Korean Sambok

This past friday, July 15th was the start of the Korean Sanbok. It is Korean custom to choose the 3 hottest days of the summer and to eat really hot food on those days. It is thought that by doing that you will be able to handle the heat better. Sanbok is a period during July/August, 20 days in length, that typically includes the hottest days of the year. Three specific hot days are singled out and on those days you eat special food. The most typical food eaten during Sambok is samgye-t'ang. This is a young chicken boiled with sticky rice, ginseng, Chinese dates and garlic, and seasoned with salt and pepper. The days change depending on where they fall based on the lunar calender. This year the first day (Chobok) fell on July 15. I'm not quite sure when the second (Jungbok) and third (Malbok) days fall on, but it'll be within the next 20 days.
ANYWAYS
So, on Friday a friend of mine, Jessica, invited a few of us over to her house (she's Korean) and she made us all samgye-t'ang. There was me, Devon and Jason (the waeygooks) and Jessica, Joy and Rosie (the Koreans). I generally like Korean food anyways, but this samgye-t'ang was damn good! I'm not quite sure if I would have enjoyed it my first little while in Korea, I would've gone hungry, but I'm pretty proficient with chopsticks now so I can pull chicken off bones like a pro. The sticky rice was kind of like a soup, then there was more chicken fried up with vegetables and this awesome sauce. It was also neat to see Jessica's apartment. It was way bigger than my little hole in the wall, and definetly better decorated. I'm not even sure if my worn-out maps of Korea and No Doubt poster left behind long ago by another teacher quite count as decoration.
Korean apartments are cool. The rooms are multi-functional. There's not really a dining room or a living room, or in some cases even a bedroom. All the rooms serve many purposes (excpet for the kitchen and bathroom of course). We ate lunch sitting on the floor around a table that was brought out for us. Korean's sleep, eat and hang out on the floor. I'm getting used to it now, but I still get pretty stiff sometimes (and I have a bed!). When they sleep they bring out mats to sleep on and when they wake up they put them away. Jessica had some couches, but mainly we were sitting on the floor on cushions.
So ya, good lunch. Then it was time for school. I was sufficiently full and didn't even bother to pack a dinner (mainly cuz I was late getting home because I was eating lunch....). As it turns out though, I didn't need to! I got to school and after second class came back to the lunch room to discover that my boss had ordered us all in hot chicken to eat for Chobok. I got two Choboks. I was a happy camper. It truly is getting grossly hot, we'll see if me eating two Chobok's helps me deal with that, somehow I doubt it, but it was worth a shot.
I had an awesome weekend, but my digital camera battery crapped out on me before I got there so I couldn't take any pictures. My friends'll be emailing some to me in the next few days though. I'll update my blog again telling you about all about the Boryeong Mud Festival. For now though, you can go here http://www.mudfestival.or.kr/english/festival/festival1.php and just imagine all the stuff I have to tell you!
Take Care!

Canada Day in Seoul

On Sunday June 26, 2005 the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in South Korea hosted a Canada Day picnic at the UN compound in Seoul. Why was it not held on July 1 you ask? Well, that's simple, July 1 fell on a Friday this year and I know all of you guys in Canada got the day off, but us here in Korea weren't so lucky. We still had to work, I know, cry a river eh? Anyways, Canada Day was thus held the weekend before actual Canada Day. The July 2-3 weekend was kept open for Independence Day...stupid Americans. I guess though when there are, I don't know HOW many American troops in this country, they take precedent, whatever.
So, Devon, Drew, Jessica and I all headed up to Seoul on the Saturday and there met up with Jenn. We found ourselves a love hotel in Itaewan (the foreigners district) and settled in for a nap. I love taking naps now, they're fabulous. Kids tire you out during the week!
We headed out for some light drinking and appy's. Devon's friend Jayme lives in Seoul and she met up with us. She took us around to an area outside of Itaewan. It was pretty cool. Still a ton of foreigners. It was weird to see foreigners and not know who they were. Gumi's just so small (yes, 350,000 is small) that I know every foreigner. I felt compelled to smile at everyone I saw, even though it was completely unnecessary and totally gave away the fact that I'm not a Seoulian, but whatever. So, we had a good time, hung out and light drinking turned into heavier drinking, but that's ok. We were still in decent shape for our picnic the next day.

On sunday we got up and headed off in search of the UN compound in Itaewan. I was expecting some fortress-like thing, but not really. It's a big lot with some army looking buildings on it surrounded by a cement wall with barbed wire. I felt safe, I'm sure if North Korea had attacked at that exact moment, we all would've been just dandy....ya, sure.

