Saturday, December 30, 2006

A Taste of the Sea

Yesterday afternoon at work we asked our Korean coworkers what their plans for New Year's Eve were. No one had anything particularly exciting planned (as the solar new year pales in comparison to the lunar new year over here), and most just planned to enjoy the 5 day weekend. All except for our poor friend Nah Ri. Instead of relaxing, or shopping, or spending some time with her boyfriend, Nah Ri will be ringing in the new year at her mother's fish market stall - for eleven hours straight everyday. Apparently this is a pretty normal daughterly duty. How glad I am Confucious never ventured west.

Anyways, apart from giving our condolenses on a lost vacation, we took the opportunity to explore a side of Korean cuisine that we've hitherto ignored: seafood, and more specifically, raw fish. So Nah Ri drew us a map to the fish market and we promised to stop by around lunch time the next day.

After getting a bit lost in a random shipyard, we finally made it down to the seaside. Nah Ri was waiting for us and looking very un-teacherlike.

The Ulsan fish market area is nothing like its quaint, sterilysed counterparts you'll find in the western world. No, the Koreans seem to care little about image, and this is a working area through and through. We passed countless piles of netting, ropes, traps, drying squid, and various sea refuse on the way to the markets.

The picture above shows the outside of the fish market, built on a pier. From this view it seems pretty peaceful.

Not so once you're inside though. Like the one we saw in Busan, these markets are jammed with shoppers looking for a deal on octopi, eel, or pretty much anything else you can imagine. And I can't forget to mention the smell. You'll have to use your imagination, but there're thousands of fish packed into an area the size of about two lanes in a bowling alley and there are fish guts everywhere. Anyways, it reminded us of why we've been wary of seafood here for so long.

About half-way down we came to Nah Ri's mom's fish shop. Her wares were pretty much the norm: eel, unremarkable grey fish, and the stripy guys in the bottom right corner (below) that you'd expect to see in a fishtank, not on your plate. This left us pretty much at a loss when asked what we'd like. We just told Nah Ri to give us whatever tasted the best and then we crossed our fingers.

(No, these fish don't look happy, and yes, we did feel guilty.)

Nah Ri's mom didn't want us taking her picture, so you'll have make do with just her apron and rubber gloves. Here she is weighing the fish. It came to just under 2 kilograms, but she only charged us for 1, and she threw in another smaller fish for free (literally). I guess it's good to have connections in the fish world.

(Here's our lunch right here. No idea what he actually is.)

After buying our lunch, Nah Ri guided us across the road from the market to a raw fish restaurant. Apparently it's completely normal to choose your fish at the market and then bring it to a restaurant where they serve it with side dishes. You only pay for the side dishes.

When we sat down they covered our table in paper, and began laying out the spread...with a definite seafood theme. At the top-left is kelp, at the top-right are those shellfish with the pretty corkscrew shells (raw), and in the middle on the right are raw oysters. Both of us tried everything. We wavered a bit on the raw shellfish, imagining what kind of stomach bugs might be in store for us, and even though their beachy taste left something to be desired, we were still glad we tried them.

Then the main course came. Korean raw fish certainly isn't all about presentation like its Japanese equivalent. The idea was to wrap some of the fish in a lettuce leaf, along with some sauce, dip it in wasabe and soy sauce, and voila! An interesting idea for a meal, but Shayne and I still prefer kalbi (same thing, except replace the fish with barbequed pork).

Thankfully our hostess brough us some soju to wash it all down with. It still weirds us out to receive the equivalent of a micky of vodka at a meal. But hey, it's Korea so what can you do?

Even though I doubt this will become one of our regular Korean meals, the experience was definitely one-of-a-kind. Plus, after so many blog entries about our boring life, we thought we should spice things up again with some local flavour. Although the flavour of this meal was a little suspect, at least we don't have to feel guilty about not having tried the seafood here yet. Check that one off the list.

Until next time,
Jo

Monday, December 25, 2006

A Child's Christmas in Ulsan

Greetings

Welcome to the final Shayne and Jo Christmas post for the 2006 year. It's been a pretty unique holiday experience over here thus far and we wanted to share how our actual Christmas day unfolded with you.

