starchmouse on the road

My new home...

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 10:25:00 +0000

I joined the dark side and started a tumblr blog. I say "dark side" because I always associated tumblr with hip youngsters in tune with social networking media. Also, they usually have interesting things to say and take neat pictures. I'm clumsy when it comes to technology, and I'll pretty much delete any request to start a pillow fight or hatch an egg on Facebook.

But I have to admit, my posts look a teeny bit cooler on tumblr...

http://starchmouse.tumblr.com

Happy Father's Day!

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 01:05:00 +0000

My aunt once told me that I shouldn't marry a Korean man. When I asked her why, she said "You shouldn't think that Korean men are like your father. Your father is very kind and respects your mother."
"And he does the dishes!" I couldn't help but add.
But yikes, her statement made me scared for Korean women. Even during my Korean class, when we were learning vocabulary for personality traits, my teacher brought up the fact that Korean fathers were typically known to be 무뚝뚝 (curt, cold) and not very affectionate.
I can't say if that is true or not, but my father is definitely neither of those:

My father is generous and warmhearted and empathetic. From him I inherited a killer sense of direction and a love for trying new things in restaurants.
If only I had inherited that hair (second from the left!):

My father is a charming combination of thoughtful and forgetful. He would have been an absentminded professor had he decided to go that direction.

My father inspired me to run a marathon. But I wouldn't have been able to finish if he hadn't run the last five miles with me. My dad is very athletic:

My dad's normal facial expression is kind of serious. But his smile lights up his whole face:

Happy Father's Day to the best dad ever!

World Cup...Sigh...

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:59:00 +0000

Today I went to COEX along with what seemed like a gazillion fans to watch the Korea/Argentina game. I'm so sad I can't even describe the madness that is watching a game while sitting in the middle of the road (yup, they blocked off an 8-lane road for us red devils) so I'll just post pictures.

Paris Baguette loves Park Jisung:

The entrance to COEX is one big Nike ad:

This guy was toast. Shortly after I took this picture he gave me a hug:

Apparently watching the world cup means you get lots of free stuff:

These came in very handy during the synchronized cheers:

The people staying at the Park Hyatt (on the left) must have loved watching us jump up and down:

A Year Ago On This Day...

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:00:00 +0000

In a fit of nostalgia (not at ALL due to procrastination) I decided to see what I was up to exactly a year ago today. First I looked through iPhoto but apparently I was going through a dry spell (this was also pre-iPhone). Then I decided to go through my emails and see what that would bring.

The very first email I received on June 15, 2009, contained this gem of a sentence from a friend:
and as a clear example of "too much information," i totally should've taped my nipples today. ouch. but overall it was a good run -- 16 miles, pretty much following the actual route from the beginning.

The next notable email I received contained a link to the bio of a real live "korwegian" - it's not every day you spot them in the wild!

The next email was from USF:
The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6 in response to the ongoing global spread of the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus. This designation indicates that a global pandemic is underway.
I'm pretty sure I ignored that one, having no clue that I would later move to a far more paranoid foreign country during the height of its swine flu mania.

And last but not least, I got this email from UCSF:
Dear Anne Kim,

Congratulations. Your submission, 1###7 has cleared all of the necessary checks and will soon be delivered to ProQuest/UMI for publishing.

Regards,
University of California, San Francisco - Graduate Division Administrator

Holy cow it's been a year already? How could I have let that slip by? Probably because I'd started pretending I was "finishing" up since 2008:

So yeah, a lot has changed since then. For instance, a year ago I'm pretty sure I went to sleep wearing fleece pajamas under 2 down comforters. Tonight I'll be lucky to sleep through the night without kicking my blanket to the floor because it is 75 degrees out with 85% humidity. Also, I eat a lot more kimchi now.

Wow, it's beautiful today

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:32:00 +0000

Just had lunch and caught up with an old friend...the rain has gone away and the weather is beautiful. Now I'm going to attempt to walk through the ferry building without buying anything. Hmmm...

Home sweet home...

