Showing posts with label chopsticks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chopsticks. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Week o' Lunches :: Day 3

Wednesdays are my favorite school-lunch day.  For some reason, the school lunch ladies out-do themselves on Wednesdays.  On Wednesdays, we have curry and rice, or fried rice, and even sometimes bimimbap!

Last Wednesday's Lunch:

picture from my school's website


A. cucumber kimchi
B. watermelon (the Koreans I eat with, swallow their watermelon seeds)
C. chicken wings in some type of sauce (have you tried to take on chicken wings with chopsticks?)
D. kimchi fried rice
E. I am not exactly sure on this soup, Google Translate called it Oil Rich Smile, which I am pretty sure I am is wrong.  I call it tofu, mushroom, and other vegetables soup in my brain.  

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Momma never....

Binks, you have failed me.  As my mother, you are to teach me how to survive in this world.  In all your teachings, you never taught me what to do when I get served this for dinner:

Yes, that is a whole entire chicken (skin, bones, everything).  One question: How do you dissect a chicken with a spoon and chopsticks?   If you are going to give me a whole chicken, at least give me a knife and a fork (please).  When my coteachers saw me taking a picture, they asked me: "Why are you taking a picture?"  I said, "I have never been served a whole chicken before."  They said, "oh it is not an entire chicken it is a teenage chicken"  Huh?  A whole chicken is a whole chicken regardless of size (in my book.)  Thankfully there was a bowl in the middle of the table to dispose of the bones.  I did a lot of watching other people and then trying to mimic them.  The soup was actually pretty good.   Just a lot of work to get to the meat (in my opinion).

Are you asking yourself, "why was Alissa eating out with her coteachers?"  I am so good at guessing what people are thinking!  Let me tell you.  One of my co-teachers is pregnant and going on maternity leave and there is a new coteacher coming to replace her.  So we went out to eat to say good bye/congratulations to the pregnant co-teacher and welcome to the new coteacher.  (Click here to see what my job is like).  I am a fan of the new co-teacher.  I asked him a question the other day and he replied with, "Yes, ma'am"  First Korean I have met to say ma'am!  You get a lot of brownie points from me if you say sir or ma'am. 

I work with three different co-teachers.  Two of them have been the same since I came to the school in August.  The third one has changed.  Many times.  This (the new one) is the fifth teacher to take the position.  Good thing I am learning to be flexible! 

After reading this post, my mom, Binks, emailed me and said that she would like pictorial proof that I tuck in my shirt.  So here you go Mom:
I was on the verge of running late, hence the half smile

This is me on the way out the door one day this week.  Several things to take note of: 1.) My shirt is indeed tucked in.  I also have a tank top on under my shirt as my school is still cold   2.) The lovely jacket I am wearing I bought here in Korea.  Guess how much it was: 6.30 (US dollars) Cha-ching!  It is missing a button, so I will be whipping out my Caravan skills to sew it back on. 3.) I need to find something to do with my hair.  It still has a little bit of wave from the perm, but not enough to look good.  If you are a hair person, let me know what I should do with it (thank you!)

Question: what do you do when you are served a whole entire chicken?  I am looking forward to the answer.

P.S. Binks, you have not failed me.  I am a functional adult able to survive in this world (:  I'll give you a sticker for it next time I see you.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Black Day



Happy Black Day!  The following days are celebrated in South Korea: 

Feb 14th - Valentine's Day (the girl buys the guy chocolate)
Mar 14th - White Day (the guy buys the girl candy)
April 14th - Black Day

On April 14th, the single people get together and eat jajangmyeon.  I love jajangmyeon!  It is delicious and cheap!  Woo-hoo!  Jajangmyeon is a hard dish to describe.  Koreans consider it Chinese food.  Basically, it is thick wheat noodles covered in a sauce.  The sauce is made from a black bean paste.  Usually this sauce has some vegetables in it too (pieces of onion and carrots) and meat maybe?  It is served hot.  I have heard that jajangmyeon in China is served cold.  
Dish of the Day!
I think the reason that Korean singles eat jajangmyeon on Black Day is because it is a comfort food.  I think it is the Korean form of mac and cheese (not really, but kinda).  

The one thing that I do not like about jajangmyeon is that it is really difficult for me to eat.  I have not mastered the chopstick method yet.  I am working on it.  It is really great that slurping noodles is okay here because I usually slurp quite a bit while eating jajangmyeon (or just take a bite and let the rest of the noodles fall back on my plate).
Believe me: you need some mad chopsticks skills!
If you ever come to Korea, you have to try jajangmyeon.  Do not try the instant stuff, go to a Korean Chinese restaurant and try the real stuff.  It fills you up and makes you feel warm and happy inside!

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Never Say Never...

1.) Let's get one thing straight: I never, in a hundred million bajillion years, ever thought I would live somewhere else besides America.  Never.  I am not one of those people "who likes to travel".  I am one of those people who like to stay home.  Furthermore, if I lived somewhere besides the good ol' USofA, I thought it would be in an orphanage in Africa.  But here I am, living 7000 miles from home.  Thank you amazing husband for suggesting that we live somewhere else.  Thank you that it is not Russia.  Thank you God for bringing me here and teaching me things that I could never have learned anywhere else.

