First home-cooked Korean meal (Americanized)

After almost 3 weeks of being in Korea, I finally gave in and decided to start eating in my apartment what most Koreans eat at home -- rice.

In the last two weeks my diet mostly included: sandwiches (with the fresh bread I'd buy from the bakery since they have no bread isle), yogurt, cereal, fruits that I can buy at home (apples, bananas, peaches, grapes), and eating out at either Korean restaurants or western culture-based restaurants.

It worked well for a while except for one big problem: All of those things are expensive.  Why?  There is no demand -- nobody here buys it.  For instance, a box of Kelloggs cereal is about $7 and the little 500 ml of milk was $3.

Since I was done at work by 6:30 tonight, I took a quick 3 block walk to the supermarket to buy some more cost-effective items.  Cooked my first batch of non-instant rice (since that doesn't exist here) and sauteed some vegetables with a teriaki sauce.  To top it off, I even bought a small package of pre-made kimchi for 90 cents (fermented cabbage) to replace the yogurt that I'd normally have (since it has more probiotics than yogurt).

To make it complete, I sat on the floor and ate on a traditional Korean table with traditional utensils -- a spoon and chop sticks.  And yes, I may be finally mastering the art of chop sticks -- I've come a long way since my first horrid attempt in 3rd grade during our "trip around the world" and continued to struggle even during college when trying to eat chinese food with them.

So long milk, cheese, bread, yogurt, cereal, and raviolis -- its been fun, but I have to enjoy other things right now.

How I Avoided Jet Lag

Despite the 14 hour difference between the midwest to South Korea, I did manage to avoid several dreadful days of jet lag.  I felt tired a bit the first few days, but because I followed some guidelines I wasn't dragging my first week of teaching.

Here is the article I wrote for Associated Content on how I avoided jet lag:

How To Avoid Jet Lag


Enjoy!

My first foreign hospital experience

As a newly hired teacher in South Korea, one requirement upon my first few weeks of arrival is to do a health check at a local hospital with my director in order to receive my immigration card and open my bank account.

The process was pretty simple, as the things that they were required to test for are the same things that people often need to be tested for in the states but the way they go about doing it is a little different.

Here are a few differences I noticed:

- I did the typical exam "get weight and height" measurement as always, which was the same except, of course, in kilograms and meters rather than pounds and inches.
- The TB (tuberculosis) test is not a skin test here.  They actually give a x-ray to test for this.  Which, in a way, is more convenient because you don't have to come back the next day but I do know of some people who tested positive on this method of testing who did not test positive with the skin test.  So how good is the validity compared to the skin test?  Its debatable.
- They do drug tests the same with a urine sample.  However, they are MUCH more laidback than how it is often done in the states.  They basically just gave me a plastic cup (no lid) and sent me to the public restroom.  They are more particular about "having enough" in the cup though that in the states.  The one thing they are mostly testing for here is marijuana (though still other drugs) because they don't want it anywhere in this country.  If you are found with any trace of it you get deported (either through the test or in public -- I've read that some testing is done at bars to be sure nobody ever has any).
- When they draw blood samples, it is done in the hallways.  No private room -- people just stand in line to get your blooddrawn.
- The doctors speak very good English (not always the nurses though).  I would have imagined this would be the case considering how strongly this country is about college graduates (and kids in general) knowing a second language.

Overall, it the hospitals feel more "laidback" and "clustered".  It is hard to explain, but during my couple hours of being there we had to bounce around to all different parts of the hospital just to get my testing done.  It didn't quite feel the same in procedure as it would doing the same thing in the states.  It also appears more crowded when you are there, though I think the reason is because they do such little and simple procedures (like blooddrawn, eye testing, hearing, weight, etc.) in the hallways or open-walled rooms.  Though, I suppose that by doing it this way everything gets done much faster.  Yes you still wait as you do in the states, but I think if I would've done ALL the stuff that I had to do in a US hospital that I did there it would've been longer than the 3 hours I did spend.  But, in the same regard, if I would've went to a hospital in the states where I had all of those tests done on the same floor/area it would've taken equally as long.  So I suppose you can argue that in the end they both equal out.

