Gachi Food makes my heart happy.

Well team,

I know a lot of my posting is about my various trips (and the food I eat there). So today I am going to post about my staying at home (and the food I eat there).

Many of you probably know that Ben and I really like to cook.
When we got here we did a decent amount of stocking up at the grocery store and living off that for a week or two. Then we had a friend mention to us the there is an awesome group called WWOOF CSA. Ben had an experience working for a WWOOF farmer in Italy, and so we checked it out.

It turns out for a moderate chuck o' change you can have organic fresh vegetables delivered to your door once a week. They also offer add ons of juice, meat, fruit, and bread. This past week they sent us a couple extra things to try so we would have more information about what they are doing for some writing Ben is doing for them as well as some blogging from both of us.

Ben has already done a sort of overview of Gachi (their new name) and our glorious relationship. I am here to talk about my most recent cooking adventures.

Something really wonderful about signing up for the Gachi package is that you get different and diverse veggies each week. It makes the life of a cooking happy person very exciting! I love Korean food, so it's been fun to try out some Korean dishes. It's also fun to cook from different cuisines with fresh veggies grown locally!

So last weekend, as the dinner maker this particular night, here is what I made:

We started with some eggplants and I was feeling some baba ghanoush.

I roasty-toasted the eggplant over the burner then stuck them into the oven to get soft.

While that was happening I made some tahini (roasted seasame seeds and olive oil).  When the eggplant came out of the oven I blended it with the tahini and some salt and lemon. DONE.

We had some little baby chile peppers that I decided to stuff. It turned out they were a little small for stuffing so it ended up being more of a pepper layer and a veggie stuffing layer, but it was yummy nonetheless.


Chopped up some Gachi veggies: scallions, onions, pepper, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes.

 

And sauteed those little guys.

Next I grilled the peppers in the toaster so they were nice and soft.

Once both the sauteed veggies and the peppers were cooked pretty well I put them together! And I added some goat cheese that my sainted cheese enabling parents brought us. I cooked that for another couple minutes and that was good to go!

Finally, we got (what is called on the paper )"young pumpkin". It looks and tastes a lot like a zucchini. I just thin sliced that bugger and added some olive oil, salt, and this awesome smoked paprika and cooked it in the oven.

So that was the sum total of that particular dinner. Thanks to Gachi we also had some awesome carrot apple juice and bread to enjoy it with.

To anyone living in Korea I highly recommend looking into Gachi, it's helped us to cook really healthy food and eat a whole lot of veggies. I have accidentally become a walking advertisement. I will hear someone say green, vegetables, groceries, plant, organic, etc and I will ninja jump across the room screaming HAVE YOU HEARD OF GACHI???? So pardon my joyous food rant, but it's been an awesome aspect of my stay in Korea.

Jirisan, Kez's Birthday, and the humane capture of Jack and Kezia.

Hey gang,

It's been a while since I've posted!

Let's do a general update first.

I am currently enjoying work a million times more with our new manager. She is super organized, really sweet, and helpful. It feels like a different job then when we came in during (what I have begun to call) Lynn's reign of terror.

Personal life-wise, Ben and I have a crazy chunk of weeks coming up with my art show and our school break. It's all good traveling, but by the time it is over I will have been traveling for 4 weekends straight. Next next weekend is the art show in Seoul, which I am pretty excited about. I am also getting a tattoo that weekend. Whoop. It's also my birthday weekend. GOOD THINGS ARE HAPPENING PEOPLE!

Next Wednesday Senti (for those of you who don't know, she has been a friend of mine since I was 10) and her boyfriend Angus are coming to Korea. They will be staying with us for a week. We are also going on our summer vacation with them to Busan. I can't wait for them to arrive. Their arrival does herald the exodus of Jack and Kez, who we have been close to for a good chunk of time. But fear not, I have a friend dungeon I plan to put them in. I will treat them humanely and feed them upon many foods and beer. They will grow to love their captivity.

Soooo let's talk about Jirisan.
As one of their final trips in Korea (they think, muhahahahhaa), Jack and Kez wanted to hang out near Jirisan for a while. It is certainly one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Korea. The group was me, Ben, Jack, Kez, Amelia, Lacey, Nate, a new friend June and our delightful Korean friend (who kindly does much of the organizing) Iris.

