잘 먹어세요!!

Dear Mom and Dad,

   It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a letter here, sorry ‘bout that!  Lately it seems these posts have been pretty long and heavy reading.  Again, sorry ‘bout that.    So today I thought I’d write something short and sweet.  Or something like that….

   I was sitting at lunch today thinking of all the things I was eating on my tray with my chopsticks.  And while I’ve been able to use chopsticks for many years, it’s never been a constant in my eating habits and I would occasionally have to re-learn how to use them.  Now, living in Korea for 2 years, I use chopsticks everyday and I think I actually prefer them for some things that I never would have considered before.  Now before I continue on that line, I just want to say that Korea is different from its neighbors, in that place settings here include a long handled spoon that is used for both rice and soup.  This helps many-a ham handed chopstick individual. Also the chopsticks are thin and metal.  Metal complicates things a bit, but with the spoon at least you won’t starve here in Korea.

 On the other hand, there is dining etiquette with chopsticks that visitors should be aware of. One is never point your chopsticks at someone.  It’s kinda like pointing at someone with your finger, it’s just plain rude.  And number two, (all that I’m going to get into today) don’t hold your spoon and chopsticks in the same hand at the same time. How you can be talented enough to do this without making a tremendous mess, I don’t know.

So, onto the list.  Of course, I’ve used chopsticks for the usual course of foods that most westerners associate with chopsticks, (the individual bites of firm foods) but it goes WAAAYY beyond that.  Things like soup noodles, spaghetti and other pastas, salads (this makes fantastic sense!) including individual lettuce leaves, fruit, cake, and squirming octopus legs.  I can now debone a fish with the average of them and I can cut a pork cutlet with just a pair of chopsticks in one hand.  I can spear tiny quail eggs and cherry tomatoes in a single jab and chew on chicken wings with my chopsticks.  

The only thing I haven’t mastered completely and probably never will is eating acorn jelly (it has the consistency of jello) I can snatch a piece of 전 from a distance and chew my way around a bone in the 고기, but jello, still not happening!

한번 먹어보세요!

Vietnam 2014

Ho Chi Minh - Saigon River

Jade Pagoda

Dear Mom and Dad,

This summer vacation I had the chance to go to Vietnam for two weeks with my good friend Natalie.  We had decided on Vietnam late last winter, so we were plenty excited by the time summer rolled around.  We sent off our passports early in June for our Vietnam visas which took about 2 or 3 weeks.  You can get tourist visas at the airport, but you have to wait in line, and you aren’t always guaranteed a visa right away.  We had other friends on the same flight as us, and that’s what they did.  They didn’t have any problems, but we didn’t want the hassle of getting it done at the airport.

 We had planned our hotels and flights separately, but neither were extremely expensive for a two weeks stay.  Our flight was more than our two weeks of hotels.  We stayed in Hanoi for 5 days and Ho Chi Minh for 7.   Our hotel was about $15 per person per night, and it was a very nice place.  Ho Chi Minh was a little more expensive $30 per person per night, but it was a 4 star boutique hotel.  Pretty sweet.

Shop in the Old Quarter

So we had a total of three flights to plan for.  We flew Vietnam Air, of which I think I am not a complete fan, but the flights were uneventful.  I am glad for that.  The flight from Incheon to Vietnam is about 4 hours and for all four hours we either had static or the flight map on the TV monitors and no working cabin lights.  Or rather they worked, they just flickered every few seconds.  The domestic flight was fine though.

In Hanoi we stayed in a pleasant hotel in the Old Quarter right in the center of Hanoi’s market district.  It was certainly an adjustment from Korea.  Traffic is totally different and although Korea had scooter ajjussis who are death on wheels, Vietnam is an entire country full of scooters.  However, they are not daredevils when they drive, they just never stop.  Unless there’s a red light.  But a lot of places just have massive traffic circles and you have to figure out how to cross it.  The trick is, and we learned this quickly, although it always felt wrong, is to not stop.  So we felt like we were always moving, when we were there.  There is very little space in the cities, so scooters are parked mostly on the sidewalks and people walk in the street.  This means you watch for traffic around you and you might never walk in a straight line.  If you are walking in a straight line you are probably crossing the street. 

Temple of Literature

Because we were in the market district, we of course, did a ton of shopping.  Most things had a price but it was expected that you could haggle the price a bit.  Not that anything was majorly outrageously priced.  No, most things were actually well under $10.  Many things were less than $5.  Tipping staff was not necessarily expected, but was good manners and very appreciated, so usually we tipped about VD50,000 = $2.50.  And that was still pretty generous. 