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Thu, 27 May 2010 00:27:00 +0000

I was so excited to go home and see my family that I didn't sleep the night before. Well, partly also because I made the mistake of watching the season finale of Grey's Anatomy and spent the entire night worrying some nutcase would go loose in whatever hospital my brother ends up working at.
I meant to sleep on the plane, but there was On Demand entertainment:

I tried not to giggle too loudly lest I wake up the other passengers.
We landed safe and sound in SFO and I called my brother, only to find out my family was so caught up in watching Personal Taste they hadn't left the house yet. Sheesh.
Straight from the airport, we went for dim sum. I really missed dim sum:
Then the weather was so clear and beautiful we went to Twin Peaks:
The beautiful weather continued to the next day, when I got to see Ody and Britt! Wee! We wandered around the North Beach/Russian Hill area and walked up a stairway where we were greeted with this view:
Then we went to the Mission for mexican food. I had a burrito the size of my head. I also really missed burritos:
My brother made fried chicken:

And Ody, along with putting lemon juice in everything and making lemon centerpieces, my mom also made preserved lemons:

She wanted me to take a picture of the jar in the garage, because that one was "prettier" - I was too lazy to walk up there though.

Express train to ICN

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Sun, 23 May 2010 06:22:00 +0000

You know the train is THAT good when you wish the ride were a teensy bit longer...I still managed to organize my Dream Concert photos on the way to the airport.
In 15 hours I'll be back in San Francisco. Yay!!!

Temperance, followed by gluttony....

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Fri, 21 May 2010 12:34:00 +0000

Today is a holiday (buddha's birthday!) and luckily, these guys were holding a temple-style (vegetarian) cooking class. These days, it's hard to leave the house without my aunt telling me to sit down and stuff myself, but knowing I would get to eat the fruits of my labors, I quickly put half of my rice bowl back into the rice cooker while she wasn't looking. Alas, I couldn't do the same with the vat of fish soup she then proceeded to ladle out for me. I tried to explain why I wasn't eating "enough":

Aunt: Where are you going again? What are you learning to cook?
Me: Temple-style food.
Aunt: Well, learn to make delicious food and come back and make it for us!
Cousin: No! She's only learning how to cook vegetables, ick!

But that's the beauty of korean food - there are so many vegetables you don't know what to do with them. Also, my 어학당 friends live far away so I don't get as much non-family adult interaction as I would like. And my cousin spends all her time at hagwon. I also need to make friends with some korean people, because my korean skills are slipping. Will you be my friend?

I digress.

Here is what we made: Chive salad. I love black sesame seeds. I completely forget to put sesame oil in this, perhaps that's why it never tasted quite right to me. I was pretty distracted during the whole class and forgot to add salt to most of my food. I suppose it wasn't too terrible; the chef-teacher tasted all of our versions and claimed to like mine the best. I don't believe him (I mean, sesame oil makes everything taste delicious and I left it completely OUT, come on!) but what a nice guy. I may have a tiny crush on him.

Bibimbap: Yum. I LOVE gosari (the brown stringy vegetable) and could pretty much just eat rice, gochujang, and sesame oil mixed together any time of day. Just not three times a day. My goodness I could kill for a tamale right now. Wow, I am really all over the place today. I blame the heat. Anyways, the chef made a fermented soybean paste sauce that smelled heavenly and definitely helped the fact that I forgot to salt all my vegetables. My cousin laughed at me the other day because I incorrectly spelled 된장 as 됀장. See? I need more korean friends. Misspelling that is like living next to a McDonald's yet spelling "burger" as "burgur". Where is my brain?
Next up:This is before I added tomato to it. Seriously, adding tomato to 된장찌개 is truly delicious.

After we finished cooking, we got to eat! Unfortunately, I couldn't finish because of the massive breakfast I had already eaten. But it was nice to meet and talk with other people who have 관심 in korean food, and also find it odd that tomatoes and sweet potatoes find their way into desserts here. The folks running the show are the nicest people; once I actually start getting paid I hope to do one of their market tour classes. You should check them out!

Speaking of dessert:
Yum yum yum!
Although this almond chocolate croissant was delicious, this place is nuts expensive. I paid 7000 won for an americano; whenever I pay that much for what ends up being overly watered-down espresso, I feel like somewhere, a fairy just lost its wings.
The man at the counter was extremely helpful however, in helping me choose pastries to take home to my aunt and cousin that would withstand a few hours' travel time in the extreme heat:
Tartelette Fromage
70% dark chocolate pot de creme. Deemed "too bitter" by my cousin. I told her my dad considers 85% cocoa chocolate bars a pleasant snack. I think 72% is my limit.
Black sesame-grapefruit and orange-red bean macarons. The man at the counter said "Oh, you like the unusual flavors!" I told him I once tried a foie gras macaron. He said he feels desserts should be vegetarian. That's only because he's never tried my candied bacon chocolate chip cookies.

