博學多識。: kimchi & me

Moving Day...Internet Style

2005-10-02T21:35:00.000+09:00

Early today I was playing around with the wordpress blogging system, and I'm finding it a lot more awesome than the services provided here at blogger, so it looks like I'm going to be moving off this website to a different server that has wordpress systems. For the time being I will still post updates here, and when everything is all set up here, I will actually make the move offical.

For the time being if you want to see what I'm working on check out the new page at http://sojuandi.blogsome.com.

百害無益: Hamburgers & Me (Day 14)

2005-08-12T23:47:00.000+09:00

After the epic party that was last night, today I said my goodbyes and headed off to the airport to fly back home to Korea. The drive down to NYC was fairly uneventful (though the traffic was pretty bad around Queens).

At the airport I got some quick breakfast / lunch and then said goodbye to my mother, as she was the only one in my family who cared enough to see me off (I jest, I jest.)

We outta here baby!

My plane. I am probably boarding at this point. Credit to Mom for snapping this picture.

The flight home was a lot less annoying than the trip to America...it was also 2 and a half hours longer. This time I was actually able to sleep, but for some reason I couldn't sleep during Miss Congeniality 2...a movie I actually watched from begining to end.

I touched down in Seoul at 5:30 pm on Saturday...yup, I lost an entire day. Anyhow, as usually, attempting to go through immigration was a rediculously lengthy process...because people are stupid. The lines were long when I arrived, and slow moving. By the time I got close enough to the immigration desk I realized why things were going so slowly.

The man four people in front of me had put his passport in his carry on bag, and decided that at the counter would be the best place to dig through his bag to locate it. The woman three people in front of me had neglected to fill out the arrival card that stewardess ask you about a million times during the flight to fill out. So she stood there filling it out. The guy two people in front of me also couldn't locate his passport. The guy in front of me had all of his documents together, but was military so for some reason it took the lady at the counter longer to process him. I handed the woman my documents got another stamp in my passport and was off to baggage claim in 30 seconds. After collecting my bags, I went to go catch a bus. Arriving just as my bus pulled away. It was now 6:20.

6:40 another bus arrives. I get on sit down and ride. At 7:43 I arrive inside my apartment. Thus bringing an end to my whack American adventures. Thank you for reading, we now return you to your scheduled program.

百害無益: Hamburgers & Me (Day 13)

2005-08-11T23:30:00.000+09:00

Back in the early 80's I had an epic birthday party. It was all about cheap soda, short shorts, and Star Wars action figures. Today we decided to relive the magic. That means birthday party time!

"Hi, I'm Tom Carvel, just in time for Wyatt's Fake Birthday we have Fudgey the Whale ice cream cake..."

So there was some cake. An ice cream cake. An ice cream cake shaped like a whale. It was awesome. There was cake and beer. And I got a Star Wars action figure...just like old times, only no one wore short shorts.

Birthday Party!!!

After the formalities, the real partying began. My friends and I headed into the city, back to Shane Jones' apartment where we proceeded to really get our drink on. What followed was completely random and the details are sketchy at best.

First off my friend Pete decided tonight was the night to test out his new "drinking schedule." The schedule went something like beer, beer, caffinated mixed drink, beer, water, beer. The plan was designed so Pete could keep himself at "peak level" of drunkeness without loosing his "I'm having a good time," edge. Needless to say the shot of vodka didn't figure into the plan and messed up the whole thing.

Somewhere during the course of the night we ended up at a karaoke bar where I sang "Hello," by Lionel Richie in front of a room full of drunks. I also danced my ass off to random people singing equally random karaoke jams. At some point all of my friends, save for one disappeared. Luckily he was my ride home.

So I got home, threw up pure beer (it foamed) and then hit the hay, praying I wouldn't be very hungover on my trip back to Korea.

百害無益: Hamburgers & Me (Day 11)

2005-08-09T23:36:00.000+09:00

Today I went to go revisit my past, paying a visit to the taekwondo school I spent a good chunk of my life, and ultimately lead to me studying Korean (and by result ending up here). Visiting the school really made me feel old. It's one thing to see my brother (who was in high school when I left) turn into a man, as he didn't have far to go, but to see elementary school kids I last saw two years ago was bizarre. I think it was just as odd for the students as well. Kids would look at me and do total double takes and be like, "What?! Is that Mr. Dunn?! Oh my god!"

Anyhow I met with some people and then offered to take my taekwondo master and his wife to dinner after classes.

With my taekwondo master. He can kick all of our asses at the same time.

At dinner he laid down all manners of "here's what you need with the lady / your life" wisdom. Some of the high points that I remember include:

* Bring presents when meeting my girlfriend's parents. Boxes of meat, cow tail, and shin bones are all good choices.
* Also drink what is given to me...this contradicts the following.
* Stop drinking (and apologize for doing so) before becoming drunk.

As for my life, he is under the impression that I should open a business of my own...which is not really my cup of tea, as running a business is far to time consuming, and I for one work to live, as opposed to living to work.

Anyhow it was good to see him and his wife, and to be called "새끼야" without malice or spite in it's delivery. Good times.

百害無益: Hamburgers & Me (Day 9)

2005-08-07T23:11:00.000+09:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again, my family is insane. Today's event was a cook out at my grandparents' home. "Wait Wyatt, that's pretty normal. Lots of people have cook outs with their families." Just you wait. Just you want.

The event started off normally enough. Some hamburgers. Some hot dogs. A couple of soft drinks. A vegetable platter. But things soon turned insane. The first event of the afternoon was the goofy glasses grab bag game. You see my father is an optometrist and therefore we have all manner of really insane glasses at my house. An assortment of this were put in a pillowcase and all of the participants had to sport said glasses.

Striking Korean middle school girl poses while wearing rediculous glasses.

Oh yeah, that's normal. Next up was the "Mr. Lucky" dance contest. "Mr. Lucky" is a really retarded jam by some 1970s band named, Fool's Gold. The song is rediculous and so was this entire event. I know you all want to see me dance, and who am I to disappoint.

Some kind of dance party. Why I look like Terminator is unknown. As is the item in my hand.

After the dance party it was time to head home for the day. Oh also this morning I saw the 1980s cartoon, The Littles. The Littles?! What year is it?

百害無益: Hamburgers & Me (Day 7)

2005-08-05T23:59:00.000+09:00

"Let's Look At Some Dirty Animals"

That's me circa 1989 at a local zoo (about 40 minutes from my hometown). Since I departed America, my mother had put an incredible about of time and effort into organzing boxes of photos we had into albums chronologically. She was very proud of this work and insisted that I give these albums the once over as they were allegedly really funny. Looking at my hair and clothing in this picture I will say that yes, the photo albums were really funny, but I digress. When I was glancing over these trip to the zoo pictures, someone, perhaps me, suggested a random return trip to this zoo. Ha! Ha! Good joke...oh wait, we went there today, at least some of us did.

My nurse of a sister and father both had to work (chumps!) and were thus not able to make the trip to the zoo. My brother, on the other hand, did not have work, but refused to go on the grounds that he hates, "dirty animals." So my mother, my sister, and I trekked off to the Catskill Mountains, home to the Catskill Game Farm..."the family place to be!" (or was Hoffman's Playland "the family place to be?" I can't get my mid-80s local business tv spots right anymore). Anyhow after a brief drive through the lovely Catskill Mountains we arrived at the game farm...let the good times roll!

We are asses, and we bite.

My sister pontificating about the true essance of a rhinosaurus. Immediately after snapping this picture, the rhino laid down. As it did so, it snorted or grunted or made some kind of noise like a fat guy would make after owning an all you can eat buffett. Right when the rhino made this noise, some random kid proclaimed, "Hey Dad! That rhino made a fart!!!!" The dad, looked at us nervously, mortified at what his child had said, but since we are intelligent and realize that farts are funny we laughed at his child's tourettes style outburst and the nervousness faded. Good times...good times.

Hey assface, here's an ass touching an ass' ass.

Perplexed by a deer.

Confused by a camel.

Reliving our childhood. Back in the 1987 photo album my mother so proudly showed me, there was a picture of my siblings and I sitting on this same swing set. Here my mother attempted to recreate the photo with only her most awesome children by editing out a couple losers. (Elaine devil horn noise!)

Best creepy dinosaur bird ever. I don't remember what it was called, but it was hella creepy and basically looked like a dinosaur. Also it tried to eat my camera.

To wrap up our trip to the zoo, we saw the elephant show. Now back when I was a small child we saw the same elephant show, and to this day my family still talks about it. Not because the show was particularly good, but because there were whirling elephants. There was a bit in the show where the elephants stood up and spun like ballerinas. Only we caught the after lunch so as they spun they also shat. As the spinning elephants' asses passed the crowd the front row was all like, "WHOA!!!" and leaning way back to avoid elephant doots. This time there was no spinning or shitting for that matter, but we were subjected to the most moronic question and answer session ever. It went a little something like this:

AUDIENCE MEMBER 1: How old is the elephant?
TRAINER: He's 18 years old.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 2: How long are their tails?
TRAINER: Well elephants are like people. People have different length arms, elephants have different length tails.
AUDIENCE MEMBER 3: Uh how old is he?
TRAINER: 18. Yes, you sir...
AUDIENCE MEMBER 4: What his age in years?
TRAINER: Still 18.
SOME RANDOM KID WHO WILL BE ON THE NEWS IN A FEW YEARS: Can he kill people?
TRAINER: I hope not. Next question?
AUDIENCE 5: How long are the tails?
TRAINER: They are different lengths. Last question.
AUDIENCE 6: But what is the age of that elephant...you know in years?
TRAINER: 18. Thanks for comming everyone, enjoy the rest of your day.

After that it, we'd had enough of the dirty animals and headed home for the day.

"Watch Out For Those Japanese Bastards!"

2005-07-25T08:55:00.001+09:00

I have so many odd conversations due to the fact that I can speak Korean.

Yesterday in preparation for my trip home I headed over to 인사동 (仁寺洞 / Insadong) to pick up some assorted gifts for friends and family back home. On the way from the subway station to 인사동, I walked past 탑골공원 (塔골公園 / Tapgol Gongwon), and decided to head in and scope the scene out.

I had been here once before (roughly two years ago to the day), and had lost the pictures I had taken there of National Treasure Number 2 (a ten story pagoda). So I headed in, and snapped the photos below.

Korean National Treasure No. 2

Korean National Treasure No. 2 (from a different angle)

Monument of Wongaksa. (Treasure No. 3...not a national treasure mind you).

Afterwards, I was headed out, to carry on towards 인사동, but before I left I checked out the Korean Declaration of Independence. I was examining the original version (in 漢字 and 한글) when an older man approached me. The park was loaded with old men, and it was only a matter of time before one of them decided to speak with me.

This gentleman was clad in some less then elegant clothes, had one tooth, and extremely dark skin...all the signs of a homeless person in Korea. Upon approaching me, the man pointed to the English language version of the Declaration, and in fairly decent English said, "You can read the English Declaration over there." I explained to him in Korean that I can understand Korean, and wanted to see how much of the Korean version I could understand.

He was excited to hear that I could speak Korean and began telling me about the Korean Declaration of Independence and the events leading up to the it. After asking where I was from ("America...New York." "AH New York! [thumbs up]"). He then proceeded to tell me about how when he was in school (Japanese school mind you), he had to bow to a picture of the Emperor of Japan ("like he was God or my ancestors"). He told me about how Japanese cops would randomly force people to kneel in the streets with their arms raised above their heads. He also explain the best example of passive-aggressive behavior I have ever heard. He told me that in his class they would have to clean the picture and would use rags that had been used to wipe up their sweat to "clean" the picture of the Japanese Emperor. And then he offered me this warning, "일본놈 조심하세요," (Watch out for those Japanese bastards).

He explained to me that Americans needed to watch out for the Japanese, and be careful of being all buddy-buddy with them. He then thanked me for listening to his tale and we parted ways.

I then headed to 인사동 to nab some gifts for people. For those of you not in the know 인사동 is an area of 서울 (Seoul) that has countless traditional crafts, foodstuffs, art, and artifacts. So I picked up some gifts, shocked shopkeepers with my knowledge of Korean language, and then headed home.

Oh and I got Goonies on DVD for 1,000 won (a little less the USD$1) at the Korean version of Just A Buck (or insert you local $1 store name here). "HEY YOU GUYS!!"

Mr. Park Had A Farm E-I-E-I-O...And On That Farm He Had A...

2005-07-23T20:06:00.000+09:00

Hello everyone, my name is Wyatt. I teach English in South Korea. My house is in Seoul, which is the largest city in the country of South Korea. My house has a verenda in which my washing machine is located. Earlier today while I was stuffing random t-shirts with nonsensical English, socks with pictures of communist icons, and under garments into my seafoam green washing machine, I happened to glance outside my window. What to my wondering eyes did appear, but a friggin' chicken chilling like Bob Dylan on penicillin. When I was unloading the washing machine I looked out the window and discovered not one, but two chickens were living on the roof top across the alley. I may have mentioned this before, but it is my understanding that Seoul has no zoning laws what-so-ever. Back when I was living in might Bongcheon, there was a car repair shop, a supermarket, a nightclub, and a church all on my street. On the way into Goyang, I pass a factory with rice patties in front of it on a daily basis. And now I have chickens living across the street from me. Only in Korea...only in Korea.

맛기차콘 (Mat Gi Cha Corn)

2005-07-07T20:32:00.000+09:00

I've consumed a lot of fairly random stuff since arriving in Korea. Stuff that two years ago I would have scoffed at the very notion of: seaweed, various parts of squids, random vegetables that do not exist in America, things so spicy that flames shoot out of my ass during the digestion of it, and silk worm larvae, but rarely have I come across a food item that was utterly repulsive. Today I met my match. Join me in my foray into the world of Korean junk food.

This is 맛기차콘 (Mat Gi Cha Corn). It doesn't look too bad from the outside.

Opening the package and examining the snack reveals that it looks a bit like a Fruit Roll-up. It doesn't really have any distinct smell to it.

It might have looked a bit like a Fruit Roll-up, but the taste was not anything like a Fruit Roll-up, or the corn displayed on the wrapper. It kind of tasted like sugary cling wrap, and after eating it, the stuff sat in my guts for the remainder of the day. Avoid this crap at all costs!

Somehow my students eat this stuff on a daily basis and think it is delicious. I think I need to bring them real Fruit Roll-ups after my trip to America. This stuff is awful. And is it just me or does the name of this snack translate as "Taste Train Corn."

Chohung Bank Museum of Finance

2005-06-27T21:10:00.000+09:00

This morn, I headed out to the Chohung Bank Museum of Finance with Nathan (he has a lot more pictures than I do). The Chohung Bank (조흥은행) is one of the larger bank chains here in Korea, though it is not the bank I use (KB baby!) so I was a tad nervous that Chohung goons would not allow me in. Fortunately this was not the case. They bestowed us with some free pens and let us loose in the museum.

Being a museum, I wasn't really allowed to take photos (with a flash anyhow) so the pictures did not turn out all that well. Here are a few of the better pictures I managed to snap when no one was looking.

Some safes at the enterance to the museum.

Tools of the trade.

Things that were used to barter in antiquity.

Making coins. The awesome thing about this process was the fact that the coins were attached to an antler looking chunk of copper when the were put in the mold, kind of like that plastic frame that held the Ninja Turtle action figures' weapons together in the package, but more about these coins later.

The history of the CHB logo.

The museum had little in the way English signage so it would be a little difficult for those with limited or no knowledge of Korean to understand what some of the items on display (particularly old documents) were. Even those with knowledge of Korean might run into trouble, unless they have intimate knowledge of banking and finance terms (both modern and archaic)...I don't have this knowledge, so a lot of the documents on display left me scratching my head. I did learn and retain knowledge of a couple obscure archaic words. Drum roll please...상평통보 (常平通寶) and 동국통보 (東國通寶)!

These were copper coins with holes in the center that were strung on string and were the first national currency in Korea. Prior to their creation bartering was the norm, and Chinese coins were used in international purchases. I believe the 상평통보 were the earlier of the two, but I might be wrong.

Anyhow the museum was a nice change of pace, as I haven't done anything touristy in quite some time. I really enjoyed it since I had been under the impression that I'd seen and done all the tourist things to be seen and done in Seoul. It's nice to know that this is not the case, and I have become motivated to seek out more of these kind of museums so I can learn more words in Korean I will never use again.

Feminist Romanization?

2005-06-15T09:26:00.000+09:00

Korea really needs to standardize Romanization. I tired of seeing ugly, ugly Romanization. 'ㅈ' sounds nothing like 'z,' and '김' has nothing that would make an 'n' sound. I'm under the impressions that a lot of Koreans just pick random letters they enjoy while Romanizing their names, so I've decided that from now on I'm going to write my name in Korean as 쾌턔뜨 (close to "Kwehtyeahddeu," but it would be read as "Wyatt").

"Why Can't Hot Girls Sit Next To Me?"

2005-06-13T21:56:00.000+09:00

Without fail, it's always middle aged women or drunken business men who reek of booze, grilled meat, and cigarettes who fall asleep and lean all over me on the subway. I'm I asking too much for some Lee Hyori clone to pass out on my shoulder?

