What to Eat?

On Friday morning, Eric took everybody to Namsan Park to walk around while I stayed home and worked on preparing Hamlet. Kennedy took her camera along, so we have evidence!

After their walk, they brought home Pizza School for lunch. Evan and Jen got their first experience with the eclectic pizza toppings we have here--sweet potato was the favorite, I think.

Afterwards, we headed over to Namdaemun to check out another outdoor market. This one is much more tourist-friendly. It has nearly anything one would want to buy in Seoul--you could spend hours perusing everything. If it wasn't so cold. I found a little shop that had some imported items I've never seen here before--like couscous. So exciting!

Earlier in the day, we had called a friend and asked for a recommendation for another Korean restaurant to try for dinner that night, since we'd already gone to our favorites. He suggested something, and it sounded easy enough, so that's what we planned on.

 

It was a short hike to get there, but we managed fine. Then, we struggled a bit with finding it. Eventually, we found the place. It turned out that it was not exactly what everyone had been expecting. No one seemed to thrilled with the idea, so we were off again to find something else.

On our long walk through town, we discussed multiple options. Eventually, we ended up settling for one of the restaurants we always settle on--foreigner friendly and warm.

We thought we were having samgyupsal, but we ended up with kalbi again. Along with the typical banchan--kimchi, radishes, a soup, and even a macaroni salad this time.

We also ordered a dolsot bibimbap--basically rice and vegetables in a hot clay pot. Jen and Evan enjoyed that along with their kalbi.

 

After dinner, the ladies took a cab home while the men took a brisk walk in the cold evening air. I am so glad that it is finally starting to warm up around here! We even had highs over 60 three days this week! What a thrill!

Hummus 101

So, hummus has been a staple in our house for years now. We love that big container that you can pick up at Costco for about five bucks. My kids have been dipping their carrot sticks in it from a very young age. But that all changed when we moved to Korea.

First of all, Costco does not carry my beloved hummus--or any hummus--yet. I have faith that they will. Secondly, garbanzo beans are hard to come by. And if you do find them, you know, it's about four dollars for a small can. Ouch.

So we've been getting our hummus fix from one of the local Turkish restaurants. Not that I'm complaining. It is probably my favorite restaurant in all of Seoul. Pita, chicken, and hummus? You can't go wrong!

But, recently I heard that you can buy cheap dry chickpeas from one of the local international markets, so I set off in search of the store and the beans. I was able to get a 5 kg bag for less than four dollars! Very exciting! My next task was to try my hand at homemade hummus.

I quickly realized that I was going to have make my own tahini to start which was an experience. Then I realized that my blender is pretty weak and making two pounds of chickpeas (after soaking for 15 hours and boiling for 3 hours) was going to take quite a while in multiple batches. But, after about a 3 hour operation (not including the boiling), I finally had some beautiful, creamy homemade hummus. I adapted this recipe to work for me.

And nothing for dinner at 5:30 on Sunday night except hummus. So, I rummaged through the fridge, took a couple of chicken breasts out of the freezer, sent Eric to the nearby bakery to pick up some delicious pitas, and by 6:30 we were having our own Mediterranean feast. Yum! (Now if only I knew what I threw into that skillet so that I could re-create it!)

Times Square, Seoul Style

Yesterday, we made the trip to Times Square. Before we left for Seoul Tower the other day, I told Eric that would be the easiest trip of our week. Everything else required multiple subway transfers, bus rides, etc. So after our completely unsuccessful trip to Seoul Tower, everything else looked a lot easier.

A couple of weeks ago, one of our friends showed me an easy way to take our little 03 neighborhood bus to get to lines 1 and 3 on the subway. Now that there are fewer transfers involved, everything seems a little closer. We were pretty excited when we discovered that Times Square is only 5 stops away on line 1. A pretty short trip, really.

So, we hopped aboard at Namyeong Station and the kids really enjoyed the ride! This portion of the line is all above ground and when we started to cross the river, Cade yelled, "It's the Han River! Mommy, we're going over the Han River!" It was pretty cute to see how excited he got about it!

Then, we arrived at the station. I'd read that we needed to go out Exit 3, so I thought this was going to be a piece of cake. No problem! Well, it turned out that Yeongdungpo Station is one of those huge subway stations. It's pretty much a mall in and of itself. Can you imagine buying your socks, bras, and underwear in the subway station? Me either, but people must do it because there is one stand after another through many of the subway stations. (We did buy Eric a pair of gloves in one the other day!)

have I mentioned it's cold here?!

Well, we went out exit 3 and didn't find a huge TV screen, any bright neon lights, or any other signs that we might have arrived at Times Square. It was cold, so we went back inside. We wandered around Lotte Mart (also connected to the subway station) while I tried to figure out if we were at the wrong station again.