We decided camping was the way to go, and after some fidgeting, we ended up at a campsite near a big ole' river. After setting up we splashed around for a while before setting to work on heavy duty grilling.

Our Glorious Crew (Iris' Photo)

We had a great night. Lacey and I went to sit on a rock in the middle of the river for an hour or so and drank wine while talking predominately about Narnia and Madeline L'Engle. There was star watching, and a decent amount of eating.

Rocks by the river with Iris and Kez (Kez's Photo)

The following morning after breakfast some of us went on an easy hike. It was really gorgeous and full of spots to stop and look at waterfalls and running water.

The rest of the day was spent swimming and sitting on giant rocks before heading back to Gwangju.

Happy water Adele (Iris' Photo)

The following weekend was Kez's birthday. She opted to visit Iris at a beach near her house for some more camping. However, the weather looked crappy so we went for a pension. I realize to those of you not from Korea that sounds very strange. A pension is usually a single room that you rent. It generally has a bathroom and stove, and you get floor mats and bedding for sleeping.

This trip was comprised of myself, Benjamin, Jack, Kez, Iris, and our Korean co-teacher and friend Blair (who also thinks she is leaving at the end of the month, but is in fact going into the friend dungeon).

We dropped our stuff and headed to the beach for some cloudy day swimming. The water was surprisingly warm and we spent much of the afternoon swimming, attempting to teach Blair to float, and throwing a frisbee.

I made huge burgers at home to share, and I grilled those up for dinner. We also had bacon, cheese, and hot dogs. June also sent Iris with a bag of marshmellows with enough sugar to kill a grown man, So many marshmellows. It was Blair and Iris' first time having a s'more!
We pretty much spent the rest of the night at the picnic table eating (an absurd volume of food), talking, and playing phase ten.

The next morning we ate a glorious breakfast from Jack Bacon Fingers, and packed up. Then we went to check out Iris' apartment before heading back to Gwangju once again!

Sokcho, blustery nights, and new friends

*Note: I am not great about documenting my trips, so I steal pictures from better photographers then myself. The pictures in this blog are from Kezia Chee and Marcus.  I will credit the pictures as I go!


So last weekend we had our first longer break in a while. We decided to join our friends Jack and Kezia for a trip to Sokcho. Sokcho is a famous beach city with a massive mountain, Soraksan, nearby.

Saturday morning we got up early to catch the single bus that makes the six hour drive diagonally across the country. Our bus took longer than it should have because of Seoul traffic, but we arrived around four and got our bearings. We touched base with friends of Jack and Kez's from their previous contract who were also in Sokcho. Marinella and Nathan are lovely people and we were happy to get to know them a bit over the weekend. They met us and we made our set up plans. We found the designated beach camping area, set back from the beach behind some trees. Ben and Kez set up the tents, and Jack and I went for food. We planned to grill, but after some mimed instructions from the beach camping enforcers, we learned that charcoal fire was not an option. A gas-burning mini stove do-dad was purchased, and we ate veggies and meat and enjoyed chatting and swapping stories with our old and new friends.

This is our original campsite and our wee little tents. (Koreans, they love the hardcore camping gear, so we looked like we had "My First Camping" set for your backyard.)

The next day as we were preparing to begin activities, it was once again mimed to us that we could no longer have our tents in the designated camping area. We still have no idea why it was ok one night and not the next. We called a co-worker to help with translation, and learned we needed to move to "designated camping area". I think this was probably the case because the next day was a holiday and so they didn't want people camping on the public space when the guards had the day off. Who knows. Anyway, as we were trying to get things cleared up, a Korean guy told Kez where we had to go, and offered that they had booked an extra spot that we could have. This ended up being the luckiest event of the trip, as the gentleman and his three companions were fantastic people. 

We moved our things down the road and set up campground round 2. We then decided to head for the beach for the afternoon.