Editor's Note: I can't draw people, landscapes, animals, vehicles, or well...anything for that matter. So in this picture the guy in the middle is supposed to be me, the person on the left is a slumbering 아줌마 (ajumma / middle aged woman), the guy on the right is a drunk business man reeking of soju and meat. The business man is holding a newspaper. I apologize for the crap quality of this drawing and promise I won't make a habit of subjecting you to them.

Rock Show: Well, 몽니, Cloud Cuckoo Land

2005-06-12T22:33:00.000+09:00

This evening I headed over to Ssamspace Baram to check out the bands listed above and recieve coffee. "Coffee?" you ask. Why yes, coffee. Most clubs here bestowe beverages upon ticket holders. Usually it is water, sometimes it's soda, once and awhile you'll get a brew, and today it was coffee. But that's not the weirdest part. While drinks are commonplace, snacks are not, but today in addition to some rockin' bands and free coffee, I recieved animal crackers! Not since kindergarten have I recieved animal crackers for randomly entering an area, but I digress. On with the rocking.

First up was Well. They played quasi-shoegazer rock jams, with a heavy emphasis on ballads, occassionally veering into bar band territory playing tunes and encouraging the audience to dance it up. The ladies in the audience ate it up.

Among the jams they played the busted out a cover of "Everybody's Changing," by Keane, as well as the Korean nationalism medley of "독도는 우리 땅," "Oh Pilsung Korea", and "아리랑."

Next up were Monni. I've seen them before, and the are fairly awesome. They play kind of atmospheric emo rock (sort of Death Cab For Cutie meets Radiohead).

Monni's bassist. She was rocking out hard.

Among their set was a cover of Radiohead's "2+2=5" (which was announced in Korean "이" as opposed "Two").

Cloud Cuckoo Land was next up. Some more atmospheric shoe-gazing rock and roll. The dude on the right had way to many effects pedals which was awesome.

Bassing it up.

More Radiohead was covered here, This time "High and Dry." Additionally they covered Smashing Pumpkins, "1979," (which was again introduced as "천구백칠십구년" as opposed to "ninteen sevety-nine").

After the show I chatted with some of the dudes from Cloud Cuckoo Land. I would seriously like to see some stats on the percentage of foreigners here who can speak Korean, since these lads (like everyone else I speak with) had serious eye-popping action when they realized I was speaking Korean.

Rock Show: Unionway 3 For The Workforce

2005-06-05T22:43:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow is a national holiday here in Korea, so I have no work. Therefore this evening I headed over to Baram to check out Unionway 3: For The Workforce. Six bands for 10,000 won. Rocktacular!

First up was Same O Story. They are a fairly new band, and they were rocking out awesome emo-style.

Same O Story. Their guitarist was awesome. He bounced all over the place and thrashed about on stage.

The Strikers. These guys played some melodic upbeat poppy punk rock.

The Strikers rocking out.

Today Spot. This band was made up of the members of The Chokeslammers with a different singer and no pro-wrestling gimmic. They sounded a lot like The Chokeslammers, but were slightly less entertaining to watch since there was no one doing Hulk Hogan-esque leg drops on giant stuffed animals on stage. The did have an awesome called "Seven Seconds," which was seven seconds long. It was all like "JUN JUN JUN....SEVEN SECONDS!"

Vassline played totally intense hardcore. I refer to their webpage for a quote discussing their sound, and mission statement, "our final goal is to resurrect the heavy metal tough guys from the 80's."

Guitar! Working hard at the resurrection.

Hollow Jan play really melodic hardcore. For people that attended highschool with me, they kind of sound like latter-day Section 8, or a yelling-er version of the Deftones. I was really rocking out during their set, so I didn't take too many pictures (at least too many decent pictures).

Stunning Down. More melodic skate punk.

Rocking out to Stunning Down.

"Just the two of us! We can make it if we try!"

After the show I chatted it up with members of Same O Story and the lead singer from Stunning Down which was pretty awesome. I kind of surprised myself (and Korean punks) with my Korean skill, as I have done a lot recently.

연희동 Night Life

2005-06-02T20:20:00.000+09:00

The other night I felt compelled to hit the streets of my neighborhood armed with some cameras and my tunes and take pictures of the local night life. This quickly disolved into my attempting to take quasi-artistic photos of neon signs, but since neither my camera nor I am overly artistically inclined, the photos turned out to be more fartsy than artsy. So here are some of the higher quality shots I was able to capture.

Kim Family Knife Cut Noodles

I live in Chinatown. There are all sorts of restaraunts and other establishments catering to Chinese (read as Taiwanese) nationals.

Outdoor menu.

A vet's office.

Louis Vuitton Garbage Bag

2005-05-31T21:37:00.000+09:00

Korea's obsession with brand names has gone too far this time! I give you the Louis Vuitton plastic garbage bag.

Star Wars Review That Has Very Little To Do With Star Wars

2005-05-28T13:41:00.000+09:00

Episode III (in Korean)

Last night I was finally able to check out Star Wars Episode III, but in the adventure that was last night / this morning, the review of Star Wars is going to be but a footnote. Get comfortable, it's going to be a long night.

The night began at roughly 8:15 when I met up with Nathan and his compatriot Ian. Since the movie didn't start until 10:45, we had plenty of time to kill, so we headed over to a restaraunt and ordered up some 돼지갈비. The meal was delicious and the conversation was good.

After dinner we met up with Shaun and attempted to get a block of four seats together, but the best we could do was two and two. After much shenanigans at the ticket counter we hung around outside the theater shooting the shit up until film time. At approximately 10:45 we entered the theater, there were a couple of previews, and then it was Star Wars time!

As soon as the 20th Century Fix logo hit the screen there was applause. It wasn't like a standing ovation, but that kind of akward half-assed two people clapping, like you might hear after a shitty poet finishes a reading at the local coffee shop's poetry slam night. As for the movie itself, it was the easily the best film in the recent trilogy.

Sure a lot of the dialogue was pretty cornball, but that's par for course when it comes to Star Wars movie. Additionally there were some scenes in the flick seemed a little forced. For example the inclussion of the wookies...in particular the Chewbacca cameo that Yoda had to announce as if we couldn't see a fucking 7' hairy cultural icon standing there.

Perhaps the scene that I thought was the most whack (whackest?) was the seen in which Senator Palpatine declares himself "Emperor of the Universe," to a huge round of applause. I'm from America, and I have a hard time imagining Bush standing infront of Congress and just being like, "Fuck all y'all, I'm running the whole show from this day forward!" and being met by wide spread aplause, but that's just me.

In all I thought the movie was pretty outstanding. I liked the way George Lucas tied up all the ends, and for the most part where able to tie it into the original trilogy. It was kind of awesome to see vechicles and clone troops that clearly begot the vechiles and strom troopers in the original, and to see that white 1970's space ship (the one Episode IV begins upon) was pretty awesome, though it is unknown to me why Obi-wan Kenobi doesn't recognize the droids in Episode IV since he was interacting with them for years and years prior to that film. As a student of East Asian studies, it was also interesting for me to learn how much the way of the Jedi and Buddhism had in common. At one point in the film Yoda is conversing with Anakin Skywalker and explains to him that "desire leads to suffering." Ah Yoda (George Lucas) I see you've been looking into the Four Noble Truths lately. Anyhow for a much more detailed, well thought out review of the movie check out Nathan's review.

After the film, Ian headed out to meet some other friends, so Nathan, Shaun, and I ventured out to which is the only bar named after a Commadore 64 game I know of, Oregon Trail. At the bar we drank some brews and commiserated about life in Korea. This was nice for since at my place of employment I am the only foreigner, so I don't really get a lot of oppertunity to air greivences or talk with other people living the same kind of experiences as I am. The night was also a little odd since it was the first time in a long time that I was the best Korean speaker in the group I was out on the town with, but I digress.

The best bar based upon a Commadore 64 / Apple II computer game.

Somewhere around 2 am, Nathan called it a night and headed back home. Shaun and I decided to head out to Hongdae for more random adventures. So after what would have to be the longest possible land route between Shinchon and Hongdae, we arrived, and for some reason, ventured into a hip-hop club. Unfortunately (for Shaun more than me), the place was a total sausage party...I mean there were a couple ladies, but nothing to write home about. After getting our "dance" on (by the way Korea what was up with playing "Jump Around?" What year is this 1992?) we rolled out of the club, the name of which escapes me, and headed out to a small playground that exists in Hongdae.

In spite of the fact that it was after 4:00 am, the playground was crowded with people, all in various states of drunkeness. I sat down on a swing next to a Korean punk guy, who struck up conversation with me. He, Shaun, and I had a fairly lengthy conversation, in which I surprised myself with my ability to speak Korean for 15 or 20 minutes straight (without needing English). During our coversation another Korean punk guy came over. He asked me what bands I liked, and in my rattling off of various bands, I named the band he was in, Popstore. So he was surprised that I knew of his band and we struck up conversation. And oh what a conversation it was!

We talked until the sun came up and the punks and drunks were replaced by Korean grandparents collecting empty bottles and cleaning up garbage. Shaun, Domino (the singer from Popstore), and I covered huge ammounts of territory in our conversation. We talked about rock and roll, the presence of open container laws in Canada and the States, the trend in Korea to get circumsized in adulthood, the flaw in Korean reunification (due to the language differences that exist now), and how "Korean girls are strange." He also gave me advice on how to win over a girl's parents.

Sitting in this park in the early dawn hours, aside from providing some great conversations I would never imagine myself having, also allowed for some outstanding people watching opportunities. Two of the best things I saw involved the afore mentioned swing set. At one point, a pair of Korean dudes were sitting on the swings. Some drunk, balding, and in my opinion a tad insane foreigner moseyed up, pused one of the guys off the swing, sat down, and swung for about 30 seconds, almost fell off the swing twice, got off, and walked away. Later, at 5:30 in the morning a grandmother appeared with a small boy who rode the swing for five minutes or so before they also left the park.

Day breaks and it's time to head home, but not before I "FUCK JAPS."

Anyhow I returned home at 7:00 in the morning, but due to the fact that I had to meet someone at 10:00 couldn't very well go to sleep. So now with this report all filed, I'm going to finally get some much needed rest.

Shaun's version of this event can be found here. Thankfully the two versions are fairly similar (no reports of me doing anything outrageous that I forgot about).

漢字 5급 Practice Test

2005-05-24T23:41:00.000+09:00

I got a lot of questions and comments regarding my upcomming 漢字 test. So here is a run down of how the test (at least the level 5 test) is breaking down.

Level 5 page 1
This page has three parts to it. Part one (questions 1-35) requires the test taker to write the Korean readings of the various Sino-Korean words. For example number 4 品名 requires the test taker to write 품명. Part two (36-59) requires the test taker to write the 뜻 (Korean meaning) and the 음 (phonetic sound) of the various character. For example number 36 requires the test taker (me) to write 복(the meaning) 복(the sound). Part three has various sentences with words bolded. The test taker is required to replace the bolded words with their 漢字 equivalent. Let's look at number 71: 지금은 오전 10시이다. (Now it is 10 o'clock in the morning.) I have to replace 오전 with 午前 and get an awesome score. On the the next page!

Level 5 page 2
Questions 75-78 require me to write the 漢字 for the given 뜻 and 음. Example 아이 동 means I gotta write 童. Questions 79-81 require me to write the opposites of the 漢字 listed. Example 客 (customer) means I gotta write 主 (master)...I have no idea that some of these things are opposite. The level 8, 7, and 6 opposites make sense, but these are getting whack. Questions 82-85 are Matt at No-sword's friend and mine the 4 character compounds. This section requires me to select the missing character from the compound from a box of various character. Example 男女老( ) I gotta chuck a 少 in there to get 男女老少 (man woman old young). 86-88 is about stroke order. What number are the various strokes made? Who cares really...this section is boring so onward! 89-91 find the characters with the same definitions. 年 (해 년) and 歲 (해 세) both have the meaning of 해. Questions 92-94 involves finding characters with different meanings but the same pronunciation (決 and 結 are both read as 결). Questions 95-97 involves matching words to definitions (승객이 타는 차 -> 客車). The final part of the test has me writing simplified (or 약자) versions of the characters listed. I don't really understand why this part of the test, since in Korea simplified characters aren't used. I know a few of them due to my semester of Japanese, but I have to do some more studying in this area. For example, I only know that 學 is simplified as 学, but that's about it. Like I said, only traditional characters are used here...so this part will kick my ass.

There you have it, a Korean 漢字 exam. How does it compare to the Japanese version of this kind of test?

Kind Of A Return To Nature.

2005-05-22T19:48:00.000+09:00

Yesterday instead to doing actual tutoring with the middle school kids I tutor on Saturdays, their mother suggested, "Let's go hiking." So that's what we did getting our hike on on a small mountain / hill in their neighborhood. So here are a couple of photos of "nature."

Some pink flowers.

Some kind of bird.

And of course nothing says returning to nature like walls of barbed wire.

So not only did this mountain have flowers, birds, and butterflies, but it also had more barbed wire than a Japanese prowrestling match. Some of the hiking trails were narrow paths between two walls with barb wired at the top and piled at the foot of the wall...kind of depressing if you ask me.

As we hiked along and I attempted to avoid being suplexed into piles of barbed wire or being drop kicked of a side of the mountain by the assorted profession wrestlers dwelling on the mountain, I was bombarded with questions about the presence of various flora in upstate New York...in English. "Does New York have acasia trees?" I have no idea what acasia is...I know like five kinds of trees: oak, maple, pine, willow, and birch, other than that it like, "That's a tree," but some how the people I was hiking with knew hella plant names in a foreign language (English). It was almost as bizarre as the prison like atmosphere some of the paths exuded.

Anyhow I made it off the mountain without being shot, falling off a cliff, being thrown into barbed wire, or being able to inform people of the flora of my hometown (though I did tell them of the wild turkeys that rocked out in my neighborhood...they sleep in trees [though I couldn't tell you what kind of trees those were]). And so concludes my adventure on Death Match Mountain.

Double The Holidays With Half The Days Off

2005-05-15T09:39:00.000+09:00

So today there are not one, but two holidays going on in Korea (you gotta love the presence of both lunar and Gregorian calendars). The first holiday, 부처님 오신 날 (Buddha's Birthday), is what is known as a "red day." In Korea national holidays are marked with red numerals on calendars. The second holiday is "Teacher's Day," which is about as important as National Secretary Day. There is no day off, but as a teacher I look forward to Teacher's Day, because it means free loot for the likes of me.

The thing is, in Korea holidays move around. In the states Martin Luther King Jr. Day always falls on a Monday, here the holiday will move around. So if a holiday falls on a Sunday you're s.o.l. Today is one of those days, since it is Sunday, there is no Buddhist party time bonus day off. Additionally due to the fact that Teacher's Day fell on Sunday I probably missed out on some free loot.

Now don't get me wrong, I still scored some gifts...check 'em out yo!

My Teacher's Day gifts, I got some "scented packets" (they're like the Pine Tree Airfresheners for your house), some handkerchiefs, shower gel, two wacky moss / plant things that reside in and pop out of picture frames (like that painting in that one episode of Friends), some little painting thing that a grandmother would put on their mantle, and a picture frame.

In addition to that sweet loot, the kids I tutor took me out to lunch yesterday which was pretty rad. We had some 함흥냉면 and 만두 that was the size of my hand. It being the day before Teacher's Day, the restaraunt was loaded with high school kids taking their teachers to lunch. It was kind of odd, that I was classified as a teacher, yet was clad in some redankulous Salvation Army tee shirt, and Converse sneakers, as opposed to a tie and hideous sweater vest like the other "teachers."

Anyhow I have important Buddhist stuff to attend to today...like washing some towels and going to the supermarket. Take it easy people.

"사과, 오렌지, 바나나." "야! 아구창 닥쳐!"

2005-05-14T17:00:00.000+09:00

This morning at 7:00am I was roused from my slumber by a shrill voice yelling about produce over a crappy sound system. Yes my friends it was the Produce Man! For those of you outside Korea, the Produce Man is a guy who drives around in a truck yelling about the goods he has for sale. For my suburban American audience he's a lot like the ice cream man.

There are a couple subtle differences between the produce man and the ice cream man. First, and most obvious, are the goods they deal in. The ice cream man sells delicious frozen snacks while the produce man sells fruits, vegetables, or fruits and vegetables. Secondly while the ice cream man is content to let "Maple Left Rag," or "The Entertainer," alert people to his presence, the produce man relies on a tape loop that reads of the goods he is selling like a robot: 사과. 오렌지. 바나나. It would be like the ice cream man driving around blasting a tape that was like, "ICE CREAM SANDWICH. FUDGE POP. ROCKET POP," in the most robotic voice possible. The third difference, and this is where my problem arises from. The ice cream man never hits the streets before noon, the produce man is ready to rock at the crack of dawn. For crying out loud produce man it's Saturday morning, let me sleep...bastard.

Up yours fruit / vegetable man!

*Editor's Note: "아구창 닥쳐!" is a very rude expression. 아구 is a fish with a huge gapping mouth, therefore 아구창 is a derogatory term for a mouth. 닥쳐! is like "Shut the hell / fuck up," so this expression all together is like, "Shut that fuckin' hole in your face!" Be forewarned.