It hardly ever snows in Ulsan, so imagine our surprise when we awoke on the 25th and discovered that Mother Nature had blessed us with a magical coat of fresh powder and a tranquil-like setting straight from a Robert Bateman painting. Why here, take a look at the photo I captured from our very own living room window:





Ahhh, just beautiful isn't it?

Sigh, I wish that was the case. I think Mother Nature got drunk and took the night off. Because when we woke up the sun was shining, the snow was nowhere to be found, and the only thing peaceful about the situation was that at least we weren't experiencing yet another typhoon.



This is the actual view from our window on Christmas morning. I would have traded a week's worth of kimchi for a single snowflake.

When I was a child I used to annoy my entire family (except for my sister, Sheri, who was my partner in crime) by waking up at 4:30AM and begging to open all of the presents. These days I'm a little more chill and I think Jo and I rolled out of bed around 11 AM or so. Except, of course, for the brief interlude where my mother extracted some revenge by waking us up at 6:30 AM to wish us a Merry Christmas. It wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't result in Jo whining about my family and her need for beauty sleep for a good hour or so (true story).



I have to say that this year we were totally spoiled. If I had known that moving across the ocean would have meant so many great gifts I would have left years ago.



My sister Sheri knows that I have a deep love of literature and sent me one of my favorite peer-reviewed periodicals: The Modern Journal of Americanus Teenagus Studious.




...Or in layman's terms, an Archie comic book. Sheri is probably the only person who would have thought to send me one of these and it made my day. I learned a lot from Archies as a kid: how to ask out women, how to fight off cads, and how to disarm nuclear warheads.

Speaking of comic books, Jo's mom sent her a collection of one of our favorites: For Better or For Worse - The Silver Collection.





Jo's still trying her best at learning to read, but in the meantime I try and read her one of the strips everyday. She's up to the letter G though, and we expect that by September she'll have mastered the whole alphabet.


The string of great books/comics continued as I opened the following (as modeled by my lovely assistant):


Jo's mom got me a copy of Jack Layton's new book and I can't wait to read it. It was actually one of my favorite gifts and I don't really have anything funny to say about it. So let's move on shall we?


Jo's brother Bryn sent us one of the greatest literary collections of all time. Surely the BR ranks up there with any work by Tolstoy or Steinbeck or Johnson. Not sure what the BR is? Then take a look at my new one as I admire it in its natural habitat.



The Bathroom Reader series has been shaping great minds for over twenty years, and I look forward to spending a little quality time with mine in the future.

One of the coolest gifts that I received was the Hitchcock collection that my friend Jason got me. It's nine discs long, includes a majority of his greatest hits, and is easily one of the nicest things that anyone has ever bought me. Now I remember why we've been friends since grade nine. Rightfully so, the collection has found its new home beside our other treasures (our golden pig, snow globe, and Clinton biography) .



It was a good year for movies as we received a tonne from my mom as well. She managed to get us about a dozen great movies. I was really surprised as my mom's taste can be a little out there. I'm not joking at all when I tell you that once when I was young she went to the video store and rented a Richard Simmons video for my sisters and I to watch. Maybe she was just telling us to lose a little weight, but that was the last time she ever picked a video. :)

(Author's note: we received a lot of gifts, but had to make some editorial decisions and for brevity's sake, some presents had to be cut from the blog.)


This shot actually has nothing to do with Christmas. We just live like pigs.

Speaking of pigs...we couldn't find a turkey and had to make due with a chicken (yeah I have no idea how that relates to pigs either).


This little fellow is Simon and although the second year university student version of me would beat the new me up, he was rather tasty.


We managed to have a great dinner that included mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable medley, stuffing, cranberry sauce and Simon (whom we roasted).

(If you look closely you will see that Simon bares a striking resemblance to Ron Jeremy)

Here's a shot of Jo sitting at the table just before we ate. Thanks to some generous relatives and my trip to Canada we were able to get almost everything we wanted for the meal. Sure, Martha Stewart would never approved of wine in martini glasses, or plastic plates, or canned cranberries, but it's Ulsan and you take what you can get (besides f$#! Martha Stewart; she's no Mike Holmes).