So, the day was pretty fun. There were about 1000 people there, so many waeygooks in one place I didn't know what to do with myself. Our ticket bought us 2 Molson Canadians and a steak and salmon lunch. It was super gross muggy hot that day and since we had been doing some drinking the night before I actually passed on Canadian beer. If it had been Kokanee, there wouldn't have been a chance, I would've taken it home with me, but it's all good. I instead drank Clearly Canadian. Do you remember that stuff? I havn't seen it for so long, it's that flavoured sparkling water? I used to drink it all the time back in the day, I never knew what happened to it, apparently it came to Korea. So, the drinks were good, the day was hot but alright. There were quite a few activities planned, a big water toss, a jump rope competition, a lot of door prizes, a 50/50 draw (because it was stated that it just wouldn't be Canadian without one), and a silent auction. The meal was good too. It was all prepared by Outback's SteakHouse. The highlight though had to be the Provincial tug-of-war. British Columbia was in the first war, against Ontario I believe, and we got our asses handed to us. It wasn't even a war, it was more like a mediocre debate. The wars ended with a battle between Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island. Yes, Cape Breton Island is part of Nova Scotia, but apparently Cape Bretoners like to come to Korea, because there was enough to make up their own team! In the end Cape Breton won. Saskachewan had a good chance because there's a million and one of 'em here, but in the end it was the East Coast determination that won over.
We left the picnic around 5pm and headed back into Itaewan. It was a good time, but it was really hot and we were pretty wiped from our previous evening. I also wanted to do a bit of shopping before heading back to Gumi, the land of stupid Korean sizes. I bought a pair of pants and Jenn bought some too as well as some shoes. We were happy campers. I can find shoes in Gumi (guys sizes) and shirts (in major department stores) but I can't for the life of me find any girls pants to fit me and guys pants just don't fit right. I love my new pants, they're a really light material which is great because enter the monsoon season in all it's muggy, gross, glory.
Well folks, I'm sorry I'm not all that interesting. I just havn't been up to that much lately. I'll have more to post within this next month though. Two friends of mine, Greg Samborski and Christa Willberg are coming to join me here in Gumi this month. Greg arrives on the 20th and Christa on the 28th. We all went to UCFV together, it should make for some fun times. Also, my mom will be here July 26th. Exactly 6 months after I arrived in South Korea. I can't wait. On one hand it doesn't seem like it's been 6 months, but on the other hand everything's changed so much that it seems like forever ago since I left. I can't wait to introduce these new people to the quirks of Korea, and also to calm their fears. Korea's a messed up place, but if you can laugh at it, then you're golden. Mom and I will also be heading to Japan from July 30-August 3. We'll be hitting up Osaka, Nara and Kyoto before heading back to Korea. I can't wait. Japan's going to be awesome, expensive, oh my god, expensive, but awesome. I'll keep you all updated! Take Care!

Canada Day in Seoul, Sunday, June, 26, 2005 

The balloon toss 

The balloon toss 

The British Columbia tug-of-war team. We lost horribly..... 

Some normal Seoulian housing 

Myself and Jenn in Seoul 

Jenn and Jayme 

Drew, Jayme and Devon in Seoul 

Masan and the squid

On the 11/12th of July I headed down to Masan to hang out with Jenn for the weekend. After our weekend in Daejeon/Suwon we had every weekend planned to be together since she was leaving (and left) on July 11. We won't be seeing eachother again for quite awhile (over a year at least) so we wanted to squeeze in as much time as possible. Masan's a cool place. I like it way better than Gumi. It's right on the ocean, although you can't really get access to it to easily. Masan is a port city, so all of the shoreline is taken up with loading docks and immigration buildings. There's this neat little island just a 10 minute ferry ride off shore though, Doetsom Island. It's pretty small, a walk around it would be quite easy. I'd say, for those of you from Nanaimo area or who know what I'm talking about, that it's about the size of Protection Island. There's a little amusement park, some restaurants and a few love motels. It was so nice to see the ocean again. I've forgotten how much I miss it. It was awesome in Busan, but there were so many people around, here Jenn and I just set up on the beach for a picnic and watched the water. After awhile though we had to head off the beach because the tide was coming in, so we set up again on a bench to continue our picnic. We had with us a bottle of soju to share and as we were pouring it a few older Koreans walked by. They tend to love it when they see us drinking Soju. It's funny. Drinking is really important in this culture. It's culturally required that you get drunk with your boss and colleagues or your friends. I'm not even joking, this isn't an excuse. It's believed that if you can get drunk enough and let all of your inhibitions go then you'll show your true self to everyone and that will make you more trustworthy. Another trust builder tends to be the nori-bong (karaokee room) since then you have to totally let down your guard and not care what everyone thinks of you.
Anyways, so we're drinking Soju and these Koreans are impressed. They didn't speak any English, but Jenn and I know enough Korean that we can usually interpret what people want. They asked where we were from, what our names were, what we were doing that day...normal questions I guess. Then they left because that was about as much as we could understand. This is where it gets funny though. They were maybe 50 feet away when they stopped, had this like little pow-wow and then came running back. They had in their hands a dried squid. Now, I like squid, I've learned to appreciate it here actually. I don't, however like dried whole squid, it smells. It still has the skin on it and it looks like a squid that died in the ocean and just happened to wash up on shore and dry out. Appetizing eh? So, anyways, they hand me the squid. I keep a straight face, as does Jenn, Oscar nominations I swear. THEN, because apparently I look confused, but really I'm disgusted as I look down and see that the squid still has it's tooth in, the guy takes the squid back and rips it in half...then tears off a piece and hands it to me. I'm to eat the squid. I don't know how Jenn lucked out and didn't get any squid, but I did, yay me. So, I eat the squid. It took me friggin forever to chew that one piece, it was like rubber, except dried out old shoe rubber that's 50 years old. Anyways, because I'm too nice I smiled and mumbled something about yumm, and they went away smiling. I kept the squid until we got back to the mainland and then threw it away. I'm nice, but I'm not taking the squid home with me.

Jenn on the ferry to Doetsom Island from Masan 

Me and the squid.....my lovely gift, tooth and all.  

Me on a beach on Doetsom Island. Masan city in the background.