What's the deal with Grape Nuts?

I may have mis- represented the whole of local Korean cuisine in my previous post. I know I certainly didn't misrepresent that particular dish one bit, but in all fairness I should convey what the rest of the food was like. Delightfully it was nothing like my squirming friends in the video. I was fortunate enough to have a guide who knows and appreciates her food very much, and was able to take me to the best version of each type of dish we had the time to consume. I won't begin to list them both due to may inability to remember them all, and more so do to the likelihood that I will slay each dishes name by trying to spell it out phonetically. But I'll say this much - the experiences I got covered every type of establishment you would expect to visit when getting the Real Deal introduction to a local cuisine. There were the down and dirty holes-in-the-wall, comparable in ambiance to my favorite Mexican joints in San Diego (Bertos, Sergios, Charro). There were the original places that ONLY the locals go - and then this guy comes strutting in. And there were even the up-scale joints, some with fancy private rooms that I was surprised to find didn't kick out a guy in jeans and a t-shirt. In all I'd say the food is the most vivid, and certainly one of the most fun memories that I'll take with me from Korea, seeing as much of what we did revolved around where to eat, what to eat, and whom to eat with. And receiving a plate of wriggling severed sausages from the sea is just part of the fun.

And one more thing - I kick ASS with chopsticks. I was told so. Just look at the pictures.

99 bottles of beer on the wall

Sitting in Incheon Airport in Seoul, having arrived over 3 hours early. Wasting time on the Internet. We gave ourselves 4 hours+ for our trip to the airport and check-in, the reason being that Seoul has traffic, or more appropriately city-wide constant gridlock. All the time. I wish I had a picture to illustrate - I might, but I'll have to look for it later when I get access to my computer. You see I had to remove my laptop battery from my laptop and check the battery. New regulations, or at least regulations flying into the US, dictate that ALL Dell and Apple laptops, regardless of their model of battery, must not have a battery accompanying the computer onto the plane, thus rendering them useless unless you are lucky enough to have an outlet at your seat. Of course last time I saw one of those near my seat on a plane, I was sitting in First Class. So that would be never. But I see the wisdom in it, since dell laptops, and apparently apples now as well, are accidental bombs of fiery death. I'm sure THIS wouldn't be so comfortable happening on your lap.

Anyways, the streets of Seoul, for the most part, are always jammed. And drivers are all pretty impatient, ballsy, and most of all extremely aggressive. It's unlike any US city I've been too, even NYC. The driving is not crazy due to any excessive speeds, but more so due to peoples adaptation to the lack of speeds, thus turning every street into a slow-motion game of bumper cars. And to their credit, most drivers in Seoul know their cars lengths and widths to an inch, or should I say to a 2.54 centimeter. What I learned is that the mentality of driving is completely different. You are out for yourself, and only for yourself when you drive in Seoul. The only way you'll get yourself into a lane is if you wedge enough nose of your car in front of another that they can't physically move past you. Otherwise, nobody is letting anybody into a lane. So with this in mind, the streets rarely have a straight line of cars in any lane. The intersections are often a criss-crossing mess of cars trying to get from the lane they are in to the lane they want to be in, which as you can imagine doesn't allow for much forward progress in the traffic. But with all this chaos, I don't think I ever saw anybody seem to get mad at another for deliberately sticking their nose in front of another, or for not being let into a lane. It is accepted and everyone doesn't seem to mind, or at least they don't show it. If you imagine this scenario in the US, there would be cars being rammed and fists being thrown. But then again, perhaps the small bit of driving courtesy that some have retained and try to use helps maintain a little bit of movement in the traffic. Or not.

Either way, having experienced this all week led Haejin and I to give ourselves a load of extra time to get to the airport. But naturally, the one time we plan for traffic, we don't find any. And so here we are, wasting time in the airport. But now that I have wasted the time, it is boarding time. See you all in the states.

Do I look pale?

I thought I was a bit adventurous when it came to food. I mean, I'd like to think I'll try everything once as long as it's proven that it's edible, and other people are eating it. So far this week I've ventured into many new territories, most of them sea-creatures. I've had Sea Urchin, Sea Cucumber, Sting Ray, and Octopus (not new to me, but challenging in it's own right). So today, on a 2 hour road trip down the coast of Korea, we ventured to a small sea-side town that served traditional style Korean seafood. That translates essentially to fresh and, in most cases, raw. And not necessarily the type of raw you might have experienced. Raw in most cases to me means not cooked. Raw in this incident could have been an acronym for Recently Alive and Wriggling. Still raw, but a different level of raw.