Water puppets!  -Hanoi

While we were in Hanoi we tried to get to at least one major tourist spot a day, and the rest of the time we spent in coffee shops writing post cards, lazing away the afternoon over Vietnamese coffee and fruit juices galore.  Or we went shopping…!  The first day we went to the Hanoi water puppet theater!  Amazing!!!  Amazing!!!  Except for the woman from the Bronx behind us that just had to ask “*Debbie*! There’s actually water!?”  Some people should NOT travel…  Okay rant over.  I think…*Name was changed cuz, I didn’t bother to remember it in the first place  :)

Hanoi Hilton

 We didn’t get to Halong Bay while we were there, although that is on the list of major things to see.  There was a typhoon that tempted us to stay away.  In fact, our flight to Vietnam was delayed because of it..

Over the next few days we went to a couple of temples, one of which was called the temple of Literature, a very fascinating visit.   And lastly, to the Hanoi Hilton.  Ironically, most of the prison has been destroyed, and in it's place stands a luxury hotel.  Even so, for what was left, I wasn’t sure what I expected there, but it was much harder to go through that place than even I thought.  I had to sit for awhile.  It doesn’t rest comfortably on the mind, but it was important to go.  Photography was allowed but I could only get a picture of the front.  It didn’t feel right to me.

dragonfruit juice

pineapple juice

I did get to see a monkey in the Old Quarter among other many delightful sights!  And of course we spent a lot of our time in restaurants trying out the cuisine.  I am a major fan!!!  It looks like we were constantly eating piles and piles of food, but most of it was actually fruits and vegetables and salads of various kinds (amazingly fresh and delish!)  I couldn’t get enough of the fruit juices!  Korea, unfortunately, does not have nearly the variety of drinks.  It’s either coffee, soda or alcohol in Korea.  I love the coffee, but since I rarely drink soda anymore my choices here are limited.  I had lemon juice, coconut juice (in the coconut), dragonfruit juice, passionfruit juice, kiwi juice, strawberry juice, mango juice, watermelon juice, orange juice, apple juice, if you can make juice from fruit you can probably find it there.

Vietnamese milk coffee

Spring rolls -fresh and fried

Thursday we made our way by plane from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, Our flight was 2 hours.  We checked driving travel time = 25 hours…  Glad we flew, even if the wait time for luggage was awful.

Ho Chi Minh.  We did more of the same that we did in Hanoi.  We visited some pagodas and wandered the city, just relaxing and going wherever we felt like it.  Our hotel was excellent about helping us get reliable taxis and information; pretty much anything we needed, they were on the ball.  One morning we took a cooking class that was absolutely a blast!  I wouldn’t mind doing something like that again.  We learned to make fresh spring rolls, green mango salad, lotus leaf fried rice. It was soooo good! Who needs lunch?

The Chef and I

My first fried rice

While in Ho Chi Minh I got to meet some friends for a meeting on Sunday.  It was a special meeting and I was so lucky to get their contact information from a very good friend whose family lives in the city.  I got to meet many friends from there as well as some who were visiting from other places, a young couple from the Philippines and some visitors from China, Cambodia, and Japan as well.  Many people could speak English and so it was my first meeting in at least partial English since our convention in May.  One lady invited me to dinner on Wednesday, before we met some other friends in the area that evening.  One other visitor was there from Pakistan, and so we had a very pleasant but very quiet evening.

sugar cane snacks

  All in all, it was a great trip, and very interesting, although there were some bits, like the markets and crossing major streets that I don’t think I would be fully comfortable with.  It was strangely easy for me to get lost and turned around, although Vietnamese used an easily (to Western eyes) recognizable alphabet (even if I can’t say “Thank you” correctly).  We did experience this one day.  We were looking for the post office that was designed by Gustav Eiffel.  We even mailed some postcards in a post box on the street where this building was supposed to be.  We wandered around following our various maps, and never found it!  Then, on our last day we wandered by, looked up and lo and behold, there it was.  Right behind the mailbox we mailed our letters from…

Apart from that I could easily get used to the inexpensive foot and back massages, the coffee, juices, meals, although the rainy season was pretty rough…. Never leave without your umbrella.  Sometimes though, the umbrella just wasn’t worth it, and you run through the drops!

48 hour incence

Our last day there we finally crossed off one very strange and somewhat sad objective that I started a very long time ago.  We finally found McDonald’s two days before we left.  I thought I could get out of it, since we didn’t see any McDonald’s during our entire trip.  But unfortunately we found one just before we left.  Right across the park from our hotel…  So we stopped and got some fries.  So now I have been to a McDonald’s in every country I’ve visited so far…  (Japan, can I please escape this horrible self-inflicted torment??  Please??)

사랑해!!!

