ZenKimchi AdventuresZenKimchi AdventuresLife in Korea is always an adventure. Started out in 2004 as an English teacher -- my how things are changing! 
Articles
Under the Bridge
2009-07-12 18:24:00 It all started during the rainy season in my first year in Anyang. I was going to take my usual over-the-river shortcut while walking to Beomgye when I found that the entire footpath was submerged under rushing water. The Haguicheon (Hagui River) cuts from east to west around the southern base of Gwanak Mountain and meets the Anyang River, which eventually flows into the Han River and out to the Yellow Sea while taking a dip into North Korea. I used to do a lot of rafting in my teens and early twenties and even took an innertube down some rapids in the Appalachian Mountains. It’s my favorite outdoor sport by far. I’m a water baby. So naturally, I fantasized about taking an innertube and going down the Haguicheon to see where it went. Each year passed, and I postponed it to the next year. A couple of months ago, I mentioned my fantasy in passing to Chris P. He latched on to the idea. He strived to make it a serious reality. The same day I mentioned it, h... More About: Bridge , The Bridge
Try!
2009-07-03 16:35:00 In one fell swoop–well, faster than I expected–we’ve gotten the wedding plans cemented. Eun Jeong had been researching for a while, and we went down to the folk village behind Korea House to check out their traditional Korean ceremony. It looked fun and cheesy. The one on the stage had the groom riding a horse. I want that! But my begging produced no results. Nonetheless, we’ll have a wedding in one of the little courtyards there. It’ll be open to the public. The big frustration was designating a place for food. Most Korean wedding places have restaurants and buffets. This one didn’t. The only big restaurant in the area was a 40-year-old place that was pretty famous. You could tell that it was old, as in the type of place your grandparents would eat Sunday lunch in after church. Kinda dank ’70s feel to it. I liked the Han Jang Sik option in their meal packages, but they weren’t being flexible with our schedules or...
Friday Night with Young-chol
2009-06-12 18:49:00 Just got back from a nice dinner with my friend Young -chol. We met during the Noryangjin segment of Bizarre Foods, and it’s his brother-in-law’s farm where we had that DMZ barbecue. We’d been working on finding a good night to get together for a while. Originally it was for hong-eo, the infamous fermented skate. But I think that was mostly for Evil Jennifer’s sake. Evil Jennifer has an obsession with the hong-eo. But since it looked like she wouldn’t be able to join us, Young-chol said, “I’m not too wild about fermented skate.” “I’m not either. I have develped a taste for it, but it’s not my favorite.” “How about jogae gui?” “Uh… of couse, yeah.” Jogae gui, grilled shellfish, I have said is my favorite food in the world. The perfection of nature meets the raw perfection of the Korean charcoal grill. Young-chol regularly goes to this one place with his friend, anot... More About: Night , Friday
More TV
2009-06-11 15:18:00 Man, I’ve been lazy on this blog. Well, everyone knows that Eun Jeong and I have gotten officially married, even though the actually ceremony won’t be until October. We’re still working on the–nah, we’re not really working to hard on the wedding plans. We’re too busy with other things. The podcast and other web sites are still going strongly. I’m still meeting awesome people. Eun Jeong had her American debut on Bizarre Foods. She still doesn’t comprehend what a big deal that was. I myself was featured on the Korean station KBS, which Eun Jeong thought was a big deal. We also were both on Arirang. Our lives are busy but not as stressful as before. We’re enjoying ourselves. Our bond has gotten stronger. I think we get along a lot better. We do more things together. Eun Jeong doesn’t completely understand what I do or why I do it, but with calls from KBS and such, she realizes that something special is ...