Our little Gwangju team. (Kez)

We were NOT ASHAMED of being the only human people in (mirror style) bathing suits. (Kez)

 We returned to the campsite to get to know David and eat some dinner. With David was his brother Marcus (these are obviously their chosen English names, which is how they introduced themselves). There was also Jaeyun, who was very quiet but really funny and sweet, and Wonbok, who was silly and really kind. All four of them were open, fun, incredibly generous, and had great senses of humor. We shared some AMAZING grilled pork, veggies, sauces, and SMORES. Yes, I gave someone their first S'more experience. I also brought sparklers which we had a blast with. The night culminated in riding the nearby "Viking", which is one of those carnival rides that goes back and forth super high in the air. It was a great night, and I am so happy I got a chance to know those gentlemen. We will certainly contact them next time we are in Seoul.

Playing a little phase ten and drinking wine before dinner. (Marcus)

Friends and sparklers! (Kez)

Our friends! from the left: Wonbok, Jaeyun, David, Marcus)

 The night took a crappy turn at about three in the morning, when all of us were sleeping. The most intense windstorm hit. It was like a rain-free hurricane. I was truly concerned about branches or tents flying at us. Every single Korean family and group packed up and drove away at 3 in the morning. David and co. left as well with the promise of staying in touch. The four of us were left with winds that were hitting our tents walls into our faces they were so strong. Eventually we decided to move to a somewhat covered sink washroom. That helped some and we were able to sleep through the rest of the night. It made for a tired group the following morning.

For our last night in Sokcho we booked a hostel so we didn't have to worry about our stuff while we climbed Soraksan. We dropped our stuff off and headed to the mountain...well that was a bit of a let down. We ate a delicious seafood pancake to prepare, and went to buy our tickets....only to discover everything except for two hikes were closed due to wind, and fire season. The two hikes were 4 and 6 hours. After 3-4 hours of sleep...that was not in the cards for us. We did get a beautiful view of the mountain. But no climbing happened.

On the way! Ready to go! No such luck. (Kez)

 We returned to our hostel for naps and relaxing. We went on a desperate hunt for dinner and crammed food into our faces. After dinner we briefly met up with David and co. to hang out some more and say goodbye. Needless to say, that was an early to bed night for us.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hostel. Our bus didn't leave until 3:30 so we had time to do some exploring. We walked along the beach, went to some look out spots, and checked out a lighthouse. When we got on our bus that afternoon we concluded that despite the problems, overall it was a wonderful trip. I was so happy to get to know Nathan and Marinella, as well as David and co. I really look forward to the next trip to Seoul (which might be for my art show!) when we can see them all again.

Look out (Kez)

Jumping at the lighthouse (Kez)

There are two squids in the picture (Kez)

We were having trouble finding food....so we posed with this guy

Beeeaaaach (Kez)

Blog lapse over!

Hey gang! I realize I have dropped the ball a little on the blogging. But here I am! Back and ready to tell you more stuff.

Thinking briefly about big trips I have been on since I last blogged....well, we went to Seoul again. It was a blast once more. The most notable event was Ben and my visit to one of the large an famous palaces. I will post a blogs worth of pictures of those in the interest of showing you and not doing a million line blog.

A couple weeks after that myself, Ben, Amelia, Jack, and Kezia all went to Daegu. Amelia and Jack were participating in a 10K and we figured we would come along to support them and to check out Daegu. It was a blast! We stayed in a great hostel with little cube style bunk beds that you could curtain off to be your own little space. We played a lot of card games and wandered around the downtown area. We also checked out an interesting establishment by the name of “Booze in a Bag” and had what could have been fancy cocktails, well, in a bag (and with a complimentary giant sparkler). The next morning we got up early to see Amelia and Jack off. After several mishaps trying to locate them at different points in the race, we managed to find them as they were coming over the finish line. We spent the rest of the day brunching and people watching in the super crowded downtown area.

That was the last big trip I have been on. This weekend we have several days off, and as such, a little time to travel. This time Ben and I will go with Jack and Kezia to Soraksan and Sokcho, a very famous hiking mountain and nearby beach. We will spend two days beach camping before dropping our stuff at a hostel to do a big day long hike.  It should be a delightful combination of very relaxing and horribly grueling!