Then I went back out into the station to wander around and see if I could orient myself. Finally, I decided I would give up and give in to the requests for Krispy Kreme so that the trip wouldn't be a total loss. While the kids inhaled their donuts, I decided to give it one more try by getting on the Times Square website. I finally had a better idea of what I should be looking for and was ready to head back outside.

By the time we got back outside, it was really snowing and the kids were so excited about the snow flying into their faces! We walked about half a block when we saw the sign! It was not exactly what I was looking for, but we had found it and the adventure was not a loss--we found a great place to take pictures, too!

I love that you can tell how excited she is even without seeing her face!

Times Square here in Seoul is really just a big mall. Not the most exciting thing in the world when the clothes and the shoes don't fit you. When you don't really want to spend a ton of money on things to decorate your house (by the way--did I tell you we finally hung pictures on the walls? So exciting!). When you're not hungry because you just went to Krispy Kreme for a snack. And when you aren't sure that you want to spend the money to sit through a movie with Korean subtitles.

I love the sweet expression on his face!

Eric did get me coffee at one of the five Starbucks we walked by before we headed back home. We found the underground path back to the subway station on the way back (through tons more shops), but the kids were disappointed we weren't walking in the snow. When we somehow missed our bus after getting off the subway (it stopped further down than we'd expected and the driver wasn't watching when we tried to wave to him), Kennedy was certain we needed to catch a taxi rather than waiting outside in the snow for the next bus. It sounded like a pretty good idea to us, too.

I don't know if we need to go back, but we had fun and now we can say that we've been to Korea's Times Square!

Entered in my favorite photo of January 2012 at thepapermama.com. 

Grocery Store Surprise

Yesterday, I sent Eric to the store to get a few groceries. I was making black bean burritos for dinner and wanted a couple of things to go with them. Can you guess what he bought?

**Update**

Yes, Nancy P., he bought Fuyu persimmons! He thought they were tomatoes, of course. I guess I can see where he would have made that mistake, but I thought it was pretty funny! Now I get to figure out something to make with persimmons!

The Latest

Even though I haven't been feeling 100%, I've still been determined to get out of the house and get some things checked off my list.
So yesterday, I took Kennedy to the Express Bus Terminal to check out their collection of Christmas decorations. Just like everything else, it was an experience! Aisle after aisle after aisle of various Christmas decor!

They also have fresh flowers for sale...it reminded me (just a little) of Pike Place Market with its individually owned stands and so many fresh flower bouquets.

Eventually, we even managed to find four stockings that coordinated. For now, they are hanging from the strand of lights that is hung above our sliding glass doors in the living room.

In the afternoon, we took a trip to Kim's Club to get the coat rack that we have been desperately needing. Every Korean house has a shoe closet right inside the door since you do not wear shoes in the house, but they do not have a coat closet. Cade fell asleep on the bus ride home!

This morning, I threw together another batch of cookies. I haven't been able to make it back to baking alley yet, so I had to find a recipe that didn't call for shortening. Savorysweetlife.com came through for me again, and these are delicious!

This afternoon, one of the neighbor girls watched the kids for us so that we could go shopping for their Christmas presents. It was quite the expedition as we traveled from one end of the city to the other, using taxi, subway, and bus, crossing the river and everything within a span of four hours!

We also picked up a present for me right before we stopped for lunch at Outback Steakhouse (honestly, it was the first restaurant we walked by and we hadn't been since we got here, so we figured we'd splurge today. Made it feel like a real date!).

So, I had to take pictures of our lunches with my new 50mm lens!

And, tonight while Eric is golfing, I am working on figuring out how to use it. Couldn't possibly wait until Christmas to learn. What if I missed all of the good shots?!

Insadong and Donkey Kong....err...I mean Risk

Well, the busyness of the season has finally caught up with me, and the cold that I have been trying to ignore for the last week has hit me full force. Today, in spite of our normal Sunday obligations, I am laying in bed, resting, and hoping that I will wake up feeling better tomorrow.

We've had a fun couple of days spending time with friends before they take off to spend the holidays with their families in the States. Yesterday, Eric had a few guys over to play an epic game of Risk while I spent the day shopping in Insadong with a couple of friends. Insadong is a major tourist attraction, so we spent hours going through little shops looking at jewelry, scarves, and various souvenir items to buy for relatives.

It is always interesting to see the Korean take on Christmas decorations, too.

You just never know where they're going to throw a more traditional Korean structure in amongst the sky scrapers and brick buildings.

Can you tell what this is?

I did have to pick up a pair of mittens that open up to fingerless gloves to allow myself the ability to be able to take a picture of the random things that I walk by. This is a metal rose vine "growing"up the center of the stairwell.