Changed my Facebook Profile
2009-03-19 13:34:00 Just something under the “Relationship Status” column. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. More About: Profile , Facebook
A Nice Walk
2009-03-12 15:44:00 Just got home. It’s the time of year for goodbyes. Ian Mc is leaving Korea Wednesday with his young family for home in Canada. He hasn’t been back in eight years. He stopped by work one last time, and the whole group, including the Korean support staff, went out to Uncle Don. I had been dying for a burrito. Since I have to get up early for what’s becoming a regular radio gig on Fridays at TBS eFM 101.3 (11:30 a.m.), I just had my burrito, two beers, and called it a night. It was raining when I left the building. My umbrella got claimed by a student in the last shower, so I stopped by the closest convenience store and asked if they had any umbrellas (in Korean). The guy went into the back room and brought out an umbrella display. I got a little cheapo. It was a perfect night. I unwrapped and opened the umbrella, rigged up my iPod, and lit one of the Cuban cigars I got from our Korean friend overseas. It was the perfect walk home. The walk took ... More About: Nice , Walk
Andong
2009-03-09 04:32:00 My new desktop image Way back in December, Roboseyo talked about making a weekend trip to Andong when he returned from China. After a few delays, a date was set for the end of February and was made into a Hub of Sparkle sanctioned outing. Eleven folks ended up going. A train was booked for early Saturday morning. I crashed at Roboseyo’s place on Friday so I could make the train easier. Friday was my 35th birthday. Rob suggested we go grab a birthday dinner. He mentioned a few places, and a Chinese lamb place stood out. We went there and entered on the second floor. The staff told us to go to the third floor, which we did and sat at a floor table. The menu was in Korean and Chinese, but we could read it easily. We knew what we wanted–lamb galbi. We got a couple of Tsingtao beers and waited for our food. And waited… Finally, some teenage boy stopped by and put some grayed charcoal in our brazier. Six small slices of frozen lamb came out. Keep...
For My Eyes Only
2009-02-22 02:36:00 As you can see, the yellow dust season has returned. Dress properly. We’re in good spirits in the ZenKimchi household, but a few things are trying to put the gray cloud over us. The exchange rate continues to worsen as I need to send money overseas for child support to–I don’t know where they are. Ex-wife has pulled another disappearing act. Hat Dave has finally been able to get a visa to work at the school. We had been trying to get him through the system for over a year, but Immigration has been too kind to us. It’s nothing to do with Dave. It’s a mix of regulations and that KBS xenophobic hit piece on foreigners. We had a little welcoming party for him at Uncle Don on Thursday. Enjoyed our burritos and fries and beer. Got home at decent hours without too much damage. Friday was Friend Lee’s birthday party at Irish Dream, so we attended. We joined a long table full of people, and Eun Jeong was the center of attention with the Korean lad... More About: Eyes
A Corporation, a Radio Station, and a Book
2009-02-15 07:53:00 Whew! Just got through a very busy week. I had something scheduled almost every day before starting work. But it’s all been quite exciting. On Tuesday, I met with the manager for the dining division of a major Korean food corporation. He’s enlisted my help in working on research for expanding one of their new restaurant concepts overseas. It looks like the beginning of a great new partnership, and I’m happy. He himself had just started at the company a couple of months ago and was surprised that all these great plans were created with no market research performed. Yeah, yeah, we’ve always suspected and complained about the notion that Koreans market to foreigners arrogantly without any consideration for what the foreigner desires–particularly in tourism and food. So you can believe that I’m mega-thrilled that this one corporation has someone in their midst who is actually trying to do the smart thing. He’s an intelligent worl... More About: Radio , Corporation , Book , Station
Bracing for the New Year
2009-02-07 12:59:00 I haven’t been posting much. Mostly because I already talk much about my week on the SeoulPodcast, so I don’t feel compelled to write it all out again. Also, a lot of stuff I want to post is stalker fodder. I have various crazy people tracking me. Each time I think I’m just being paranoid, an email will pop up from a weirdo of the past. I’m actually upbeat for 2009, even though everyone’s dreading it to be the worst year in recent memory. As long as the won doesn’t stay weak consistently and the school stays in business, I think we’re fine for the year. We have no investments to lose. We have no house to depreciate. In fact, housing prices in Korea are already starting to drop, as predicted… Oh, yeah, can’t make predictions, considering that the Korean government is arresting bloggers who make predictions. December was quite nice. I got into the Christmas spirit–constant Christmas music, homemade egg nog,... More About: New Year , Year
Trippin? #3: Grandaddy?s Birthday
2008-05-19 05:23:00 Man, it’s taken a while to write the next part. Ben and I woke up early the next morning to shove off to Decatur, Alabama, for our grandfather’s 90th birthday party–the reason for the U.S. trip. It takes a good two to three hours to get there from Atlanta, and we encountered some residual rain ... More About: Julia , Birthday , Megan , Matthew , Anita
Trippin? #2: Take Your Brother to Work Day
2008-03-31 01:33:00 My first full day in the U.S. was rainy. It was rainy when I left Seoul, and it was rainy when I arrived in America–well, with tornadoes. Rather than spend the day getting over jet lag and watching TV, I wanted to spend it at Ben’s restaurant, Franco ’s, where he’s the head chef and creator ... More About: Work , Atlanta , Brother
Trippin? #1: Arrival in the U.S.
