In Korea "rock, scissors, paper" is a popular choosing game. Sometimes I see kids--or lately even a kid and her father--playing the game while going up steps: the winner advances while the loser stays on the same step.
We use "rsp" a lot in classes, as kids enjoy it and it is convenient, if noisy. However, I remember some of the longer, more drawn-out, choosing games of my childhood.
For example, there was this one:
"My mother and your mother were hanging up their clothes; my mother socked your mother in the nose; what color was her blood? G-r-e-e-n spells green and you are 'it'."
A bit gruesome, but I suppose that was a part of the attraction.
Then there was:
"Eenie meenie minee moe, what color was the tiger's toe? If it was 'r-e-d' you are not 'it'!"
There were variations on each game, so they were never boring . . .
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Sunday, 8 April 2012
Easter Lunch Gathering
Yesterday, Saturday, I took the train (actually, two trains and a bus and a taxi) down to Pyeongtaek to visit some friends who are part of the American military base there (well, he is; she's a Kiwi mom married to him). They had invited me, along with some other friends of theirs, for an Easter lunch, so I got to meet some new people, visit old friends, and eat some great food. Nice!
Monday, 2 April 2012
Bibimbap
One of Korea's national food dishes is bibimbap (비빔밥), a bowl of rice layered with vegetables and a spoonful of spicy red pepper sauce on top. (bim, 빔 = spicy, 밥 = rice).
It is a nice mixture and can be a healthy meal.
Usually eaten in a lunch restaurant for about $5, here are a few pics of a "take-out" version of bibimbap, bought at a local supermarket.
You need to microwave the rice for two (2) minutes to reheat it:
The vegetables don't need cooking, though they may need a bit of dicing with scissors
And then everything gets mixed together. Often a fried egg is planed on top, but I didn't do that as I have been eating hard-boiled eggs in my salads.
Delicious!
It is a nice mixture and can be a healthy meal.
Usually eaten in a lunch restaurant for about $5, here are a few pics of a "take-out" version of bibimbap, bought at a local supermarket.
You need to microwave the rice for two (2) minutes to reheat it:
The vegetables don't need cooking, though they may need a bit of dicing with scissors
And then everything gets mixed together. Often a fried egg is planed on top, but I didn't do that as I have been eating hard-boiled eggs in my salads.
Delicious!
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Going to the Doctor
I was sick last week.
After putting up with it for a few days, I started losing sleep and coughing up phlegm. That's when I knew I needed to go see a doctor.
The last time I went to a doctor was over 2 years ago, so I was curious to see what--if anything--had changed about the experience in Korea.
I walked over to the building I used to live in, since it has a small variety of medical clinics on the 4th floor.
The medical office where I had gone before was empty, which alarmed me for a minute as I was feeling bad and didn't want to go looking around for another office. However, on the same floor I found an E.N.T. office (ear, nose, and throat), just what I needed.
The woman at the reception desk (maybe the doctor's wife?) spoke some English, and asked me for my medical insurance card, which I gave to her along with my foreigner's i.d. She then asked me to wait, though that only lasted for 5 minutes as the office wasn't busy.
I was ushered by a nurse into a side diagnostic area, where the doctor was putting on a facial mask. After being sat in a chair that reminded me of a dentist's office, the doctor started rattling away in Korean.
I apologized for my lack of language skills, and he smoothly switched to English; though he had to think about what he said, his English was quite good.
He asked me what was wrong, and I told him I had had a fever and was plagued with some body aches and pains, but the main thing was that I had developed a cough and was congested. I had also been experiencing some allergy problems from the changing spring weather (and/or yellow dust from China).
The doctor listened to my chest breathing and then--a first for me--inserted a stick-like camera into my nasal passages to check them out. He showed me the mucus build-up and told me that I needed a round of antibiotics (which I knew and was what I wanted to hear; since I used to have to wrestle a bit with American doctors to get antibiotics, I am always worried that I will have the same problem in Korea, though that has never happened).
He typed the prescription into a computer as he was talking to me, and told me about the pills he was going to prescribe, that I would need to return in 5 days for another visit, and that, before I left, he was going to have the nurse perform a saline rinse.
I had never had a saline rinse before, so I was curious. Basically, the nurse sat me down over a sink and plugged a hose into one nostril. She flipped a switch and a light stream of saline went into one nostril, came out the other, and flushed into the sink. Then she switched to the other nostril. It was quick, only a minute or two.
So, ten minutes later, I was back at the front desk, where I paid the equivalent of $6.00 and was given the printed prescription.
