without trousseau or change of underwear: 200910

21 October 2009

I am:

1. Homesick.

2. Full of delicious spicy cashew chicken with red and green pepper, onion, garlic.

3. Thinking that eating delicious food could possibly be the only way to get past being unbearably homesick.

4. Worried my kids will all fail their monthly tests tomorrow and Friday.

5. Looking forward to seeing some art projects on Saturday afternoon.

6. Wishing there was a cafe in my neighborhood where I could read books and drink coffee late at night. Doing that at home is just not the same. Especially when you have nothing but overhead florescents and folding chairs.

7. Devouring Her Fearful Symmetry at a perhaps dangerous rate.

8. Sad that I've already read 8 1/2 out of 9 of the Murakami books they have at the English language bookstore.

9. Overwhelmed by the list of things I should do to make myself feel less crazy, less burdened, less lonely, more productive, more clearheaded.

10. Proud of Samuel and Minnie for making Honor Roll.

11. Proud of my mama for learning how to email. Yay, Mama!

12. Homesick.

17 October 2009

Korean TV

This is the commercial that by all rights I should hate, should want to smash/burn/kill, but jeez the girl is cute and I get the jingle stuck in my head almost daily. I know it's evil, but I love it! Even though I don't speak Korean! Or have any idea what it's selling! Seriously, we all know this commercial, and more of us that you would guess secretly can't get enough of it.

I would give you the extended version with more people dancing if the internet would give it to me. CURSE YOU, INTERWEBS!

Consumer Culture

My pants are wrinkled and I'm nowhere near business casual, let alone business business. I need an iron. And some nicer clothes.

***
There are places to buy things every 2 feet here. Socks, underwear, utensils, plants, apples, rotisserie chickens, pancakes, squid jerky, sesame leaves, shower shoes, utensils, peanuts, live clams, fish shaped cakes with bean paste middle... On any busy street are shops and street vendors, on any given side alley, you might find an open air market. I live right near 3 marketplaces (that I know of) that combine tiny storefronts with covered stalls to carry all your daily essentials. The most fun, so far, to venture through is up behind my apartment, on the way towards the little mountain that you'd never guess was hiding back there.

Does anyone know how to get a whole octopus home from the market? Will they cut it into pieces for me if I ask? Or am I just going to have to put it on a tarp and employ several of my beefiest friends to help me carry it?

Not long ago, I ate what was basically brined fish jerky. Snack fish are big here. Along with snack squid and snack octopus.

Chili pepper chili pepper chili pepper. Imagine this many chili peppers. Okay, multiply it by about 15, imagine it in giant heaping piles on sheets on the ground being sorted through by aging Korean ladies. Hello! Welcome to the streets of Seoul!

I'm already beginning to suffer from withdrawal from the taste of chili peppers when I eat anything that's not spicy. Some people complain about the spice, and granted, in can obscure other flavors, but DANG it's exciting to eat food that makes your face go numb. Okay, maybe not for everyone, but I dig it.

14 October 2009

The View

My apartment building, a mere 6 stories with some private golfing (apparently) on the roof, is situated just so in a row of shops and apartments and restaurants and millions of things to buy that one would never be able to get enough perspective to know that there's a mountain. Right there. Take a right outside my front door, a right onto any of the side streets, weave your way up through some hilly residential area (a quaint sight that also seems incongruous in its proximity to our somewhat gritty digs), and suddenly you'll be walking up a well kept path on a modest mountain. To your left will be nearly forest. On your left, a sea of apartment buildings that barely seem real, and public exercise equipment.

I had the delight of seeing women hula hooping and using something like a cross between playground equipment and a gazelle, men praying (on my way up) and drinking and eating fried chicken (on the way down), children catching a bird in a net and freaking out, community spring waters, and an adorable white puppy covered in mud, all on the same walk around our little mountain.

Residential.

Buddhists, not Nazis. Look at those little flowers a growin.'

Mountain steps! (P.S. There are so many adorable cruiser bicycles here. I miss you, bike!)

Here is the pagoda where we were fed Korean pancake and kimchi and makgeolli by some very friendly people eating brunch. Delicious. We need to remember to have brunch there before it freezes.