I'm not making that up. I just never got a chance to blog about them because I ate the entire batch in two days. Well, I gave a few away as well.

Mmm, bacon.

Taipei - Last day

noreply@blogger.com (starchmouse) — Tue, 18 May 2010 07:04:00 +0000

My last day was pretty short, seeing as I had an early afternoon flight back to Seoul. After checking out, I went to the train station hoping to find soy milk for breakfast.

No such luck. But I did find a MOS Burger. Unfortunately, only breakfast sandwiches were available:

I decided to splurge an extra $2 and take the high-speed train to the airport:

Bye Taipei! It was awesome!

I loved this trip for so many different reasons. It was nice to take a break from Seoul - not that I'm getting tired of Seoul, but I had just finished another semester of school and hadn't really had time to sightsee IN Seoul. I love seeing new places, but also, going away and coming back made Seoul start to feel more like a home than a temporary transit place.

When I told people I was going by myself, particularly Korean people, they were surprised. I still have to get used to the fact that things that seem normal to me (not living with my parents after college even though San Francisco is only 30 miles away, going on an overn ight hiking trip with a bunch of strangers, carrying my own damn purse) might be hard for people here to picture. I think what is most hard for people to understand is that I don't mind traveling alone, in fact, I like it. Hell, this whole blog started because I decided it would be fun to drive to Denver by myself. And I managed to not only survive that trip (lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!) but the time I spent alone (I spent a super-fun week with Liv in Denver followed by an amazing few days with my parents roaming around Yellowstone) was truly memorable. There's nothing like a solo trip to give you time to get lost in your thoughts while at the same time forcing yourself to open your eyes and absorb everything that's going around you because you only have your own observations to rely on. Trips like that make coming back home to wherever "home" might be at that moment seem like a fresh start.

And really, even when you're by yourself, you're never really alone.

So when I saw amazing things and ate delicious things while in Taipei, I never felt regret at the fact that I was doing it by myself. Mostly, I felt excited at the prospect of one day coming with my family and sharing with them everything I was so happy to experience during my short visit.

Happy birthday mom!

noreply@blogger.com (starchmouse) — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:02:00 +0000

My mom celebrates her __th birthday today. She's the cutest __-year-old I know:

What in the world is going on here??

noreply@blogger.com (starchmouse) — Sat, 15 May 2010 06:39:00 +0000

Today is teacher's day, and seeing as my aunt is pretty much the most awesome elementary school teacher (and aunt!) EVER, she came home with a bunch of presents from her adoring students. Including this cake set:

Which is surprisingly intact. Because I ignored it fully only to tear into this guy:

That's right, I chose rice cakes over real cake. Next thing you know I'll be wanting to eat rice three meals a day and packing kimchi with me when I go on trips, just in case the place I'm visiting doesn't have any. Because, you know, you haven't really eaten a real meal unless you've eaten rice and kimchi.

Gah. I need to visit home soon and get my head set straight.

Taipei - Day 3 continued

noreply@blogger.com (starchmouse) — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:30:00 +0000

The garden at the National Palace Museum stays open an hour later than the museum buildings, so I decided to head over and find a place to rest my poor feet, since I had hours of roaming around the night market planned ahead.
I noticed a bunch of people gathering to the side of the pavilion so I decided to see what they were staring at:

Only to find out they were starting a feeding frenzy. Koi fish really creep me out. I think it's the way they open and close their mouths. But really, doesn't this picture slightly disturb you?

I ran away and found a bench to read on. Check out my new $5 sandals!

I took the bus back to the MRT station and decided to walk to Shilin Night Market. On the way I spotted a sign that made me consider for a moment whether or not I would be crazy to come back to Taipei on the 17th:

In case you can't recognize him - that's Richard Marx! Why yes, I DID just turn 30, why do you ask?