Rock Show: Wintergreen, 소규모아카시아밴드, 몽니

2005-05-13T22:44:00.000+09:00

So it's Friday the Thirteenth, so you know what that means. No, not a movie marathon of everyone's favorite ice hockey mask clad madman. it means rockin' out! The last few shows I've been to have been shows where I know all the bands, so I figured tonight was as good a time as any to check out some new bands (or at least bands that are new to me). So away we go!

First up for the evening was Wintergreen. These guys and gals playes some inoffensive pop rock with occassional funk flourishes. In their set they played the following covers: "You Are So Beautiful," (you know the song...'You are so beautiful to me...can't you see?'), and the Cure's, "Love Song."

Wintergreen's singer. He kind of had that inoffensive Dave Matthews, everyman kind of voice.

The bassist kept winking and smiling in my general direction, but I couldn't tell if she was doing so for me, the chunky girl in front of me, or if she was just really stoked to be playing funk bass riffs.

Next up 소규모아카시아밴드 (Sogyomo Acacia Band). For the bulk of their set they were a two piece playing really mellow jams. The singer whispered her lyrics, and the guitarist laid down some mellow coffee shop style guitar work. The music kind of reminded me of some female French singer I had to listen to while in highschool (the name of which escapes me at this time).

For the last three songs of their set they dragged out a bassist and a drummer (introduced in Korean as "a bass friend" and a "drumming friend"). With the addition of these "friends," the band played some jazzy rock that had some 1950's rock style guitar work. Not a bad band overall, I'll probably check them out again, with my lady.

Monni were the most rocking band of the evening. They kind of had an "emo" vibe going on with some touches of Radiohead atmosphereics. They were really awesome.

They also had token female bassist. Unlike the first band she did not wink at me...or anyone for that matter. She kind of had the angry rocker chick face on at all times (like the drummer from Peterpan Complex).

The lead guitarist kind of had Korean Boy Band Hair, but he rocked the hell out of his axe.

And that's the end of that chapter. Now if you'll excuse me I have some Friday the 13th films that aren't exactly watching themselves. (creepy Friday The 13th / volvox maracca sound)*

* Editor's Note: That's a joke only my sister will / should get.

How Do You Make Western Fairy Tales Appealing To Korean Audiences? Add Farting Animals And Kimchi.

2005-05-08T19:04:00.000+09:00

Yesterday the kids I tutor hooked me up with some free tickets to a presentation of Alice! Alice!, a Korean "jazz musical" based on the classic tale, Alice In Wonderland. I turns out that a relative of my students was featured in this play, so in addition to some outstanding theater I got to go back stage and was given apple pie.

Allegedly a saxophone playing ant (Looked more like a ninteen aught two robber baron to me). This dude was related to the kid I tutor (uncle or cousin or second cousin or close family friend...I wasn't to sure) and the source of free tickets.

The show was pretty decent, but seemed to use the Alice In Wonderland as a rough guide. Since Alice! Alice! bore very little resemblance to the original story. First off the rabbit was not running late, but instead had a bad case of gas. The Cheshire Cat and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb were combined into one...er two characters Bingle and Bangle who were basically hot Korean girls in cat outfits. And most of the plot was replaced with singing and dancing. The plot that did exist was kind of about respecting mom and not being a whiney bitch of an offspring, which is not a bad message.

The best thing about this show, and these kind of events in general because they offer up great chances to use fairly random Korean expressions. I mean where else would I be able to ask questions like, "Is that moustache real or fake?" "Are you really a person who farts a lot?" "Are you supposed to be Mark Twain or something?"

Goodbye Jenny Kim

2005-05-04T09:56:00.000+09:00

A 학원 is as much a business as much as it is educational institution, so from time to time I've lost students when they've gotten bored, or had other commitments, but yesterday I lost one of my students because she is moving. So unlike the kids who decided they don't want to study English anymore, we had a going away party for Jenny Kim. There was cake, snacks, beverages, and Twister...oh and a whipped cream soul patch.

For some reason this kid thought it would be a fitting send off to give himself a whipped cream "soul patch."

Goodbye Jenny Kim! Good luck to you in the big city.

"Nice House...Here's Some Soap."

2005-05-01T11:55:00.000+09:00

Last night Darrell had a 집들이 (housewarming party) to celebrate his new home. Let me start by saying I'm extremely jealous! Not only is his house twice the size of mine, but he also pays less than I do for mine (my bathroom is slightly larger than his).

The party's host.

Korean housewarming parties are decent. Guests bring along a small gift...something like soap or toilet paper or a plant that will soon die due to a lack of attention, and the host feeds and intoxicates them. All in all it's not a bad way to spend an evening.

Ladies...can you guess who is Korean and who is Japanese?

Darrell is truly an outstand chef. I mean pickles on a plate with rolls, imported peanut butter M&M, mac & cheese, ordered pizza, and I think later on there were some veggie burgers (but I was rockin' out and didn't consume any). Koreans are not to fond of mac & cheese, though one guest created a mac & cheese sandwich (after previously consuming a pickle and salsa sandwich).

Mac & Cheese Party Time!

In addition to food, the booze was flowing like something that flows a lot. Last night I consumed...um...some brew. No, really I had some beers, some Jack & Coke, some kind of Japanese brew (maybe sake, though I'm not sure), and since this is Korea soju. Anyhow I'm still feeling the effects of too much ~~alcohol~~ mac & cheese, so I'm going to leave you now...

One shot!

I'm Glad Someone Does

2005-04-28T21:33:00.000+09:00

Now if you'll excuse me I have more pointless paperwork to fill out.

How To Be A Good Citizen On The Subway

2005-04-25T08:59:00.000+09:00

The subway is a great way to get around the city, but a lot of people who use the subway are unaware of others. So as a service to the people of Seoul I give you this informative guide on how to be a good citizen on the subway.

Rule 1: Wait For Disembarking Passangers
Getting off a subway car can be one of the most annoying aspects of living in Seoul, especially during high traffic times. Someone outside the train is always in such a rush to get on the train that they attempt to push their way through those passengers getting off the train. This behavior is actually counter productive as it increases the overall disembarkment / boarding time. So please, let people off first and then get on the train.

Rule 2: Don't Jump The Queue (What Am I British?)
Some people are in such a rush to get on a train that they can't stand waiting in line. These people like to partake in what is known as queue-jumping. While there are two lines on the left and right hand side on each subway car door, these queue jumpers will create additional lines next to the existing lines. When the train arrives they will jostle their way so they are on the train before anyone elese. To this people I say wait your turn. If you got to the station after five people it means that five people are getting on the train before you.

Rule 3: Seven People Per Seat
Seats on subways in Seoul fit a seven people...not eight. I cannot tell you how many 아주마 (ajummas) have attempted to wedge on an already full seat. This is annoying behavior. If you are not old, pregnant, or infirmed you can wait until there is an empty seat.

Rule 4: If You're Gonna Sleep, Sleep Over There
I have no problem if people sleep on the subway, but don't be leaning all over me or other passengers you don't know. If your neck can't support the weight of your skull don't sleep on the subway.

Rule 5: The Subway Is Not A Toilet
I don't want to think about it but I can not tell you how many times I've seen people urinate on the subway, both drunken men and small children. The drunken men usually wet themselves, the children (usually boys) are often pantsed by their mothers and given assistance to piss into an empty drink bottle. People come on now! You are not in a toilet! Men if you are so drunk that you might wet yourself, take a taxi...and moms, if your kid can't hold a piss in for the two minutes between stations, the kid has no business being out of diapers.

Rule 6: Don't Do The Korean Man Subway Leg Spread™

This kind of ties in to Rule 3. Similar to the ajummas that think 8 people can fit on the seat there are men who are under the impression that they warrent a seat and a half in which to lounge about or fully open up newspapers. Hey buddy this is not your living room, don't act like it is.

Rule 7: Be Aware Of Other People's Space
The subways can get extremely crowded, so it helps to be considerate of other people's area. Don't grope anyone while the subway is crowded, or attempt to open a newspaper, and for God sake use deodorant. Maybe it's just me, but riding around on a train with someone's stinky armpit in my face isn't really my idea of a good time.

I think if people can follow these simple rules the subway trip will be a lot more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Toy Shopping In 동대문

2005-04-23T14:03:00.000+09:00

I can't take it no more cuz I'm going on a shopping spree!

That's right folks, this morning I headed off to 동대문 for no real reason and ended up buyinhg an assortment of crappy toys. Let's take a look at what I scored shall we?

First up is Super Charioteer. These are crazy tiny robots that can rock your ass six ways to Sunday. They come from Japan...therefore they are pure evil!

Panda Hammer. This was the item I came to Dongdaemun looking for. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of the Panda Hammer it goes something like this: this is a giant hammer you can smash your friends in the skull with letting out a tiny squeaking noise. These items are popular at game rooms, and now I have my own.

Kairander Five Fighter. Um...I guess these are knock-off Power Rangers. Go Go Kai Randers!! Randers teleport to command center!

Dooly is a Korean cartoon character. This is a collection of Dooly squeeze toys that like the Panda Hammer make squeaky noises.

Also while I was wandering around in 동대문 some turd of a kid spit gum out of his mouth which landed on my pants. His mother witnessed this and stared at me like I had three heads. When I called the kid a moron, she huffed and gave me a disgusted look. Sorry hag, if you don't want me calling your kid a "바보" don't let him spit gum on people, or at least apologize to the person that your offspring spit upon...or better yet yell at your kid and make him apologize.

So there you go, a bunch of random Korean toys, now if you'll excuse me I have to go play with some robots!

돌솥콩밥 & 누룽지 (Dolsot Kongbab & Nurongji)

2005-04-21T09:04:00.000+09:00

Last night 유림 and I traveled to a resturaunt and consumed some traditional Korean fare (fish, side dishes, soup, and so on). Today I present unto you, 돌솥콩밥 and 누룽지.

This rice (밥) is mix with beans (콩) served in a heated stone bowl (돌솥). The big thing in the middle is a chestnut (밤).

After you finish eating the rice, you fill the bowl with hot water which softens the burnt on rice, thus creating 누룽지 (nurongji).

This is what the rice of 누룽지 looks like up close and personal.

How To Be A Good Citizen On The Escalator

2005-04-20T07:48:00.000+09:00

Ah the escalator. It looks like a simple enough piece of technology to use, but you'd be surprised at the sheer number of people here in Seoul (both foreign and local) that have no idea how to use an escalator without acting like a complete moron. So here as a service to everyone in Seoul I present: How To Be A Good Citizen On The Escalator.

Rule 1: Right Side Is For Standing
Here in Korea, the right side of the escalator is the side for those who wish to stand still. The left side is for normal humans who want to walk. That being said there are a lot of people who stand on the left hand side, or worse still the middle of the step. Again, the right side of the escalator is for standing, the left side is for walking. Additionally if you have luggage or a carriage and are not planning on moving, keep your belongings on the right side with you.
And a special note to couples, don't stand on the same step and talk to each other. Ladies, go up one step and turn so you can face your boyfriend, if you really can't stand to take your eyes off him for one minute. Don't block my path because you're in love.

Rule 2: You Are Not A Goalie (Or If You Are This Is Not A Goal)
This kind of ties in to Rule 1, but if you are walking on the left hand side, but doing so slowly, and someone tries to pass you on the right, let them. The escalator is not a game of Pong. You don't need to slide around on the step attempting to prevent those behind you from getting past. If someone is attempting to pass you, just let them. Just because you're not in a hurry doesn't mean others aren't. In an unrealated piece of information, this applies to driving cars as well.

Rule 3: Don't Flail Your Arms
This rule applies to any crowded area, but the escalator in particular is a place you want to avoid flailing your arms while moving. This seems logical, but I can't count the number of times I've been whacked in the midships with an umbrella or briefcase by some mook doing the mash potato while walking up the escalator.

Rule 4: When The Escalator Stops, You Don't
This seems pretty basic, but you'd be surprised by the number of people that get to the of the escalator and stop dead in their tracks. To these people let me explain something, people are attempting to get off the escalator behind you, and by you standing there you are causing a real hazardous situation.

I think if everyone can follow these simple rules everyone will have a much more enjoyable escalator experience.

Burst & Bloom

2005-04-17T10:14:00.000+09:00

Since I'm not really what one would call a church goin' man, my Sundays are fairly uneventful afairs. Since the weather has warmed up I've taken to going on pointless walks around my neighborhood. Today I fired up my iPod (Death Cab For Cutie), grabbed my camera, and headed over to Yonsei University for some photography and walking. Oh yeah, it's spring now so that means there are a lot of blossoming trees and bushes...so enjoy some pictures of nature.

Aw isn't it pretty?

Some forsythia bushes. This things always remind me of my childhood, since growing up we had one of these bad boys in our yard. Ours was a lot bigger and more unruley than these though.

Sunday morning, trees in bloom, and the bulk of the population still hung over (I was on a college campus).

Some more trees. Unlike Japan, Korea doesn't make a big deal out of this, but since the Japanese celebration of blossoming trees isn't anything aside from an excuse to get drunk with family and friends, I'm not sure why they don't have a similar event.

After walking around for awhile I headed back to the homestead to give you this awesome assortment of pictures, and prepare for the day ahead...of doing absolutely nothing.

Rock Show: Mongoose, 눈뜨고 코베인, Peterpan Complex

2005-04-15T22:32:00.000+09:00

Today after work I headed over to Soundholic to catch an assortment of bands I've seen several times before...whatever it's awesome. Here are some pictures of the awesomeness. Korean indie rock for you kids.

Your friends and mine, Mongoose! Mongoose are really awesome, and the bass player does like Eddie Van Halen guitar solos on his bass.

Mongoose always kill cobras...unless they are rockin' out on the bass.

Mongoose's drummer. He kind of looks like my brother's friend. Dude rocked crazy disco beats. Totally awesome!

Mongoose's frontman...I believe his name is Mongo.

Next up was 눈뜨고 코베인. This appearance marked the third time I've seen this band which is a new record for seeing a band that I didn't know someone in personally. (The record was previously held by Queens of the Stone Age).

Nunco!

Rocktabulous!

Nunco's keyboardist. Don't tell U-rim, but I think I have a crush on her...then again their choice in clothing is fairly interchangeable...but then again again U-rim doesn't play keyboards for a psychadelic / new wave band!

Check out the bassist's footwear. Those are friggin' converse boots. How awesome is that?!

The guitarist sings. In the three times I've seen them this was the first show I heard him sing during. I mean he didn't even have a mic at any other show for backing vocals, and here he was singing lead.

Double the mics...double the rockjin!

Next up Peterpan Complex...now tied with 눈뜨고 코베인 at three times. Let's check some pictures shall we?

Mr. Jeon Ji Han serenading us.

Rock! Rock On!

Apparently since the last time I saw these guys they got a new bassist. His shirt was super low cut and and he didn't have glasses, unlike their previous bass player.

Rock out buddy!

The least smiling-est female drummer in the Korean indie rock scene. Her hair is awesome though.

GEEETAR!!!

Play that fuckin' guitar man!

"Is it time to go home yet?"

"Time to go home!"

And it was time to go home. The thing I like about shows here, is that I can check out a show, eat some fish cakes, walk home about half a mile, and still make it home by 10:15...and watch some crappy movie where Martin Lawerence is in the middle ages.

닭다리 三國志

2005-04-14T20:23:00.000+09:00

Hey fans of ancient Chinese historical texts, what's your number one complaint about the classic work 三國志? No, not the length, it's the total lack of fried chicken! Well the BBQ Fried Chicken Francise of South Korea has heard you pleas and has done something about it. Enter 닭다리 삼국지!

닭다리 삼국지, or in English, "Chicken Leg Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

The original story explained in great detail the battles between the 魏 (Wei) Kingdom, the 蜀 (Shu) Kingdom, and the 吳 (Wu) Kingdom. The revised version has the following nations: 매운맛 닭다리國 (Spicy Taste Chicken Leg Nation), 데리규 골드스틱國 (Terri-Q Goldstick Nation [it's made with terriyaki sauce]), and 통다리 바베규國 (Whole Chicken Leg Barbeque Nation).

I have no idea which idea which chicken nation should correspond to which historical Chinese Kingdom though. I need to know which flavor / nation of chicken has the mighty 關羽 in their ranks...I can see it now a mighty ass-kicking chicken leg with an equally impressive beard.

B-B-B Benny and the Jets!

2005-04-08T08:36:00.000+09:00

As you may or may not know, on the way into work I study 漢字 (Chinese characters). Using the 구몬 漢字 series (a series geared towards elementary school students) I have learned all kinds of useful characters, such as this one. I give you 師, the Chinese character for "Elton John Teaching Math!"

I jest, I jest. In reality the character 師 (스승 사) means "teacher or master," but look at that picture. I half expected it to start talking about Princess Diana or burst into an over the top Donald Duck costumed rendition of "Rocket Man."

What's In A Name?

