Crimes and Misdemeanors

Happy Anniversary!

ericandlaura — Tue, 25 May 2010 04:03:47 +0000

Happy Anniversary Eric! May 1^st marked mine and Eric’s 3 year anniversary. We were pretty excited and to celebrate we decided to take little trip together. We have wanted to do this for a while and never had the opportunity but that weekend we did! We took a bus to a neighboring city of Ansan, called Icheon. Icheon is the major Korean pottery and ceramics city in South Korea. Sounds nerdy? You bet! We went and stayed at a little house in the country, that was located at the foot of a mountain and beside one of the most amazing sports facilities I have ever seen. This facility was brand new, as you can see in the photos, and had not even opened yet. You can see that the beautiful soccer field had been untouched. We took a hike in the afternoon/evening in the mountains and returned to the house to enjoy some wine and cheese on the roof patio at sunset. The next morning we were up early for our pottery class with the artist who owned the house. She was a really nice lady, who did not speak a word of English so we knew this class was going to be interesting. We were doing it with a Korean family that included two very adorable little boys. Eric and I decided to make mugs. Not just anymugs…but the biggest most excessive coffee mugs we could make in 3 hours. Eric was much better at it than I. I think this is because he has a lot more patience. Regardless we were REALLY happy making them, and we are still waiting for the finished product to come in the mail. In the afternoon we were going to go to a hot spring spa. We thought we were on our way there…until we realized we were on the wrong bus and ended up at the Ceramic and Pottery festival that was conveniently going on in Icheon this weekend. At 4:00 we reached the hot spring spa called Termeden. Now this place is not just a spa, it is a mini water park. There is a huge outdoor pool with fountains ,body massage water beds, a water slide and an indoor pool section as well. There are several different kinds of hot tubs and saunas you can go into. All of the water in these pools has no chemicals in it, it is pure hot spring water. This makes it an incredibly comfortable temperature, and really good for your skin. I don’t have any pictures from here because I didn’t think it would be appropriate to take them. Regardless, you can check out some pictures on the website link.

http://www.termeden.com/english/facilities/facilities_3.asp

Still to come; Dad Visits! Buddha’s Birthday!! Grandma Visits!!!

What Did We Order?!??!

ericandlaura — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:47:51 +0000

So the other day Eric and I decided to go to a chicken and beer place. These places are about as common as Tim Hortens in Canada. Korean’s love plates of chicken, of any kind. Fried chicken, baked chicken, grilled chicken, popcorn chicken, chicken on a stick…If you want chicken done a certain way chances are they have it. So we wanted chicken that evening. We go and we weren’t particularily hungry so we didn’t want a full plate of chicken. Our regular dak galbi (spicy chicken stir fry) place was closed so we looked for something on this menu that looked like dak galbi. Now remember, menus generally don’t have English on it so we were going by pictures. We ordered what looked like chicken stir fry and waited for our dish to come. By now we were really hungry and just wanted our food. Finally the plate came and it looked…interesting. It was definitely a spicy stir fry with some vegetables…but there was definitely no chicken, or at least a part of a chicken I had never seen or eaten before. In fact what I was looking at looked more like the tentacles of an octopus. I thought to myself , “why is a chicken place selling octopus?” I would not have cared if it was octopus, I love it! Unfortunately it wasn’t. Nope, instead it was a giant plate of……wait for it…..spicey chicken’s feet. That’s right, they were fully recognizable. Three little talons attached to a little boney ankle…mmmmm. Well I was really hungry, some would say hangry (hungry and angry). I thought to myself, I have eaten stranger things and no part of animals should go to waste. Both Eric and I tried them. I got through three before I thought I was going to vomit. I just shuddered thinking about the gelatinous texture of the claw part and then the crunchy gristle around the bone. Sadly, I did not have my camera with me so no pictures of this culinary adventure. Needless to say, we left pretty fast, paid our $12.00 for an uneaten plate of food and went to a restaurant with an English menu.