I realized I must be nearby when I saw this crowd of people waiting in front of a bunch of delicious-smelling food stands:

Later I would find out that this is just a "light" crowd. I wandered and wandered and wandered the maze of alleys. The area was packed with food vendors and stores and people in the middle of the alleys selling all sorts of trinkets laid out on blankets. This is so they can gather up everything quickly and scamper off when the police come. Same with the people selling clothes on rolling racks. I learned this the hard way when I nearly lost a toe.

I never did figure out why this turkey was here:

Oyster omelet. Um, wow.

Also delicious. At that point I think it had been 4 months since I'd had any fruit that wasn't an apple, clementine, strawberry, or banana, so I was pretty excited to be eating something that had TWO colors:

I was already stuffed by the time I saw this guy, but the insane crowd of people waiting around swayed me to wait. It was worth it.

Apparently, I had only been roaming around part of the night market - as I walked toward the MRT station I noticed a huge "building" that said "Shilin Night Market" and was essentially a crazy food court with stall after stall selling all forms of stinky tofu, oyster omelet, boba, fruit shakes, fried things, and noodles. I'm kind of glad I didn't see this at first, because the sheer size/number of different food options was so overwhelming my head would probably explode just trying to decide what to eat. Or more likely my stomach would explode just eating everything in sight. I decided it didn't matter, since I would come back here with my family someday. Soon, hopefully.

More pictures from the day here.

Summer

noreply@blogger.com (starchmouse) — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:38:00 +0000

Yes, it is only May. But somehow Seoul has managed to skip spring and launch directly into summer. Summer by my standards at least. I may or may not have mentioned before how much of a wimp I am when it comes to heat and humidity.

Today I had a nutso experience at the immigration office that involved running around town like a headless chicken trying to get a copy of my dad's family registry. When the lady at the office told me my mother's forms were useless in my quest to get an F-4 visa, I immediately felt defeated. My parents have been living in the US longer than they lived in Korea - how in the world would I find my dad's family registry?? But surprisingly, all I had to do was go across the street to some office called a 동사무서, hand over my passport and my dad's old address (which was, thankfully, on my MOM's family registry), and 5 minutes and $2 later I had all the forms I needed.

I can't even imagine being able to get a form that easily back home. I mean, it took me 5 months to get my diploma. And if you want to get your degree verified, you can't just call up the school and ask them "hey, did so-and-so attend your school and get a degree?" You have to register on a website, pay some ridiculous fee, then wait who knows how long just to get a simple "yes"...

Then again, there are other things here in Korea that are surprisingly difficult. For example, a proper thank you card that doesn't have some inane inappropriate phrase on it like "I love you and your smile that never fades!" It took me a week to find two cards that only had the words "Thank You" written on the front. These cards are going to the two professors who were very kind and wrote letters of recommendation for me even though they are very busy and I gave them short notice.

But that's a different story. Instead, let's look at a picture of a cute baby!

You know a baby is cute when he spits up all over you and you don't even care. This is my cousin's 3-month-old son.

And now, some random, perhaps useful, information, aka how to get an F-4 visa if you are a girl and your parents used to be Korean citizens but are now American:

Bring a copy of both your parents' naturalization certificates, a copy of their passports, and copy of your passport, and a copy of your birth certificate. You'll need to get a copy of your father's family registry at the 동사무서 across the street from the immigration office - this is easy if you happen to be listed on that registry (unlikely). You'll most likely need your father's address at the time he was listed on the registry. Luckily, my dad's address was listed on the copy of my mom's registry I had. Just to be safe, I'd bring all the aforementioned documents and just show them all to the person helping you while looking helpless and in a hurry. This worked for me.

Now go across the street to the immigration office. Before you do anything else, get a number. If you get number 155 for example, they will most likely currently be on number 140. And that doesn't include all the people who came before but were missing some crucial document, had to run across the street to get it, then get to cut back in line (guilty!) After you get your number, fill out two forms. One is the general form everybody fills out. Another is a form that says something about korean nationals living abroad. Even though this isn't you, fill it out. You'll need to glue a 3.5x4.5 (cm) photo to each one. You'll also need to go to the basement and ask for 60,000 won worth of "stamps" to glue to your general application. By the time you finish these tasks, they'll be helping person number 143.

I would bring a book.

