We also discovered an 'alcohol analyser' in one of the pubs, great fun. Jules went way into the 'maximum' category with this blow!

This is a sample (below) of the sort of funny English one comes across: someome must've strung these banners up without really understanding them (or after a few 'Hites" to open up their minds! -- "Hite up open mind your open"??

Gimbap!

On Julian’s birthday we went to Lucy’s (my co-teacher’s) house to learn how to make gimbap and to meet her family.
She lives on the 13th floor of a huge high-rise apartment block in Sangju: She and her husband (Jeong Cher – an engineer) have a lovely big apartment with huge windows and a great view over the rice fields and hills surrounding Sangju.
Lucy claims he sister is a better cook than she is, so her sister was the chef instructor in the gimbap-making lesson.
Gimbap is the Korean version of sushi: it is a roll of rice covered in seaweed and has various combinations of veggies, seafood and meat in the centre. One then cuts this roll into slices. It is of course, eaten with chopsticks, and usually dipped into soy sauce, soybean and red pepper paste or wasabi (hothothot!).

They had prepared all the meat and veg and rice, so when we got there we just had to roll and cut, well, not JUST…

Some of the ingredients: crab strips (pink), ham strips, some brown root vegetablein strips, and fish meal strips (this is a kind of pancake made from fish meal and cooked in soy sauce, surprisingly tastes quite good!) We also sued cucumber, carrots, pickled radish, and (processed!) cheese for the gimbap.

The rolling is a bit challenging: one has to be careful not too make the roll too fat otherwise one can’t get the gimbap slices into the mouth in one bite! And if one doesn’t roll it tightly enough (one uses a bamboo mat, like a placemat) then it falls apart when one cuts it!

The finished product! The children made mini-gimbaps (in the middles), very cute! :)

So we managed to roll relatively good gimbap rolls and cut them up. We then showed them how to cook a pasta dish – seemed so boring in comparison! – and we shared our meals together. It was a really lovely afternoon. Lucy’s family are such warm, open people and her husband and sister both speak relatively good English: Jules and I enjoyed having conversations with them. Jules sat on the couch with the men watching baseball – a big favouriote here, there’s a very serious national league! Lucy’s niece is a real cutie: her English name is Alice (I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember her Korean name!) and she speaks really good English too: she was very excited to show me her room (they live in the apartment below Lucy’s) and she’s got loads of English books and flashcards: lucky girl! And she really seems to enjoy learning English.

Lucy and Alice with our gimbap!

So gimbap is the first Korean speciality which we have learned to prepare ourselves: we are yet to try it out at home, but will do so soon! It’s really tasty and I think probably not too expensive since all the Ingredients are Korean-made. We have found any food which is vaguely western is very expensive: once we have settled in, we will have to start cooking more and more Korean! I’m sure gimbap will remain a favourite.

Lucy and Jeong-Cher had very kindly bought Jules a cake for his birthday - a real beauty from 'Paris Baguette' a bakery which is a chain/franchise all over Korea and very popular for baked goods, especially these very creamy very decorative cakes - which are more beauty than brains ;) But add fun and excitement to an occasion nonetheless!

Noraebang

This is one of those (yup, yet another!) unique Korean experiences which is difficult to share – but I’ll give it my best shot none the less.
Noraebang is the Korean word for a singing room. This is not your regular Karaoke experience, think again, think like this: You have your own room, just for you and your friends, it is conveniently sound-proofed and so you (fortunately!) cannot be heard beyond ‘your four walls’ and cannot hear anyone else at the venue.

The room comes fully kitted with psychedelic flashing lights, comfy couches and two fat files/albums full of songs to choose from, cymbals, a hi-tech, very complicated, all-in-Korean remote control to control the high tech screen on which the song lyrics and very odd and super-kitch Korean-style music videos are shown and of course complimentary soft drinks and sweet treats (you think these are chips or cheese snacks but they are in fact sweet, ugh!).As for the soft drinks, BE WARNED! One deep sip and you get a throat-full of mini jelly cubes, I spat it all out on reflex, thinking I had swallowed a fly! Anyway, the soft drinks are mostly unpalatable, as they are incredibly sweet, full of energy-boosters (like red bull but much sweeter) and highly coloured. Oh dear, that leaves only one option: Maekchu! Beer! In 1 litre canisters! To oil those vocal cords! “Maekchu chuseyo” (beer please), at numerous points during the evening! Oh, and I almost forgot: at the foyer of the Noraebang we were offered all shapes and sizes of masks and wigs, oh yeah!! Oh, and let me not forget, there are of course microphones for you to sing along on.

So we had a ball. This was our celebration of Jules’ birthday, and we went out to one of the many Noraebangs in Sangju with James and Barbara (J&B)(our ‘westerner’ neighbours and new friends) and Brad who is an American also teaching in Sangju. We sang and sang and sang ‘til our voices were hoarse! We had a great time. This Noraebang (according to J&B) is one of the more stylish ones in town, and had quite a large collection of English pop and rock songs. So we had all sorts of old favourites “Do you love me?”(Dirty Dancing – Lol and P!), many a Queen hit, “Hello Dolly” (Louis Armstrong – reminded me of my Granny Affie!) “Eye of the tiger”, BeeGees hits (Dan!) Phil Collins etc etc.

A great time certainly was had by all and we can now ‘tick off’ one more Korean must-have experience...one which I’m sure we’ll tick off many more times! Enjoy the pics!

P.S. Almost the best part of the evening was Jules in a Goldilocks wig, “priceless”! (Beat that, Mastercard!)

Gotta love the ‘regalia’!

