Looks Like a Bug

Hello! It's time for another lovely posting. I don't have as many pictures as I would like this time. I've taken to taking the camera with me everywhere. I may look like another stupid tourist, but at least you all will be entertained. Today we found ourselves in many new places, but they didn't lend themselves to picture taking. More on that later...

I forgot to mention in the last round of pictures about the taste of apple vinegar. You see, sometimes I like vinegar with me homemade fries. It's really good. Well, here things are a bit different. I got apple vinegar. It has a vinegary taste, but predominately tastes amazingly like red apples. It is weird.

There is no vinegar used in the ketchup here. It is sweet. It's not bad, just different. Sometimes I miss the vinegar.

First up, we have a picture of Amper slumming it. As many of you may know, Ampersand loves to drink from the faucet. He typically refuses water in any other form. However, I caught him sneaking a drink from the toilet. For embarrassment that he will never know, I've posted the picture here.

On Thursday, it was time to start cultivating the ground behind our school. Most of it appears to be planted with rice. I believe this is all maintained by the local villagers. However, way in the back (just to the left of the tree) you can see the area where the school maintains a vegetable garden. Thursday we took the 6th and 5th graders out to start tilling the soil.

Another shot of the ground behind our school. That natural spring that I've mentioned before is somewhere up in the hills behind the tree that's a little left of center.

A shot from the garden back towards the school.

This is a flowering tree behind the garden, right on the edge of the woods. Knowing my mother's love of flowers and plants, I present a picture for her. The rest of you can go ahead and enjoy it too if you'd like.

Close-up of the pretty.

Look at 'em! We've got the kids bustin' butt! The goal was to till the soil and to get some potatoes in the ground. We wanted to get this all down on Thursday. Il-kyu asked for my help, so I spent a little time researching potato planting. Without going into extreme detail, I now know the ins and outs of said endevour. We were just going to wing it, but learning a bit about potato farming was actually pretty useful.

In order to plant some potatoes, you need to let your potatoes sprout a little. That takes a couple weeks in the sun and warmth. This had not been done. We had scarce few sprouts. Next comes some cutting and then a couple days of letting the pieces sit to "scab" over before going in the ground. We were cutting on the same day. Thankfully we had a ton of potatoes. I set half of them aside on the sunny, warm windowsill of the science room. In a couple weeks we'll put those in the ground following the proper fashions of blah blah blah do you really care about potato planting? Let's get on to the part where Melissa eats bugs!

That's right, bugs! Silk worm pupa to be precise! Thursday evening we had plans to go out with Mr. Han and Mr. Lee from Mel's school. Il-kyu and I had to make a trip to the bank after school so I invited him along as well. We went out to a korean place and had galbi. It's basically rib meat from piggies that gets cooked at your table. It is tender and delicious. We had much Soju (19.5%). After that we decided to go to a bar. They picked a bar that was more along the lines of the traditional Korean style. Mr. Han ordered some beer and some anju (side-dishes) and we were off.

The sides came. Do you see that up there? That was one of them. What is it? Oh, it looks like a bug! No, try it Melissa! Mel tried it.... she gingerly stuck her fork into the bowl spearing two of the little nuggets. Slowly they ascend towards her mouth. Crunch, crunch, grimace! IT WAS HILARIOUS! I tried one too just to do so. They taste a little like shrimp, but the texture is all bug. This is an item you can skip. Just eat shrimp. It tastes like silk worm pupa, except a lot better.

Mr. Han is on the left. Il-kyu is in the pink and I'm pretty sure he's well lit at this point.

Mr. Lee is in the stripped polo. I have no idea why I'm giving a peace sign. Following this picture we had a discussion about the peace sign and the meanings in different countries. In some countries it's bad to give a peace sign with the palm facing out.

Little fishes.

Like anchovies. They are dried. You dip them in the sauces. One is red pepper paste, the other is mayo.

There are my kids role-playing. These are 4th graders. The story is of a Korean fairy-tale. They use simple English phrases in the context of said fairy tale. I know you want to hear it, so here goes:

There is a king under the sea how is very very sick. His friend the turtle decides to help the king by getting medicine. The turtle goes to the surface where he learns that the medicine is Toto the rabbit's liver. Turtle talks to Toto and tells him that under the sea he'll be treated like a king and given tons of treasure. Toto agrees to come along.

Once they make it back Toto is arrested. The king tells Toto he is very thankful for his sacrifice. Toto is seriously freaking out. Using some quick thinking, Toto tells the king he would love to help, but he left his liver back on the surface.

Turtle and Toto head back on up. The arrive on land. Toto punches turtle and runs away.

If there's a moral, I can't find it....

**Warning: R-rated picture ahead!!!**


This is a store in Itaewon. Itaewon is super touristy. Shortly before taking this picture we had a discussion on how we hated taking pictures because it made us feel like tourists. I said I was getting over that and I just hated taking pictures when in the super touristy areas (like Itaewon). Then we saw this sign.....and out came the camera.

We had to go to Gangnam (a section of Seoul) today to get cellphones. There is a store there that is owned by an English speaker. We read that many people had had an easy time getting phones there. It can be super difficult for foreigners to get a phone in Korea. We went. It went well. We have phones.

We decided that since we were already in the Seoul area that we would go to Itaewon. Itaewon has a large foreigner presence so we thought it would be worth checking out. It was very touristy, much like Songtan....

However, we found a bar that was "western style". It had a pool table and everything. We had cheeseburgers and it was amazing.

The trains here are something else. On one of our trips the train was really packed. We had enough room to jerk our butt cheeks in the door so it could close. Personal space bubbles do not exist here, especially not on the train.

I think that's enough writing now. It's 8pm on a Saturday. We're going wandering and probably going to go to the Garten Bier bar where we drank with the other foreigners before. :)

Until next time....

Aaron