After that, the rest is pretty easy. They are very helpful and friendly (I had been expecting something like the DMV, but this was not the case) and I was done in about an hour and a half, despite having to leave the building twice to get various forms. I think the issue with using my mom's family registry to get my visa was that my mom was still technically a Korean citizen when I was born, so they needed my dad's registry to see if I had been listed on it.

After you hand over your forms and your passport (make sure you don't need to go anywhere!) you'll get a receipt telling you to come back in a week to pick up your passport.

I'm not sure if it is more complicated if you are a guy - it might be if you are listed on your family registry. Something to do with military service.

Okay, time to go ~~study chemistry~~ to sleep.

Birthday Feasting

noreply@blogger.com (starchmouse) — Sat, 01 May 2010 14:30:00 +0000

My 30th birthday was a few weeks ago (oh my god it's MAY already???) so I thought I'd post a few pictures showing the various ways I ~~bemoaned~~ celebrated the passing of so many years. I don't think it was quite the horrible event I imagined it to be, thanks in part to the fact that I've had to spend the last 6 months telling people that I'm 30 in Korean years.
Thank you so much to all of you who sent me birthday wishes that I wasn't able to respond to via general facebook update (Liv! Gwynna! Jess!) - I swear, the reason I haven't responded yet is not because I spent that week curled up in a ball crying for my mommy (although she DID fly all the way out to Seoul, whee!) - it was because I was eating.

The festivities started the Friday before, when 효천 took me out for dinner. Mmm, nothing says "30 is the new 20!" like feasting on pork fat:

The next night we went out to dinner in Itaewon. I had been craving falafel. This really hit the spot:

Then we walked to a 막걸리 place which had a gazillion different kinds of rice wine. The weather was really warm that day, even at night - it was nice being able to walk around without some sort of crazy insulating down jacket.

The bar had a very extensive hand-written menu, describing each type of rice wine in great detail. It can be tough to decide, so they have a sampler where you can choose 5 for 2,000 won. Ridiculous. I couldn't even finish this:

I ended up trying a whole bunch of different rice wines, including buckwheat, 5-grain, and corn. I think the real winner though was the yogurt cocktail. It pairs nicely with chocolate cake:

I stumbled home at the very age-appropriate time of 11:30, only to be met with the disapproving clucks of my grandmother, who thought I was out VERY VERY late.

The next day I reveled in the fact that my advancing age means no 막걸리-induced hangovers! Then my aunt came over to buy me a birthday dinner. We went to a sashimi place:

What you don't see in this picture are the 350 side dishes that arrived prior to the sashimi, including corn gratin, california rolls, clam soup, squash soup, grilled mackerel, salad, clam, scallop, and sea squirt sashimi, poached skate, and who knows what else. After we were done with the sashimi, they brought out a huge pot of spicy fish stew. I spent the next day still feeling full.

Then my mom came! Yay! On my actual birthday, I had a meeting in Sinchon, so we walked to Hongdae afterwards. It was 4:30, but we were both hungry, so I took us to a place we could get some noodles. We split this salmon dish and a "caviar" cream pasta:

Much to my chagrin, my mom had considered that a snack and wanted to go out again to dinner later. I was still so full so we settled on a yummy Costco dinner of rolls and cheesecake:

Pretty much the perfect way to end the day.

Taipei - Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (starchmouse) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 05:39:00 +0000

Still dreaming about soymilk, I left the hotel vowing to eat the first interesting-looking thing I ran across for breakfast. A small outdoor cafe full of people slurping up delicious-smelling bowls of noodles (despite the heat!) was the winner. I figured, what the heck, 이열치열! (Fight fire with fire...)

Yum. I hopped on the MRT to visit the Confucius Temple. Temples are so colorful here:

After visiting several temples I noticed that people like to leave cans of Pringles as offerings. I wouldn't turn down a can of Pringles. Or a can of Spam:

I think this makes my list of top ten weird things I've seen in a vending machine:

Afterwards, I decided to spend the afternoon getting lost in the National Palace Museum. But my "tourist map" had a listing for a cake and pastry museum near the bus stop, so of course I had to check it out:

Only to be majorly disappointed. Not one delicious-looking pastry in sight. Just a room full of people eating bowls of soup. I thought I had the wrong place but a woman told me that I couldn't visit the "museum" then since it was too crowded at the moment. Then she gestured towards the aforementioned people inside, eating soup.