A cute cup at work...

I grabbed this cup at work the other day for some coffee and thought it was rather fitting:

Some cultural differences of South Korea

Here are some things that I have learned in my first two weeks of what is culturally common and socially accepted in South Korea:

• The people here do not learn how to drive until they have graduated high school.  The average age to start driving is 30.
• The majority of people live "vertically", meaning that most people live in apartments.  This helps with the ratio between amount of land needed with the population.
• The average age to get married is 30.  It is also common for most people to not even start dating until they are 25.  Though you will meet a few people that got married at 25, it is a minority.
• Many students leave home to live independently when they go to high school.  My directors oldest daughter, for instance, lives up in Seoul 4-5 hours away on the north side of the peninsula.
• Students also have to apply to go to the high school they want (as if it were college).  This is why education is so strongly emphasized in grade school and students go to both public and private school to learn other areas (I will explain the school system in another post).  They need to be competitive in order to go to high school and, eventually, college.
• Recycling is strongly emphasized.
• There are no garbage cans on streets.  You simply leave your garbage bag on the street corner and the truck regularly comes by and picks it up.  Cans take up too much space, time, and money and its just not necessary -- especially with a relatively large population in a small area of land.
• The weather is often cloudy, though when the sun does come out you will find some people (typically the older people) with an umbrella, long sleeves, long pants, and/or face masks.  The reason for this is because a past cultural belief was that people with a tan were considered "lower class" because they worked outside a lot.  So some older people still do this today.  I have not seen any (or very few) younger Koreans doing this.  It seems that many of the younger age group like to try to follow the western culture trends.

First Visit to Haeundae Beach in Busan

Since summer is almost over, this past weekend I visited Haeundae Beach in Busan.  The beach is a very popular tourist spot for foreigners and the city itself has a very western culture feel to it -- they have a Starbucks, Papa Johns, KFC, mexican restaurants, etc.  The beach was also filled with many Europeans on their vacations.

Here are some pictures I took from the visit:

First Few Tastes of Delicious Korean Foods

With Friday being the start of my first full weekend in Korea, I started in taking the opportunity to try out some popular foods of Gyeongju where fellow foreigners often hang out.

To start off my Friday evening, as I was walking toward the downtown area I met up with a fellow foreigner friend at Baskin Robbins

The popular the ice cream flavors you would find in any western culture baskin robbins they had (chocolate, strawberry, mint chocolate chip, etc.), but with a few extra flavors to accustom to the eastern cultures.  One of the very popular flavors of the area that I decided to try was green tea ice cream.  For anyone who has tried a green tea latte or green tea frappucino from Starbucks, this is very similar in taste.

The next stop was a popular restaurant down town.  In the common tradition with all Korean meals, we had some light meals as an appetizer prior to the larger meal.  The pink stuff in the bowl is water kimchi.  Kimchi is very popular in Korea and it is one of the healthiest foods in the world!  It is traditionally made with fermented cabbage, but there are dishes with the kimchi flavor in dishes such as this (with water and cabbage), radishes, or other vegetables.  The plate on the side gave us the option to add some garlic cloves or jalapenos to the chicken (which are VERY weak here - I can eat them straight no problem).



The main dish that is a common favorite is made of chicken and cabbage -- that they cook right in front of you!  There is also some rice cakes and other vegetables in the mix with, of course, a savory spicy sauce (as with nearly all korean dishes).

How did we eat the chicken?  Well, you either ate it straight (with chop sticks of course -- though they do hide a few forks if you need it) or you place it on a romaine lettuce leaf and eat it as a wrap.  Oh, and don't forget to break off the end piece of the lettuce leaf because (as Koreans believe) the end makes you tired so you shouldn't eat them unless you want to sleep.





**Note: I've also learned that this particular restaurant only serves this one chicken dish.  Apparently it is common in Korea to have a restaurant that only serves one main dish (that they focus on making very very well).