An Obsession with Cherry Blossoms.

ericandlaura — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:41:19 +0000

Another beautiful Spring weekend and cherry blossoms are in full bloom. This was a very exciting time and perhaps my favorite seasonal point in the year. It isn’t just me or other foreigners that are captivated by these beautiful trees. Tones of Koreans are just as excited to take pictures of them. There is something about these beautiful white and pink flowers that make you want to take unjustifieable amounts of pictures like you never have before. It is one of the most romantic things I can think of. Walking through a canopy of white fluffy flowers as they fall to the ground like snow. So, Eric and I spent the weekend outside. We started with a picnic in the park taking pictures of the pretty blossoms. We then headed into Seoul and enjoyed some beers on the waterfront. This plan was almost sabotaged by the fact that we couldn’t find any public bathrooms at first. Thank God we did or we would not have been able to enjoy our beverages. At sunset we then hopped on a boat cruise of the Han River. This river basically runs straight through the center of Seoul. It is not used for water traffic or taxi purposes so anyone is allowed on there with boats which is pretty cool. There were people on jet skies and people tubing and water skiing. The boat ride was great, and it was a perfect sunset. Afterwards we headed to an Indian food buffet and had a wonderful end to a successful day.

A Day at the Races

ericandlaura — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:17:33 +0000

Ok ok so I will admit it…I have let the blog slide. For the past couple months the weather was starting to get nice and to be honest I was enjoying some time outside. I’ve also had a few visitors, which was amazing. It is a really cool feeling to show people from home our life here. Regardless I am not feeling like writing much these days so I will try to keep it short but put more pictures in. I am also getting a lot of questions about how much longer we are here. We have 4 months left of teaching in Ansan and then on October 3rd we are flying to Southeast Asia for a 40 day backpacking adventure. We will be home around the second or third week in November! Just in time for a lonnnnggg Canadian winter. Yes we are crazy. So here is what we have been up to. We live a couple of stops away from Seoul Racecourse Park. It was our first time at the races, so we were hoping for beginners luck. Eric and I are big gamblers….NOT. We bet the equivalent of $1 on each race and won our money back, ultimately coming out even. The way we see it, it was a fun day that cost us no money. It isn’t the happiest atmosphere to hang out in, watching all of these Korean men obsess over stats, chain-smoking and frantically pushing people out-of-the-way to get their bets in. Although it is worth it to feel and see how excited everyone is once the race is going, and the horses come around the corner to the finish line and thousands of people are screaming at them. As exciting and fun as it is, I will never bet big money, that’s just way to dangerous and I’m not willing to feel the anxiety over betting more than $1-2.00.

I am rad!

ericandlaura — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 03:13:07 +0000

This post is just so I can brag. Darts is a really popular game here. There are many competitions across the country and in Ansan there is a monthly tournament at a local bar. Eric and our co-worker Rob have really gotten into it. Most Saturday nights we spend at our favorite bar playing pool and darts. Caitlin (Rob’s girlfriend) and myself like to play for fun, but not nearly as much as the guys. After a fun night of playing pool and drinking I decided to through a few darts myself. Most times I pick up a dart I either miss the circle, they bounce off and fall to the ground or I just through them without aiming. I was feeling pretty relaxed. I threw the first dart and got a bullseye! I thought yeah that was awesome. I threw the second dart trying to imitate what I did the first time. Yeah! Second bulls eye. By this time I had called Eric and Rob over to witness my awesomeness. Now there was a bit of pressure, but I threw the third dart and got a third bulls eye!!!! I was ecstatic. I know it is silly but it is quite hilarious that I rarely play this game and pulled this off. The guys tried to convince me to enter the dart tournament but I’m pretty sure this was a once in a life time thing. Here is a picture documenting my victory and if you don’t believe me ask Eric or Rob.