2008-03-25 01:13:00 The six-hour layover in Tokyo finally ended. On the way to the gate, I stopped to have some ramen and a beer. I was the only non-Japanese ordering a hot meal, even though I was surrounded by Americans there, who were trying to figure out what to get but seemed timid about ordering. The flight from ... More About: Immigration
Back in Korea
2008-03-23 17:11:00 A quick note to everyone concerned: Back home. Everyone and everything is safe with only trivial snags this time. Going to bed now. More About: Korea
Sitting in Japan
2008-03-13 08:05:00 Geez! This trip, as I was afraid of, has had its little snafus–or rather, it(where is the freaking apostrophe on this Japan ese keyboard…oh there freaking apostrophe on this Japanese keyboard…oh there) it’s not been one of those trips where I can sit back, relax and just go with the flow. Eun Jeong saw me off in a ...
I?m Off!
2008-03-12 21:49:00 It’s 5:30 in the morning, and I can’t sleep. My taxi leaves at 7:00. The airport limo bus will arrive at the airport at 8:00. I’ll board my flight at 10:00. It’ll take off at 10:20. (six-hour layover in Tokyo) Then I’ll be on my way home for the first time in FOUR YEARS!! (…and one month) It’ll be ...
A Month of Anticipation
2008-03-11 01:18:00 I’ve been working on many things as of late. The writing still takes up a lot of my “free space.” I’m worried that it’s hurting the Food Journal. I notice that I’ve been sitting on posts in case I want to use them in other articles. In the meantime, I’ve been attending Korean class. I’m actually pretty good in it. It’s greatly helped my confidence. I’ve also been working on setting up the new podcast. That’ll start in a few weeks. I’m excited about that. I’ve set up the web site, made tests of Skype and the editing software, set up panelists/guests, and gotten everything hooked up with iTunes. I’m also going to go on a big trip this week. Eun Jeong will be taking over my classes while I’m gone. I’ve been training her for almost a week now. I was asked a couple of weeks ago to send a picture and resume to the Seoul government. I was a candidate to give a lecture on Kore... More About: Month
And Here is ZenKimchi’s Valentine’s Post
2008-02-15 02:49:00 Korean class was even better yesterday. I’m feeling a lot more confident. I got off the bus one station too early and booked it to class. I got there just on time. A few in our group were later than me. I sat in the front of the class so I could be the class nerd. Chris W. did the same but against the wall. Holly asked if she could have a piece of paper. I ripped one out of my free KFC notebook and asked her why. She said that Sean had forgotten his Korean notebook. I gave him my Korean notebook from Tuesday. When class started, the teacher asked us to get out our notebooks. She asked why I didn’t have a Korean notebook. I pointed, “Son Babo-ssi!” She gave me another notebook. Chris P. showed up. He was late because he had to feed his kids breakfast. He sat in the front next to me, and we competed on who could be the biggest teacher’s pet. Early on, she was correcting Chris W. and his use of banmal. He fixed himself quickly.Â... More About: Post
Scary Day
2008-02-13 15:11:00 We’ve had Market Days at school this week from over a year hiatus. This is where the kids who have been accumulating a our little school money from doing well on tests and such get to spend it on merchandise that we set up in a classroom. Chris P.’s classroom was used for that, so ... More About: Scary
I am Stupid Hand
2008-02-13 02:16:00 We started Korean classes yesterday at the community center. I didn’t expect it to be so popular. Chris, Sean and I arrived together and sat in the back of the class with the rest of the Breakfast Club. Many of us were looking forward to being in classes with a bunch of hot Vietnamese mail-order ... More About: Stupid , Hand
Met the Fam
2008-02-10 08:38:00 We did it. I met Eun Jeong’s mother, and it was a success! We had booked train tickets to Pohang (next to Gyeongju ) but were too late to book train tickets for the return home, so we got bus tickets instead. We woke up early and made it to the train station at a decent time. I ...