We finished off the scene by downloading one of the focal points of a Canadian Christmas: the Shaw fire log.


Nothing says Christmas like a fake fireplace. Overall Christmas was about as good as it could be being so far from our family and friends. We're definitely not going to be forgetting it anytime soon.

We want to thank everyone who sent us a card or present. We were really spoiled (thanks dad for the new camera we're about to buy) and appreciate everything more than you know.

One last time - Merry Christmas.

Cheers,

Shayne

P.S - Only 363 days until C-Day

Friday, December 22, 2006

A Very Korean Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

So we've finally made it to our whopping three day Christmas vacation. I think this is the first time that I've really missed life at university and the three week Christmas vacations I used to get. But no matter, such is life, and we've definitely made the best of it.

For the past three weeks we've been getting ready for Christmas and now it's time to just relax. The tree is trimmed, the house is decorated, the party was moderately successful and all of our shopping is done. As well, we managed to annoy dozens of children by forcing them to sing Christmas carols in English for days on end. Nothing says Christmas like 12 Korean children trying their best to master Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Check it out for yourself:




Awww, isn't that cute. They worked pretty hard and probably enjoyed singing a lot more than the usual week of workbooks and repetitive talking drills. If only we could get them to say "Christmas" rather than "Chris - a - mas".

This particular class is one of my favorites so Joanna and I threw them a little Christmas party yesterday. Except instead of turkey or apple pie we ate chips and drank the Korean version of 7-Up (Chilseng Cider).



Good times indeed. You can make out my mangled writing on the blackboard in the background. The little guys probably have better printing skills than I do.

Anyway moving on... the other day we were downtown shopping and we saw a version of the Christmas nativity scene that was unlike any that either of us had seen before. Determined to capture said item on camera we went back last night and grabbed a shot of the wonderful scene for you, our beloved readers.



It's as though they wanted to remake the classic nativity scene with cartoon characters. It reminds me of the "Buddy Christ" line from the Kevin Smith film Dogma. The virgin Mary looks like Mariah Carey and one of the wise men looks like the dude from the Burger King commercials (I'm fairly certain that it's him doing some Asian moonlighting like all of the famous actors do).

I wish we could buy a smaller version for our place. It would go great beside the three foot snow covered tree we have.

So as I mentioned before we've been working really hard to capture the Christmas spirit in a land where's its rarer than a hug in the Harper household (ba-dum-bum-boom). In order to do this we've been watching Christmas movies non-stop. We started out just watching the really good ones and now we've dipped into the bottom of the barrel. Sure things were good when we were just watching the A-list films but the it wouldn't be the same without such classic films as Ernest Saves Christmas, or A Smurf's Christmas.

We've probably watched every Christmas movie you can think of. I'm not kidding either, we have every thing from the Muppets, Tim Burton, and Disney. Hell, we have about 10 versions of a Christmas Carol (Bill Murray's Scrooged is still my favorite).

The point of mentioning this is to let you know that it's worked. We're geared up and ready for the big day. We may be thousands of km's from home and we may not have a turkey roasting in the oven, but it's Christmas and even over here it's still a pretty special time.

So to everyone who mailed us a card, left a comment on our blog, gave us a phone call, sent us an email, or mailed us a care package, thank you so much. I can't imagine how much more difficult this experience would have been without all of you and your support.

So from our tree to yours:


Merry Christmas Everyone.

Cheers

Shayne (and Jo)

P-S - One day until C-day.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

I only came here to do two things man. Kick some ass and drink some beer. Looks like we're almost out of beer. ...

Greetings

One of the major highlights of the holiday season is the Christmas Party and we've been looking forward to throwing one for months. In my mind Christmas is synonymous with bad parties, relatives who have had too much to drink, and endless hours of Jingle Bells and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer playing in the background. Being so far from home this year, traditions mean even more than usual and we were determined to let our Korean friends experience the joy of the Christmas party for the first time (Christmas is celebrated here but it means about as much as Valentine's Day does back home and is basically only for hardcore Christians and small children).

