Dumpster Diving, Korean Style

One of my friends came over for some tea and cookies tonight. She and I met relatively recently, and this was her first time coming to my apartment. I met her near her bus stop, and then we walked over to my apartment. As we got close, we noticed these giant cabinets that were in the trash area. We stopped to look, and we discovered that they were gorgeous and in really good shape. So, we decided that I should adopt one of them.

It was a little awkward, but not terribly heavy. We walked it up the two hills that are between the trash area and my apartment. This is when the problems started. You see, the hallway in my apartment building is a little bit narrow. And there is a set of stairs and a corner you have to turn before you get to my apartment door. We had a few problems getting it all around there.

We were most of the way up the stairs, and starting to figure out how to twist and turn the cabinet to get it to fit around the corner and into the door when my landlord comes out of his apartment and asks what we're doing. At least, I think that's what he asked. He doesn't speak any English, and I was too busy trying to balance a wardrobe on the steps to give too much thought to Korean translation.

My landlord is pretty cool though. He squeezed past the wardrobe, up the steps and helped my friend and I get it into the apartment. It was quite hilarious, I'm sure... Two blonde haired women and an old Korean man trying to communicate with motions, grunts and random Korean words that we all threw out there, balancing a wardrobe up the stairs and around the corner. Thankfully, we finally got it into my living room. That's where it is sitting now. Just kinda hanging out. I think I need to move some furniture in my spare room to make it fit, but this is really good.

There are no closets in Korean apartments, so you need a wardrobe type thing. I have one, but it's a bit sketchy, and really, really tiny. This one is at least twice the size of my current wardrobe, and it is much, much prettier! Now I just have to figure out what to do with the old one... In the meantime, I have this sitting in the middle of my living room, and a great story about dumpster diving and furniture moving in Korea ;)

Things I've Seen and Done, Part 3

I didn't see or do very much this week... It's midterms time, and I've been quite busy with all of the marking. 

I saw this on the way home from work yesterday. Elderly people go around to lots of different places and collect cardboard boxes. They pull them around town on these carts. I assume that they sell the cardboard, but I don't know that for sure. When I moved back in August, it was nearly impossible to find boxes because of this phenomenon. 

Ever wondered what goes on in an ESL class? Now you know... At least, this is what we did in my advanced literature class, discussing fairy tales and satire. We used Shrek. 

There's a cute restaurant relatively close to my house called Le Vert. I was there the other night with some friends, and they have this cool, massive melted wax sculpture thing. 

There's a random toilet that has appeared in my neighborhood. 

A bar named "joy o' clock". It's hard to see on the small picture, but the round sign declares this to be a Western style bar. Whatever that means. 

I've talked about Korean bbq on this blog before. I was out and about on a cold night, and I walked past this oven where they heat the coals for the bbq. It felt really nice!

Last week I told you about the produce you can buy from the backs of trucks in Korea. This week, they were selling socks and tights. 

I've had this picture for a few weeks, I just keep forgetting to post it. This is from my favorite restaurant in my neighborhood. They've made a cool mural of all sorts of pictures, posters and advertisements, then put random picture frames on top of them. It makes me really happy every time I go into the place!

In other exciting news, my hair has finally gotten long enough post unfortunate hair cut that I can sorta, kinda, almost put it into an updo! It takes about 15 times the amount of bobby pins that it used to, but hey.... It's a start!

Isn't this the cutest toothpick holder you've ever seen???

Vietnamese food! I think I ordered a combination of beef brisket and sirloin, but I don't remember. This is one of the few times that beef is reasonably priced. These bowls of pho are ridiculously large. I've never been able to finish one. And they're only about $8!

Finally, one of my students sent me an email this week. She was explaining why she had missed an assignment, and asking for a deadline extension. She told me that I was a really good teacher and that this was how she felt about my class. Oh, Korea. 

Homemade Tomato Soup

There are two things to look forward to with the weather getting cooler: sweaters and soups. I love both of these things, and this time of year is just perfect for them. It isn't bitterly cold yet, but the air is tinged with enough cold that I can dig out my soup pot and throw on a sweater. 

Sometimes it can be difficult to make soup here. The "normal" ingredients that are considered staples in most American kitchens become luxury items here. A few more stores are starting to carry things like chicken bullion cubes, but it's quite expensive. You can get things like carrots, potatoes and celery. Whole chickens are relatively easy to find, so you can make your own chicken stock, but I don't have time for that most days. 

Similarly, it's nearly impossible to find chunks of beef for beef stew. Larger pieces of beef that can be cut up are also rare, and they are so expensive that I practically never buy them. So, what's a girl to do? Tomato soup! I didn't like tomato soup much when I was a kid. I was more of a chicken noodle kind of girl. But at some point in my adult life (I honestly don't remember when) I decided that tomato soup with basil was pretty much the most amazing thing ever. 

I used to keep a can of Campbell's on hand during the winter, and would make tomato soup and grilled cheese, and it was simply lovely. But I can't get Campbell's in South Korea. Today seemed like a good day for soup, so I decided to pull out my recipe and make some. The good news about this recipe is that it's really easy to make no matter which continent you live on! The ingredients are readily available in Korea (I got just about everything at my local mart) and they should be found in most pantries in America as well.