Brad – a.k.a. Desmond Tutu? We thought so… (the hair is a wig, he’s actually bald!)

Noraebang!!

As I said, Goldilocks – priceless!

This little piggy went to market (and took lots of pics!)

I've been meaning to post these photos since last weekend, so here they are! I've tried to place them in some kind of logical groupings or order...the market is such an interesing place! The live fish and eels are the biggest 'weird' thing...but as I was saying to Jules: on street corners in Greytown there are goats tied to lampposts nd chickens in cages being sold so maybe it's not as weird as one first thinks!

Enjoy!


General view of the market: one can buy anything from chillis and broccoli to clothes and kitchenware and blankets here - all at reasonable prices (but nothing is marked: we will have to learn to ask for prices and be able to understand the responses!)

This lady on the right is making 'Korean Pancakes': A 'street-food' speciality: it is a ball of dough (similar to vetkoek) with sugar and peanuts in the middle. This is then placed on a hot oiled plate and squashed down to make a hot yummy pancake oozing fat and sugar!


And now: the spices: LOADS of garlic and chilli, so much! Apparently the chillis grown in our province, Gyeongsangbuk-do, are amongst the hottest in SK, aren't we lucky! We haven't found any of the food too spicy though, fortunately.



Sprouts!
They LOVE sprouts: with anything and everything!



Acorn Jelly! Hmmm, I'm not a big fan of this stuff, it doesn't taste like very much and has a horrible wobbly texture and horrid brown colour. They also love this and put it into lots of dishes!


Ginseng! This is the No.1 natural health product in Korea. SK is famous for its Ginseng. I haven't tried it but I'm sure one day I will. (Don't actually know in what form they consume it)

Mushrooms and more mushrooms! They have so many shapes and sizes of mushrooms: each for a specific dish or purpose.


Now for the LIVE FOOD! These are the eels. They are remarkable in that they are not only sold live at the market, but also eaten alive! You boil themn your table-top cooker and swllow them wriggling! Can you imagine that sensation down your gullet...gives me the shivers!

On the right are sea squirts. These are also live at the market and go down live!

Live Fish: Many tankfuls of these all over the place: at the market, in restaurats, outside restaurants and even in our local supermarket.

So there you have a brief introduction to shopping for food in South Korean markets. One can buy fruit and veg and some fish at the supermarket but it does seem that it is cheaper at the market. So I guess soon I will be grabbing a shopping bag (my Kanga bag - thanks K!) and heading on downtown to experience this!

Everyday is a winding road...along the river to school...

My school is about a 10min bicycle ride away from home. The ride starts when I unlock my bike chain (apparently bicycle theft is one of the few crime problems they do have in Sangju) which is stored in the foyer of our apartment building.
Then I put on my jacket (it is quite cold in the mornings so a breezy bike ride calls for a jacket and in some cases beanie and gloves), tuck my pants into my socks/boots so they don’t get caught in the chain, and hop on. Oh no, what’s that scratching sound?? I forgot to click up the bicycle stand! (I have done this so often in the last week…I really am sometimes a slow learner.)
I then proceed down a little alleyway which connects to the main road nearby. From here on I am on a proper ‘bicycle path’. It is marked by blue lines. I only have to cross a major road once, and the beauty of the bicycle path network in SK is that every time a path has to cross a major road there is a zebra crossing & robot. Thus I am ‘safe’ from traffic as long as I wait for the robot to turn green. This is great as I am still not 100% comfortable/confident on the bike in traffic etc and so I don’t have to worry about that! Once I have crossed this road I ride past a construction site for a bridge and then onto the river section of the bicycle path.

The path along the river is really great the path itself has a rubberized kind of surface so is really easy to ride on, and there are lovely trees along the path. There is a little strip of ‘park’ to the right of the path where there are lots of ‘exercise machines’ I call them e.g. health walkers, pull up bars, sit up seats etc. It kind of looks like an outdoor gym and it looks like it is used mostly by older people – it is freely open to anyone to use. There are signs which say “xxxxkcal”(the rest is in Korean of course) so I presume these tell you how many calories you’ll burn if you do x amount of exercise. Koreans are very serious about health and well-being. Lots of people also go walking-often with small dogs-along this bike path next to the river and at the weekend we saw a woman walking a dog which was dressed to the nines: it had orange ear-muffs on, a little smart ‘jacket’ and wait for it….shoes!!! HaHa! Can you believe it! It was hard not to laugh out loud as we rode past her!

So on the left of the path is the river. It is quite wide (maybe about 70m?) and has lots of concrete weirs and blocks of concrete which serve as kind of ‘stepping stones’ to cross the river.
There are little old ladies standing in the flowing water, bent over buckets collecting snails. And on the edge are (their) little old men fishing! We have been told that the river is quite polluted and one should not swim in it, but it can’t be too bad if thee little old people are spending time in and near the water and catching animals!
I then go under a large bridge and on the other side there is a small sandy road over the river which is still partly under construction (quite treacherous and slidy on a road bike with thin tyres!!!).

The large bridge was beautifully decorated with flowers for the festival (photo). Just after this bridge is my school: Sung-Shin Girls’ Middle School (The large building with the curved blue roof at the back, middle of the photo). I park my bike next to all the probably 300 or so bikes of the school girls along the river edge and then up a steep flight of stairs, cross the road and there’s school! The school garden is very nicely looked after with pots of chrysanthemums everywhere (which seem very popular in Korea, including as a tea!) It still seems to be late summer here rather than autumn, so the gardens are alive with butterflies, bees and dragonflies!

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.