When we first began imagining our Korean Christmas party, we thought that it would be best to go all out. A few kegs, a couple live bands, and enough candy canes to stuff a few dozen reindeer.

In fact, our first plan for the party looked something like this:

Ah, the classic keg stand. When I was a child Christmas just wasn't Christmas without my mom doing the traditional keg stand. I'm getting misty eyed just thinking about it. We envisioned each of our Korean friends and co-workers doing the Keg dance Canadian-style. Then we realized a few things:
  1. At best we have ten or twelve friends in Ulsan. We simply didn't have the manpower needed to throw such an event.
  2. It probably wasn't in our best interest to have our Boss see us wasted and hanging off of a keg.
  3. We just aren't that cool anymore. Our idea of a big night now is some Star Trek and a bowl of popcorn.
Of course there was also the fact that good parties often result in things like this:



Haha, our place might not be Trump Plaza, but the last thing it needs is a dozen Ex-Pats getting all riled up and knocking a few holes in the concrete walls.

So we switched gears from an"Animal House" style party and started thinking of having a "grade nine" style party. A PCP party, you know - pop, chips, and parents.

Something like this:


After some consideration we realized that we didn't want to forever tarnish the good name of Canada by having Koreans think that we couldn't throw a decent party. So we decided to aim for something in the middle and have a Christmas party that had some drinks, some quality western food, and enough people to fill at least one room. We'll save the keg for next year.

We did a wack-load of baking and shopping in order to get ready for the party. It felt like we had to go all over Korea to get enough food . It was worth it though because some of our friends had never tried some of the Canadian Christmas party staples.

As you can see we had everything from cheddar cheese, to Danish butter cookies, to pretzels, to licorice, to nutz n' boltz (all rarities in Korea) and about a zillion other treats.

One of our Korean friends had never tried cheddar cheese before and thought it would be a good idea to try it with some of the herb cheese log and some Camembert all together on a cracker. Haha, the poor guy was so put off from the disgusting mix that no matter how much we coaxed him he wouldn't try any of the cheeses again. I feel bad; it was his first and last time eating cheese and somehow it's probably our fault.

The party turned out to be pretty good overall. Due to internet copyright infringement survival policies of the seventh court of Amsterdam we cannot show you any of the wild and crazy photos that we took during our party (cough, cough), but we can show you a photo of the get-to-together before it got crazy.

Several of or co-workers and friends managed to make it out despite the fact that one of the two English bars in town was throwing a Christmas party on the same night.

Half of our co-workers aren't fluent in English and all of our friends are either from Scotland or Australia, so more or less nobody could understand each other. When I wanted one of our friends from Australia to pass the chips I would simply beat my chest and shout "C-H-I-P". After the seventh or eighth attempt they would usually understand what I wanted. It was a good lesson in international relations.

The last of the partiers didn't leave until three in the morning and the Koreans seemed to enjoy themselves. They did note, however, that in Korea parties are a lot shorter because people come, get hammered, and then either pass out or leave. Something to keep in mind for next year I suppose. Good times indeed.

Cheers

Shayne

P.S. 5 days 'til C-Day.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

The Many Sides of Korea's Santa Grandfather

Even though Christmas is celebrated only one day of the year, it provides weeks of material for keeping ESL classes easily entertained. Now don't take this to mean that we've abused the jolly holiday to escape the monotony of repeating phrases and marking workbooks. No no - it's all about the kids....*cough cough*

With the festive season on our minds, we decided to let the students stretch their artistic abilities and draw their own representations of Old Saint Nick....in Korea, Santa Har-ah-bo-jzee (Grandfather). And now, like the proud parents of 150 Korean children, we bring you some of the more interesting pieces; from our refrigerator, to your monitors:

Most of the kids went the traditional route with a fat, red-clothed Santa, Rudolph, snowmen, and Christmas trees. We're not going to show you those. Not that some of them weren't really well done, but well, who wants to look at 3 dozen Santa pics with nothing to chuckle about? I know I don't. Anyways, at first glance the picture above looks fairly traditional, until you notice that Santa's been working out at the gym 6 days a week, and that Rudolph's picked up a smoking habit.

