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Well, everything was coming together for a great wrap up of my trip. I was scheduled to leave Tuesday (Valentine Day). Some of my friends chose to entertain me "one last time". On Friday night I met JI and SY for a delicious dinner of Galbi JJim (갈비찜), something similar to American pot-roast, but a little more spicy. Afterwards, we met CH and his wife HS, at the Makia Bar to hear the live Jazz band perform. They have added a vocalist, and everyone had a great time.

CH's Lovely Wife, HS, Modeling Hand-Made Hat 

Live Jazz Band with new Vocalist 

Saturday night, JI and his colleague DY took me to eat a new pork dish. I can't tell for sure what it was, it has been translated to me as both pork "buttocks" and "jowls". Those aren't even close on the pig. Anyway, it was great, as is often the case with new Korean food I try. After that, they took me to place featuring live rock bands. (In America I would call it a night club).

Rock Band with Woman Playing Peavey Bass 

Second Rock Band 

The events of Sunday afternoon will be a separate post in a few days. Let's pick up when SY, WB (my PD friend), and I stopped at the store for just one loaf of bread. SY wanted a receipt from the store, so she wouldn't have to pay the parking fee. While shopping, we encountered a large display of Valentine chocolates. I decided to buy some for my Stumbling Girls and Mrs. Stumbler. One of the boxes came with a free sample package of three miniature chocolate bars. We all three ate one. Just after I took my first bite, I saw some brownish-red gunk on the inside of the wrapper that didn't look like it belonged (this should have been a huge warning to me, but I just ignored it since the chocolate tasted okay).

We came home, and SY was going to cook a large meal for me. I told her I felt a little full, so she just made some soup and vegetables. I couldn't finish my soup, because by that time I was feeling a bit sick. She left after cleaning up, and my nightmare began. Without going into too much detail, I estimate I lost about 3 gallons (11 liters) fluid in 6 hours time, not including throwing up. I have been dehydrated for about 2 days, and slept almost full-time Monday and Tuesday. As a result, I had to change my return flight. Alas, the next available seat (as of today) was 21 Feb! Only today (Wednesday) have I been able to eat anything close to normal food, and I still feel quite weak. But, I can tell I'm on the upswing and getting better.

This story would have been MUCH better if could claim getting sick from raw octopus or bad kimchi, but a Hershey's bar? I'm pretty confident that it was the chocolate, because of the gunk on the wrapper, and also because SY got sick, too (but not nearly as bad as me). For some reason, WB had no problems. Well, I'd better go drink more water, and call the airline again to see if a sooner date is available.

No theme today - just some random photos from Korea.

Last night I tried my hand at cooking my favorite soup, sundubu jjigae. Due to some menu and schedule changes, I ended up with all the indgredients in my fridge. And I needed to use them or they would spoil (especially the "sundubu", which is un-formed tofu, reportedly only lasts a couple of days). No big deal, I think. I've cooked Korean food several times now, and this soup comes in a package with instructions. Well, of course they are in Korean! You should have seen me trying to translate the recipe with my dictionary. I got most of it, but had to ask one of my friends online about a few phrases. Come to think of it, a recipe in English uses some not-so-common words and phrases, too. The difficult phrases for me were putting the tofu into the water "spoon by spoon", and also adding the vegetables and other items "according to your taste". I don't have photo of the result, mainly because I was too hungry to take time to get my camera! I also ate this for breakfast this morning - this has to be my favorite Korean breakfast of all time.

Soup Seasoning Packages 

Looks Easy, Right? 

At my favorite bar, the owner has introduced a live jazz band. They play three days a week, and are really good. Here they are playing the classic Brazilian Bossa Nova hit, "The Girl from Ipanema" by Antonio Carlos Jobin.

Live Jazz Band 

Today I had an unusually long wait for the elevator, and was studying the gas meter to the nearby apartment. I was surprised how hi-tech it looked. It's been awhile, but the last time I looked closely at a meter in the USA it just had the numbers in the window. This unit has some connection to the meter, and also a servo motor connected to a shutoff valve. I guess they can read all the meters from a central location in the building. As for shutoff, I guess that may be for emergencies, like a fire (althought in that case I think it would be best to shut it off as it comes into the building). Maybe we have these meters in the USA, too. Anyway, pretty cool.

Hi-Tech Gas Meter? 

Anyone living in Korea surely is familiar with this sight - almost daily advertisements attached to your door. These are the ones I've been lazily "saving" for the past couple weeks. Any time one shows up, I just move to the inside of the door. Every once in awhile, I will show them all to CH, and he tells me the ones to throw away (usually 90% of them), and the ones we keep are usually menus for nearby take-out restaurants. Even those places for some reason keep delivering menus to us - for some of these places we must have 4 or 5 menus.