That's still a bit of a head-scratcher.

No matter, I took a detour through an alley market on my way back to the bus stop. This nice cold soymilk cheered me up:

Unfortunately, pictures aren't allowed inside the National Palace Museum. That place is HUGE. I didn't even attempt to look at the other buildings beside the main one. After several hours of walking all around and trying not to get swallowed by huge tour groups, I treated myself to some tea at the top-floor restaurant:

Taipei - Day 2 continued

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:38:00 +0000

Why hello, hello! I've been so busy lately with menial tasks such as aging and getting my ducks in a row, but I figured I should hurry up and finish these Taipei posts before (hopefully, crossing my fingers) my life goes from sporadically stressful to insanely crazy. (Yes, I want my life to turn insanely crazy. I hope to be able to share with you why that is soon...)

So where were we? Oh right, life-changing soymilk. Thus fortified, I decided to see how far I could walk before caving and buying another cute MRT token. My intended destination was Taipei 101. At first I didn't think I'd be able to make it. I was still feeling the effects of the foot massage path and the weather was awfully hot. And it looked so far away:
But then it got closer:
And suddenly it was right under my nose!
I decided to splurge and bought a ticket to go to the top. Okay, the ticket wasn't horrifically expensive (around $13) but I think it's more than I spent on food for two days.
To get to the top you get to ride the world's fastest elevator:That speed means you go to the 89th floor in 36 seconds. A very uncomfortable 36 seconds.
It is difficult to get the entire building into one shot if you have a normal camera. Luckily there is a bamboo model:

Afterwards I decided to spare my poor feet and took the MRT to Din Tai Fung. Here is a man rolling dumplings:I felt slightly uncomfortable taking his picture, but after a large tour group came in I realized they put those windows in for this very purpose. Or I assumed so, seeing as nobody seemed to mind when people started pressing their noses up against the glass...
As I walked back to the MRT station I reveled in the fact that it was dark yet balmy. I still can't get used to climates where the weather is warm even after the sun has gone down. This inspired me to check out the Ximending area near my hotel. Walking around, I could have been back it Seoul. First, I only seemed to hear K-pop...the Wonder Girls, 소녀시대, Super Junior, 2NE1, and 2PM all seem to have fans in Taiwan...
Then, I saw this:
One thing I loved about walking around Taipei is that wherever you go you will probably stumble upon a temple...like this teeny tiny one sandwiched in between a clothing shop and a convenience store:
All of today's walking warranted a snack. Back to the night market! I've never been a huge fan of 팥빙수, a korean shaved ice and red bean dessert, but after trying the taiwanese version I realized why...sorry Korea, you've totally been getting it wrong!Mmmm...first is a huge pile of fluffy shaved ice, covered with condensed milk. Then you get to choose four toppings. I chose red beans, almond tofu, sweet rice cake, and oatmeal. Yup, oatmeal. It was just so weird-sounding I couldn't NOT try it.
I think I may have dreamt about soymilk and shaved ice that night. I know I was definitely thinking about the two when I woke up the next morning...

More pictures from day 2 here.

Taipei Day 2 - Morning

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:41:00 +0000

The hotel I stayed in had "chinese breakfast" - I conjured up all sorts of tasty possibilities, like congee. Instead, we had a bunch of dishes that were on the tad oily side and a heaven for flies/gnats. I poked the serving spoon into a dish of pickled vegetables and a swarm of surprised little buggers flew out. Yikes! So I decided to sample some of the other dishes. The braised gluten strips were particularly tasty:

After that grease-fest I decided a nice walk was in order. Wearing flipflops, sunglasses, and a tank top (woo hoo, warm weather!) I headed to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. Although it is accessible by MRT, I was still operating in Korea-mode and assumed that two metro stops is a normal walking distance. Later in the day I would find this to be true. And also false.

On the way there you run into the back of the Presidential Office:

Or, according to my very cheap iPhone app, the "centre of powers."

And a random park:

From this park you can see the front of the Presidential Office:

Nearby is a very large public library:

And finally, Liberty Square! Through the middle arch you can see the CKS Memorial Hall.

To prove I was actually in Taipei and didn't just send my doppelganger, I attempted to take a selca. The wind made it a little difficult.