I then headed next door, literally speaking; on the same 4th floor, next to the doctor's office, there is a pharmacy the fills the prescriptions for all of the clinics there. I had to wait about ten minutes to get my prescription filled, and then a pharmacist explained to me, in English, about the medicine. I got antibiotics, a digestive aid, and pain medication (4 different pills). 5 days worth. Total cost = $6.
An interesting thing about Korean prescriptions is that they are usually packaged at the pharmacy into individual dosage packets
That makes taking the medicine easy, but clearly such a practice would never be accepted in the U.S. as each individual pill is not documented (sometimes you can have 4-5 pills in the dosage packets), the packets are obviously not childproof, etc.
So, I saw a doctor and got my medicine, fast and easy, for a total cost of $12.
If I wasn't on the national health plan (which I co-pay $80 a month for), the visit would have cost more, but probably not more than $10.
I go back to see the doctor in two days, and I will probably have to pay close to the same amount again.
No problem there. I'm feeling better and I like the way the Korean system works.
After putting up with it for a few days, I started losing sleep and coughing up phlegm. That's when I knew I needed to go see a doctor.
The last time I went to a doctor was over 2 years ago, so I was curious to see what--if anything--had changed about the experience in Korea.
I walked over to the building I used to live in, since it has a small variety of medical clinics on the 4th floor.
The medical office where I had gone before was empty, which alarmed me for a minute as I was feeling bad and didn't want to go looking around for another office. However, on the same floor I found an E.N.T. office (ear, nose, and throat), just what I needed.
The woman at the reception desk (maybe the doctor's wife?) spoke some English, and asked me for my medical insurance card, which I gave to her along with my foreigner's i.d. She then asked me to wait, though that only lasted for 5 minutes as the office wasn't busy.
I was ushered by a nurse into a side diagnostic area, where the doctor was putting on a facial mask. After being sat in a chair that reminded me of a dentist's office, the doctor started rattling away in Korean.
I apologized for my lack of language skills, and he smoothly switched to English; though he had to think about what he said, his English was quite good.
He asked me what was wrong, and I told him I had had a fever and was plagued with some body aches and pains, but the main thing was that I had developed a cough and was congested. I had also been experiencing some allergy problems from the changing spring weather (and/or yellow dust from China).
The doctor listened to my chest breathing and then--a first for me--inserted a stick-like camera into my nasal passages to check them out. He showed me the mucus build-up and told me that I needed a round of antibiotics (which I knew and was what I wanted to hear; since I used to have to wrestle a bit with American doctors to get antibiotics, I am always worried that I will have the same problem in Korea, though that has never happened).
He typed the prescription into a computer as he was talking to me, and told me about the pills he was going to prescribe, that I would need to return in 5 days for another visit, and that, before I left, he was going to have the nurse perform a saline rinse.
I had never had a saline rinse before, so I was curious. Basically, the nurse sat me down over a sink and plugged a hose into one nostril. She flipped a switch and a light stream of saline went into one nostril, came out the other, and flushed into the sink. Then she switched to the other nostril. It was quick, only a minute or two.
So, ten minutes later, I was back at the front desk, where I paid the equivalent of $6.00 and was given the printed prescription.
I then headed next door, literally speaking; on the same 4th floor, next to the doctor's office, there is a pharmacy the fills the prescriptions for all of the clinics there. I had to wait about ten minutes to get my prescription filled, and then a pharmacist explained to me, in English, about the medicine. I got antibiotics, a digestive aid, and pain medication (4 different pills). 5 days worth. Total cost = $6.
An interesting thing about Korean prescriptions is that they are usually packaged at the pharmacy into individual dosage packets
That makes taking the medicine easy, but clearly such a practice would never be accepted in the U.S. as each individual pill is not documented (sometimes you can have 4-5 pills in the dosage packets), the packets are obviously not childproof, etc.
So, I saw a doctor and got my medicine, fast and easy, for a total cost of $12.
If I wasn't on the national health plan (which I co-pay $80 a month for), the visit would have cost more, but probably not more than $10.
I go back to see the doctor in two days, and I will probably have to pay close to the same amount again.
No problem there. I'm feeling better and I like the way the Korean system works.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
A Good Healthy Brunch
Every Friday when I go to our neighborhood market, I buy some fresh, raw tofu . . . I have come to love it and hope that I will always be able to eat it:
I store it in a tupperware-type container filled with water, and cut some off as I need it.
Tofu is so versatile: Sometimes I heat it up and put pasta sauce or pesto on it, or I put some in my salads, or I add it to soups.
This morning I am having a special treat, as I went into Seoul Thursday night to go to the foreign food store: tofu with hummus (and black pepper and sesame seeds)--delicious!