2005-04-07T08:35:00.000+09:00

I've come across a lot of Koreans with pretty wacky English names in my travels. I've met a class of first grade boys who wanted to be named after Greek deities. I've met a middle-aged professor of the Chinese language who insisted, "Please call me Rocky." And I've encountered stuck-up, princess like college students who used MacGuyver as their English nickname, but this takes the cake!
Some Korean guy has elected to name himself after either a Hispanic person, or the son of God. The Korean part of the sign offers no assistance as to which one it is. "은성" is a Korean name which is Romanized under "Jesus," and "목재" (木材) means lumber. So the rest of the sign offers no help.
I can kind of understand the desire to name oneself something totally bizarre when selecting a nickname in a foreign language. My friend uses 홍길동 as his Korean name. In addition to being a fictious Robin Hood character, 홍길동 is the Korean version of "John Doe," and his name appears on the credit cards in commercials. I on the other hand use the name, 정관우 (丁關羽). 정(丁) is a random Korean family name bestowed upon me by girlfriend. Her family name is also 정, though uses the character 鄭, so I decided to change the character I use. 관우 is the Korean reading of Guan Yu, a hero from the work 三國志.
So Jesus Eun Seong is not alone in his unusal foreign language name. In fact he's in pretty good company.

Rock Show: Unionway Showcase

2005-04-02T23:05:00.000+09:00

Hey kids, it's skate punk showcase time! Get ready to rock with seven skate punk bands...so you know what that means: fast, loud, and furious (and a ska band).

First up to bat were Half Brothers. This band featured several crustaches. I soon realized that this was a trend in the scene, as most of the band had at least one such crustache.

Half Brother's guitar player. In addition to the crustache he was also sporting a towel on his head.

Propeller21. These were the guys I came to see. They play really fast melodic punk and are really outstanding.

Propeller21 guitarist rockin' the awesome.

Next up was Dub Spain. If memory serves me correctly they used to be the ska band, Brassman. The band played reggae/ska/dub and featured a guy on alto sax rocking some Kenny G-esque solos.

Dub Spain again. They weren't really my cup of tea, but the singer kept refering to his band as "Action band Dub Spain," which is pretty awesome.

Johnny Royal! Fuckin' hardcore dude! These guys put on an incredible show. Such insane energy.

Johnny Royal's guitarist...looking like a Hispanic gangbanger.

The bassist from Half Brothers returns to rock the hell out of the scene. This is probably the best rockin' out picture I've ever snapped. Dude was literally like 5 inches from my face.

The Choke Slammers. I couldn't tell you what they sounded like, yet I took over 50 pictures of them. This was mainly due to the fact that the singer was wearing a Mexican wrestling mask and did wrestling moves.

King Kong Bundy and The Junkyard Dog don't got nothing on these guys!

Non-wrestling members of The Choke Slammers. And actually I lied...I do remember one song they played: a cover of "La Bamba." How nuts is that?

Stunning Down. More upbeat poppy punk. They did a cover of the song, "Just The Two of Us," which if memory serves me correctly is a Will Smith song.

More Stunning Down. Check the drummer's turban.

Here's a better shot of said turban. Dude also looked like he was riding a horse as he played the drums.

Hollow Jan wrapped up the evening with some screaming emo / screamo / emo-core / awesomeness. They were all yelling and rolling on the floor and playing really melodic guitar riffs. They were a pretty outstanding group.

Yell emo kid! YELL!

Best picture ever!

After the show I was getting ready to leave when one of the guitarists from The Choke Slammers dragged me on stage for "group picture." I guess Unionway Krew was looking for some ethnic diversity for their website.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

2005-04-01T20:03:00.000+09:00

The year is 2005. The place is Seoul, South Korea. Atomic war has ravaged the world, and but a few souls remain. Though life is hard, these few souls have the world to themselves and can do as they please without having to worry disturbing those around them. Oh wait that didn't happen...yet for some reason a great deal of the populous walk around as if they are the only person in existance.

Today while walking to and from the subway station I was nearly spit on not once, but twice. Bare in mind this was just normal Korean loogey hockin' not malicious spits of rage, but still both spitters were just oblivious to the fact that other humans were on the street. These spitters were not alone in their world view either.

Each and everyday I ride the subway. I have raved about the subway in the past, and for the most part I adore the subway (J'adore le metro! 지하철 사랑해!), but there is one aspect of riding the rails I absolutely loathe. When attempting to exit the train I will inevitably be pushed, shoved, hastled, and otherwise harrassed by people attempting to board the train before disembarking passagers have emmm...disembarked. Again the people attempting to board the train are of the mindset that they are the only human being in existance.

The bulk of the things I dislike about Korea originate from this "Mad Max" syndrome. Motorcycles and scooters barrelling down sidewalks, bus drivers weaving in and out of traffic like they are driving a sports car, and people walking smack into you because they are reading the paper/sending text messages on their phone/studying (or doing all three) are all symptoms of this last man standing mentality.

Maybe it's just me, but this lack of attention to one's surroundings is very troublesome. It's hazardous to both the person and those around them. I have seen people walk into street light post, step into potholes, and trip on stairs for the sole reason that they were not looking where they were heading.

Anyhow, that about does it from here, and if you were ever curious what one could purchase with 1,000 won (roughly $1US) I present you with this:

700 Q-tips! Cost: 1,000 won (less than a dollar at time of purchase). This picture has nothing to do with what was written above, but I'm in awe of the fact that I was able to score this many Q-tips for such a small amount of money.

철판 구이 (Cheolpan Gui)

2005-03-31T21:29:00.000+09:00

Last night U-rim and I headed to 놀부 (Nolbu), a chain of Korean restaraunts that recently opened a branch near our homestead. On this particular night we opted for 철판 구이. Before we undertake the gastronomical aspect of this adventure, I'll hook you up with some quick Korean/Hanja lessons, because I care about you kids.
철판 (鐵板) literally means "iron board." The first part, 鐵, is the same character that appears in the word 지하철 (地下鐵) literally "underground iron" this is the word we all know and love as subway (and if my memory of my one semester of Japanese is correct this is the same word they use as well...though the reading of the characters are different).
구이 is a lot less interesting. It's simply a cooking technic of roasting meat of fish with seasonings. So anyhow that's what we ordered, and here's the photo evidence.

Like countless other Korea dishes, this particular dish is cooked at your table. Here U-rim models the meal's ingredients: 삼겹살 (sam gyup sal aka the meat), cloves of garlic, onion, mushrooms, potatoes, bean sprouts, kimchi, sesame leaves, some other unit that U-rim claimed was a green onion, but tasted nothing like a green onion.

The ingredients are then put on the aforemention iron surface and the cooking begins. Unlike other restaraunts were the customers are left to their own devices in the cooking process, this venue had a dude who did the cooking for us at the table. He is off to the right.

It wouldn't be Korean food without gochu-jang! The red pepper paste was added to the meat and vegetables and roasted on the iron board. Looks delicious!

After consuming the bulk of the food on the iron board, our personal chef returned and fried up some rice for us. You can't really tell from this picture, but the rice is in the shape of a heart.

In all it was a wicked delicious meal, though extremely filling. We ordered 이인분 / 二人分 (aka serving for 2 people) are were both ready to bust at the end.

알까봐 (Alkkabwa)

2005-03-27T09:13:00.000+09:00

So today is Easter and as special treat to you I bring you 알까봐, a crazy Korean egg shaped treat. So join me as we take a look at the magical world of 알까봐!

Whoa 알까봐! Is this Korea's answer to a Cadbury Cream Egg, the Holy Grail of Easter candy?

Well it's missing the lovely designed imprinted on the egg, and there was no ooze on the outside of the egg...I got worried.

WTF is this? That is no cream...Cadbury or otherwise.

There's an egg inside the egg? If I was a hippie burn out I'd think that was kind of deep, but since I'm not I didn't. I did, however, wonder what was inside. So I cracked the yellow plastic egg open and found...

A rhinosaur! Inside the egg was a little wooden rhino / dino toy on a string. Pretty awesome stuff for a wacky hollow chocolate egg.

So there you have it: hollow chocolate egg with a yellow plastic egg and toy hidden within. Seems random enough to become a popular treat for an equally random holiday. And as a holiday bonus I give you Jesus Dress Up. Enjoy!

Worst Alarm Clock Ever!

2005-03-25T20:10:00.000+09:00

In my nearly two years dwelling in this country I've never seen a closet. The majority of the people here have an 옷장, which is kind of like an armoire. I, being the cheap bastard I am, do not have an 옷장...I have a 행거 (hanger). It's not like the hanger one would use to jimmy a locked car door, but it's a unit shaped like a big Roman numberal two (II)...or should I say had.

The other night I was roused from my slumber by a large WHUMP! Groggy, I turned to my left and saw a seafoam green, metal Roman numberal two a scant 2 inches from my skull. Sweaters, overcoats, pantaloons, and everything in between were festooned across my floor.

In the twilight hours, the burden the clothes impossed upon the hanger became too much for it to bear and the supports at the base submitted and snapped under the weight.

Desperately wanting to return to my slumbers I turned the hanger around so that it was leaning against the wall. I haphazardly stuffed pants, and scarves back onto it, and that is how it still remains (and will probably remain for some time.

As I returned to sleep it dawned on me how lucky I was. Had I been sleeping a couple of inches to the left I could have killed or at least caught a seafoam green metal beam in the face and crotch. Not really the way I desire to be taken out.

Here you can see the piece of furniture that almost took yours truly out of commision. The black plastic wheel part has snapped in half as you can clearly see.

미역국 (Miyok Guk)

2005-03-23T10:35:00.000+09:00

This my friend is 미역국. 미역 (miyok) is Korean for seaweed and 국 (guk) is Korean for soup. So put them together and you have seaweed soup. While people in the west will enjoy a slice of cake on their birthday, Koreans celebrate the day of their birth with a steaming hot bowl of seaweed soup. I was told that since pregnant Korean women ate a lot of this in antiquity it became associated with birthdays. If that's the case I think I have to start celebrating my birth with watermelon, since that's what my mother craved while pregnant with the awesomeness that is me.

Rock Show: Sugar Donut, Viva Soul, Ghetto Bombs

2005-03-21T08:46:00.000+09:00

Last night I attended what would have to be the oddest concert lineup in the history of man. Three bands that had extremely little in common came together for a night of rocking the shit out of everything.

First up was Sugar Donut. They sound a lot like the band Weezer with a touch of Green Day. Basically they are a quasi-punky pop-rock band.

In between two songs, this guy saw me in the audience and struck up a conversation with me in English. When I responded in Korea, the entire audience gasped in astonishment. "Ohhh! He can speak Korean!"

This guitarist was awesome, though technical difficulties caused he to throw his guitar at the end of the set.

Here's a picture of the bass player...I never take pictures of bass players, and for this I am truly sorry. As compensation please accept this picture of Sugar Donut's bassist.

Viva Soul in da house! Put yo hands up! That's right kids: after some punk-pop madness, Viva Soul, a Kore rap group, hit the stage, bustin' mad rhymes.

Apparently Viva Soul had enacted a photography ban during their set, a fact the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder to educate me about...stupid bitch! Anyhow all I got were these couple of crappy photos, but it didn't matter as I would learn later in the show.

So after the rap party that was Viva Soul, we get the Ghetto Bombs. Punk Motherfuckin' Rawk! Well actually they're kind of ska/punk rock, but that's not important. What is important is they rocked the fuck out of Baram!

More Ghetto Bombs. The dude with the cast on his arm usually plays guitar too, but with a cast on his arm that was out of the question.

Again, as atonement for never taking pictures of bassists...here's the Ghetto Bombs bass player.

A bunch of Korean girls (and one dude) going totally aggro during the Ghetto Bombs set. Not since Lillith Fair has a pit contained this much estrogen.

And here's why the bitch enforced Viva Soul photo ban didn't matter. Viva Soul hit the stage with Ghetto Bombs for some of the best rap/punk insanity this side of the Judgement Night soundtrack. I literally took more than 30 pictures during the short time Viva Soul returned to the stage. Take that "No picture please" bitch! I'll take pictures of Viva Soul if I want to.

Ghetto Bombs bassist moves over to the organ for more rocking.

After Viva Soul departed again, the drummer and guitarist from Sugar Donut came back out. The drummer from Ghetto Bombs grabbed a mike, the guitarist from Ghetto Bombs grabbed a bass, and the bassist grabbed an organ. Here's some of the madness.

Ghetto Bombs and Sugar Donut...ROCK! ROCK ON!!!

This show was one of the weirdest I've ever attended. I mean a line-up like this would never fly in the States. The indie kids would scoff at the rappers, the punks would beat on the indie kids, and the rap fans would hate the punks and indie bands for have lame beats, but here it was all good. The best thing I saw was some punker dude decked out in the boots and braces and whole nine yards, singing along to one of the Viva Soul songs. The whole thing was pretty odd.

And speaking of odd, on my way home I saw not one but two fights. The first was a super huge fight in the subway station that involved some 20-something woman, some old mountain climbing men, the ticket vender, and one of the green shirt guys. The whole thing was out of control, and stopped everyone in their tracks. Some girl with pink hair, who I'm pretty sure was at the show (unless there are two korean girls with pink braids in my hood), came over to comentate for me. After that fight concluded, I headed off towards my home. Back on the street I saw some dudes brawling with a cab driver who had cut a bus off. This brawl was going on in the middle of three lane street...awesome guys!

부침개 (Buchimgae)

2005-03-20T08:53:00.000+09:00

Somewhere between pizza and pancakes is this Korean dish known as buchimgae. The dish consists of various vegetables and seafood chunks mixed in a batter and then pan fried. Some of the different varities included: kimchi, seafood, and my personal favorite, potato. It's a fairly easy dish to prepare, and is quite delicious...especially with some alcohol like makkoli.

Korean TV Report: Rush Cash Commercial

2005-03-17T20:44:00.000+09:00

Back during the Christmas season there was one festive commerical I really enjoyed. That was the Rush Cash commercial. I'm not to sure what the commerical was trying to sell me, but it was so over the top I couldn't help but like it. I was afraid with the holidays behind us I'd never see the commercial again...somehow this past week I saw it a few times, I was able to snap this pictures, so you too can enjoy the wonder that is this commerical.

So the commercial starts with two Korean Santas standing at urinals (that feature Rudolph style flusing mechanisms) getting their piss on, and talking about money worries.

Suddenly this chick pops up from somewhere between the Santas and the wall...perhaps they were not getting their piss on after all. Note her shit eating...err in this case, would that be a dick eating grin?

I think she sees something she likes.

She there you have it, a girl who is either giving some blowjobs, or receiving a gold shower, offering me financial assistance.

Korean TV Report: 웃찾사!

2005-03-17T09:57:00.000+09:00

There is an entire genre of programming here in Korea known as "gag concerts." You see in Korea comedians are refered to as "gag (wo)men." I mean the only person I ever heard refer to someone else as a "gag man" was my grandfather, and that was in reference to an era in which gag men actual existed.
Well they exist here and the put on "concerts" which are various skits performed in an auditorium with a live audience watching and then later broadcast on television. Each of the networks has their own "gag concerts," and "gag men," but today we're talking about 웃찾사! This is currently the most famous of the gag concerts (an opinion I've formed based on the fact that it's the one my girlfriend watches, and the fact that several of the characters have earned the highest honor a Korean celebrity can be awarded...a sock with their likeness upon it). So anyhow let's dive right into this mess.

택아. I actually like this skit. The dude with the fro is likt a retarded Rocky...which I guess would make him Little Mac from Mike Tyson's Punch Out. The best part of this skit (aside from his fro) is when the monkey looking guy hits him it takes like ten seconds for it to register. He will get hit, they will continue talking and then Yoon Tek will attempt to dodge, or yell, "Ow!"

모야? Another 윤택 skit. Here, I'm under the impression he is supposed to be a gangster. His sidekicks attempt to get him to eat or do random stuff, but he is unwilling and will repeatedly yell "모야?! (What's that?!)" getting louder and faster each time. I've not seen this this skit in quite some time and fear it may be on it's way out.

This is the best of all the skits. The two guys in silver and black jumpsuits are "Robocop" the other guy does beat box stuff and sound effects (like the guy in the Police Academy movies) while the two Robocops act out scenarios to go with the sounds. The guy on the right hand side (stage left) does insane break dancing moves and always ends with "Mission Success!" The other guy always ends up falling or getting hit by invisible enemies, or singing some children's song, or talking like a retard, or old man, basically not looking cool. Sometimes the retard robocop pays off the leather jacket dude to make the cool robocop sound like animals, or get crushed by invisible trains and such.

So those are the skits I like. The rest of the show is either boring or annoying as hell, so here are some of the crappier loads of crap.

The sound of this show is annoying enough. Couple it with the fact that the characters are both quasi-gay (that goes as humor here..."Girly-acting men....HAHAHAHAHAHA!"). In addition, everyone here copies the catchphrases these guys yell. I don't remember where I read this, but I once read an explaination of the Dave Chapelle show that went something like, "Dave Chapelle asking, 'Does Rick James need to smack a bitch?' is funny. You saying, 'Does Rick James need to smack a bitch?' is not. The same thing can be said of this show. Perhaps these character yelling catchphrases is funny, you yelling them is not.

Lee Mario. Every comedy show has its superstar, break out character. Saturday Night Live (circa 1991) had "The Church Lady," All That! had "Keenan and Kell.." those were not characters, but actual people. Anyhow, this show has it too...and it's Lee Mario. His gimmic is he is greasy and ladies man. The only thing is he character is vaguely gay. So he's a gay, Italian, ladies man, who randomly dances to flameco music. Dude even has his own dance, which like the catch phrase all Koreans have memorized and randomly do, thinking it makes them as funny as the show...which might be true since the show is not funny. Anyhow for your enjoyment, I've included step-by-step instructions on how to do this dance.