This one we included for that cutesy north-east Asia cartoon charm factor. This dude looks nothing like Santa - more like Cheech Marron in a toque. Looks like he's been having some fun like Cheech too.

This drawing is either some serious feminism, or Ah Reum would rather be drawing fashion girls than Santa Claus. Either way you've gotta love the mini skirt, knee-high boots and Sailor Moon winking action.

I'm not quite sure what the motivation behind this piece was, but I think little Min Soon was trying to suggest Santa's a little too fat. That's one thing about Korea - they hold nothing back. If you've gained a few pounds, sprout a zit, or have anything embarrassing about you that Westerners would pretend to ignore, you can be sure every Korean you meet is going to mention it. I guess Santa isn't immune to the commentary.

Here's another feminist work. Except in this one Hye Ji went even further and changed the sack of toys into a purse. At least this one's dressed age-appropriate.

Okay, just one more girl Santa - but we had to add this one just for the creep factor. I think Eun Jin might be heading down the Virginia Woolf/Sylvia Plath route. Might have to consider an intervention. Merry Christmas indeed.

Alright. I left the boys' contributions for last. As you might expect the boy students generally weren't satisfied with Cheery Chris Kringle, and so they spiced up their drawings a bit...the boyhood tradition continues.

Ah Jae Hwee. I've been watching him express his feelings for another student, You Jin, by generally terrorizing her and making her hate him. I guess he took out his angst on paper. As you can see, Santa and Rudolph are wreaking destruction and slaughtering the poor children instead of leaving them toys. Thank God I'm in Korea; in America I'd have to turn this over to the authorities.

Huh...I guess we haven't adequately taught Hyun Suk how to follow instructions. Or perhaps the Santa exercise was too much for him and he reverted to drawing his favourite cartoon character. At least he's got him standing in front of a Christmas tree...sort of.

Anyways, there you have it. Proof that kids are the same all over the world. Merry Christmas.

Jo

P.S. 8 days until C-Day.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Coming soon to the Food Network, Shayne and Jo.

Greetings,

We've spent the last few days getting ready for Christmas. The official Christmas countdown began as per usual on the first of August but now as we approach the ten day mark, the Robinson/Groves household is really aflutter with the spirit of the season.

We've been attending mass on a daily basis and our two person nativity play is almost ready to unveil to the public. Yep, there's nothing better than the pre-Christmas rush.

For us it all started with the arrival of the Christmas packages. Back home getting mail was usually a moment of great sadness, as we basically received only bills and weekly requests for donations from Jenny Kwan and Jack Layton themselves (those cads took many a penny). But here getting mail is like winning the lottery. So when we received packages from our respective parents, we felt like Bill Gates (or at least someone with a lot of Kraft Dinner and chicken noodle soup).


Here's Jo opening a box. Look as her eyes twinkle with glee at the delights she's about to receive.

Ahhh...licorice, chicken noodle soup, Christmas decorations and candy. Could you ask for anything more? Well actually you could, and we did. So without further adieu, let's cut to the star of this post....

Sweet, sweet glorious cheese sauce.

Anyway. After receiving some decorations from home (shouts out to the moms and pops) we were ready to decorate and made a day of it. Although Jo didn't appreciate the 5 hours I scheduled for carol singing and chestnut roasting, she did appreciate decorating the tree. Last weekend we took a trip to the famous Ulsan Forest, and with the help of our lumberjack friend, Kim Bum Suk, we managed to cut down one of the finest and tallest Korean trees available.

Behold! Little Charlie Brown would be proud. She's a real bute, and she'll last for a lifetime. One benefit of having a two foot tree is that it's a lot easier to put the angel on top - Shayne didn't even have to get off his butt once.

Of course, being connoisseurs of Christmas, we didn't stop with just the tree. Oh no. We also decorated the clock... yes, the clock.

Glory in all its Christmas majesty. You'll also notice that we affixed our three Christmas cards to the wall. If you're reading this and your name isn't attached to one of those cards, shame on you. Shame. However, it's not too late to send us an envelope with Christmas cash.

Nothing says Christmas like a fiber optic tree surrounded by gingerbread men (Jo's note, first off it's gingerbread people you sexist swine, and secondly I'd hardly say they're surrounding the tree).