Here is our cast of characters. 

12 oz of tomato paste

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp sugar

seasonings of your choice, to taste (I used basil, oregano, salt and pepper this time)

3 cups of milk

Mix all of the ingredients except for the milk into a pan. The baking soda is going to make things get a little foamy, so be sure to leave plenty of room. The baking soda may seem like a strange ingredient, but it does two things. It helps remove the slightly strange taste from canned tomato products, and it provides some alkaline to counteract the acid in the tomatoes. This will help make sure that your soup doesn't curdle when you add the dairy. 

In a separate pot, heat the 3 cups of milk. You want the tomato mixture and the milk to be roughly the same temperature. I find it works best when they are both just getting ready to start bubbling. You don't actually want the milk to bubble. It's a little hard to see, but it looks nice and cream and foamy, a little bit like it is at your favorite coffee shop. That's what you want it to look like!

When both pots are about the same temperature, add the tomatoes to the milk about 1 cup at a time. In between each addition, mix the milk and tomatoes well. Adding the tomatoes a little at a time helps the ph change slowly, and it gives things more time to adjust. This will also help make sure that your soup doesn't curdle, and give it a nice, creamy texture. 

This is what it should look like when you're all done. Creamy, tomato and basil goodness. 

You can serve it with a little bit of cheddar cheese, or some sour cream if you're into such things.  

What better way to finish off the meal than with some golden oreos? I love these. I like them more than their chocolate counterparts. You can get chocolate oreos in Seoul quite easily, but this is the first time I've seen the golden ones. I was in the local 7/11 to pay my electric bill a few days ago and happened across them. I bought the entire stock!

Fall is here!

I walked out this morning, and I saw this:

Now all I need is to get on making some of this:

Things I've Seen and Done, Part 2

Here is a random collection of images from things I've seen and done in the past week. 

I saw this advertisement at my school. It is for a new business that has opened in my office building. I'm not sure what "Self Hair Styling" means, but apparently you can experience it for only $5!

I've talked a little bit about buying produce from people on the side of the road. This is a prime example. You know those little mandarin oranges that you can buy in cans? Well, all winter long, I can buy them fresh. They're cheap and delicious. This truck is selling some of the first ones of the season. You can get a medium sized bag for about $2. 

There is a giant bus terminal in Seoul and they have a food court there. It has an amazing bakery with rows and rows of beautiful cakes. Unfortunately, if I were to buy one of these cakes and cut into it, I'd be disappointed. They look good on the outside, but the flavor and texture is nothing like American style cake. Oh, well. At least they're pretty!

Does Johnny Rockets do ketchup art in America too, or is this just a Korean thing? Either way, isn't this the most adorable ketchup cat you've ever seen?

This is what a typical classroom looks like. It took me a few weeks to figure out how to use that smart podium. There is a whole panel of buttons on the wall that I have to use to control it, the screen and the projector. There are also lots of boxes down below for controlling sound, picture quality and input. Fun times. What you can't see is a small stage off to the left. All Korean classrooms have a stage that the professor is supposed to use to lecture. The Korean professors carry around the microphone and pace on the stage. It just feels awkward to me. I only use the mic when I'm sick and losing my voice. 

This is my desk, covered with papers and books from midterms. It's usually a little more organized, I assure you!

I was walking around an area of Seoul I'd never visited before, and I saw this little brewery. I'm not sure what they were brewing -- maybe a marinade for some of the meats they cook here? But whatever it was, it smelled AMAZINGLY good. I tried to translate the name of the store to see if I could figure out what it was.... It came out something like "Black goat --random letters-- smelling --random letters- to bad. Well. That answers that. 

This is what the inside of a fairly typical Italian restaurant looks like. It is very frilly. Very pink. Very feminine. There were Christmas decorations up though, and that made me happy!

This was across the street from the Italian restaurant. The black part of the sign says" Peggy Pie. To discover for you sensation of pie when you touch" and the green part says "Peggy Pie warm smile baked sandwich tasty pie store fancy Deli I wish you joy". 

This is the campus for a really famous university. It isn't the one where I teach though. I wish I could get a picture that would actually convey what this place is like. It is massive, and quiet, and the lights are beautiful. Somehow, despite the minimalist architecture, it feels very welcoming. It is surrounded by a lovely topiary garden, and it is a good place to sit and talk or think. 

Finally, there was a store called "Natural Laundry". The rest of the sign says, "Don't be so uptight take deep breathes Just relax and let the tensio our of shouldors" then, "Covent Garden covent Garden Fritzrouie Charlotte street"

An Unexpected Concert

I was so glad that yesterday was Friday. It's been a pretty long, pretty busy week because of all of the midterm stuff going on at school. I was tired, and it was one of those days where I really didn't want to be in Korea. One of my friends was also having a similar day, so we decided that we should go get dinner and make a "no talking about work or complaining about Korea" rule. She and I live about 90 minutes apart from each other, so we decided to meet somewhere in the middle.