Lee Mario's dance

The worst skit, but also the most ironic. In this skit, a Korean woman dress in middle eastern garb, and does a fake Arabic news broadcast which feature the Arabic version of the "Ching chong chow!" bullshit kids would yell at any Asian kid on the playground. The reason this is so ironic is the fact that Koreans (but in America in here) get all up in arms anyone makes a joke about Koreans eating dogs, or how kimchi stinks, yet here they are making crappy racist jokes...hahaha Arabic is a loud yelling language...MWAHAHA! That's so funny. Bitch are you for real?!

There are a bunch of other skits, but for the most part they are just really boring shows that feature a catch phrase. Each week feature the same skits, in the same order, doing the same thing. It gets old quick.

Editor's Note: This article took like 4 hours to write since both blogger and picasa were sucking so much ass this morning and last night.

Rock Show: 엘, 아마추어증폭기, 눈뜨고코베인

2005-03-11T22:37:00.000+09:00

Another Friday night, another indie rock jam session. Tonight's bill at Baram featured 엘 (El), 아마추증폭기 (Amature Amplifier), and 눈뜨고코베인 (Open The Eyes and Cut The Nose).

El. I'd never heard, or heard of these guys before attending this show. I was pretty impressed with their jams. For those of you with knowledge of Korean indie rock, they kind of sound like the band Nell...only more atmospheric.

El rockin' me like a hurricane!

아마추어증폭기 (Amature Amplifier). Watch me show how indie I am as I name check not one, but two "outsider" musicians in me review of this guy. He kind of rocked Jandek's style of music where the voice was used as an instrument, but the songs were very similar to Wesley Willis in that of the 10 or so songs played, they bulk of them used one of three chord progressions.

Like the above mentioned artists, Amature Amplifier was tolerable in small doses. In my opinion the set went on too long.

Ah 눈뜨고코베인! These guys are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. They mix psychedelic rock with new wave, and put on a kick ass show.

눈뜨고코베인 rocking out hard at Baram!

눈뜨고코베인 Rock! Rock On!

This guitarist is a total rock superstar. He is so awesome!

Engrish: Products

2005-03-11T09:58:00.000+09:00

A video game company: Excellent Potato (2004-11-09)

Another video game. Warning!! Let's tapping... (2004-11-09)

Chubby English? What the hell? (2004-11-09)

Ah good old Doogy and Peedoong. This is a notebook I bought at a supermarket one day...strictly for the picture on the front as well as the "deep, philosophical" writings included on the front. You know, friends really are like mirrors of each other... I have no idea what any of this notebook is about. (2004-03-06)

The back cover of the same notebook. I still really don't get it. (2004-03-06)

Engrish: Signs and Advertisments

2005-03-11T09:52:00.000+09:00

I guess these lens are for all the Nazi fans here in Korea. (2005-03-22)

No Jesus Hell. Myeongdong. (2004-09-29)

Quick note. I took this picture while I was with the middle school kid I tutor. He too found this sign to be funny...looks like I have the maturity of a middle school boy...sigh. (2004-08-04)

I took a picture of this sign for a video game called "Gayax" while riding the subway. To be fair the Korean writing of the title would be pronounced more like "Ga-Yaks." But it still looks really funny, crappy quality aside. (2004-02-08)

Engrish: Stores

2005-03-11T09:47:00.000+09:00

Pork + Cow + Measure of Distance From Antiquity + Odd Romanization = "Don't Worry." The ironic thing about this, is if I was a pig or a cow I would be hella worried about the existance of this restaraunt. (2005-06-02)

This is more funny if you know Korean. In addition to meaning red pepper, 고추 (gochu) also is slang for a penis...therefore this venue could also be known as Penis War. (2004-11-09)

Grass Fighter. How tough does one have to be to fight grass? I mean it's grass...it just sits there. It can't move. It's weak. (2004-11-09)

My Another Face. How many faces does this shop have? (2004-11-09)

Elite?! You bet it is! Again I have no idea what this venue is or what they do there, but whatever it is you know it's elite?! (2004-01-25)

Something's Seriously Wrong With "Educational" Programming

2005-03-10T23:47:00.000+09:00

Somewhere between the early 80s and present children's programming became seriously fucked up. You see, recently I've been looking for some audio-visual aides to make my classes more interesting (aka make me speak less). So this week I've been checking out the "educational" children programs on AFN. I am horrified at what I'm seeing. Everyone knows that Sesame Street became the fuckin' Elmo Show, but compared to some of the other crap I've witnessed these past few days, that show is outstanding. Prepare yourself for a journey into the heart of darkness.

Case 1: Oobi

"Oobi" is annoying for the fact that in addition to being hands with eyes glued onto them, all the characters speak in non-sentences. Here are some examples for you: "Grandpu no move." "Clay soft." Unless this show is geared toward retards don't talk like this...even then it's an insult to the 'tards.

Case 2: Boohbah

Only one word can describe the shit inferno that is "Boohbah", and that word is fucktarded. The theme song alone (kids yelling the word "Boohbah" and laughing creepily) is enough to make a man want to sever his own penis and use it to puncture both ear drums. The show takes the smacked out weirdness that was Teletubbies and adds creepier names. These asexual blobs have names like "Rintintango" and "Buddhabumbum" and "Scott."

Case 3: Cailou

This show is complete crap due to the fact that it features an extremely whiney, bald headed, (I assuming Canadian) kid. Kids are already whiney, do they need instruction in this? The title character (who is about two letters away from being named after a large deer type creature) is constantly complaining, "It's too hard!" "I DON'T want to go!" "Hurry up..." Like I said before kids are whiney, the thing that bothers me more is parents in the show never tell him to shut his mouth before they give him something to really whine about.

Granted I'm older now, so these things won't really appeal to me. On the other hand, if I turn on the TV and happen across an episode of a show like Reading Rainbow, I can sit through it without wanting to commit heinous acts of violence. Seriously children's educational programming has gone to seed and needs a serious kick in the anus.

Engrish: Misc.

2005-03-08T10:30:00.000+09:00

I'm guessing the "construction worker" from the village people was behind this particular construction site trash. (2004-11-09)

Lovely Wall. So this was a wall put up during the construction of an elevator. All I can say is it sure is lovely. (2004-10-18)

What is a World Pork Vally? (2004-10-18)

Nothing says fun at the beach quite like a kindergartener scribbling death threats across the top of her paper. (2004-03-06)

Apparently there was a Muslim among the students as Kid's College, as this appeared on the wall in the hallway one day..."Hallah to Alla." Of course all our students now know that they must Hallah to Alla several times a day. (2004-03-03)

This was a garbage can at Everland. I thought it was kind of funny. Additionally if you can read Korean the sign above it says "Baby Service" (it's just written out in Korean). (2004-02-29)

떡볶이 (Ddeokbokki)

2005-03-05T20:20:00.000+09:00

떡볶이 (deokbokki). What this is, is a rice cake cooked in a spicy mixture. It often comes with fish cakes in it, or random vegetables. This particular version just has some vegetables (since that's all I had when I cooked it). This dish is particularly popular among middle school girls, but I dig it too.

Something For Mom To Hang On The Fridge

2005-02-28T19:30:00.000+09:00

Those long time readers of "Kimchi & Me," will know that my most recent hobby is 서예 (calligraphy). Anyhow I've come a long way since I started in September. Gone are the days spent writing...drawing...painting...calligraphy-ing straight lines (vertical and horizontal).

Examine if you will my consumate brush strokes.

And here's what they are supposed to look like.

So any calligraphers in the audience tonight? How are my characters? The only feedback I have recieved thus far has been from my girlfriend and the middled aged women and grandmothers in my class who all proclaim I am the second comming of (insert famous calligrapher's name here). My girlfriend, for example, has added my outstanding calligraphy skill to the Resume of Stuff to Differentiate Me From Other Foreigners Residing In Korea she provides random Korean citizens (it has joined the ranks of "He speaks Korean," "He likes Korean food better than hamburgers and pizza," "He knows many Chinese characters," and "He studied Korean culture and history in college.") Anyway you slice it, the people telling me about my writing are really biased. So please give me some feedback calligraphers. For those of you wondering the characters written there are as follows: 日, 月, 盈, 仄, 辰, 宿, 列, and 張 (please bear in mind that the texts I'm working from are more than 500 years old so some of the characters are going to look different). Anyhow if you're my mom, feel free to print out the first picture and hang it on the fridge. Everyone else, what's your take on my calligraphy skills...er skillz (with a "z"!)

editor's note: Tomorrow is a national holiday here in Korea, and since I don't have work tomorrow, I am a tad intoxicated. Any and all typographical and grammatical errors can be blamed on alcohol. Additionally my computer froze up the first time I wrote the bulk of this (when I was less intoxicated) so the version here probably makes even less sense than the original version I had. Sorry.

Rock Show: Cosmic Pop Review Vol. 2 (달콤한비누, 눈뜨고코베인, Strawberry TV Show, Fiddle Bambi, Mongoose)

2005-02-25T23:33:00.000+09:00

Today after work I headed over to Baram to check out a show. I'd never heard any of the bands, but I figured with 5 bands for 10,000 won (less then $10US) I couldn't really go wrong.

Let's do this Wesley Willis style!
These bands played at Baram!
About 45 people were at the show!
The jam session was awesome.
It whooped a polar bear's ass with a belt.

달콤한비누 (Sweet Tasting Soap). These guys played some twee rock. That's an indie rock sub-genre right? They were fairly poppy, but not too shabby.

눈뜨고코베인. These guys alternated between sounding like a band who could have played at the original Woodstock, and a really sleazy new wave band. While both versions were awesome I prefered the new wave version. Fuckin' synth bass! Woohoo!

This guitar player was awesome. Skinny tie, and Pete Townsend windmills. Fuckin'-A man!

Strawberry TV Show. This is the second indie rock show I've been to in Korea that featured an Aztec Two Step style two man folk group. These guys were really hillarious which is always a plus when sitting through folk rock.

Fiddle Bambi. These guys and girls sounded a lot like Shonen Knife. I mean they had a song about a banana for crying out loud.

This guitar player was totally looking like Thurston Moore. Rock it Fiddle Bambi guitar player!

Mongoose! Holy crap these guys were totally awesome! With a sound somewhere between Ozma, a nintendo game, and a techno dance party, these guys really whooped a mule's ass with a belt.

Dude rocking hard on his keyboard. He ditched his Ernie and Bert shirt, in order to rock out better.

I couldn't tell if the bassist was being sarcastic with his look (state trooper shade, Ernie and Bert shirt, and quasi mohawk) or not. Anyhow dude rocked incredibly hard. He played insane wailing 80's guitar solos on a friggin' bass guitar. That's how hard he rocked!

Farewell Mongoose. Farewell Cosmic Pops Review (Vol. 2)!

낙지볶음 (Nakji Bokkum)

2005-02-25T10:50:00.000+09:00

This my friends, is 낙지볶음. 낙지 is a small octopus, 볶음 means fried (pan fried, as opposed to deep fried), so this would be something like "fried small octopus." Normally I don't consume this, but it's not due to taste or creepiness factor, it's the fact that the tentacles are so chewy. The take an incredible ammount of time to properly masticate, and by the time they are ready to be swallowed, all the flavor is gone, and what's left is a tasteless mass of pulpy octopus flesh.

Dig those crazy suckers on this nonsense.

소보루빵 (Soboru Bbang)

2005-02-23T20:46:00.000+09:00

So today was January 15th according to the lunar calendar. Here in Korea that means today was 보름. As far as I can tell this holiday is just about eating nuts and as such I was a good Korean and this bread product known as 소보루빵. This bread consists of a topping made from crushed peanuts and um...walnuts I suppose. It's fairly delicious and worth checking out if you ever happen to be in a bakery in South Korea.

Hanjapalooza 3 - 外食

2005-02-22T20:56:00.000+09:00

So I've hit you up with some fairly useless Korean uses of 漢字 the past couple days, so today as a change of pace I've decided to hit you up with a more useful use of 漢字 here in Korea. As you can see in the title, today that means 外食!
外 (바깥 외) means "outside," or "foreign" and 食 (밥 식) means food. So today I am going to hook you up with some knowledge of hanja and their use in foreign eateries here in Korea.
Much in the same way Chinese restaurants in the western world use that god awful chop suey font to project an air of mysticism or foreigness, Chinese and Japanese restaurants here in Korea use hanja to do the same thing. So here are the hanja you'll need to know while getting your eat on here in Korea.

This is a Chinese restaurant. You can tell it's Chinese by the character 中 (가우데 중) alone, but for further hanja madness the phrase 中華料理 means "Chinese food." Here's the Korean readings for those other characters for those of you keeping score.
華 (빛날 화): splendid; flowery; China
料 (되질할 료/요): materials, ingredients
理 (다스릴 리): manage, regulate; reason, principle
The other characters are simple the name of the restaurant. So if you are in Korea and looking for some Sino-Korean cuisine keep your eyes peeled for the characters 中華料理 (as if the red paper lanterns aren't clues enough).

A Japanese restaurant. All Japanese restaurants here in Korea will have the characters 日式 on their signage. These characters come across meaning "Japanese style." The readings are below.
日 (날 일): sun, day, Japan
式 (법 식): style

So there you have it, and remember who hooked you up when you are enjoying yourself some 자짱면 or 돈까스.

Adieu Beer Campus

2005-02-22T09:38:00.000+09:00

Well last night was the last day of Beer Campus' existance. U-rim and I stopped in for some stir-fried small octopus and some brews and ended up having a party with the owner and his family.
Copious ammounts of free brew and food stuffs came to our table, and I ended up taking home a five kilogram sack of pickled radishes. It was a nice evening, but I'm a little sad that there is no more Beer Campus. I mean when I recover from last night and want to drink again, where can I go? Beer Campus was geographically close to my homestead which was awesome. I mean I will still see Mr. Beer Campus, and go mountain climbing with him, but I will miss the actual bar.
Anyhow here are some pictures from the festivities.

Son of Beer Campus. He had just graduated from high school this week and is starting college soon (I think at Dongguk University, though don't quote me on that).

"Is that a dog?"

Aw....cute!

Anyhow, farewell Beer Campus, it was a pleasure doing business with you!

연근 (Yeon-geun)

2005-02-20T21:04:00.000+09:00

연근 (蓮根 / yeon-geun). This is a lotus root prepared in soy sauce. Due to the fact that it is prepared in soy sauce this dish probably has some other name, but whatever. It is probably the most awesome looking vegetable I've ever seen in my life. In addition it is extremely delicious.

(Insert Rage Against The Machine Lyric Here)

2005-02-19T19:25:00.000+09:00

It's not a secret that people in one country are often taken with some aspect of a foreign culture. While the Japanese are currently obsessed with a certain Korean actor, kids in America watch Pokemon or Yugioh or some other "anime" series, and yuppies circa 1983 feasted on sushi, the Koreans are currently assdeep in a strange obsession with Rage Against The Machine's favorite communist revolutionary (no, not Mao), Che Guevara.

Behold some of the more bizarre Che offerings I've come across.

My Che Socks. These were purchased from a vendor that stocked them right next to the Yong-sama socks. Your one stop shop for otaku sock shopping.

In a move akin to the Fred Astaire Dirt Devil commercial, Che's likeness appears in this beer ad. For some reason I don't think South American/Cuban communist revolutionaries don't strike me as the kind of guys who would want their image used to advertise Korean beer, well South Korean beer anyway.

The most ironic thing about this current obsession is the fact that while communist revolutionaries from the opposite side of the world, media from north of the 38th parallel are blocked. Sleep now in a fire!

Q & A With Mr. Dunn

2005-02-18T22:40:00.000+09:00

The most elite class I teach, currently consists of 4 teen/pre-teen girls (12-14 years old), anyhow while they were doing their daily journals, they began quizing me on the most random questions imaginable. Here is a transcription of the question and answer session to the best of my knowledge.

CAST: Mr. Dunn (me in my teacher guise, which pretty much means I was wearing a dress shirt and a tie as opposed to some sketchy t-shirt and low top converse), Judy (13 year old girl), Jenny (12 years old), Sandy (12 years old), Princess (14 years old)

SETTING: A classroom in an English 학원 in a small town in South Korea

Fade in on girls writing in their notebooks.

JENNY: Mr. Dunn, where is your hometown?
MR. DUNN: In New York.
SANDY: American? (Are you American?)
MR. DUNN: Yes.
JENNY: Do you like Bush?
MR. DUNN: President Bush? Bush 대통령? (as opposed to the mid-90's rock band).
JENNY: Yes. President!
MR. DUNN: No, I don't like him.
ALL: Good.
JUDY: Mr. Dunn, do many Americans smoke?
MR. DUNN: Some do, but more people in Korea smoke than in America.
PRINCESS: Mr. Dunn, do you smoke?
MR. DUNN: No. I don't smoke. Do you smoke?
PRINCESS: No. My dad and my friend smoke.
JUDY: My father smokes.
SANDY: My father.
JENNY: My father smokes.
MR. DUNN: Do your mothers smoke?
ALL: NO!
SANDY: Do you drink umm....술? (alcohol?)
MR. DUNN: Sometimes.
JUDY: Can you drink soju?
MR. DUNN: Yes, I can drink soju, but only on special days (those being Tuesday evenings...I jest)
PRINCESS: Mr. Dunn, girlfriend?
MR. DUNN: "Mr. Dunn, do you have a girlfriend?"
PRINCESS: Mr. Dunn do you have a girlfriend?
MR. DUNN: Yes, I have a girlfriend.
SANDY: Do you kiss?
MR. DUNN: Are you girls finished writing yet?