In any event, after a bowl of squirming and kicking prawns was delivered to our table, along with a few other rather shocking side dishes, we began to nibble on some raw scallops, and other sea cuisine (I kept mainly to the mussels/clams). Then the prawns were cooked on our table, and we'd slowly pick them apart and eat them (de-pooping was a task in itself). Well as I was being offered some shrimp heads, which I actually managed to eat one of, but only one just to say I did, I couldn't keep my eyes off the appetizer plate that had arrived nearly a half hour earlier. So tact aside, I decided to finally give in and shoot a quick video of our appetizers. Now keep in mind these guys had been sitting here for 30 minutes at the least, and had died down quite a bit. But their "activity" had not subsided. What I'm talking about is what you see in the picture above (and more importantly in the video when you click on the picture above). These sliced tube-like pieces were continuously wriggling and flexing with the dexterity of a very determined, albeit severed, tongue. I was fascinated as much as I was unable to look at them in order to maintain my appetite. So join in my fascination and watch the video. You'll thank me.

By the way, I spent the whole time glancing at these things, trying to convince myself that I should eat one just to say I did. But in all honesty, what the hell would I brag about that I had eaten? A wriggling sausage skin from the sea? I think the video is bragging rights enough - that I sat with these guys dancing next to me and never involuntarily returned my lunch to the table.

San Diego is not all peaches and cream

I went to a Buddhist Temple today to take some pictures. There were lots of intricate decorations and many shoes strewn about. Some of the buildings on the grounds have the symbol you see in the pictures on the right hung over the doorway. It's called a Swastika - some of you might have heard of it. It stands for "good fortune" and "well being" - some of you might not have heard of that. I myself had heard of that only once, so when I saw these posted about the temple, I was reminded of what I had heard, and looked into it. And I'd say for any of you who don't quite understand why I am saying the symbol that represents some of the worst atrocities of mankind stands for such positive things, then I suggest you look into it as well. Start Here.

A quick summary in my words. The symbol has been in use for nearly 10,000 years, and for the last 2,500 had risen in importance as the premier symbol of good luck for Buddhism and Hinduism. Then less than 100 years ago, it was adopted by a certain group of rather nasty folks, who managed to turn it's incredibly long history of positive symbolism into an image of pure hatred and evil. And as far as my previous knowledge and education was concerned, had eradicated the western worlds ability to conceive of it as anything but, let alone know it meant anything different.

So do yourself a favor and read up on it a little. A perfect example of the extensive positive history of this symbol can be seen by wikipedia's write up on it, and that the mention of its use in a negative fashion is a small, rather insignificant paragraph at the end of a substantially long article. Worth a mention is the small blurb in the section of "Taboo in Western Countries" in which it states despite the symbols virtual disappearance in use in the western world, there is a building located in San Diego of all places, that when looked at in Google Earth (32 40'34.09" N, 117 09'27.96 W) or Google Maps it can be seen as an obvious swastika. Way to go SD - now that's a noble claim to fame.

Sea Cucumber tastes like Chicken...

...made from the soles of shoes.

First things first. Flying for 15 hours straight did not seem as bad as I had expected. I guess you can dread it, or you can make an event out of it. Haej and I chose the event route. Cocktails and in flight Yatzee to start, then some food Korean Air style (BiBimBap to those who are familiar), some less that amusing entertainment (Nacho Libre), some games (Lego Star Wars on PSP), some profound entertainment (An Inconvenient Truth), some dinner, and then my uncle's magic pill to put me down for the count. Next thing you know you are landing in Seoul.

Haejin's father's driver was waiting at the airport to take us straight to her parents house, which is a quick 2 hours away. A little more sleep got me through that one. Then arrival at the rent's place. A bit intimidating to put it mildly, especially since I am apparently the first person that Haejin has brought home. But I had practiced up on my Korean phrases, and I was ready to embarrass myself.

As you could expect everyone was more than welcoming and very warm. The first hour was mostly references to how tall I was (see picture above), mostly from her 7 year old nephew who would ask me to touch the ceiling and proceed to try himself. He finally found when he stood on the back of the couch he could match my height.

After the groom arrived with his 2 friends, we sat down to eat. There were many courses with lots of dishes I was fairly familiar with, and a few that I wasn't, but I made a point of at least trying everything, and actually finished and enjoyed the majority of it. During dinner, there was also lots of drinking. Lots of drinking. Her dad loves his nice whiskey, which is one of the gifts I brought for him. And when you are approached by someone who has a bottle in hand, you hold out your shot glass, let them pour, and then shoot it. Then you swap and pour them their shot. Then you move on to someone else and offer them a shot, and the same exchange ensues. You can see where this goes.

After the groom had indulged in a little too much whiskey, it was time to call it a night. Everybody said their goodbyes, and I headed into the city to check into my hotel. Yes, I'm staying in a hotel about 25-75 minutes from where Haej is staying, depending on traffic. That's the rules. I don't fight them. But its a very nice hotel and in an area where I can wander around and see lots of new stuff. According to Haejin it's not quite traditional Seoul, but its a nice buffer zone for me to get acquainted.

Amusing Title For First Post

I'm in Korea. I'm not into the whole blog thing. I don't quite get it. A few people suggested I should create a blog. I looked into it. Now I get it.

Kinda.