Aside from travels what updates can I give you? Well, I have several pieces of exciting news. Ben and I have almost definitely decided to extend for an additional six months. After a lot of discussing we came to the decision that after the fairly exhausting process of settling in, dealing with culture shock, making friends, and getting used to a new job, it seems like a crime to piss off after only a year. I am of the opinion that a second year in Korea would be too long for me, but another six months is just about perfect.

In another exciting update, my friend of a billion years, Senti, and her boyfriend are coming to work at ECC! It will be so amazing to have someone I already know and love join us here. I am also really excited to get to show her around and help them get settled and psyched about being in Korea. The first person to come after us is my now very close friend Amelia and I wouldn’t trade her for the world. But when Ben and I first heard that the new person had already spent a year in Korea we were bummed to still be the freshmen of our group. It will be nice to get to play tour guide and help someone make the transition that so many amazing people helped me make!

Those are the biggest pieces of information I have off the top of my head. Korea in spring is insanely beautiful. People told me that a million times, but it’s still pretty mind blowing to see EVERY tree and EVERY bush exploding with flowers. I am really looking forward to a summer full of friends, food, beach camping, and traveling around Korea.

My kiddies and my tangents.

School school. There of plenty of things I could say but I shan't right now. I am going to post pictures of my favorite class and tell you about the weirdest tangents my classes have ever gone on.

A little background so you don't think I am totally nuts:
So middle school classes are at an age where they are taking really serious tests. The pressure is super high. Just to give you an idea, Korea has the highest young teenage suicide rate, that is how hard core these tests are. For this reason, they are not super concerned with the foreign teachers English class. For THAT reason as they refuse to answer my questions I get continually weirder and weirder as I basically monologue at them. Not all my classes are like this all the time, and full disclosure, some of these weird subjects came up in classes with responsive students, but you get the idea.

-My most recent topic was the zombie apocalypse. I asked if anyone had a plan. No one did. I find this totally ridiculous as all the kids are obsessed with American zombie stuff right now.

- Prohibition. This was actually on topic of a debate we were having. Perhaps language-wise a bit over their heads though.

-The Reniassance

-Sleeping caps (this was spurred on by a weird picture in the students books. I went on a rant about how it was weird that they were showing a six year old kid with a sleeping cap. I thought they were all zoning out, but one of my favorite students in that class wrote it into his story. Victory).

-The word pizazz. I told my students I would give them an extra point on the test if they looked up and wrote down the definition for the word pizazz, because they lacked it. No one did. Turds. I don't have that class anymore, thank goodness.

-The movie Signs

-Ryan Gosling

-Star Wars

-How walking in crowds in the worst

-The East Side West Side rap relationship

-The elephant I intend to buy and name Falafel



There are certainly more, and I will be sure to keep the list updated. As for my favorite class, here they are:

 

This is Amy. She is one of my all-time favorites. She is super sweet. She came to my class as a new student really early on. If a student doesn't have an English name when they arrive their foreign teachers picks one. I gave her Amy after Amy Poehler. 

 

This is Annie 1. Yes, there is an Annie 1 and Annie 2. I have no idea why that happened. She is a sweet lady. She's gotten much less shy in my class which is awesome! 

 This is Emily. She is a goofball.

 The girl in pink is Cindy. She is super shy but super sweet.

 The two boys are Brad and Jack. They were being hidey from my camera, so I took sneaky pictures. Jack is a bit of a trouble maker, but he is a good guy.

 This is Mason. He used to give me shinanigans but now we're cool. Behind him is Amber. She is a silly one.

 I'm pissed that this is a blurry picture. This is Jenny. She is lovely. If you look at her phone you will infact see a picture of me. The kids thought it was awesome that it was picture time. There are at least one hundred photos of me on Korean children's phones just generated by the three minutes I spent taking pictures of them.

 This is Annie 2. She did not want her picture taken. She did take a million of me. Her camera does a photo shoot setting or something where it takes about ten rapid fire shots. Ridiculous.

 Annie 1 and Cindy. So adorable.

Seoul. No Korean food, dranks on fire, and allergic reactions.

Several weekends ago (yes, I know, it took me a while DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!) Ben, myself, and our friends Jack and Kezia went to Seoul. It was Ben and my first time visiting so we were pretty excited. It was Lunar New Year and we had our first break that lasted for more then one day. We got a Thursday Friday off, which meant we had a nice long weekend. We headed out Wednesday night after work  (10pm).