The thing that shocked me more then the subject matter was the fact that for the most part the girls' questions were grammatically correct (save for a couple that were a noun in a questioning fashion "girlfriend?") Anyhow I hope that this Q&A was informative, but if you'll excuse me, I have a special day that I need to finish celebrating. ^u^

Where In The World Is Bruce K. Grant?

2005-02-16T08:50:00.000+09:00

Since I started doing calligraphy, I have been studying 漢字 (Chinese characters) a lot more. To my knowledge there is one book that teaches these characters in English using the Korean context. That book is the mighty, Guide To Korean Characters, written by Bruce K. Grant.
Who is Bruce K. Grant you ask. Behold the majesty that is Bruce K. Grant!

Bruce K. Grant

I think due to his picture alone (which appeared on the back of his book) I decided he was totally awesome. Anyhow I have several questions for Mr. Grant, and really want to meet him...maybe drink a couple beers with him. So Bruce K. Grant, if for some reason you happen to be reading this drop me a line. I have a question about why you chose to define "黑人" as "negro."

Happy Valentine's Day

2005-02-14T19:54:00.000+09:00

So today happens to be Valentine's Day. Back in the States this is a time when men with significant others try to find the perfect gift, stress about dinner reservations, and spend entirely too much money all so they can get laid. Here in Korea things work a little differently.
Korea too has Valentine's Day, only here Valentine's Day is entirely on the shoulders of women. You see Valentine's Day is the day women give chocolates to the men they love. The men just have to sit back and wait for the ladies to come calling. The men, for that part, are supposed to return the favor a month later on "White Day."
So today I collected some chocolates from some of the girls in classes, but that's all the chocolate I'm going to recieve. The other day I was told by U-rim that she had no time to buy me chocolate, and offered as a substitution 탕수육 (sweet and sour pork) and beer. She didn't have to ask twice...since the replacement was far superior to the original item.
So anyhow I need to get ready for some food, beer, and other Valentine's Day gifts. Take care people and be sure to show your significant other some love. ♥

새우깡 (Sae-Woo Kkang)

2005-02-13T15:51:00.000+09:00

새우깡 (Sae-woo Kkang). 새우 is Korean for shrimp, which is what these crackers, or chips taste like. When I first arrived, I thought these were the oddest snack Korea had to offer. While I'm still not a fan, they are edible, and for some reason crave them from time to time. And here's a quick Korean lesson for you, 매운 (mae-un) means spicy...so in addition to being shrimp flavored, these chips (like the bulk of Korean snacks) are spicy.

Charisma Man

2005-02-13T12:26:00.000+09:00

I was cleaning out my hard drive and stumbled across these outstanding comic strips. Charisma Man is about life in Japan, but there's a lot of it that applies to foreigners here in Korea too. See if you can find yourself (or someone you know) in these strips.

Does this sound like someone you know?

Alcohol, woman, and being treated as a god due to your skin color...the real reason to stay in Japan (or Korea).

This is my favorite of all, and is extremely true...except apparently to my neighbors I'm not a party animal, but someone that causes them to yell in surprise when I come out of my apartment.

Mall Rage

2005-02-10T13:36:00.000+09:00

My friend in America, the legendary Pete Turner, had a serious problem with malls and with just reason. His biggest problem with malls was the fact that people there walked around like they had their lunch in their shoes. This would induce serious rage in my friend (who would only travel to the mall when absolutely neccessary), a rage he dubbed "mall rage."
Today I traveled Kyobo Bookstore, which is like the biggest bookstore in Seoul. I had to pick up a book for my students and picked up a collect of 17th century Korean poetry for myself.

My man, 이순신 (Yi Sun-shin) outside the Kyobo Bookstore.

Anyhow at Kyobo I suffered a mall rage attack. After making my purchases it took me like 5 minutes, to move a distance of 100 yards. People were walking so incredibly slow. Worse than slow walk was the fact that people would stop in the middle of the walkway and just have conversations....come on people move it!
I then realized that here in Seoul, it's not just shopping areas where people move incredibly slow, it's everywhere. Subway stations, the streets, sidewalks, palaces, ect. So to those of you who suffer from Mall Rage frequently and are planning a trip to Korea, consider this fair warning.

새해 福 많이 받으세요.

2005-02-09T09:40:00.000+09:00

Today is the actual Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year), and nothing says New Years, like Over The Top! That's right, I woke up this morning, and turned on the TV to discover Sly Stalone going cross country with some spoiled rich brat. Basically a movie I'm getting duped into watching. I have one question about this movie, is his name "Hawk" or "Hawks?" Does anyone know?

In unrelated news, yesterday in addition to consuming all manners of gut rotting alcohol, I discovered my new favorite condiment/cooking ingredient. Behold the awesomeness!

お好み焼きソース (Okonomiyaki Sauce)

Back on my trip to Osaka, I for one reason or another picked up a bottle of the above sauce at a supermarket. Yesterday I busted out this sauce and whipped up some outstanding foodstuffs. So for the time being I have to use this sauce in moderation, since I am not sure if I can get it here.
Well, U-rim is supposed to come home today, and there are alcohol bottles and trash all over the place, and a sink full of dirty dishes, so I'd better get my clean on. Take it easy kids. And always remember: (turns baseball cap backwards) Over the top!

Winter Cleaning & Recollections of Hooker Trading Cards

2005-02-06T19:02:00.000+09:00

As of late I have been on an insane cleaning / reorganization frenzy (hence the copious ammounts of old Engrish and food pictures appearing as of late). Anyhow today I was cleaning up out on my verenda (yeah, I live in a one room apartment, but I have a verenda), when I came across a sack of hooker trading cards. "What are hooker trading cards?" you ask. These are hooker trading cards!

Hooker trading cards.

"Where did you get them and, perhaps more importantly, why do you have those things, Wyatt?"
Again these are good questions you guys are asking. To start off, these cards are placed outside sleazy hotels and on car windows outside of said hotels. Back when I lived in 봉천 (Bongcheon), my house was located close to these kinds of hotels, so therefore these cards were all of the streets near my apartment.
As for why I have them, back in 봉천, Darrell and I discussed how rediculous these cards were, and came up with the idea to create a memory game using these cards. So we would get drunk, and under the cover of darkness would collect these cards.
Aside from a demo version we created for a co-worker as a going away gift, we never got around to finishing a version for ourselves.
So I ended up with a bag full of these cards. Though I am much happier now that I have a girlfriend, and legitimate hobbies and passtimes, finding these cards made me a little sad. I kind of miss the excitement that we had when "a new card" hit the streets, or the drinking until all hours of the morning and walking several subway stations away attempting to find foreign cards.
C'est la vie.

델리만쥬 (Deli Manjoo)

2005-02-01T23:15:00.000+09:00

The subway stations here in Seoul are massive, the stations in which one makes transfers are particularly massive. So massive are they, that while walking from one line to the next, one often becomes famished. In response to this, a cottage industry of subway foodstuffs has sprung up. At the forefront is Delimanjoo!
I have only seen this snack avalible in the subway stations of Seoul Korea, which in my opinion, makes them one of the most unique foodstuffs I've come across ever.

A sack of Deli Manjoo. This retails for 3,000 won if memory serves me correctly.

A Deli Manjoo. It's a twinkie like cake product filled with a cream similar to the cream found inside a Boston cream doughnut.

And because I'm all about giving you kids stuff to kill time with, here's Deli Manjoo's homepage. They have an "English" version that is interesting on it's own...even without the footage of the Deli Manjoo machine!

Squatter

2005-01-31T09:49:00.000+09:00

Recently I organized all the photos I have taken since arriving in this country and found some pretty decent pictures that were never seen by the general public before, so today as a service to you the readers, I present...a toilet! This is the old style toilet here in Korea.
People thinking of traveling here fear not! These days, most places (homes, business, hotels, subway stations) will have the western style toilet (though often in homes and hotels they are more high tech than I am used to).
That aside, how exactly does one use this kind of toilet? Well my friends, that were the "Asian squat" comes in handy. Daniel Hsia presents this informative documentary on the wonder that is the "Asian squat."
Enjoy kids and be careful not to fall in!

두부김치 (Dubukimchi)

2005-01-30T11:41:00.000+09:00

This my friends, is 두부김치 (dubukimchi). 두부 is the Korean reading of the characters 豆腐 (known in Japan, and the west as tofu). 김치 is...well it's kimchi. So there's this dish that takes the great taste of 두부 and combines it with 김치. So what you do with this dish is takes some of the kimchi (there's pork in that pile as well) and put it on a chunk of tofu and eat it like a westerner would eat cheese and crackers.

Rock Show: Omega 3, Sixteen, Peterpan Complex

2005-01-29T22:40:00.001+09:00

So international rock star, Sting, played here in Seoul tonight...not that I bothered to check it out. I was too busy rocking out to Omega 3, Sixteen, and Peterpan Complex.

The first band of the evening was Omega 3. I'd never heard or seen them before, but man alive, they rocked the shit out of that fucker. They were a three piece rock combo (drum, bass, and keyboards) that played some quasi Ben Folds Five style rock. The thing that really rocked about them was all three members had some lead vocal duties. All of them were talented musicians and outstanding vocalists. Their debut album is supposed to be coming out soon, so I'll be sure to pick that one up.

Omega 3, not to be confused with Omega Red, rockin' the shit out of Ssam Space.

After Omega 3, another band featuring a number in their title, Sixteen, hit the stage. This band had not originally been advertised, but I for one am not going to complain about their appearance. They were a female fronted band that played the jazzy indie rock that is popular among female fronted Korean indie bands (Rollercoaster, Rumblefish, ect.). Anyhow photos!

Sixteen.

I would have done anyone in this band (male members included...they were just that sexy).

After the sexiness that was Sixteen, it was time for the main event, Peterpan Complex. Woohoo! Anyhow, a picture speaks a thousand words. So, photos, start talking.

Rocking out Radiohead style.

Left hand bass riff....er right hand bass riff.

I'm thinking the guy on the right has to be an overseas Korean. I mean check the "Plumbers Lay Good Pipe" t-shirt he's sporting...oh wait this is Korea, I should know from my own, "The Catches You Youre Through!" shirt that English on shirts here means nothing. But then again he wore a Yo La Tengo shirt last time I saw them, and not many people in the States, let alone Korea have knowledge of Yo La Tengo.

Emo-tastic! (Check out the drummer. She's wicked cute, though I've never ever seen her smile).

I like the chest beating action captured here.

Rock out boys!

N-co! N-co! N-co! (Encore! Encore! Encore!)

Additionally the lead singer of Peterpan Complex had some awesome between song banter.
LEAD SINGER: (in English) What is the next song?
AUDIENCE: (laughs)
LEAD SINGER: I can speak Korean, but I want to be...global.

Later on in Korean he discussed how the singer from Sixteen was extremely beautiful and he wanted to talk to her, but didn't know how, until he came up with the line, "Hi, I sing in the band Peterpan Complex."
This line was outstanding, because if he had used it on the audience, he could have had any of the girls (since the audience was like 89% womens) in the sack with him immediately, but because she was also in a band, I didn't think it was going to work...he should have used English instead!

It was also at this show that I realized people in Korea don't dance or pogo at rock shows in Korea. It was also at this show that I figured out the reason why they don't dance. Indie rock fans in Korea seem to be primarily females, and since all girls here wear high heels at all times, pogoing becomes an extremely hazardous undertaking.

Anyhow, that does it from here. Peace out dudes!

Engrish: Signs and Advertisments

2005-01-25T16:06:00.000+09:00

This does not bode well for me. (2005-03-08)

I'd rather not... (2005-01-28)

Apparently this entertainment and studio is only open to goons. If you were to ask my father, I'd would be allowed to not only witness entertainment, but could probably be a headliner here. (2005-01-25)

Enjoy Happy Price. (2004-10-18)

So apparently Prince...er the Artist Formerly Known as Prince and Now Known As Prince Again, opened a cafe in Seoul. It's apparently not doing that well, since Prince is pleading with us, "Drink OK?!" (2004-10-18)

PURM (2004-10-18)

The store had "HOT PET" and wanted to "Take Smile." (2004-10-18)

I took this picture at a clothing shop in Myeong-dong. Fight the Power! (2004-08-05)

Hey everybody! Let's go to Zen II and drink some Teguila! No? How about Jack Daniel's Coke...he won't mind if you drink his coke, honest! (2004-04-02)

Hey it's Hot Sun! Ok this isn't really funny to anyone save for my sister. There was a Korean actor/model/whatever. His name was 조한선 (Jo Han-sun). My sister thought that he was hot and took to calling him Hot-sun. So that's why this is here. If it makes no sense then here's an alternate explaination...it's a big glowing inflatable chicken. What's up with that wackiness? (2004-04-02)

빼빼로 (Peppero)

2005-01-25T15:46:00.000+09:00

If you live outside of Korea and are not of Korean ancestory, chances are you have never heard of Peppero, but if you are younger than 30, chances are pretty good that you are familiar with the Japanese version, Pocky. What these snacks are is pretty much a stick shaped cookie dipped in chocolate. Here in Korea 빼빼로 is manufactured my Lotte, and there are currently four versions: original, almond, nude, and soft (non-Lotte 빼빼로 snacks feature other flavors such as strawberry and coffee). Anyhow here's a look at some phallic snack foods.

The original Pepero.

Nude Peppero. This variety is a chocolate filled pretzel stick.

아몬드 빼빼로 (Almond Peppero).

This is bakery style peppero, which was made especially for Peppero Day (November 11th...mark your calendars kids). My friend's wife is a baker so she made these for me. Rocking.

Engrish: Stores

2005-01-24T19:13:00.000+09:00

"Live Burger?" you gasp in horror. Let me explain, this establishment is known for serving cows on a toasted sesame seed bun. Good eatin'! (2005-02-10)

I always carry my camera with me with I go out, since you never know what you might find. Sometimes, there's funny English, or historically monuments, or shitty clothes, or celebrities, or, as is the case here, sometimes when wandering around Seoul one might find the illusive "g-spot." (2005-01-30)

Mass Individualism?! WTF?! It does kind of sum up the attitude of Korean society though. (2004-10-18)

The Rookie! (2004-10-18)

I glad that the sign itself is questioning the meaning of these words. "Five My God? What the shit does that mean?"
Due to my knowledge of Korean I can ruin this sign and make it not funny really. In Korean 5 is read as oh (오/五) so if you read the 5 in Korean and then the remaining part of the sign in English you are left with "Oh My God?" It's a little better than "Five my god?" but it's still a question for some reason. (2004-04-10)

I don't know what angle I want to use with why this is funny. So I'll let you decide.
#1 - Crack Az (crack ass)
#2 - Crackers - it's for whitey...
Neither one is really that funny. Ah whatever. (2004-04-10)

Thanks! You nice too. (2004-04-02)

Here is the Baby Hotel. Are adults or children allowed to stay here? Or does this place cater to all the infants on business trips? (2004-01-25)

I don't know what these sickos have in mind, but they'd best keep away from the Baby Hotel a block away... (2004-01-25)

AH...Big Black Hot Dog...so lewd yet so tasty! Anyhow what a "Big Black" is here is a hot dog wrapped in a sugar donut of sorts. It's like a god damned Homer Simpson invention, and frankly...eh eh eh...it doesn't taste that bad. I only purchased one because neither Darrell nor I were drunk on this adventure and couldn't justify taking the photo without making a purchase. Being the only one who was willing to consume one, the task fell upon my shoulders. (2003-11-14)

Another Trip to 경복궁

2005-01-23T15:53:00.000+09:00

This afternoon, I took my new camera, and hit the road, heading off for 경복궁. I had been here previously exactly one year ago to the day (what are the chances of that). So here are some pictures of the trip. This time around, the weather was much nicer. Last year, the weather was brutally cold and windy. Anyhow here is the photo evidence.

Here is a view of the palace from the outside.

Gyeongbokgung's main palace.

Phallicism at its finest.

통방아 (Water mill)

Children at Gyeongbokgung. Outside the Children's Museum there were traditional games set up for children and the young at heart. Yours truly beat down some elementary school kids in some game where you have to toss an arrow into a vase.

Me hanging with a monkey. There were statues of the 12 Chinese zodiacs, so I decided to pose with my man the monkey (申). Rock rock on!

Also on the site of the palace was the Nation Folk Museum (國立民俗博物館). Photos were not allowed inside...so the couple of pictures I took were not of the highest quality.

Anyhow after viewing some exibits in the museum I headed back home and grabbed some lunch. I'm outta here peoples!

잡채밥 (Japchae Bab)

2005-01-23T10:02:00.000+09:00

This is 잡채밥. 잡채 is a Korean noodle dish consisting of meat and vegetables (green peppers, mushrooms, onions). 밥 is rice. Put them together, and they you have 잡채밥. It's an extremely delicious dish, that you can order from Korean style Chinese resturaunts.