Yes, Koreans like to graffiti, as well. Somebody loves somebody else no matter where you are!

Do you recognize this sign?!  S-eu t-a b-u-k s-eu k-eo yo-yu-i....did that help?! Well, if not, I'm sure the green, the mermaid, and the sign on the doors helped you figure it out.

I made it back to the apartment for about 45 minutes to pick up Kennedy before we went over to another friend's for dinner. I went in, picked up dishes from every bedroom of the house, tried to clear the kitchen counter a bit from the snacks and drinks they had spread everywhere, and was happy to be leaving again! I was also extremely grateful for the rides we got from friends last night. It hasn't gotten above about 28 degrees F the last few days and that makes for pretty frigid walks!

NightLight Ministries

The other night I went to a fundraiser for one of the school's mission trips. We really offer an amazing number of different types of trips to different places around the world!
This particular fundraiser was for the trip to Bangkok, Thailand where our students help an organization called NightLight. NightLight is a company that produces jewelry made by women who are trying to get out of the the sex trade in Thailand. The women make the jewelry themselves and the profits of the company go to pay their salaries. They don't make as much money as they had on the streets, so it is a difficult ministry. It is hard to convince the women to quit their current jobs to make less money. Many of the women have been involved in traffiking and prostitution since they were very young and they have no skills, no confidence, and no one to help them escape the industry. Once they quit working on the streets, NightLight does everything that they can to help them move on with their lives and develop new skills. They teach them how to make the jewelry, they provide a daycare for their children, and they teach general life skills such as how to budget, as well as providing counseling.

Our students visit the NightLight office in Bangkok in the spring where they play with the children of the women who spend their days making jewelry, they help with the morning worship services, and they get an opportunity to see what life is like in this lifestyle that we hear so little about.
It was a very en"light"ening evening for me, and I encourage you to check out their website for more information (click on either of the links or the picture), share what you learn with others, and maybe even buy a Christmas gift or two in support of this ministry and the lives of these women.

Baking Alley

This is going to sound strange to you. And it may seem even more strange that I actually took pictures of it. But if you live in a country where baking is rare and you're from a country where baking is the norm, you run into problems. One of the other teachers in the middle school just recently started a new baking hobby (I blame this, too, on Pinterest!), and she's been feeling like she's missing some major baking necessities. So, when she heard about "Baking Alley", she did some research and we decided we would set out to find it on Saturday morning. And find it, we did. It was amazing...keep in mind that it took me weeks to find baking powder and baking soda. I had never seen liquid vanilla extract or a 9x13 baking dish. By the time I'd found measuring cups and measuring spoons you had already sent them to me (thanks again!). So, I know that this sounds weird to you. You can drive down to Target and have all of these things in your cart for in less than 30 minutes for less than 30 dollars. I remember that. But we have been in Seoul for 4 months now, and I had never seen many of these things.

This was the street we found in Dongdaemun that held all of these amazing baking tools and ingredients. There were mixers, waffle makers (that I did not spring for...I'm pretty sure they would have been near $100), more cookie cutters that I'd ever seen, parchment paper, cookie sheets, and measuring cups. We went into one store that actually had glass Pyrex measuring cups and baking dishes (this was absolutely astonishing!), a stand up cheese grater (which I did spring for), thermometers (which I also went for), cake carriers...the list goes on. The big stores even sell convection ovens because most Korean homes do not have an oven in them. That is how rarely Koreans bake!

This store had nearly any baking ingredient you could think of...sprinkles, chocolate chips, food coloring, yeast, spices, flavorings, vanilla beans and extracts, jams, pie fillings (except for pumpkin but they did have "pumpkin paste"--it sounded really liquidy and I wasn't willing to spend $5 on it if I wasn't sure how it would work). I did take a picture of this one because it was pretty and organized. Most of them were not!

There were even numerous stores where you could buy things to store and wrap your baked goods in. One store after another after another after another of baking, wrapping, and storing supplies that you cannot find anywhere else in Seoul! I was even able to find some little bottles to put my vanilla into, so that I could finally take a picture of it for you. It still has a few weeks to sit and steep, but it smells good already!

I no longer have any excuses for not baking, I guess. I'll just have to start a list now of what I'm going to make and what I need for it because the 45 minute subway trip (each direction) does not make it easy to go every time I need something. It was a 5 hour expedition for us!
If you are looking for directions to Baking Alley or want more information about the products and stores, check here.

Baby it's Cold Outside!

We got up this morning and it was 30 degrees outside. It's supposed to be 12 degrees cooler today than it was yesterday. Nonetheless we've got things to do. So here we sit (blogging!) at the closest bus stop to our house waiting for the bus to take us to Kim's Club on a cold (sunny!) Sunday morning in Seoul.