I got to the subway station where we were going to meet before my friend did. It was a large station, where two major lines meet, in a part of town I've never visited before. I actually got lost in the subway station, and I couldn't figure out how to get out of it. I wandered around for awhile, and finally found a place where I could get out of the station. I walked through the gates to leave the station, and there was a group of older men and women with a bunch of saxophones, and some chairs sitting in front of them. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but it looked interesting, so I decided to wait for a minute. 

It turns out, it was a music academy, and they were having a small student recital in the subway station. I don't know why it was in the subway station, but there we have it. Just after I arrived, the concert started, so I stuck around to listen for a minute. I wasn't planning on staying very long, but after the first song was over, the director got up and announced to the entire subway station that a foreigner was watching his concert. He got very excited about it, and he and another man in the band tried really, really hard to speak enough English to communicate. He was so excited to see me that he decided he was going to interrupt the normal flow of the concert and play a song just for me. Of course, I recorded it, so here is my Saxophone Serenade! I think he said the song was called "Autumn Leaves". 

After that, I took a seat and decided to wait there for my friend. After each student played a piece, he would ask them how long they had played the saxophone. I was able to understand most of those conversations. He would also ask me how I was feeling and if I had any requests in between each song. For some reason, he was really, really happy that I was there. He was really sweet, and tried his best to translate everything into English for me. Between the little bit of English he spoke, and my little bit of Korean, we were able to communicate pretty well. 

It was a nice antidote to my "I don't want to be in Korea" day, for sure. Sometimes, it's easy to focus on all of the stupid things I have to do at work, or the frustrations of not understanding everything that's going on around me. People can be really rude sometimes, especially since I'm a foreign woman. But randomly, in that subway station, there was a group of people who went above and beyond any expectation I might have had to make me feel welcome and comfortable. It also made me really happy to see a group of Koreans doing something for fun, and doing it in public when most of them have only played for a year or so. If you would have asked me if I thought that was possible 24 hours ago, I would have said no. So yeah... It made me happy, and it made the end of the day much happier than the beginning! 

Grocery Shopping

I went to the grocery store tonight, and I thought while I was there, I would take some pictures of things that are really typical in grocery stores here. Grocery stores are much smaller here. Imagine your local Payless/Kroger/Big Box Store food section and take about 25% of that. That's the size of the whole store. This means that the selection is much more limited as far as brand selection, but there are also just lots of things that aren't in the grocery stores. 

There are some products and brands that are quite familiar. Koreans seem to love instant coffee. They are all over the place. 

Then there are some things that you probably wouldn't find in your local grocery store. Exhibit A: Canned roasted silkworm larvae. There are actually street vendors that roast giant vats of this on the street. They don't smell very good. 

Broccoli is quite normal in America, but in Korea it is a specialty item. This means it is quite expensive. Each one of these packages has one tiny head of broccoli, and it costs about $2. 

Peppers are also readily available, but quite expensive. Three tiny bell peppers (think half the size of American bell peppers) are about $4.

Green onions, celery, something I don't recognize, and leeks. 

There is a lot of selection with the dried fish, but I've never purchased any of them. 

You can buy normal eggs, or you can buy quail eggs.

There is an entire aisle dedicated to various types, shapes and sizes of seaweed. 

This is about as close as it gets to a lunchmeat section. There are some things that are kinda like hot dogs, and a lot of meat that is the same as spam. 

The green things are pumpkins, but I think they are a little closer to an acorn squash. You can buy bundles of dried garlic too. 

This is a very popular Korean side dish. It is pickled yellow radish, and it's definitely not my favorite thing to eat. 

I was surprised, because a lot of liquid laundry detergent and fabric softener comes in bags instead of bottles.

I saw this bag that sells "Viscos Bath Towel". I'm not really sure what it is, but there we have it. 

This aisle is dedicated to ramen. If you go to a big box store in Korea, there are usually two aisles of ramen. Koreans definitely love their ramen!

There are even more familiar things! The Korean writing in blue is a phonetic transcription of Nesquik. 

One of the differences about shopping is that stores charge you for grocery bags. They are much more substantial than normal plastic bags, so you can re-use them. Because of this, people tend to cram a LOT of stuff into a single bag. This was my entire shopping trip tonight. I weighed the bag when I got home, and it was 22 pounds. 

All spread out, here's what it looks like. Bread, dried mangos, udon noodles, dark chocolate ice cream bars, 4 cans of kidney beans, 1 jar of strawberry jam, 2 cans of tomato paste, 1 package of napkins, 1 toilet cleaning brush, 1 bottle of orange fanta, 1 bottle of apple juice, 1 box of milk and 1 bottle of kitchen cleaner. It's all terribly exciting, isn't it?

Meat tends to be ridiculous expensive here. I sometimes get cans of tuna, which run about $2 each. Ground beef is about $5 a pound. I order chicken breast online, and it is about $4.50 a pound. Sometimes I get ground pork for $3 a pound. I've never tried to buy a steak in Korea, but I've gotten pork tenderloin once or twice, and it is also quite expensive. For meat, I tend to shop at Costco once every couple of months and stock up. Most of my produce I buy from street stands. And that's grocery shopping in Korea!