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Culinary Experiments

ericandlaura — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 03:10:27 +0000

I just wanted to put a post up to tell you what I have cooked so far. I am trying to cook different Korean dishes every few weeks. It is going well. Kimchi makes pretty much everything taste great. My first cooking experience was Kimchi Jjigae. Jjigae means soup. It is a spicy soup with veggies and pork. You use a fattier cut of pork so that makes it extra delicious. This is a STAPLE in Korean diets. I think one of my co-workers said she makes it three times a week.

My second culinary attempt was Doengjang Jjigae. Doengjang is a Korean soybean paste. It is a lot like miso paste from Japanese cooking, and thus I thought this soup would be similar to a miso soup. Doengjang is pretty strong stuff, but I am a huge fan of it. By this time my fridge was starting to have a lot of standard Korean ingredients in it. I was quite proud. This recipe called for something I have never really eaten before or cooked. It is an extremely popular snack/ingredient in Korea. Since I have been here I have eaten it dried, salted, in soup and pan fried…It’s ANCHOVIES! So I took a picture of the bag, just because they are so ugly. In Doengjang you put a lot of the paste in, some gochoojang (red pepper paste) pork, spinach, other veggies and water. It was funny when my Korean friend Jessica came over to try it. My soup tasted great, but I don’t think it tasted anything like it is suppose to…which makes sense because I have never tried it before. She said my kimchi jjigae was really delicious, which is a HUGE compliment. I was so nervous that it wouldn’t taste authentic.

Finally, this week I made Kimchi Bokeum Bap, which is kimchi fried rice. It is exactly as it sounds. You fry rice in a pan with some veggies, sesame oil and kimchi. It was my favorite dish I have made, and will definitely make it for my family when I come home. I hope I can find kimchi easily or I am going to go into withdrawal.

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Oido…again

ericandlaura — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 03:04:20 +0000

A few months ago Eric and I went on a search for the ocean shore. The closest place to see this from Ansan is about 5 subway stops away in Oido. When we went a few months ago, we decided to go on the coldest day of the winter….and we never found the water because I thought the water would be close to the subway stop…it turns out it wasn’t. It was not an amusing trip. This time it was a mild, sunny day and we went with a plan, knowing which bus to catch once we got off the subway. We found the shore and had a nice walk along the boardwalk. Only…there was no water! The tide was out. I have never seen anything like this before. The poor boat in the picture was stuck out there, I felt pretty bad for it. Oido is known for it’s clams and oysters. It is the only thing you can get fresh there. There are TONES of seafood restaurants. All of the buildings you see lined up in the photos are seafood places. There must have been over 100. The competition is so intense that people stand in the middle of the road and try to flag down cars, almost jumping out in front of them, trying to get them to stop at their restaurant. The food is super expensive there. If you want the dirt cheap “fresh” clams then you go to the pier. In the pictures it is the red tent area by the boats. Here you have dozens of these little tents set up serving clams and various other seafood. Now you can buy clams here and yes they are fresh in the sense that they were caught right on the shore by these women. What you don’t know is how long they have been seating in the sun…in giant bags. Our co-workers got a really bad case of food poisoning here. They use the same knife to open bad oysters that they use to open good oysters so…this is problematic. Many Koreans were eating it though…but they were also drinking a heavy amount of soju. That is the trick my friends. You drink the soju as you eat to kill off ANY sign of bacteria that would end up in your stomach. Good plan. Needless to say, we did not have a culinary adventure here and instead we are going to an all you can eat seafood buffet in our city soon. All you can eat CRAB LEGS AND SASHIMI! That’s what I am talking about. This restaurant is suppose to be so huge that you can buy a DAY PASS! Haha I find that hilarious. Can you imagine having lunch, dinner, and late dinner at one buffet.