I store it in a tupperware-type container filled with water, and cut some off as I need it.
Tofu is so versatile: Sometimes I heat it up and put pasta sauce or pesto on it, or I put some in my salads, or I add it to soups.
This morning I am having a special treat, as I went into Seoul Thursday night to go to the foreign food store: tofu with hummus (and black pepper and sesame seeds)--delicious!
The Crosswalk
Walking to work yesterday, as happens everyday, I came to this intersection:
As you can see, I have to go across the intersection and under the elevated train tracks (just east of where I live the train ventures underground and becomes part of the Seoul subway system). It's not a long walk, just 12 minutes or so.
Yesterday, as happens almost everyday, I was waiting on the little "island" in the picture for the light to change and the "green man" to pop up. Since I have walked this route hundreds of times, I know the lights,
and I know when the signals are about to change.
Just before they were due to change, the cars stopped flowing; there was no oncoming traffic. The only cars around were a few stopped at the red light to the left, but I didn't even glance at them, since they wouldn't be able to move before the pedestrian signal had turned green, held, and then gone back to red.
So, no cars, the light was about to change, the green man was due to appear in a few seconds, and there were no other people around.
I stepped out onto the crosswalk and started to cross the street.
That's when I heard the police siren, flipped on for a second, just to get attention.
My heart flipped in response, and my head jerked to the left: one of the cars stopped at the light of the "empty" intersection was a police car.
I kept walking but thought, "Shit! Busted! Are they going to do something about it?", for I was the only pedestrian around and was clearly jaywalking (all rationalizations aside) directly in front of officers of the law (more about that in a minute).
I played it cool and kept going, and, in the end, nothing happened.
Upon relating the incident to my foreign co-workers, a short discussion of jaywalking ensued, and it brought back memories of being newly arrived in Korea and asking other expats about the crosswalking rules here in Korea.
What became noticeable to me shortly after arriving in a smallish city in Korea was that most people strictly obeyed crosswalk signals, to the point of . . . well, let me give you an example.
A friend told me about an incident where he had to cross a street to get to a bank to use an ATM machine. There was a small group of Koreans waiting for the signal to change, but it happened that the street was under repair and so it was blocked off; the signals were working, yet there were no cars. There could be no cars. The street was blocked.
So my friend crossed with the red man flashing, went in to use the ATM, came back out, and recrossed with the red man still flashing. The group of pedestrians were still waiting for the signal to change, and may have given him a few dirty looks.
He, on the other hand, was incredulous that they would demonstrate such blind obedience to the law. He felt it was absurd that they would follow a signal meant to protect them from cars when there were no cars and could be no cars.
I have not seen that extreme of a situation, but I have been standing at an active intersection without traffic, and I have felt the need to make a decision about whether to follow the letter of the law or whether to follow common sense.
Where I live there seem to be primarily two groups of people: those who seem to be in a hurry and will jaywalk, and those who obey the signal.
If I am at a crosswalk and a mother is there with her young children, and they are waiting for the signal, then I will also wait as 1) I am a teacher and want to be a positive role model for kids, and 2) I don't want to give a bad impression of foreigners.
In other situations, however, it is silly to wait for the signal. When I walk home, for example, there is a crosswalk signal that is improperly timed, and turns red when it is still safe to walk, as the perpendicular traffic has not ceased. So I usually go ahead and cross, but, again, not if I think there might be some negative influences or perceptions.
I could go just down the street, however, to the bus stop, where there is no intersection and no crosswalk, and cross when other people due, using just good sense and eyesight; out of sight of a crosswalk different rules apply since there is no real "law" to follow.
At busy intersections clearly everyone waits. At small sidestreets no one does.
The fact that many Koreans choose to--or are conditioned to--follow the law is overall a good thing, I think, and reflects what is, for the most part, a law-abiding society. Korea is generally safe and clean, more so than most cities in America, and I respect that aspect of life here.
But sometimes jaywalking is ok, though I will look out for police cars in the future.
As you can see, I have to go across the intersection and under the elevated train tracks (just east of where I live the train ventures underground and becomes part of the Seoul subway system). It's not a long walk, just 12 minutes or so.
Yesterday, as happens almost everyday, I was waiting on the little "island" in the picture for the light to change and the "green man" to pop up. Since I have walked this route hundreds of times, I know the lights,
and I know when the signals are about to change.
Just before they were due to change, the cars stopped flowing; there was no oncoming traffic. The only cars around were a few stopped at the red light to the left, but I didn't even glance at them, since they wouldn't be able to move before the pedestrian signal had turned green, held, and then gone back to red.
