Words from the front

Thanks to everyone for support and encouragement as we settle in to life in South Korea ... and for the following:

Notification Alert:

Due to recent cuts in employment and the rising cost of electricity,
gas, oil, as well as current market conditions, the Light at the End of
the Tunnel has been turned off.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Culture clash

One of several small trucks that do the neighbourhood rounds selling fruit and vegetables to the numerous small restaurants. This one's flogging the spicy Korean staple radish. The trucks have loudspeakers mounted on their roofs, and a looping recorded sales pitch to lure the restaurateurs out for a look-see. This one sounded like Joe Strummer barking a Korean version of This is Radio Clash.

What is fish?

LO: So far we have eaten out a lot, but in the last couple of days we've done grocery shopping and started to cook at home a bit more. Shopping for food has actually been quite exciting not only because of the language barrier but also the different kinds of foods that we didn't encounter in U.S. supermarkets. Yesterday we bought what looked like American or European leeks, but once we got home we read the small-print label: "green onions". They are about 3 feet long! Each market also has huge kimchi sections where one can buy either pre-packaged kimchi, radishes, green beans, and other vegetables in hot pepper paste, or buy it at the special counters that resemble salad bars. Their hot pepper ko ch'i is incredibly good and we have been eating a lot of it.

There is loads of fish and seafood that at times seems to be almost too fresh. In fact, today we decided to fry up some fish without even knowing what kind of fish it is or the right way to prepare it. But hey, it's all a big adventure, so if you recognize the fish in the pictures, please let us know what we had for lunch.
We have decided to use just local Korean ingredients and not continue cooking only our Euro-American meals (chicken and potatoes now on the back burner, so to speak). Tonight, Dave has figured out how to make an excellent man doo guk (dumpling soup) with some frozen dumplings, those gigantic green onions and hot peppers, with green beans in hot pepper paste as a side dish. We cheated a little bit by using some Made in Israel Kosher Telma chicken stock (thanks Mom for sending it!). It was incredible!

Mr Cab Driver

DC: Taxis are plentiful in Wonju and cheap enough that they're far too tempting. "We should get the bus, really. We need to get fit. Let's walk. Oh, there's a cab." Sure, it would be better if we knew the language so we could be more specific with the cab driver about our destinations (and to inform the boy racer who very nearly failed to bring us back from E-mart last night, after he was cut off at some lights by another cab, that he needed to chill and slow the heck down). But we have our home address detailed in Korea on a piece of paper in my wallet, and that ol' somewhat-humiliating-but-whaddya-gonna-do? tourist stand-by (y'know, like carrying a roll of toilet paper in yer back pack at all times) has helped a fair bit.
Cabs are easy to use, and can be flagged down on the street with a raised hand, even from a distance. Vacant cabs will frequently honk for your business as they approach, but if you're not interested - cuz you're on that health drive, of course - a shake of the head or a wave of the hand appears sufficient to send them on their way. The cars, all new or newish Korean-made saloons (I've seen one new VW Beetle and nice black Porsche Targa, but foreign motors seem to be a rarity), are clean and tidy, and they smell nice. And they have good-sized trunks, or boots, for your shopping. The driver will pop open the back often without the need to be asked. Mid ride, cabbies have so far not tried to engage us in conversation, nor we them. Boy racer terrorised us into silence last night. Our trips so far have been no longer than a couple of miles each and we've yet to pay more than 3,000 won - which today is exactly two U.S. dollars. Tipping, we hear, is pretty much frowned upon, officially. Still, coming from New York, it's a hard habit to break, and the guys - all men so far, no female cabbies, it seems - have appeared grateful for a 1,000 note, or any change we might have. "Kam sa hamnida!" Even a 100 won coin would probably be acceptable. We know they love us for it!

Numbers up

DC: A trip to E-Mart supermarket, where we succumbed to McDonalds for the first time since our arrival in South Korea - bulgogi burger, anyone? - and a numbers-learning session at home tonight. Il i sam sa o yuk ch'il pal ku ship. So 30 is sam ship. Three x 10. Fifty? O ship. Ta dah! A good night's work.

