KimChi

I have a confession to make....


I'm pregnant!!!!!!


Just kidding! Did your mouths drop?? No we are definately not with child at the present time so don't you worry!

No my confession is this:
For the first two months of living in Korea I ate absolutely no KimChi. I would aviod it at all costs which is pretty impressive. Even Jon didn't realize that I hadn't eaten any of it. You have to understand the KimChi culture here in Korea. A meal is not a meal without KimChi, it comes with everything. You eat it before your meal, with your meal, you cook it on the grill, you eat it cold, you cut it with scissors. Its a very integral part of Korean food culture and I avoided it like the Bubonic plague.

I don't know exactly what I was afraid of. I am usually the adventurous food eater...

But finally one day at our church's cafeteria I broke down and told Jon I hadn't eaten any of it. So I tried it.. and I liked it!!! I really really liked it!

Now I crave KimChi. I crave its spiciness, its smellyness -- the whole bit! When I walk through the market and can smell KimChi I breathe in deep breaths of it. Go figure. Maybe when I do get pregnant (IN A FEW YEARS) that is what my midnight cravings will be. No pickles and icecream for this expat -- its KimChi all the way!

The saga of the picnic

In Canada, your average - run of the mill picnic plans usually involve a trip to safeway for your chips, hotdogs, buns, pop etc. Once said items are purchased and it is time to embark on the picnic, a typical location would be a local park, river valley or maybe a nearby national park. Needless to say, walking into our school picnic on Saturday, this is sort of the image that I had in mind.

Granted, I had figured out that the food would be different. First of all, I would be very scared to eat a Korean hotdog, and second of all I have seen no Safeways since arriving here :) I did figure though that our destination would be one of many parks in Gwangju or perhaps the mountains that still fall within city limits.

Imagine my suprise when...

We all pile into cars at the school and start driving, and driving...at nauseum at nauseum etc etc. I keep expecting that our destination will be just around the next bend. We have after all definately left the main road and are steadilly climbing up a steep and winding mountian road. Our convoy of vehicles would stop periodically so everyone could catch up. We had a straggling car because one of the foreign teacher's wife and kid were throwing up. It was an intense road.

Two and half hours later we finally arrive. So much for within city limits. Imagine my suprise when on the horizon I see the ocean!!! We drove all the way to the flippin' yellow sea!!! It really was beautiful though...

Our picnic consisted of meat cooked over a portable gas range, rice and red pepper paste. You put all of those ingredients in a little lettuce leaf burrito and down it in one bite. (a very common meal here) Oh and there was of course Kimchi. There is always Kimchi.

A good time was had by all and again I was reminded that my cultural worldview constantly needs adjusting, even when it comes to picnics.

Fan Death

Every culture has the myths and popular tales that have little or no grounding in reality. We would call them old wives tales, fables or perhaps myths. Korea is no exception.

Fan death, as it turns out, is what happens to you if you go to sleep with a fan blowing in your face. Since your breathing is more shallow when you are asleep, the fan will stifle your breathing to the point of death. Many Koreans hold this to be true since someone did a study once, or so we hear.

Another one is running backwards. Emily and I have started running at this track by our apartment where several people from the community also run, jog or walk. We will often see people running backwards (as much as one can run backwards) which is a little confusing. Upon futher investigation, we learned that running backwards apparently gives 10 times any benefit that running foward does. Who knew?

Pictures of Korean Life

This is the view from our balcony. We live on the sixth floor so we get a neat view (in my opinion). We're really blessed - we live in the last set of parallel rows of apartments, so we get to see the city and all the other buildings look directly into the building infront and behind them. The green netting you see in the middle of the picture is a driving range. Koreans have a great sense of nationalism - they will warmly embrace anything that a Korean is really good at. I think the #1 or 2 female golfer right now is Korean, so there are a whole ton of driving ranges on top of buildings.





This is what's going on underneath our balcony. It's this whole market street with all these old ladies ("Ajjumas" - it's a term used for any older lady, and it means somewhere around Grandma and Ma'am) and they sell whatever is in season. It's such a blessing being able to walk out our front door and peruse all sorts of incredibly fresh produce every day. They also sell fish out of styrofoam boxes packed with ice, but those are less appealing.



This is the Korean equivalent of those statues you see on Easter Island. I think they've got something to do with the gods protecting something or other, but you'll see these statues at tourist places and on anything to do with Jeju Island (the Korean Hawaii), which is where this style of statue is from.