So, no cars, the light was about to change, the green man was due to appear in a few seconds, and there were no other people around.
I stepped out onto the crosswalk and started to cross the street.
That's when I heard the police siren, flipped on for a second, just to get attention.
My heart flipped in response, and my head jerked to the left: one of the cars stopped at the light of the "empty" intersection was a police car.
I kept walking but thought, "Shit! Busted! Are they going to do something about it?", for I was the only pedestrian around and was clearly jaywalking (all rationalizations aside) directly in front of officers of the law (more about that in a minute).
I played it cool and kept going, and, in the end, nothing happened.
Upon relating the incident to my foreign co-workers, a short discussion of jaywalking ensued, and it brought back memories of being newly arrived in Korea and asking other expats about the crosswalking rules here in Korea.
What became noticeable to me shortly after arriving in a smallish city in Korea was that most people strictly obeyed crosswalk signals, to the point of . . . well, let me give you an example.
A friend told me about an incident where he had to cross a street to get to a bank to use an ATM machine. There was a small group of Koreans waiting for the signal to change, but it happened that the street was under repair and so it was blocked off; the signals were working, yet there were no cars. There could be no cars. The street was blocked.
So my friend crossed with the red man flashing, went in to use the ATM, came back out, and recrossed with the red man still flashing. The group of pedestrians were still waiting for the signal to change, and may have given him a few dirty looks.
He, on the other hand, was incredulous that they would demonstrate such blind obedience to the law. He felt it was absurd that they would follow a signal meant to protect them from cars when there were no cars and could be no cars.
I have not seen that extreme of a situation, but I have been standing at an active intersection without traffic, and I have felt the need to make a decision about whether to follow the letter of the law or whether to follow common sense.
Where I live there seem to be primarily two groups of people: those who seem to be in a hurry and will jaywalk, and those who obey the signal.
If I am at a crosswalk and a mother is there with her young children, and they are waiting for the signal, then I will also wait as 1) I am a teacher and want to be a positive role model for kids, and 2) I don't want to give a bad impression of foreigners.
In other situations, however, it is silly to wait for the signal. When I walk home, for example, there is a crosswalk signal that is improperly timed, and turns red when it is still safe to walk, as the perpendicular traffic has not ceased. So I usually go ahead and cross, but, again, not if I think there might be some negative influences or perceptions.
I could go just down the street, however, to the bus stop, where there is no intersection and no crosswalk, and cross when other people due, using just good sense and eyesight; out of sight of a crosswalk different rules apply since there is no real "law" to follow.
At busy intersections clearly everyone waits. At small sidestreets no one does.
The fact that many Koreans choose to--or are conditioned to--follow the law is overall a good thing, I think, and reflects what is, for the most part, a law-abiding society. Korea is generally safe and clean, more so than most cities in America, and I respect that aspect of life here.
But sometimes jaywalking is ok, though I will look out for police cars in the future.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Soup Day
I don't really need to make more soup as my freezer is full of it, but I find it relaxing and it's nice to have fresh soup during the week. Also, I expect that once it warms up for summer I won't be cooking as much, so now is the time to do it.
A co-worker asked me about how I make soup; I don't follow a recipe and can't really provide one, but here is my process:)
The steps.
1) Get everything out. Make a mess. Feel overwhelmed (when I make soup, I make a lot!).
2) Get the meat simmering, along with anything else that needs extra time (beans, mushrooms, etc.)
3) Chop the vegetables.
4) Put everything in the pot (or pots--I use 2 since I make so much: some to eat, some to give away, and some to freeze).
5) Get your spices ready.
6) Add the spices and let the soup cook/simmer for a while. I think the whole cooking time should be at least 45 minutes..
7) This is the first week I have been able to find decent spinach, so I am going to add it as soon as I turn off the burners. I am also going to add some tofu to help cool the soup down.
Eat and enjoy!:)
A co-worker asked me about how I make soup; I don't follow a recipe and can't really provide one, but here is my process:)
The steps.
1) Get everything out. Make a mess. Feel overwhelmed (when I make soup, I make a lot!).
2) Get the meat simmering, along with anything else that needs extra time (beans, mushrooms, etc.)
3) Chop the vegetables.
4) Put everything in the pot (or pots--I use 2 since I make so much: some to eat, some to give away, and some to freeze).
5) Get your spices ready.
6) Add the spices and let the soup cook/simmer for a while. I think the whole cooking time should be at least 45 minutes..
7) This is the first week I have been able to find decent spinach, so I am going to add it as soon as I turn off the burners. I am also going to add some tofu to help cool the soup down.
Eat and enjoy!:)
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