The Breakfast Club
2008-02-07 04:20:00 I’m getting increasingly anxious. We’re heading to Gyeongju tomorrow to meet Eun Jeong’s mother for the first time. It’ll be a short overnight trip. I hear they’re nervous too. They’ve only seen foreigners on TV. We’ve been stressing on what a good gift would be. I wanted to get ... More About: Breakfast , Lunar New Year , Club , Brats
My Baby?s Back
2008-01-20 15:47:00 This was another pretty good and interesting weekend. I was planning to go out and do some research and pics for my next magazine article. Then I figured that it was a better day to experiment in the kitchen. I made a good bit of food and freak shows. I also cleaned the ... More About: Baby , Back , Anyang , Noise
Surreal Day Part 2
2008-01-19 03:21:00 You know, it wasn’t a strange day. But it certainly wasn’t normal. It wasn’t strange that my “Monkey Class” again did horribly on their grammar quiz. What got me angry was that after all we had gone through grammar-wise, this was supposed to be easy for them. It’s the last major grammar unit in “Up and ... More About: Discipline , Surreal , Part
The Pee Pee Players
2008-01-18 04:41:00 This day is starting off on the surreal side. Woke up this morning to the people next door again power drilling for some reason. How do you say, “Shut the fuck up, people are sleeping” in Korean? The morning winter school class I started to teach while trying to not notice the boy playing with himself through ... More About: Players
A Perfect Storm of Idiocy
2008-01-17 16:46:00 A quick little example of how stupid I am… Eun Jeong has been at her mother’s in Gyeongju for the past week to recharge her batteries. I’ve been having a good ole time this week playing computer games and eating foods that I’m forbidden to eat when she’s around. I’ve even broken out my pipe (tobacco) ... More About: Storm , Perfect , Perfect Storm , Idiocy
Guns and Survivors
2008-01-11 01:32:00 The fever returned with a vengeance. This was exactly was Eun Jeong had the week before. I went to work on Friday with just a headache, and it developed into the one of the worst headaches I ever had. I violated all the sensible over-the-counter rules and took nine aspirins that day, ... More About: Guns , Podcasting , Fever , Survivors
Weird Illness
2007-12-28 02:41:00 Last night, I watched TV on the sofa and went to bed after Eun Jeong fell asleep. I noticed I had a small headache from the base of the neck, which I assumed was from my position on the sofa. I also felt colder than usual under the comforter. I then woke up in the middle ... More About: Weird , Illness
HanaTV — Saved
2007-12-26 15:49:00 Just a note that I easily figured out how we could have both basic cable and Internet TV at the same time. It wasn’t hard. Just a basic hook up. Yet the installer guy told us that it was impossible to get both to work and told us not to fiddle with it. I hadn’t gotten around to checking out the hook up until tonight, when Eun Jeong complained that she missed some of her favorite shows. Now I’m a hero.
The Christmas Post
More articles from this author:2007-12-26 03:25:00 Saturday was a nice lazy day–except for poor Eun Jeong, who was suffering from a cold/fever. I spent the day cleaning, and I made egg nog that night. It was the best tasting egg nog I had made, but it was also way thick. Chris wanted me to join everyone early Sunday morning for a pellet gun survival game. I didn’t want to wake up early, and I had a meeting at noon. I hope to join them next time. The meeting was with The Korea Herald about a new section they’re planning to add, tentatively called “Expat Life.” Even though I left at 10 o’clock for the noon meeting, I had a hard time finding the building. I always get lost in Seoul. According to my map, I could get out of exit 3 at Seoul Station. I had forgotten, though, that Seoul Station had two exits 3. I got out a little too soon. I eventually found the little curved side road where the Anglican church was and ran into the British embassy when Regina called. “We’re waiting fo... More About: Christmas , Post 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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