Aside from opening packages and decorating coffee tables, clocks and trees, we've also been busy in the kitchen. We spent all day Sunday baking up a storm. Some recipes worked better than others.

Here's one that went well: the classic Robinson sugar cookies. Mmmmm...We're salivating just looking at these bad boys. One of things we're going to miss most about not being home for Christmas is our Moms' baking.


Ahhhh...one of our absolute favourite Christmas treats: nuts n' bolts. The recipe called for the mix to bake for an hour and a half, so with just a small convection-toaster oven it took about 16 hours to make one batch.

Unfortunately, to quote Brett Michaels, every rose has its thorn, and every day has its dawn, just like every cowboy sings a sad sad song. Meaning, that you can't always get what you want and you just can't quote enough popular music in your blog entries. Being without a reliable chocolate chip cookie recipe, we went to the trusty internet. Nothing on the internet is ever wrong....

Damn the internet...damn it to hell. Look at these!! I mean, look at these!!! We searched for a chocolate chip cookie recipe and instead discovered how to make fake vomit. Of course, being the geniuses that we are, it only took us three failed batches to realise that maybe the recipe was flawed. So we did what any sensible cook with a bowl full of useless cookie batter would do - we threw it all in a pan and tried to bake a cake....mmmm, cake.


Voila! From our oven to you with love. Children don't try this at home. After nearly starting a fire in our toaster oven we decided maybe we should have just thrown the whole thing out. But where's the Christmas spirit in that?

Cheers,
Shayne and Jo

P.S. Two weeks until C-Day.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Enjoy yourself - It's later than you think

Greetings

Sigh, another week and another sad blog to write. Regretably I have to announce that my stepgrandfather passed away yesterday. Gene was a great man who was always friendly to me and although we weren't super close I'm going to really miss him.

I've spent the last few hours thinking about how different his life was from my own. He was in the army when he was my age and saw more than I can even imagine. I had the pleasure to accompany him and the rest of the family to a Rememberance Day service a few years back and it was a truly moving experience. The sacrifice that his generation made often seems so far away that it it feels more like a movie than reality to me. Seeeing Gene watch the ceremony and the look on his face as he remembered his dead friends was something that I will never forget.

My favorite memory of Gene was when I was thirteen and he offered to show me some of the grappling moves that he learned in the army. I was full of the type of cockiness that only a teenager can possess and figured that he was too old to really show me so I would pretend that the moves actually hurt. Haha, within seconds I was shouting uncle and reevaulating my perceptions about the physical strength of senior citizens. I'm still not sure how someone sixty years older than me managed to "beat me up" but what can you do. :)


Here's a photo of Rick, Gene and my brother Dustin.

For those of you keeping score at home that's two family members in as many weeks. I'm kind of at a loss for words and am going to quit typing now.

Eugene Kroetsch:1922-2006

We'll miss you.

Cheers

Shayne

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

CRASHHHHH!!!

Just a short note to let you all know that (probably due to all the excitement lately) our computer has melted, and that our blog entries may be more sporadic than usual.

We'll be making semi-regular trips to the local PC Room, but due to the high levels of cigarette smoke, black lights and "la-me-on" noodle consumption, our online presense is going to suffer until we can replace our harddrive. Damn Compac Presario.

We will try to respond to all the emails and comments as soon as we can.

Cheers,
Shayne and Jo

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Dum dum da dum

Well, though most of our family and friends have already heard the news, we thought that this event was significant enough to deserve its own blog entry.

For those of you savvy enough to have guessed from the title, Shayne has popped the question, and despite my better judgment (haha), I've accepted. That's right, Shayne and I will no longer just share a URL, but a last name too!

And he didn't do too bad on the ring choice either. As you can see below, I've now got myself a nice chunk of blood-free, Canadian ice to flash around. I've also got proof that my husband-to-be (God that sounds weird!) has good taste in jewelry - which bodes well for anniversary gifts to come.


Anyways, just wanted to spread the joy. Oh yeah, if you're a hopeless romantic and you want all the gushy details of how he proposed send me an email and I'll let you know. ;)

Jo