It's Cold Outside!

---

Well it’s been about twenty days so I figured I get caught up here before I get further behind. Ever since I came back to work from my Christmas vacation I haven’t been too busy sightseeing. It has been, from what my Korean friends tell me, the coldest winter in decades. So I have been kind of staying in or doing things that don’t require me to venture outside. Bitter cold plus snow equals a number of weekends in bars knitting my beer sweater with my buddies, one bottle at a time. Haha.

I did, however, manage to do a few things and eat some great food that didn’t involve beer. This past weekend I was invited to antend an art show two of my kindergarteners were in. Of my two students, one was there, Anna. She invited me and I told her I would go. When I got there is was a MAD house. There were people EVERYWHERE! It was so packed I could barely move. The exhibition was in an art gallery in Insadong (The main street is Insadong-gil, which is connected to a multitude of alleys that lead deeper into the district. At one time it was the largest market for antiques and artworks in Korea.), and it took up two floors. After a while I was able to find my student, Anna. I saw her mom and she caught my attention by waving her arms. Anna and her mom were very surprised and excited I was able to make it. Needless to say, Anna’s art work was really good, and of course she was as cute as ever. She was a little shy because teachers are only ever seen in school. Haha… Seeing me outside of school was kind of weird for her.

Lately, I have been on a mandu soup kick. In Korean cuisine, mandu generally denotes a type of filled dumpling. If the dumplings are grilled or fried, they are called gunmandu (군만두); when steamed jjinmandu (찐만두); and when boiled, mulmandu (물만두). Mandu soup is fricken awesome! I have a few pictures of some that I’ve eaten recently. If you ever get the chance to try some I totally recommend it. And better yet, if you come to visit me I’ll buy it for you. Haha.

Another Korean dish that I’ve been eating more of lately has been Samgyetang(삼계탕). Samgyetang literally translates to “ginseng chicken soup” in English. This is such a delicious dish and so amazingly filling. In this soup there is an entire chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng root, garlic, and dried jujube fruit. Just writing about this is making me hungry for it. Haha.

Some other notables:

*I was able to see some of the fortress wall that is in Suwan. Pretty sweet!

*And I've been tying to learn Korean... I need to study more. Haha.

Well, that’s pretty much it for now. The weather forecast for the upcoming ten days here is showing signs of a decent warm up. On Wednesday it’s supposed to be in the low 50’s. I am really looking forward to that. I can’t believe it’s almost February… Wow. Anyways, I am sure I will be doing some more cool things and eating more delicious meals over here. A good amount of my time is also spent doing fun things with my girlfriend. So hopefully I’ll have some more fun things to report on in the near future. Enjoy that last days of January!

---

Photos

Art Show
This was my other student's (Elisabeth) drawing.