We arrived in Seoul around 2:30am. We had opted to rent an airbnb room. For those of you who don't know what that is, you rent someone's apartment like you would a hostel or hotel room. Usually you end up with more space, contact with someone who knows the city, and a kitchen so you don't have to eat all your meals out. It ended up being the absolute right choice for us. We rented from a gentleman named Kang who was super wonderful. He met us at 2:45 in the morning to get us all set up, and gave us an extra room for free.

The next morning after a breakfast at home-base and an embarrassing number of America's Funniest Home Videos (which we discovered played constantly on one channel), we headed out for the day. Ben and I went to the War Museum, which was really fantastic. Everything was translated into English, and I learned a lot about this country I have made my temporary home. The main focus was the Korean war, but there were also rooms dedicated to Korea's long history of defending itself and being invaded.

We met back up with Jack and Kez in Itaewon. Itaewon is the international section of Seoul. It was really wonderful to see some multicultural faces. I am so used to seeing Korean faces that even seeing another white American foreigner is a little shocking. It was a strange moment when I realized the more diversity there is in the people around me, the more it feels like home. It was lovely. You know what else the international section means? Some freaking international food. Gwangju is known for having amazing food, and it really does, but the wider diversity makes Seoul the place to be to get your international food fix. Which we did. We ate zero Korean food in Seoul.

The first night after some exploring around Itaewon we went to this AMAZING steak place. It's run by a Brazilian woman who married a Korean man and decided to open a Brazilian meat restaurant. For the record, its insanely easy to get pork here, but its really hard to get reasonably priced beef. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure between the four of us we ate like two and a half cows. In the back of the restaurant they have a buffet of side dishes and a massive open grill where they cook all the magical meat. They then come around with the different kinds of meat on a turny stake, and they cut slices off for you. It was phenomenal. At they end they bring out roasted pineapple covered in sugar and cinnamon. 

After that we went to Jack's favorite pub to hang out and meet up with another group of friends spending the holiday in Seoul. I had a friend who had never had a flaming shot before, so we did one of those. We had a good night but headed home fairly early so we could get going the next day. One more thing to note, that night after the restaurant the side of my tongue was really itchy. I didn't worry about it much at the time because sometimes pineapple does that to me, but this comes back into the story later.

On our second day we decided to head to a neighborhood that a friend of Kezia's had told her was really cool. It was supposed to imitate European style neighborhoods. It was cute, but a bit anti-climactic. We did get some good Thai food there though. We then headed towards the famous river walk, which goes along the large river that runs through Seoul. We spent some time on that before deciding it was time to get some pub food. We returned to Jack's favorite pub to have a hard cider and some fish and chips. We decided a movie night was in order and returned to our apartment to sack out.

The next morning I woke up early feeling weird. My tongue was super itchy as was my throat. When I felt my throat I realized tone side was incredibly swollen. Although I wasn't having any trouble breathing my gland was so enlarged it was quite visable from just looking in the mirror. Under the left side of my chin there was a section that basically when straight down from my face instead of going under like chins are supposed to do. I woke Ben up and we agreed anything that could potentially block your airways is worth getting medical attention for. We called Kang to find the nearest hospital and headed there. There was one woman who spoke okay English. I made the (what I now know to be) mistake of telling the nurse what I thought my medical situation was...with all my freaking medical knowledge...nope. They sent me to a partitioned hospital bed, did not look in my throat, did not touch my throat, just gave me two shots and a pack of pills. I have since learned that this happens to a lot of people seeking medical attention. They treat you for whatever you tell them it is. If it doesn't go away you have to come back. If its something weird and specific hopefully eventually they do some tests and inspecting. The shots made me super groggy. We were supposed to clear out by 12, but we called Kang to ask how much the rest of the day would cost and he was happy to let us stick around for no charge. That was exactly what I needed. Ben (who was absolutely fantastic through all of this) stayed with me while Jack and Kez headed out for the day. We left Saturday night so we could spend Sunday at our apartments being mellow before the work week. Besides Ben, the other hero of the story is my friend Chelsea, who went way out of her way to bring me some Benadryl. Sunday I stayed groggily medicated all day, but by Monday morning the swelling started to go down.