Trail mix

DC: First day of the semester for the prof, so I take myself off up the hill behind our apartment complex, onto a fairly challenging trail for one as unfit as me, though it quickly leads me back to some already familiar urban territory, and snack action: at Dunkin Donuts in what, for the moment, we appear to be terming the new downtown, I resume my good book and enjoy a Double Cacao Bavarian doughnut, a square-shaped chocolate-custard-filled delicacy I never came across in nine years in the Big Apple. Soo good!

Photo second from top is the Hansol apartment complex, our neighbours to the north, and as imposing as our own Dongbo Nobility buildings. There's also a snap of the GS Supermarket, which we swung through on our first night here. It's U.S./UK style with the quality, choice and reasonable prices similar to such supermarkets in those countries. The orange-fronted place is a restaurant we took a chance on for lunch on our first full day here. We've not worked out its name yet, but Korean pals know it, and say it's a decent enough spot for cheap food. We loved it, actually, even though the waitresses didn't speak English, nor, apparently, was there a menu in English. We just pointed to the photographs of meals on the wall, and they came up with two spectacular soups for us. Man du guk for me - a spicy broth with four or five very tender shrimp dumplings - and a red spicy number with beef and vegetables for the prof.

How to put your foot in it in South Korea on day one

LO: It's exactly one week since we left NYC. We have been so busy exploring the area and walking around that we have had little time to write about our arrival. So here it is..... It took us 14 hours to reach South Korea on a Korean Air 747, and after 3 movies, 2 documentaries and 3 sitcoms, we finally landed at Incheon Airport at 4.30 on Monday afternoon. University staff assistant Taek-gun welcomed us outside the baggage claim and got us and our 6 suitcases into a van. We bypassed Seoul and continued on Highway 50 straight to Wonju. What caught our attention, and surprised us, as the night fell were the red neon lit crosses adorning churches between hundreds of high-rise apartment complexes all the way to our new city. Two hours later we arrived at Dongbo Nobility, a luxury high-rise we are going to be calling home. The apartment has three bedrooms, a living room the size of our entire NYC apartment, two bathrooms, dining room/kitchen, laundry room and a balcony. Oh, and two hallways ... one where you leave your shoes, per Korean custom, and one where you actually enter the apartment. We didn't know the footwear protocol, so we strode into the apartment in our shoes, dragging our suitcases along the beautiful wooden floor, only to be politely but firmly pulled up by Taek-gun (Teckan), who diplomatically explained that entering one's home, or anyone's home in South Korea, wearing shoes is inappropriate and rude. OOPS! I get it....but we were so tired and shoes or not, we wanted to see our new home.

Luggage dropped off, Taek-gun flagged down a taxi outside our new apartment complex to take us for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in a new downtown (there is also an old one). Over soup, Taek-gun let it slip that he had missed a blind date to pick us up. We felt bad and insisted we'd be fine, that he should leave us to make our own way home. We'd find a cab. Hey, we were in town for about an hour and we were already taking cabs!

Next day, we took another one, shyly succeeding in getting the driver to take us to E-Mart, a Korean version of Costco, just a bit posher. One of my new colleagues and his wife came over that afternoon to take us shopping for basics, and could not believe when they found out that Dave and I had already ventured out by ourselves. I guess living in rough, tough ol Noo Yawk City has prepared us, so we didn't even blink at the idea of going out without understanding a word of Korean. A week later, we are already reading Korean letters!



Wonju is a modern city with loads of restaurants, bars, coffee shops and small stores. Dave's height and my curly hair are not very common here so little children like to stare at us and shout "HELLO"! We live about 15-20 minutes walk from that new downtown. It's very easy to get around the city with buses that cost about 75 cents a ride and cabs that cost less than $2 to go just about anywhere. We have already discovered a couple of great Korean soup restaurants and an old traditional food market called Nambu, housed in a single large building where numerous room-sized restaurants are crammed next to each other on the ground floor. At the entrance to each is a crate on which sits the carvings from a pig's head, including an upturned snout and porky ears. Okay, not quite for the faint of heart. Like Dave! In each of these little open-plan dining rooms is just one lady cooking and serving food from a large wok. She prepares your food from scratch. We opted for bowls of black bean sauce noodles, which included small chunks of pork...and we watched the lady actually make the noodles. The food was not only amazing but we paid just $3 for both of our meals.

Talking about food has got me hungry ... off to make dinner.