The swarm of people coming down the steps alerted me to the fact that I had just missed the changing of the guards. I wonder though, if my flipflops would have been considered "slippers":

So I cautiously took pictures from the opening:

By this time it was considerably hot. I decided to walk through Da'an Park on the way to lunch:

Here is a "foot massage path" - even while wearing shoes I found this pretty painful. I wimped out halfway through:

And finally lunch!

Er, so, unless any of the characters for numbers, "gold", "mountain", or "door" appear on a menu, I can't really read it. Luckily I had my friend 효천 say some things into my iPhone so that I could practice hearing/saying them before ordering. I chickened out at the last minute though, and just played the recordings to the very helpful man at the shop.

I was, however, able to request that my soymilk be cold. ("Bing!")

I've always been iffy on soymilk. I'll drink it, but it's always just been kind of meh to me. Until this soymilk. Oh my. I had to refrain from squealing "OH MY GOD THIS SOYMILK IS AMAZING!" lest the other shop patrons decided to lock up the crazy foreigner. Seriously, the minute I left this shop I began to wonder how long before I could find my next fix.

And this sandwich. Whoa. That's a fried donut stick (not sweet) inside a salty, flaky bread "roll" - yes, a BREAD sandwich. Understandably, I was in heaven.

Taipei - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:32:00 +0000

So I just got back from my quick trip to Taipei. My tourist visa was about to run out so the easiest thing to do is take a quick 해외여행, come back to Korea, and get another 90 days stamped on my passport. Plus my friend 효천 is from Taiwan, I've never been, and I heard there were lots of good things to eat. Really, the decision was quite simple...

The flight from Seoul is only two and a half hours, so I automatically assumed we wouldn't be fed. Seeing as I'm becoming more and more Korean by the minute, I made myself some 김밥 for the plane using all my leftovers:
But it turns out Thai Airways likes to feed their passengers! Other airlines should take note.
Once I landed, I was alarmed to see the weather:Yikes. A lot warmer than Seoul.
$3 takes you from the airport to the Taipei Main Station in little under an hour. BART should take note. Then I transferred to the MRT to get to my hotel in Ximending, the 명동 of Taipei. The tokens are cute:
Some sights along the way:The Red House
A tiny temple (Tianhou Temple) in the middle of a busy commercial street.
Once checking in, I decided to walk to the nearby Longshan Temple:

Afterwards I wandered to a nearby night market and experienced dessert heaven. More pictures from my day here.

Dinner Party

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:09:00 +0000

Cooking for other people on a tiny two-burner stove can be tricky. There's definitely an art to getting the timing right. Also, both my frying pans don't really fit when put next to each other. But things run a lot more smoothly if you have friends willing to help assemble things while sitting on the floor:
Here Tomomi is rolling the "Vietnamese" rice rolls. Fresh mint was nowhere to be found however, so this is a korean 갈비 version with homemade 쌈장 as the dipping sauce.
Here Lydia is rolling the spam 김밥. I wanted to make musubi but didn't have the proper molds.
두부 김치 rounded out the meal. I fried the 삼겹살 ahead of time to save pan space. Big mistake. It just gets dried out when you reheat it with the kimchi.

That weekend is a little fuzzy, because even though this dinner was on a Friday night, I don't think the festivities ended until 5 am Sunday morning? ㅋㅋㅋ

Street Food #1 - Taipei

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:49:00 +0000

Looks like a burrito, right? Except that's a huge pile of peanut brittle shavings (note the huge block on the right), topped off with pineapple ice cream and chopped cilantro.
It was amazing.

요리 자랑

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:46:00 +0000

Thanks to finals and just life kicking me in the 엉덩이 I've been shamefully neglecting this blog. Not that it really affects anybody since my only readers are my parents and they know I'm still alive. But the other day my mother mentioned she actually ENJOYS reading this so now I'll make an effort to keep up. Plus...no more school, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks!

Oh boy, could I write a novel about my last teacher. I've put off looking up my final grade because in order to do so, you have to fill out an evaluation. Knowing this process might take me a couple hours, I've been procrastinating.