디카 (Dica) Madness

2005-01-20T16:17:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I went out with U-rim intending to purchase a VCR/DVD player. However, I saw some shop having a huge sale on Sony products, including digital cameras. Now, I've been looking to upgrade my camera for awhile now. The camera I'd been working with was fairly cheap when I bought it two years ago, so needless to say, I was time for a new camera.
So I picked up an awesome Sony Cybershot camera and bagged the VCR/DVD player. I think this weekend I may have to go to a touristy place to give my camera a real test run. For the time being, here's a picture of one of my students that I took today while they were writing in their journals.

Yoon-gyo

In additionally, due to the watching of Titanic, U-rim has become obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio. This is par for the course for her. Pretty much any movie she watches causes her to become obsessed with the movie star (example: after watching Spiderman 2 she became obsessed with Tobey McGuire and we ended up watching things like Pleasantville and um...Spiderman 1).
So like I said she's currently hooked on Leo (a far cry from her earlier proclaimation of her hatred for him). So yesterday she was hunting on the Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes version of Romeo and Juliet, but came up empty handed, so she ended up getting Gangs of New York...which was totally awesome! That movie is totally outstanding, and I'm not just saying that because I was a history major. That movie has some outstanding battle scenes, and if you haven't seen it, check it out. Well, I'm out to go play with my new camera, I'll rap at you later.

호떡 (Ho-Ddeok)

2005-01-13T20:33:00.000+09:00

I love winters in Korea! I mean sure, it's cold enough to freeze my nuts to the zipper of my pants, it's extremely windy, and there's not much snow to speak of, but when winter comes so does the 호떡 vendor.
What is 호떡 you ask. Well I'll tell you my friend. Prime e-Dictionary explains that 호떡 is a "Chinese stuffed pancake," which means it's a pancake loaded with Chinese people. In reality, it is a pancake packed with honey, nuts, and of course peas and corn.

Engrish Archives

2005-01-12T21:00:00.000+09:00

In an effort to reign in the out of control beast that is this webpage, I have formed this achieve. You see, my Engrish pictures in particular are scattered throughout this webpage, making it extremely haphazard and disorganized. So as a service to you, the reader (and to my own bizarre O.C.D. mentality), I have created this easy to use archive.
And for your information, the date in the brackets in the photo discription is the original posting date.

Products: One Two

Clothing: One

Advertisments: One Two Three

Stores: One Two Three

Food: One Two

Misc.: One Two

찐빵 (Jjin Bbang)

2005-01-11T16:28:00.000+09:00

This is 찐빵, which translates to something like "steamed bread." There are many varieties, with different fillings. This particular 찐빵 is filled with some sort pizza flavoring. Other flavors include: 야채 (vegetable), 만두 (mandu), and my least favorite, 팥 (a sweet red bean...that jam entirely too much of that 팥 paste into said 찐빵).

The inside of 찐빵. I apologize for having a picture of half eaten food on my website, but whatever.

Engrish: Stores

2005-01-10T21:25:00.000+09:00

If a beer bar serves beer, a wiskey bar serves, and an "air bar" serves air, I shudder to think what is being served at a Gnome Bar. To make it more frightening, the Korean word there (흙) means dirt...I pray to whatever deity may exist that this bar does not actually sell dirt gnomes for human consumption! (2005-01-10)

I'm not going to make a joke...it's a little hard to read, so I will type exactly what it says:
Hey June!! Didn't you see my panty and brassiere?
well...Is that yours? NO!!
How about this one?
it's mine!! My underwear!!
why don't go to Yes? Yes? Yes!! Yes
Let's go to Yes!!!!
It is an underwear shop, so at least the references to underwear make a little sense, other than that.... ㅡ.ㅡ* (2004-07-25)

My girlfriend wouldn't let me go here after I explained what a "Ho" was. (2004-05-05)

I wish Beer Jack was in my class instead of my student regular Jack. (2004-05-05)

We did not go to this bar, since Darrell and I were both accompanied by ladies. Mad props to Darrell's friend Becca for scoring this awesome photo. (2004-05-03)

Is this bar fuckin' dope? (2004-05-03)

This is an athletic clothing company here in Korea. I thought the title was kind of funny. Hey Zack remember Bando? eh eh eh.... (2004-03-07)

Me demonstrating my own sweet buns in front of the SWEETBUNS Espresso Bar. There were two high school girls staring at me as this photo was taken...but then again, all the ladies be starin' at deez sweet bunz! Holla! Oh as an aside...wtf is Bubble Tea? Do I want to know? (2003-12-03)

Engrish: Signs and Advertisments

2005-01-10T21:16:00.000+09:00

"You are my T King." I might be your T King, but you are my Engrish Queen. (2005-01-24)

Con House? This bar is apparently only for criminals. (2005-01-10)

I've reported on a lot of sketchy Korean pizza, but Cake Pizza?! Jesus Christ, what kind of country do I live in? (2005-01-10)

The Korean at the top reads, "Women's Secret." This clinic will help Korean ladies learn the fine art of bullshitting. (2004-12-06)

Woah dude...Fido's totally baked! (2004-12-06)

Blackglama? Apparently someone in Korea is teaching ebonics. (2004-12-06)

For those who can't read Korean, it says, "Sale. Exchange, Refund No! Cleavage."
Now that's a sale I could get exited about. Who needs refunds or exchanges when you're getting cleavage?! (2004-05-05)

That English is fuck(ed) up beyond all recognition. (2004-04-19)

In America we call it blue balls... (2004-04-19)

Thanks Choi Jong Mi for providing such ultimately lovely dentistry.... (2003-11-11)

Engrish: Misc.

2005-01-10T21:14:00.000+09:00

Like mom? Fuck no, this 5th grade Korean girls likes her some dank! (2005-01-28)

The "Azz & Azz." It's a chair unit you can rest your ass in. Holy shit I swear to God there must be a "Learn Rap English" Hagwon somewhere in this country. Back that azz up! (2004-12-06)

Um...what can be said about this? (2004-06-03)

I dunno what this means, but it seems serious. (2004-05-03)

I took a picture of this music video directed by Wad. You know, Wad. Anyhow I don't know who this singer was, but man oh man...Wad! (2004-03-08)

Ah the subway exit to Last Stop of a Bus....You know Last Stop of a Bus. There's a really good scene up there in Last Stop of a Bus. (2004-03-05)

This was part of a display at my school. It was about the five senses, but somehow this one came across a little bit oddly. "I Taste," and "I Hear," are alright, but "I Smell..." I dunno? Oh man! You do! You dirty, dirty mouse....get outta here. (2004-02-16)

The bottom reads as follows: "E-Hwa products are the best quality housewares, combined with modern style and convenience to feel the elegant latitude for your better life." I dunno what that means, but if it means "We can store your chopsticks and forks," then mission accomplished E-Hwa products! (2003-11-14)

My father the orangutan. Some homework one of my students turned in. I like his rationale in why he liked orangutans...however since he can barely say "Hello," someone at home helped him with that. I'm guessing his mother does not think her husband extremely good looking. (2003-11-09)

The Nude Viking! 'Nuff said! (2003-09-23)

Engrish: Food

2005-01-10T21:00:00.000+09:00

Mediocracy Rules!!! (2005-02-10)

Many Coffee. As an English teacher, this kind of English is quite common in the work of my students. "I am many hungry." "I have many shirt." (2004-10-18)

* WARNING! Extremely Lame Pun Approaching! *
Ice Guys finish last. Shit that was stupid...I apologize. (2004-06-19)

Oh we've choco alright! We've choco coming out the wazoo! (2004-06-12)

It's Gut! I don't really want to consume any food called gut...maybe that's just me. (2004-06-04)

This is a drink...yup. I could really go for a refreshing glass of cool piss right about now. That would hit the spot. (2004-04-19)

Apparently freshness is delivered to this sandwich daily. Since consuming this sandwich two days ago I have continued to recieved daily deliveries of freshness. I think my freshness level is currently up 8.3% from my base level of freshness. (2004-04-02)

Another Dunkin Donuts clone. This is Dooree Donuts. I bought these three donuts from a dude at a cross walk. I actually consumed two of them. I gave the third to Darrell, and I am unsure what he actually did with it. (2004-04-02)

You know I gots to start my day with Sunkist "orange juicy!" (2003-11-14)

Does Dunkin' Donuts know of this? (2003-11-06)

Engrish: Products

2005-01-10T20:55:00.000+09:00

Play with this girl. (2004-10-18)

This toothpaste has the same opinion of math that I do. (2004-05-25)

Using this soap will make one moderately sexy. If used in conjunction with Gold D soap, the user will become an unstoppable sex machine...who is moderately sexy. Damn I should not have given away my secret! (2004-04-14)

This is the lid of the garbage can in my bathroom. I have no idea what the words on it mean. I do know, however, that I also feel like flowers some times...and when those times occur, it's time to stop drinking! (2004-04-10)

Man not only does A.G. Zzang (Irving's cousin?) have some creepy ass English, but his buddies are some creepy looking muthafuckas. I bet the guy that created these characters felt like flowers...insofar that he would make such drugged out looking characters. (2004-04-10)

What I would like would be some notebooks without crazy characters or hideous English posing as poetry. That's been my mission since coming and, I know that everyday this task will begin anew... (2004-04-07)

This was on the package a shower head came in. "Best-Top. best quality!!" Indeed! It's the top of cool! (2004-04-04)

This is Gold-D soap. The name alone is not that funny, unless you are Darrell or I. This is a fairly funny soap name since we use the letter "D" to refer to a certain part of the male anatomy. I wash my wash my D with Gold-D! (2004-03-09)

So I'm sitting in an alley while Darrell is getting his puke on when I notice a strange item...check it out. Here we see the new Hyundai (or Kia) "Van." When I saw this coming home one night I thought it was the name of the van...ie Nissan Pathfinder, or Ford Taurus, but later noticed that it said "Towner" on it, which is still a hella cheesy name. To me it will always be Van. (2004-03-07)

A notebook wishing me an untimely demise. As for this tomato man's mission...if it involves taking me out of commission damn right it's so so difficult! Punk! (2004-01-02)

Engrish: Clothing

2005-01-10T20:49:00.000+09:00

The Best Club - Smurfs? How the shit can I join. (2005-01-23)

This shirt was worn by one of my kindergarten students....maybe I should ask her, or her mom, where some good venues to see heavy metal shows are. (2004-10-11)

Seems like some sound advice. (2004-05-05)

Apparently this very moment someone is thinking of me. I don't know if I should be flattered or nervous. (2004-03-26)

This was a shirt worn by one Eric Park...I have no idea what this actually means, but we can all agree there are entirely way too many verbs on this shirt. (2004-02-04)

눈...雪...Snow

2005-01-08T17:53:00.000+09:00

Monkey King...and his Posse!

Lately I have become obsessed with 西遊記 / 서유기 (better known in the west as Journey to the West. I have a television channel, 무협TV (Valorous TV), which shows all manner of kung fu, and samurai series (from China, Hong Kong, Japan, and in the case of Shogun the U.S.) Recently they have begun broadcasting TVB's (a Hong Kong television station) version of this outstanding program.
Now, I really enjoy this program for a few reasons. First the story is actually really entertaining (I'd read an English language version of this tale when I was living in America). Secondly, the production values are so low, the show is fun to watch...the same way b-movies, Telemundo soap operas, and pro-wrestling are all fun to watch. They are all cheesey, campy fun.
My one complaint is that I don't know Chinese...and the subtitles move incredibly rapidly...so hot on the heels of my reading of 三國志 / 삼국지 (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) in Korean, I figured I'd go pick up some comic book version of 서유기. So I set out to the bookstore in an effort to find myself a Korean language comic book based on a Chinese novel from the 16th century.
Leaving my apartment I saw that it was snowing. As I walked to the bookstore, I started thinking about snow, and came to the conclusion that the amusement associated with snow has an inverse relationship with age (in laymen's terms, snow is less fun the older you are). Let's exam shall we? Wow, that intro was extremely Simpsons-esque.

Age 6 - This is my default little kid age...six years old, your responsibilities are pretty limited. Some snow storm rolls into your hometown and school is cancel. Awesome! You are too young to have to shovel, so pretty much your responsibilities are limited to sledding, drinking hot chocolate, and building snow men.

Age 10 - By age 10 some asshole in your neighborhood is going to be a prick when it snows and throw ice balls at you. This aside, you still have limited responsibility, so the pros of snow out weigh the cons.

Age 14 - By this point you are in middle school...or high school, I can't remember. Sledding and snowmen are no longer fun, if you are a dude you are going to have to shovel some driveways. Still no school, and possibility that the old lady across the street will give you $20 to shovel her driveway still make snow awesome.

Age 17 - Still in high school, snow days still rock. Shoveling still sucks, and now you have to worry about driving in the snow, which is just a pain in the taint.

Age 20 - Now in college, the concept of a "snow day" pretty much ceases to exist, though on the rare occassion (ie. snow a mile deep is dumped on the campus). If you live off campus chances are you have some driveway to shovel and windows to scrape so you can trudge off a 9:00am class, only to find the teacher didn't make it in. Chances are by the time you are finished for the day, your car has been plowed in, making it a further pain in the ass. For the time you live on campus, refer to Age 6...

Age 36 - Out of college, you are in the real world. The real world doesn't stop because of snow. So you work your ass off and then go home and shovel, because your kids aren't old enough to do it yet.

Age 45 - The real world doesn't stop because of snow. So you work your ass off and then go home and shovel, because your kids didn't do it (since the old hag across the street pays more than you do).

Age 76 - Now that you are retired, snow means shitty driving conditions, stiff joints, a lose of $20 to the dirt bag middle school kid across the street, and the fact that a poor salted front step, could break every bone in corpse like body.

So that being said, I'm glad I live in a country where snow beyond a dusting is a rare thing, and the fact that I don't own a car...so my snow related inconviences are kept to a minimum...oh and for those of you keeping score, the bookstore didn't have what I was looking for. Stupid bastards!

칼국수 (Kal Guk-Su)

2005-01-08T17:14:00.000+09:00

My trusty Korean-English dictionary defines these as "knife-cut noodles." Wow...exciting! They are one of the few bland Korean dishes. It consists of noodles (which were aparently cut by a knife, as opposed to a...um...scissor), vegetables, and on occassion some manner of shellfish in a broth. This is one of the dishes I'll eat when too much alcohol and spicy food have rendered my guts useless.

족발 (Jok Bal)

2005-01-07T18:46:00.000+09:00

Ah, 족발! We're going to play a little game here. Clearly this food is meat, but where does it come from? First the animal...not, it's not a dog. If you said a pig, you're right! Now, what part of the pig is this meat from? It's not the ass, and it's not rib meat...give up? That my friend is meat from the feet of a pig...or pigs. 3 years ago the thought of eating pig feet would have disgusted me so much, that I would never have tried it...now, I actually thinking it's an outstanding food product. It tastes like ham, so if you are a wuss like I was, get over it and check out 족발.

Korean TV Report: Fun Fun Game English

2005-01-05T18:35:00.000+09:00

I think the real question here is what are you speaking of!

A couple weeks back while flipping through the channel I came across this outstanding show. I stopped due to the outfits, but stuck around for the content. You see this program combines the two great pass times of Korean youth, studying English and video games. The premiss is outstanding. The two hosts will watch a cut scene from some English language video game, and then study the bullshit said video game characters spouted out.
The dude is an overseas Korean or a Korean national who learned English really well (the guy's pronuncation is great), and the girl is a Korean national who is learning useful phrases like "We need the light crystals!" And they don't stop there! Once we have mastered said video game phrase, the host will take a phrase like, "We need the light crystals!" and then change it up a little bit (ie. "We need the notebook!" "We need the car!").
The best thing about this show was it taught me why students have told me things like "Good game!" after a class.

이해는 닭띠 입니다!

2005-01-01T08:49:00.000+09:00

Uht! Uht!

새해복 많이 받으세요! 이해는 닭띠예요! Um, Happy New Year! It's the year of the chicken/rooster/cock. Since most of my readers reside in America (either the east or west coast...last time I checked I had more people reading this in Africa than in Texas), I'm writing from the future, so as a special New Year's gift I present unto you, "Things I've Done In 2005 While You Were/Are Still Living In 2004!"

* Consumed pig feet.
* Drank some brews.
* Urinated 3 times.
* Watch part of Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
* Gave New Year's greetings to about 10 Korean people I had never met before.
* Asked random people to give me 새뱃돈 (money give to young children for bowing and giving New Year's greetings to their elders)
* Fed pig feet skin to a dog.
* Wished someone "Happy birthday."
* Went to sleep.
* Woke up.
* Got free milk at a convienient store.
* Wrote this crap.

Yup that's about it...well there were a couple other things, but I want to keep this webpage PG-13...or R, so I'm not going to talk about it.
Anyhow have a rockin' New Year's Eve and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

2004-12-26T09:22:00.000+09:00

So Christmas is over for me, but those of you in other hemisphere still have a couple hours remaining, so I bring you this Christmas report: Spending Christmas in a foreign land!
U-rim had work yesterday, so I spent most of my Christmas day cleaning my house, and watching crappy movies on TV. I did catch Frosty the Snowman (thanks AFN!), so at least some Christmas traditions remained the same.
Anyhow, at 7:30 I went to go meet U-rim in 오리. We then took the train back home and got our Christmas on.