Chuseok and fall things

Dear Mom and Dad,

I am woefully behind in keeping things up to date.  But I’ll try to work on it this week, so if you are bombarded by posts, that’s why.  If there is an embarrassing lack of posts, well I can only say that I am ultimately slacking in my duties… I have the time this coming week, so I really should get caught up. 

   This week is Chuseok.  It’s a three day holiday that is looked forward to with the same mixture of excitement and dread as the American Thanksgiving.  Chuseok actually follows the Lunar calendar and so the date changes every year, but the celebrations are the same.  Families return to their ancestral family homes.  Usually children return to their parents or grandparent’s home.  There they have a ceremony that pays respect to their ancestors as well as celebrates the harvest season.  Most of the family looks forward to it, in that there's a variety of delicious foods, some of which are only prepared during Chuseok.  Daughter-in-laws and mothers dread it.  There's a ton of work to be done in preparing said foods.

  This is actually only one day, but nationally Korea gives three days and makes it a “sandwich” holiday so that families can travel a little more easily.  More, easily, is actually a misnomer for this holiday season, because there is no easy about it.  Trains and buses are fully booked often months in advance in preparation for going to and coming back from family homes.  If you are traveling by car to or from one of the bigger cities, well, good luck.  Everybody, and I mean, everybody, is traveling on those days.  Which is why I’m staying in Iksan, visiting friends here around town and generally just relaxing during my days off.  We are actually given an extra day off this year, because the actual holiday fell on a Monday and people didn’t get their full three days off of work.  Kinda nice!

   Our school served songpyeon today, which is a traditional treat for Chuseok.  It is half moon shaped rice cakes that some in pink, white, green, and yellow.  Inside is a paste of slightly sweet sesame, or honey, sometimes red beans.  I like it, but not everyone likes rice cake as it can be very dense.  Regular rice cakes come in a variety of flavors … well not so much flavors as ingredients.  Sometimes its just rice cake, other times it is drowned with varieties of beans and jujubes and mashed sweet potato.

  My schedule has been getting busier this fall.  I was finally brave enough to sign up for piano lessons.  In Korean, no less!  I must be crazy!  I’m going three times a week, for an hour each time.  But my teacher is very kind and helpful.  She doesn’t speak much English but she carefully shows me what she wants.  And I’m slowly learning more Korean, and have been able to have very small, very short, very elementary conversations with her.  She is excited to have me there and the kids are always stunned when I come in the door!  Children have this cute habit where they are happily playing and then something intrudes on their consciousness.  They suddenly become very watchful and interested, but their little bodies are still moving as if they are still playing, but they just don’t remember that they are!  Some of them are braver than others and offer a shy hello.  Then as soon as I’m out of sight (not out of sound though!)  they start arguing over whether they should say hello, or hi instead!  Once in a while I have a little audience.  A tiny head will pop into view through the doorway of my practice room and then quickly duck back out!

School, of course, is a full day.  I usually leave a little before 8 and get to school about 8:15 or 8:20 to get settled in.  School ends at 4:30.  Which gives me about an hour before piano lessons begin to study Korean in a coffee shop somewhere.  One of my middle school English teachers has offered to help me with my Korean, so three times a week we meet and I attempt to learn Korean.   My Korean class should start again in a couple of weeks, but we will be down to one lesson a week 8:00 PM on Thursday evenings, since our Tuesday class is no longer available.  But my classmates are considering doing private exercises together in place of our lost class. Plus I may be beginning a language exchange with an elementary teacher from Jeonju, who is teaching here in Iksan.  An hour of English, for an hour of Korean.  When we will do that I don’t know! 

Once a week some of the foreign public school teachers here in Iksan meet for our Diner’s Club.  Every Tuesday evening 4 or 5 of us (depending on who’s in town and available) will meet for dinner around 7:30 -8:00.  Our only rule is that we can’t eat at the same place twice.  This week we are celebrating our 100^th week!!!  I think for all of us, it’s just about our favorite night of the week!!  Only once, (that I know of) have we had to resort to plan B – McDonald’s.  That’s a story for another post.  I’ll talk more about Diner’s club another time!

This last week I've barely had to cook or buy dinner at all!  I had two retirement dinners and a welcome dinner in one week for an elementary teach, my middle school principal and vice-principal, and a welcoming dinner for the new principal and vice principal.  I met with a co-teacher for dinner another evening and had dinner with a friend the next night.  When I finally get an evening to cook, I ended up buying microwave rice and packaged kim for a lazy dinner.  After all that food during the week, I hardly needed another big dinner!

For now this will be all.  I have to collect my thoughts on my recent trip to Vietnam!  There’s so much to tell there!  As well as a few other posts that are floating around the back of my mind!

Love you all!