COOKIN CLASS, BEAUTIFUL DAY INDOORS

Hello Good Evening!

I was greeted by this miraculous day outside on my 30 second walk to work. I was the first real-deal beautiful day we've had in weeks and, although there are no windows at work for which to enjoy it, the sight was a breath of fresh, barely humid air to kick start the day.

Today was the second-to-last day of 'Intensive' month and it was action packed. During second period I had only one student, the 7 year-old Erica, and we had a 'cooking class'. I was worried when my manager gave me the recipe that morning before class because, if you can read it below, we were making a real-deal 'Ubu' or fried bean curd.

Those are a lot of ingredients! Especially for a seven-year old girl and myself to tackle in 40 minutes. I was worried when I walked into the room where we were going to have class. Good thing though, the only thing in the room was small bowl of rice, the Udu wraps, and half a pack of processed ham wrapped in saran wrap. So we (I) cut up the ham, clumsily mixed the two together. We still had a great time though making, and absolutely eating, the Udu:

TEE-SHIRT DROUGHT DURING TIMES OF RAIN

Quick thought: This weather is terrible for T-shirts. I go through at least two T-shirts a day, three if I exercise in anyway. Because when you get home from chasing kids all day the first thing you have to do is change out of ALL the work day clothes, and then if you go do something after that (assuming you don't get off at 8pm like some days), even if the errand is minimal then there's another shirt + a shower. Before you know it I've gone through 20 T-shirts in a week! Well I don't have 20 T-shirts, more like 9 so the washing machine / clothes drying rack / ironing board are stocked constantly. The humidity is okay though because it makes it in consequential that it is STILL raining every day for the 2nd 'summer' month straight because you're going to be wet either way and mostly the rain will cool you down a bit.

This is Sam 'The Main Event''s 'It's raining agian!?' face. 

VACATION PHOTOS, deux

Not really vacation photos per-say, but here's a great restaurant at which we ate a couple weeks ago when I was on break. It was bbq-style where you make the lettuce/meat/spicystuff tacos but the meat (pork) came already seasoned and cooked.

Below are the side dishes they brought out first with the usual kimchi and spicy peppers. Also there was a cold soup with ice (foreground) that was tasty and there was also hot soup in the background with tofu (center) and couple other things that are escaping me now. 

Here's the pork that came with pre-made rice pellets and some spicy roots of some kind. 

Also I had some seafood and tofu soup, above. You can see the octopus in the middle, there was also a prawn or two and some tofu and veggies. It was hot but not super spicy. As usual for that vacation it was pouring rain outside so hot soup was a nice way to finish the meal off!

MATT QUINN, MEDICINE MAN

Have a bit of a head cold, blog.

All the symptoms are there, the biggest one of course is working around 60 elementary school kids, so sick happens. Here in Korea the second you start to feel a little sick you go to the doctor (because of how easy and cheap it is). That is def. not my instinct so I wait another couple days and then when I finally (had a break at work) went I walked in as the doctor was leaving early for a four day vacation! So I went to the pharamacy in the same building and I (with my hands) described my condition and they gave me all this:

Those two packets are for cold symptoms and the both cost $2 and they did the trick wonderfully. Those other bottles are one of my favorite things about Korea: they are vitamin C bottles. They cost .50 cents at any Mart and they are a full day's worth of vitamin C. So I downed those two bottles, had a couple of the cold pills and now the next day I'm almost right as rain. Doctors? Who needs 'em?

IF MY COOKING COULD BE COMPRESSED TO ONE PICTURE

It would be this one:

INTRODUCING THE STICKER MONSTER

Thursday was the last day of classes for the month and so my co-teacher told me to just have fun in class. Deal. I noticed that the book we use in one class is sort of terrible, as some books are, and there are pages of stickers with no real clear place to put them. So as a last day activity I gave some steps for to make for my kids to follow:

1. Peel off stickers

2. Apply stickers to make Stick Monster.

3.

One of the best things about kids though is that after they were done creating the Sticker Monster and laughing, I conducted the rest of the class with the stickers on my face and they didn't really bat an eye.

Then my boss walked by and looked into the classroom and saw me teaching and looking ridicilous. Here is Sam 'The Main Event' doing his impression of my boss's face at that moment:

BACK IN RADIO CONTACT / Vacation Pics Part Uno

WELL HELLO! 

Me. And my pictures. So the week long, wait, scratch that, the four days + a weekend vacation has concluded and it was a fantastic time, very relaxing and I mostly induldged on great food, great company both of which were a welcome and needed relief from the mmmmeeeehhhh not so great weather (video). I never thought the title of this blog would indicate such a great distance as the difference in weathers during the last week of July, 2011. Yikes.

Let's Picture Time!!

Here was one of the best days:

First I finally tired this really popular bakery/coffee place called Paris Baguette. I'm pretty sure it's a large world-wide chain but none the less, for 2 bucks I had this for breakfast:

Calmly and slowly having French toast wrapped egg salad and coffee for breakfast around noon on a Tuesday? Vacation.

Next I met up with some friends for this Korean dish that's shaved ice with various fresh fruits, some cereals, a couple types of ice cream and as a side-kick, some Kahlua & Coffee. 

After that we moseyed back to Insadong district to check out one of the largest temples around. It was monsoon-ing so we would periodically get stuck under an overhang for a while but either way it was a beautiful former royal compound.

After the wetness-ises of trudging around the compound we stopped at a fancy-pants tea house. I think I got Red Papaya or something flavor but most notably it came in such a snazzy presentation: the waitress poured the tea form the lil teapot into the bowl slowly, then she poured the tea into the teacup for you for the first serving. After all those steps I very impressed (with myself as well for being at such an establishment) that I said to the tea-server, quoting my wonderful Aunt Linda, "Oh, hey now!" And those mini cookies delicious.

Here's part one, I'll be back again for part two soon!