My ghetto Christmas tree...dwarfed by gifts, the majority of which were for my girlfriend.

U-rim scored better than I did in regards of the gift. I recieved the Nirvana boxed set, and the Ewok Adventure DVD (among a couple of other things). U-rim got clothes, jewels, make-up, and assorted other stuff.
After opening gifts (and U-rim's OCD cleaning habits), we cracked open a bottle of wine and chowed down on a gingerbread house, which Beer Campus' wife had given us last weekend.

Gingerbread and wine, not a band Christmas dinner. (To be fair, I later consumed some kimchi mandu....now there's a Christmas dinner!)

U-rim and I with a gingerbread house...looks like someone has consumed a little too much wine (Wyatt I'm looking in your general direction).

Eating a gingerbread house.

To those of you I negelcted to send a Christmas card to, here is what you missed. The inside would have said something like: Cookie Bear and I wish you a Merry Christmas (or whatever other seasonal holiday you elect to celebrate this month). Keep on rockin'! - Wyatt

Anyway, I need to figure out how to how to play region 1 DVDs on my DVD player so I can re-live my childhood, have a happy holiday season peoples!

김치만두전골 (Kimchi Mandu-jeongol)

2004-12-23T09:30:00.000+09:00

This is 김치만두전골. "What pray tell is that?" you ask. Well it's a soup or a stew with kimchi, vegetables, and mandu (dumplings). It is quite outstanding.

Rock Show: Peterpan Complex w/ 재주소년 (Jeju Boy)

2004-12-18T22:34:00.001+09:00

So I just got back from a killer show...that's right, I said "killer show." Tonight's rocking was provided by Peterpan Complex and their special guest, 재주소년. The show was at DGBD, a club in Hongdae. I had never been there before, and had some difficulty finding the place, but I arrived literally 2 minutes before the rocking commenced. At first I figured I'd missed 재주소년, since it was Peterpan Complex who hit the stage. Here is some photo evidence:

Peterpan Complex doing their best Radiohead impression.

Peterpan Complex still rocking their asses off.

Peterpan Complex's singer. Check the dude's quasi-mullet. Not too shabby.

Get that bass outta my face!

Rock it!

Rockin' out 2: Electric Boogaloo!

Now after that, Peterpan Complex bid us farewell, but bid us to enjoy their friends 재주소년, who entered stage left? Right? Whatever. 재주소년 were actually a decent combo. They actually played some Simon & Garfunkle / Aztec Two Step two man folk rock, which was an interesting departure from the normal "We are Korea's answer to Rancid!" / "We are Korea's answer to Nirvana!" most of the indie bands tend to follow.

Jeju Sonyeon

Jeju Sonyeon 2

After 재주소년 wrapped up, Peterpan Complex came back. This must be a Korean thing, since when I saw Cherry Filter they did the same thing. The headliners play a set, then some special guests play, and then come back and play some more. So here is the continuation of Peterpan Complex.

The singer rocking out Elton John style.

Now that I think of it, at the Cherry Filter concert, Cherry Filter came back with a mellow begining to their second set...I guess it must really a Korean thing. Anyhow they only kept it mellow for a little bit, and then it was back to some balls to the wall rocking.

Singer and super hot drummer. She never smiled at all...but was totally hot.

TOTAL GUITAR FACE!

Rocking out on "Jingle Bells" (if memory serves me correctly). Other covers on this night included "Feliz Navidad," "Last Christmas," (the Wham tune), and "Tonight."

Anyhow it was a rocking evening, and I really like that club. It was the kind of club that is very similar to someone's basement, and surprisingly it wasn't that crowded. I'll have to check for future shows at that club!

Twister!

2004-12-17T22:28:00.000+09:00

So today I discovered that we had Twister at work...so of course I had to break that bad boy out during my Red class and we had an improptu game of Twister. The kids seemed to enjoy it, so we will probably be having another game of Twister in the near future...though not in the coming days, since the students have their semester test next week...and then it's Christmas break. Hells yeah!

냄비 분식

2004-12-11T13:57:00.000+09:00

On Thursday, U-rim and I went to go get some lunch before I had to head off to work. He headed over to our favorite 분식집 only to find the owner outside and some dudes taking tables away in a truck. U-rim asked him what was up, and this is what I understood: the resturaunt was closing, because of one of two things he was opening a barbeque place and would be too busy or due to the 분식집 he was too busy, so he was opening a barbeque place instead. Either way we were out of luck for lunch. We wandered around and looked at other 분식집s until we ultimately decided on one. I don't recall the name, but it was awesome. The majority of the items they served came in some sort of hot pot. Be it 돌솥 or 냄비 or some crazy cauldron looking pot, everyone was eating out of a pot. U-rim and I ordered up some cheese ramen and some pork thing....the name of which escapes me (something 제육).

Cheese ramen, cooked and served in a pot. I told one of my Korean friends that I ate my ramen like this at home, which caused her to proclaim, "Yes, it is more delicious that way." I agreed, though in reality the reason I ate my ramen that way is because there's one less dish to wash. Anyhow cheese ramen is normal ramen only a slice of cheese is added at the end. The cheese gives the ramen a smooth, creamy taste, and it's quite delicious.

Pork, vegetables, rice, and of course gochu jang in a hot stone bowl. Damn delicious.

The resturaunt won our seal of approval, and we will more than likely dine there again.

南男北女?

2004-12-09T09:05:00.000+09:00

Recently I've (for reasons unknown even to me) been studying a lot of Korean proverbs and metaphors. Knowning and using them correctly (like slang and profanity) make Koreans think I know much more Korean than I actually do, so I guess that was my motivation for learning such things. Anyhow one of the expressions I learned was "남남북녀 (南男北女 / nam nam buk nyeo)." This literally means, "South Men, North Women." Say what? What this expression is claiming is that in regards to Korea, handsome, good looking men hail from the south, where the babes dwell in the north. After the Korean War a clear division between North and South developed (technically that division was formed after World War II, but this is not a history lesson today), and stayed that way up through present, at which point Wyatt using a digital camera, the internet, and sarcasm presents this study on the truth of this expression.
I have lived in South Korea for about a year and a half now. In this time I have seen a lot of South Koreans, and though my exposure to North Koreans has been limited to the politicians and crappy North Korean dramas and news programs South Korean channels show from time to time, I have seen my fair share of North Koreans as well. After seeing these people, I began to question the validity of this proverb. So I disected it. I put that proverb up on a table and took it's guts out. I studied this guts, but them back in and stiched that bad boy up again. I first examined the "남남" part of the expression. Handsome men hail from the south. This part of the expression does ring true. I offer exibit A: Kim Jong-il (김정일) vs. South Korean President Roh Mu Hyun (노무현).

Nice Kid n' Play razor lines there Dear Leader...

President Roh (Right)

Neither guy is Brad Pitt, and inspite of the fact the our buddy "Dear Leader" oozes with style, looking only at the body, President Roh wins hands down. That's still not enough evidence? Scroll up and examine the Kim Jong-il picture once more. Do you see those guys with him? They are North Korea's number one singing group. Compare that with the sexiness that is 동방신기 (東方神起 / Dong Bang Shin Gi).

South Korea's top boy band, 동방신기 (東方神起 / Dong Bang Shin Gi).

Damn! Those 동방신기 (東方神起 / Dong Bang Shin Gi) fellows are a lot better looking than their Northern breathern. Based on these two clinical tests I will say that yes it is true that Korean men in the south are more handsome then those hailing from the North.
Next I examined the second part of the expression, "북녀." I've seen a lot of Korean ladies, and would have to say for the most part they are the best looking ladies on the planet, but I digress. I have seen Korean ladies both North and South and would have to say that I find the notion that ladies in the North are better looking to be ludacris. Examine exibit B if you will. Let's compare and contrast something beninge like evening news anchorwomen.

The sexy North Korean reporter.

South Korea's evening newswoman.

Alright, no question about it the North Korean reporter is hot, but when compared to the South Korean woman, there's no contest. And just look at the stuff they are talking about...oh wait you can't see that. Well, the North Korean was telling us how Kim Jong-il was totally awesome on the day of the report, the South Korean is telling us about viagra...she's pretty and wants men to know about the wonders of viagra. Like above, it's not fair to make broad sweeping generalizations based on one person...so I'll do it based on two. For our next point of comparison, I bring you two female celebrities.

An actress from some show about acrobats (North Korean). The opening credits did not list a name, so I have no idea who she is.

And representing South Korea, the always sexy 이효리 (Lee Hyori).

This one is actually a little harder to call. The North Korean actress is not hideous, but she lacks one thing that Hyori has...curves! Additionally it's hard to be beautiful while wearing a rediculous unitard with sequins on it. Furthermore, while this woman may be decent, she does not represent the bulk of North Koreans. In that wacky world north of the 38th parallel, celebrities, and soilders station at the DMZ are the best fed, best looking people the country has to offer.
On the flipside, South Korea ranks 15th in the world in plastic surgeries, while the North ranks no where. So bottom line is we can probably toss this one out, but that's not to say the those in the North are better looking. Far from it! It's hard to be good looking when you are eating bark, or toiling in a labor camp because you sneezed while looking at a picture of Kim Il-sung. Therefore it is with great pride that I present unto you my new and improved Korean proverb! 남남남녀 (南男南女 / nam nam nam nyeo).

And to prove that not all North Korean women are chunky 아줌마s...

If I were somehow in the North, and met this lady I'd probably bust out something like, "김일성의 서거로 인류는 전설적영응 위대한 수령을 잃었습니다 (With the death of Comrade Kim Il-sung, mankind lost the legendary hero, 'Great Leader,')" which seems like the closest thing to a pick-up line North Korea has to offer, at which point I'd end up in a gulag somewhere harvesting coal or chopping down trees.

In Which I Move To Korea And Become A Middle Aged Man

2004-11-28T21:17:00.000+09:00

Today I realized that if I were a Korean I would most likely be an 아저씨 (ajeoshi / middle aged man). The bulk of the Koreans that I hang out with in my free time are middle aged men and women. My passtimes are the same as a man 2 or 3 times my age (calligraphy, climbing mountains, drinking, spitting, and playing 화투). Anyhow, today I went on a mountain climbing expediation with the owner of Beer Campus. For those of you unaware of the awesomeness that is Beer Campus, let me tell you about it. Beer Campus is a bar near my homestead, that I frequent with U-rim quite...uh frequently. It's like our own personal Cheers, since the owner knows our name...though no one else there really does. Anyhow, awhile back, the owner invited me to go scale a mountain with him. Since I'm always up for a random mountain climbing adventure, I agreed, and today was the day. I met up with Mr. Beer Campus and his family, which was made up of his wife and his son (a high school senior). We took a bus out to good old 북한산 (北漢山 / Bukhan Mountain).
The bus ride itself (on a normal day) would have warrented it's own story, but today was just over the top. Anyhow on the bus, some little boy (I later learned he was 4) spotted me. He motioned to his mother (as is usually the case) and instead of the normal "엄마, 외국사람..." (Mom, a foreigner!), I was hit with a "엄마...스파이더맨이야!" (Mom, it's Spiderman!) So apparently U-rim's attempts over the summer to turn me into Spiderman/Peter Parker/Tobey McGuire turned out well. After being Spiderman for 20 minutes or so, we arrived at 북한산 and began our ascent...after a cup of coffee.
From a purely education stand point, today was great. No one in my posse (aside from the highschool student) could speak English well, so I got to speak Korean like a madman.
After some time we came to the first attraction, which was some kind of castle gate to a long gone castle. Long ago it was apparently used for evacuation purposes (and least that's what I understood using my shabby Korean skills). When there were wars, people would retreat up to that castle in the mountains and hide out until things were good to go again. Anyhow here are a couple pictures.

中城門 (Jung Seong Moon)

On top of the gate with Son of Mr. Beer Campus. (I forgot his son's name...Lee something or other...)

After a brief stop off at this gate, we pressed on, resting only briefly for a lunch. Lunch consisted of some kimbab, ramen, and kimchi, and all in all was not to shabby. Following lunch we continued on towards, 대남문 (大南門 / Great South Gate). We stopped once to drink some spring water. The sign and my posse both proclaimed it was safe to drink, so I figure "when in Rome..." and downed some spring water. From the spring, it was only 400 meters to the gate we were going to see. Let me tell you, 400 meters can be a long distance if you are walking up the side of a mountain (especially if you've been walking up the side of a mountain for several kilometers). We got to the gate without any incident, snapped a couple photos and carried on.

Here I am on the side of a mountain. 대남문 is in the background.

From the gate, the next stop on our tour was a Buddhist temple. This was my first experience doing actual temple stuff. I've been to temples before, and the closest I came to actual Buddhist practices was in Japan where I threw some coins in Buddhist wishing wells, and wrote some kind of wish on a plaque...but those things may have been Shinto anyhow (since most of the temples I went to in Japan also had Shinto shires on the site). Anyhow so we go to this Buddhist temple. Mr. Beer Campus and his family are Buddhists, so they have to go some Buddhist stuff. I assumed I would not be allowed to participate (ala getting communion in church) since I wasn't a member, but that was not the case. As a religion I really like Buddhism now. I mean I had studied it while in college, but had never actally done Buddhist stuff before. It was great, especially when compared to a Christian / Catholic church service. Here's a run down of how it went. First off Mrs. Beer Campus gave me two sticks of incense to light (one for me and one for U-rim). This was the longest and most difficult step simply because the lighter was almost empty. After that I had to take off my shoes. We then went into the temple and got some mats, we had to bow three times. It was the kind of bow where your forehead touches the floor (the kind of bow most commonly known in the west as a kowtow). After that Mrs. Beer Campus put a cheese cake on some silver tray and put it in front of a statue of Buddha and dropped some money in a collection box. After that it was over. In all, the whole thing probably took no more than 10 minutes. I'm sure there are more elaborate (and time consuming practices), but the fact that this ten minute thing was good enough. Compare this to the 90 minute plus average church service (with the extremely uncomfortable pews) and Buddhism wins hands down (especially since I have no particular attachment to Jesus or God for that matter). After they prayed (and I followed along) we were given some coffee by the caretaker of the temple (I don't think she was a monk since she had hair), and I got my picture taken by a lion statue.

At a Buddhist temple.

After getting our Buddhism on, we began our descent down the mountain. As we climbed down the mountain, I was presented with a set of Buddhist prayer beads, with which I am now able to get my future Buddhism on. We stopped for some clementines and kept going down the mountain. I got to practice my Korean quite a bit. I got to discuss my family, computer games, Korean monsters, alcohol, and other rocking topics. At the bottom of the mountain I finally took some pictures of nature. Enjoy my artsy nature shot, this I command!

A pine tree and a waterfall.

Oh and it wouldn't be an adventure in Korea without some sketchy English. Check it out if you will!

No dump garbage. Take back please.

From there we went to a tent bar and got some 막걸리 (makkoli / rice wine) and some side dishes. We drank and chatted, and I ended up giving the best English lesson I've every presented...since it was all about profanity, and the fact that "crazy" in English is not necessarily a bad word (as opposed to the Korean equivelant 미치다 [mi-chi-da] which only has a negative connotation). After some drinking and food stuffs it was off to noreabang, but apparently we had not eaten enough yet, so we stopped off at resturaunt, where some sort of spicy octopus and vegetable thing was ordered. This food stuff, showed me that I have clearly been in Korea way too long. I actually consumed some of it, and most likely would have consumed more if I wasn't already bloated from 막걸리 and Korean pancakes.
After the resturaunt, we headed off to the noreabang and we all sang our asses off! I rocked out on some Korean tunes and some English language tunes as well, and my posse told me that I did well (I'm assuming that were just being kind). After noreabang I was but in a cab and shipped home. I then came home and wrote this thing and listened to some Mars Volta...anyhow that wraps it up from here. I have to go spit and play some cards since I'm an middle aged Korean man...

Korean Style Thanksgiving

2004-11-26T09:11:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was Thanksgiving back home in America, which means sitting around with family, eating turkey and not working or studying for like 5 days. However in Korea this is not the case.
For starters there is no such thing as Thanksgiving here. I mean why would there be? They have no pilgrims or Indians or Mayflowers or show with buckles on them. Additionally Koreans for the most part don't eat turkey, therefore my Thanksgiving lunch looked like this:

Thanksgiving lunch: fried rice, ramen, kimchi, pickles, and Spam turkey sent from America.

So after a Thanksgiving lunch that included Spam I headed into work. Instead of going with the lesson plan, the kids learned about Thanksgiving (pretty much that no one works or has school and everyone eats turkey...I left out pilgrims and such). After that, it was time for a Thanksgiving related project. That's right, we made turkeys by tracing hands on construction paper. Awesome! After that we played some games and called it a day.
After work I met with U-rim and we went to a spaghetti resturaunt and then went shopping. She was looking for "couple gloves," but we ended up buying a The Noid action figure. For those of you who don't know what the Noid is, it was the mascot for Dominos Pizza in the mid to late 80s. Why exactly a store in Korea was selling a figurine of this character is beyond me, but I had to have it...so now I do.
After shopping, we headed home and called it a night after I wished my family back home a Happy Thanksgiving.
Anyhow I have to get out of here soon, so for those of you in America I hope you had an outstanding Thanksgiving, stay away from the malls tomorrow (today). For everyone else, carry on as usual.