Despite the issues at the end of the trip I still had a great time. Seoul is a very cool city and I look forward to visiting again. When we applied to work in Korea they tell you off the bat that you have to choose between Seoul and everywhere else. We opted for everywhere else and I am glad we did. Seoul houses 1/5 of the population of Korea. It has an amazing subway, a much more diverse population, and some really interesting neighborhoods. But I think living in Seoul, it would be very very easy to exist like you were living in an American city. And I didn't come to Korea to live in an American city.

The tale of Ice Fishing

The terrifying thing about blogging is that if you are trying to keep your posting up to date, you want to get more then one event behind. I went ice fishing three weekends ago, and this coming weekend I am going to Seoul so my motivation to write this post is pretty high.

Alright! So there is this great guy Pedro. He is a Korean man and he runs a business where he sets up trips to get foreigners to different amazing places in Korea. He'll take care of transportation, accommodation, and have a loosely structured schedule and you pay an incredibly cheap flat price. Our friend Kezia found a trip for an icefishing festival, and six of us decided we were in!

We woke up at the freaking crack on dawn on Saturday to pile into a very warm bus with 35 other foreigners (it was the most non-Koreans I have seen since coming here). Since it was 6am almost everyone promptly fell asleep (except for some truly terrible evil morning people who were loud and God forbid CHIPPER. Yuck.) After a 5 hour drive WAY north we stopped for our first days adventure: Nami Island. Nami Island is supposed to be the most romantic place in Korea. It probably would be if it were covered in snow like the pictures showed. But it was certainly lots of fun. There were all sorts of silly things like the first kiss bridge and big hearts made our of recycled soju bottles. It was wildly eclectic, and definitely a blast to explore. After a decent amount of wandering and snacking we headed back to the bus for our meet up time.

Next we headed to the place where we would be staying. It was a little imitation French village in the middle of Korea. Let that idea mind boil for a second. The drive was through a lot of hilly ups and downs, and by the time we got there I was feeling pretty nauseated. The room distribution took a while, but in a lucky switcheroo me, Ben and our friends Jack and Kezia ended up sharing a four person room instead of being smooshed in a room with 8 strangers.

There was the option to get back on the bus and go to botanical gardens about half an hour away. Buuuuut Jumanji was on TV and none of us really wanted to get back on the over-heated bus. It was fortunate that we didn't because about two hours later the bus returned, having fought through traffic to get a few kilometers away, only to be told it would be an hour and a half wait. That group returned and dinner was served. We knocked out for another very early morning.

On Sunday we woke up at 6 once again. We had a quick breakfast and hopped back on the bus to go the last two hours to the festival. When we arrived we were given passes and shown the area specifically blocked off for foreigners to fish. Our early arrival and the sectioned area ended up being really great. Korean festivals have a reputation for being really great, except that so so so many people come to them that they can be ruined by crowds.

ANYWAY, we stepped onto the ice after being handed things that look sort of like twirly fly swatters with a line and bait rolled up on them. There were some lovely Korean guides there to show us how to use them. I was the LAST of my group of friends to get a trout, but I did indeed get one! Well, two.

I was enthusiastic. After a decent amount of time fishing, we handed our fish off to some military volunteers and were told to come back at 11:30 to eat them on the grill. We wandered around and did some other ice activities, like sitting in a giant inner tube while a dude on an ATV flung us around the ice, and going down a slide coated in ice on a tube. 

When we returned, our fish were all cooked up and FREAKING DELICIOUS. We ate them off the grill with chopsticks.

After lunch we did some more wandering around. We headed into the actual town to go to a place called the Illumination Palace. This was pretty sweet. It was giant room willed with ice replicas of famous architecture from around the world. Most of them you could walk through and climb. All of them had lights of different colors built into them. There was everything from igloos to the Coliseum to the giant Buddha.

After all that we had to head back to the bus. We braved the 5 hour trip back and knocked out once we got home. It was a great weekend and I look forward to taking more trips with Pedro soon! 

 Here we have from the left: Nate, Cheryl, Jack, our fisher-guide, Kezia, me, Ben