Anyways, I'm trying to clean out my fridge. Also, economize. Here's what I made for dinner:

Mmm, 바지락 된장 찌개. How can I afford clams?? Well, thanks to Michael, I now know of a delightful store called Market 999. And a nice bag of fresh clams is only 990 won. I think a real Korean would knock off points for the fact that there is no onion or zucchini in here, but all I really need are some mushrooms, tofu, and hot peppers. I may even like it better than (gasp!) my Spam version.

The other day I went to the market and saw this:

Besides selling vegetables and jogging pants, there are rows and rows of people selling tasty things to eat. Here the woman is making huge mung bean pancakes. Behind her is a stone grinder used to grind the mung beans. The smell was just too tempting so I had to buy one to take home. $3.50 gets you a pancake bigger than your head and a little bag of onion-vinegar-soy dipping sauce. I'm not sure how I managed to restrain myself the entire subway ride. I felt sorry for my fellow passengers every time the lovely fried-pancake aroma wafted out of my bag.
I could barely finish half:

It was pretty good, but my Minnesota grandma's mung bean pancakes are still the best.

Street Food #6

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Up the street towards Ehwa University there's a tiny waffle stand that always seems to have an unreasonably long line in front, despite freak snowstorms (just this past Monday!) or rain. On my nightly walk I decided to see what all the fuss was about. If I kept count of all the street snacks I've seen people walking around with I'm pretty sure waffles are in the top three. So far I've been pretty disappointed with every waffle I've tried (although honestly, I've only tried maybe two in all my trips to Korea combined) but this one was different. First, it was actually cooked until it was crunchy. Second, the cream inside was freshly whipped and not "flavored" with some awful food coloring meant to represent green tea. It was called "yogurt cream" but somehow managed to be really light and fluffy while retaining proper yogurt tanginess. Not sure how they pulled that off. Best of all, it was only 88 cents.

Pancakes!

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:31:00 +0000

So tonight for dinner I made this:

It's supposed to be 김치전, a korean kimchi pancake, but since korean baking powder seems to be especially hyperactive, it looked more like an american pancake with kimchi inside. It was very easy to make:

That's flour, milk, agave nectar, kimchi, kimchi juice, an egg, water, and some baking powder. Here you can buy a flour mix specifically designed for making these kinds of things but I already had the regular flour.
You should always make a "nibble" pancake to see if your batter is properly seasoned. Also because your first pancake usually turns out funny-looking. I learned that from Liv:

The real reason this was my dinner is because I'm trying to use up the kimchi my aunt gave me:

I swear, after two months I barely made a dent in this thing. Plus I had to stop my aunt from giving me more. She was convinced I would run out in a week. I didn't have the heart to tell her she gave me more kimchi than I usually eat in a year.

Also, last weekend I made real pancakes, and I've had pancake-brain ever since. (Yes, that's a real ailment. Look it up.)

Apparently if you live in a country that considers December a summer month you would call these "pikelets"...
효천 brought tapioca balls and milk tea mix from Taiwan and made us bubble tea. After eating we spent the afternoon discussing politics and the economy:

Yup, serious topics. In no way did we engage in any behavior that might be illegal if performed out in public or talk about subjects unsuitable for children under 16.

Yonsei on Fire

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 06:42:00 +0000

Walking home from lunch (maybe around 2:45-ish?) we saw a whole bunch of people and perhaps 서대문구's entire fire-fighting unit crowded around a building near Yonsei's main gate:

By the smell of it, something chemical-ish was burning. Also, this poor man was hanging out the window:

When we first saw him he was so still we wondered if he had passed out. Luckily he was just trying to avoid inhaling too much smoke. He was rescued shortly:

According to YTN (the first time I could read a news article in Korean without wanting to pull my hair out, whee!) the fire started in a semiconductor lab at around 8:30 am. I sincerely hope that poor man wasn't hanging out the window for 6 hours...
The damage looks quite bad, but seeing as this is Korea, I wouldn't be surprised if the lab is up and running by Friday.

It was merely two weeks ago that Seoul had a "heat wave" and I was running at the track wearing short sleeves in 65 degree weather. This morning I walked outside and saw this:

The campus was beautiful today:

Street Food #5

noreply@blogger.com (anne) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Scratch anything I've ever said about other kinds of 호떡. THIS is it. Made with corn flour and fried until crispy, I can't believe four months have gone by before trying this. Gah. Must make up for lost time...