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and now for some Vivaldi?!?!

ericandlaura — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:52:22 +0000

So what have we been up to. A couple of weekends ago we had an amazing weekend. It started with us going to see an INCA exhibit at the National Museum. It was so impressive, I have never seen real mummies before and I could barely believe they were right in front of me. We walked through the exhibit and had so much difficulty believing how ancient these artifacts were, I swore they were playing a joke on us. It was literally unbelievable. Obviously no pictures from that but if you ever get a chance to see and exhibit about ancient civilizations…go! After that we had an incredibly unique experience. There is a cafe in Seoul called Dr. Fish. This is no ordinary cafe. It seems normal at first. You walk in purchase your drink, take a seat amongst many university students who are studying away. There is all you can eat, free bread and all you can drink coffee (perfect for students). What makes this different is the Dr. Fish experience. There are two pools full of little fish, about the size of goldfish. You submerge your feet in the water and the little fishes go nuts eating all of the dead skin off of your feet and legs. A natural pedicure! Man, our feet were smooth after. It was incredibly ticklish but you get use to it after awhile. I think Eric still has nightmares about them. Totally worth the $2.00. Maybe I can get my Dad to do it. Here are some pictures of it, but if you want to see a video it is on facebook.

Sunday we took in a concert at the Seoul performing arts center. I have always wanted to hear Rite of Spring by Stravinsky and it was being played. It was an incredible concert with two other twentieth century pieces. One by Strauss, and a clarinet concerto but an American composer. The clarinet soloist was amazing, and the piece was quite interesting with some jazz inspiration in it. The Strauss piece and Rite of Spring were both wonderful. Huge orchestra, big sound, amazing harmonies, very dramatic and constantly changing direction and style…all of which make my favorite type of music. The only disappointing or I should say confusing part of the concert was that instead of playing a Shostakovich Ballet Overture they filled the time with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons…only there wasn’t four…there was three. I still have NO idea what happened here since all of the commentary was in Korean. It wasn’t disappointing to hear these live. They were played well. I don’t particularily enjoy the pieces but I don’t hate them. It was just so out of place and sandwiched between some mammoth 20^th century pieces. Regardless, an amazing concert with a very talented conductor and symphony.

they loved Eric's feet...that says something.

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Spring time for…us…in Korea?

ericandlaura — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:56:09 +0000

Spring has kind of sprung here…or at least I’m really hoping it will in the next week so that when my Dad arrives things will be in full bloom. We are getting a little taste of it now, as you can see in the picture. There are buds everywhere and some cherry blossoms have begun to bloom. I am so excited for the warm weather. This week was beautiful and as a result Eric and I were outside quite a few mornings. I would run and he would bike beside me. We would sit in parks before work and just soak up the sun. I even got a little sunburnt, which isn’t saying much because I am so pale. Here I am playing outside, doing a variety of activities. We live across the street from an elementary school with a playground so I love the swings, so does the girl swinging next to me. The pictures of me with a hoola hoop are in the middle of a forest. This is one of the most amazing things about Korea. They have hundreds of these outdoor exercise facilities, completely equiped with various machines. You use your own weight as resistance and can get a pretty good work out on the machines. This particular area near our apartment has hoola hoops. I love it! I suck though…really suck. There is also a video of this on facebook if you want to check it out.

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Sunshine Sketches

ericandlaura — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:38:11 +0000

We bought a new camera from Yongsan Electronics Market. I love my Nikon but I am nervous to take it to bars and such. This is a little Kodak point and shoot and we are having a pretty good time with it.

There are carnival games everywhere in Ansan. One of them is the hit the balloon with the dart game. Each of the men won the game and as a result all of the women have identical teddy bears!

Rob and Eric playing pool.

A Korean billiards hall. Me making my wicked, amazing shot.

I like this picture because of my "the ugly blue you paint your nails with when you are in grade six" nail colour

The ladies at Beer Garden. Note the cup holder in front of me. These are designed to keep your beverage icey cold.

rrrrrrrr! Eric has his gauntlet of beer. A glass that seems like a novelty at first until air hits that first bubble and beer splashes all over you.

Domo sushi in Ansan! The most delicious sushi ever. Here we have salmon, tuna and bbq eel.

Korean side dishes! The most amazing thing about Korean food is the free side dishes you get. Here we have edamame, kimchi, seaweed salad and radish.

The ECC men. Dennis on the left, Eric and Rob.

We are happy ladies now that we have our teddy bears.

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