Two Weeks of Advertisements 

With credits to Jim Unger, here is my favorite Herman cartoon that I have been laughing at the past few weeks. I got Mrs. Stumbler to scan it for me (thus naming her as my accomplice in copyright violation - we'll go to jail together). It especially applies to one of my Korean friends, who told me he only likes to eat Chicken. ( if you can't read the caption clearly - it says "Chicken for breakfast, chicken for lunch, chicken for dinner, what do you expect?" )

Favorite Herman Cartoon 

Finally - I just looked out the window, and it's snowing again! Great!

I finally saw some snow this trip. Woke up to about 3 inches of snow, would be my guess.

Snow From 12th Floor 

Snow at Officetel Entrance 

Snow on Car 

Snow on Bike 

Snow on Parking Lot 

I decided to do some cooking yesterday. Since this is the Korean Lunar New Years Holiday, I cooked the traditional New Year's soup Ddok Mandu Guk. This is my second time to cook this dish, and it worked out well. You will notice some kimchi in the photo, which I bought at the store. I was surprised that I can tell this is not so good kimchi. I much prefer the kimchi that SY's mother makes. Her kimchi tastes so much better than this from Carrefour.

My Own Cooking - New Years Meal 

I was pretty full from all that food for lunch - you can see I was still working on those pear slices at dinner time. So for dinner I decided to make some kimchi fried rice. It, too, came our pretty good. And, I found a use for the SPAM. Once you slice it up and put it in the fried rice, it's pretty tasty. But, I felt a little queasy when I dumped out that quivering slab of SPAM onto the cutting board.

Dinner - Kimchi Fried Rice 

Closeup View - See the SPAM? 

This weekend is the Korean holiday of Lunar New Year. Tonight CH and HS came by to deliver some food for me. Since I had already eaten dinner, I had it instead for breakfast, although last night we ate some of the fruit they brought. I don't know what half of the foods are, but they were all good. What you see in the photo is AFTER I ate breakfast, so I'm going to get at least two meals from it, maybe three.

Check Out This Stacking Container! 

New Year Gift - An Assortment of Korean Foods 

When we finished the fruit, we played a game I bought yesterday for YS#4. It is called PISA (as in "Leaning Tower of..."?), and is a Jenga imitation. The box contains a stack 18 levels high, and the English instructions say that "expert" players can build a stack 36 layers high! There is a weird dice included in the box, but the English instructions don't tell me how to use it. I noticed that the Korean instructions explain it, but I don't know what they say. We only built it up to about 25 levels before CH lost the game, so I guess we're far from the "expert" level.

PISA - Jenga Imitation 

I have been having two mild health issues lately. My throat and sinuses have been real dry, which is not too surprising I guess in winter time. And I have a back ache in one certain part of my back. So yesterday I braved the holiday crowds at the Carrefour and got myself a humdifier and a heating pad. The humidifier has a rotating nozzle on top, which can be programmed to be still, or rotate to cover a 60, 120, 180, or 360 degree sector! It also has dizzying array of electronic controls, including an "Artifical Intelligence" mode! Last night CH explained most of the buttons to me, and I know enough to turn the thing on and get it running. CH also said that with the built-in humidity sensor, it doesn't get things drenching wet like my one at home does. The brand name/logo: "IT'S MAGIC".

Korean Humidifier, With Sensor 

Also, I bought a heating pad for my back. Actually, it is a "Mineral Stone Poltice", and according to the manufacturer's website, it is filled with "Hardwood Charcoal & Biostone". Other than it feels crunchy, it is the same as my heating pad in the USA. Well, not quite - it has an electronic timer, where you set the length of time for your heat "therapy", 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 90 minutes. Actually, this was helpful since I used it yesterday afternoon sitting on the sofa, and fell asleep. When I woke up, I noticed it had shut off after 30 minutes.

Korean Mineral Stone Poltice (Heating Pad) with Timer and Heat Control 

Here are some of the claims that the manufacturer makes:

* Intended Application of the Device
- Soothing dry heat brings comfortable relief to sore, aching muscles and joints
- Recommended for sports injuries, strains, tired muscles and relief of temporary
arthritic pain
- Delivering heat evenly among all throughout pad surface.
- Removable & Machine washable outer cloth cover.
- Moderate heat therapy for the relief of tired, aching muscles and joints.

Recently, I encountered a new Korea word "woosoo" (우수). I asked my friend CH what this word meant. He told me it was an old word, used mostly in traditional fine literature. He wanted to know where I had seen this word. Here is where I saw it:

Fine Literature 

Turns out this means something like "rain water", and this manhole cover must be for a storm drain. Anyway, we both got a big kick out of that, finding "fine literture" on a manhole cover in the street!