2.) I tuck my shirt in.  I tuck my shirt into my pants.  I never thought I would do this.  Never.  I hate tucking my shirt in.  I think it looks horrible. (I wear several layers so that you can not see the tucked in layers.) But. I do not have a dryer.  My pants do not fit anymore.  Well, they fit for about 2 minutes after they come back from the dry cleaner.  sigh.  So in order to keep my pants where they are supposed to be, I now tuck in my shirts.

3.) I never thought I would actually run a marathon.  I thought it would be something that I always talked about but never did.  I neverever thought I would run a marathon in Asia (see #1 on this list).  I better get a good T-shirt out this race.  I need to proclaim my accomplishment to the general public whenever I get back to the USofA.

4.) I never thought I would actually learn how to use chopsticks well.  I can now fillet a fish with my chopsticks and spoon (they do NOT take the bones out of fish here....I got a lot of extra calcium the first few weeks we lived here).  I can use chopsticks well.  I am quite happy about this accomplishment.

5.) I now listen to instrumental music (insert me making gagging noises).  Yuck.  I like music with words all the way.  I am not a classical/baroque music type of person.  But.  I like to listen to music at work.  My office is a loud place, so if I listen to music with words, I can't hear the words.  I refuse to turn up the volume as I plan on still having my hearing when my grandchildren come to visit me (which will be in, like 60 years, right?)  So I have started listening to music without words.  I can still have the calming presence of music in my life without getting frustrated with missing the lyrics.  What is this world coming to?

6.) I never thought I would start thinking, "subject, subject marker, object, verb" before speaking a sentence. Learning Korean is one of the more interesting endeavors of my life.  I never thought I would learn Korean.  (see #1).  The more Korean I learn, the sorrier I feel for my precious kiddos who are trying to learn English.

7.) I added this in later because I forgot about it at the time.  I never thought we would drink tap water while in Korea.  We do (now).  After boiling countless pots of water for 7 months, we have begun drinking tap water.  No one has died or gotten sick.  I guess we could have started after just one month, but I was too scared.  I seriously thought we would boil water the whole time we were in Korea.  Koreans do not drink tap water, so I thought it was not safe.  It is.  end of story.

For the time being, those are the top 7  items on my "things I never thought I would do" list.  For the record, I never want to get a dog or cat inside our home.  I never want to home-school my children.  I never want my family to doubt my love for them.  I never want to tuck in my shirts again once I have a dryer.  I never want to have more kids than a mini-van can hold.  I never want to listen to instrumental music in my mini-van.  I never want to loose contact with my girls from college.  I never want to become a golfer.  I never want to stop growing closer to my sweet Lord Jesus.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Challenge #3: Order at a Korean Resturant without a Translator

Today my amazing husband took me on a date!  Can I rant for a moment please?  Why do married people never go on dates?  If you are married, set a "hot date night" part to your budget each month and go on dates!  It is worth every penny you spend (I promise).  Sometimes we go on coffee dates, which I like a lot.  Sometimes we go on dinner dates which I also like a lot.  Sometimes we go on order a pizza and have it delivered dates.  We also go on Take a Walk Dates, where we go for walks and talk (free!).  Do not talk about your children or work or stuff you talk about every day.  Ask introspective questions or talk about hypothetical situations (my personal favorite is what would room is on the fourth floor of your dream house?).  I would love to meet the person who told American culture to stop dating after you get married.  Dating is sooo much fun!  Why should getting married change that?  Do not tell me that you do not have time or money or whatever.  You can make time and you can go on free dates.  Okay I will stop ranting now.  Point of the rant: Go on a date with your spouse!

My amazing husband and I have finely honed our ordering skills when we are not with some one who can speak Korean.  Ready for this?  We point at something on the menu!  If there are pictures, then that is really helpful, if there are not pictures, we are surprised and try to enjoy whatever we get (this did backfire on us once).

The restaurant we went to today was delicious!  I had baked spaghetti and my hubby had pork cutlet (You can order bimimbap or sushi at the restaurant, but 5 months is a long time to go without baked pasta).  We both got a side of kimchi, soup, radish, and a salad (with mystery dressing).  Our meal all together was 14,00 won (so maybe 12.50 US dollars) AND  (this is a  big and) we got FREE dessert!  You have a choice between a scoop of ice cream or a cup of coffee.  We threw the no caffeine thing out the window and my amazing husband got a cup of coffee and I got the ice cream (we shared with each other).  Another great part about the restaurant is that it is about 5 minutes from our apartment!  I was so happy that we tried this restaurant out.  It was a success on all accounts.

Speaking of eating out, we eat with chopsticks here in Korea.  I had eaten with chopsticks once before coming to Korea.  It is really hard to use chopsticks at first, but be persistent.  If I can learn, you can learn.  Fun fact about Korea for the day: You will hear from every Korean that you eat with this dialogue: "Can you eat with chopsticks?"  (If you say no, they will reply) "Learning to use chopsticks will make you smarter."    I think I heard that sentence about 50 times in the first month we were here.  Everyone felt the need to tell me (and my amazing husband too!).  I do agree that different fine motor skills are utilized, but I am not sure that makes you smarter.  By Korean standards, if you are feeling a little on the not so smart side, pick up a pair of chopsticks for your next meal!