Korea Life Blog - Salmon at Sunset



Julie and I picked up some fresh salmon, lemons and bottle of French table wine in the grocery section of the Hyundai Department store across the street.



The sun sets outside the office-tel window casting the sky into picturesque beauty. It's a perfect time to put on some classical music and cook up our meal.



Without an oven, I sauteed the salmon in butter, lemon, pepper and a little wine for a quick romantic meal as the sun goes down...

On a side note the (Korean version) french bread came from Walmart. Lately we've been eating bread with dinner instead of rice. I like being able to mix "western" eating habits with Korean.

Korea Life Blog - Walmart Korea


Since we spend so much time there, thought I'd show some pictures to the folks back home of Korean Walmart. With the heat, Julie and I sometimes go there just to browse around in the humid evenings.



The entrance at night...ooh ahh. I bet you're getting excited to see what's inside.




In Korea, you're supposed to put your bag in a locker before entering the big shopping centers. I don't know why this annoys me so much but it does. Especially if I don't have any coins handy (takes a 100 won coin deposit on the key). Usually I just forget and when I'm already in the store some goonball will run up to me with his security radio in hand and force me to go back upstairs with my backpack.



Some people were telling me Walmart doesn't sell pets back in the states but it's been so long that I can't remember.



Julie has a look at some of the cats. I'm surprised they carry cats actually as the majority of Koreans dislike them (they have scary eyes!) and prefer dogs. My first Korean girlfriend was terrified of them.



This is the one I've been wanting to get. Julie says nobody wants to buy her because she's plain. I don't care about that. She has a great personality and is usually sleeping or playing with the other cats. I pet her for awhile one day. I'm just not sure living abroad as I am that it's wise to take on such a responsibility. I also don't want to support a pet shop. I'd rather just pick up a cat at a shelter. However, seeing this cat day in and day out and knowing most people won't buy her because she's not a breed has been making me think. She costs 60,000 won ($50) but we can probably get a discount. One thing though, cat food and litter is costly here because it's mostly from America.



One more shot of all the cats. At least they have something to do such as jumping around on the stairs, scratching things and playing with each other. All the dogs are kept in plain cages.



Looking at this makes me frustrated and sad. I don't believe any animal should be kept in a cage, especially birds. It's just plain torture and wrong.



An ugly looking mannequin...yikes.



The check-out area. Notice the security sensors in every lane. Seems a little excessive. Back in America there's only one main one set-up as you go out the exit. Also, you're not allowed to walk into the store through a lane in Korea. You have to go all the way past them to get in then backtrack. At least they don't have lockers on every floor at Walmart. Some marts have a check-out area on each floor and you can't bring your purchases from one floor to the other if you want to shop more. So if you have 6 bags of groceries then remember you want a pair of boxer-shorts you have to put all your groceries in your car or stuff them in a locker first. Great concept that is.



Here's where you actually walk in. You're always greeted with a smile and offered a shopping cart at least. Either that or told to put your bag in a locker.



I skipped over the second floor down because it's all basic stuff like clothes and appliances and camping gear, not much unlike back home just customized for Koreans. The third floor down, where we're heading now, is a huge grocery store quite unlike the Walmarts back home. A little ways down the wall is lined with funny photo renditions of happy Koreans shopping at Walmart.



Here it is. Always Walmart. Rolling back the prices on fruits and veggies and - kimchi.



A brilliant shot of a Korean Walmart employee checking the weight scale. Wow!



Koreans love hotdogs even more than Americans. Except, for some odd reason, ground pig lips and assholes don't really taste as good here. I miss Hoffman's brand!



There's a wide selection of homemade kimchi to choose from. Now there's something you won't see back home.



More kimchi, this time of the processed variety. It's a little more expensive to buy this way but it's already aged to perfection.



This little section is the only place you can get cold beer in the Walmart. There's another huge section of warm ones. I need to make a suggestion for them to put a cooler upstairs to appeal to the night owls since this store is 24 hours/day. They'd surely sell a lot more. It's much cheaper to buy it here but it takes forever to get all the way down three floors and then back up to buy one. Compared to back home, by the way, beer is really expensive here. It's usually sold in individual bottles such as these. A regular can of Korean beer costs around $1.50 and it's not much cheaper when you buy it in bulk. A can of America beer such as crappy Budweiser is $2.50, even here at Walmart. Those big 1.6 liter bottles on the bottom are a good deal though at 3,500 won ($2.75)...if you can drink that much.



Not sure if they sell wine in Walmart back home either. They have a huge selection here. We're going to buy a bottle tonight to have with the fresh salmon I bought at the grocery store in Hyundai Department store across the street. Yum!

While most goods are of your basic Korean variety, there are a few bonus American/ international products you don't see elsewhere. There are some new kind of Heinz beans and Spanish Olives (much better than the Marino brand you usually see) which I've gotten Julie hooked on. She never had a green olive until she met me, if you can believe it (not that I had just about any Korean food before I came here). One thing I really miss that I've never seen in Korea are salty deli-style pickles like you get in sandwich shops in America or my favorite, Clausen brand. I really miss those, as whether as other deli items such as sliced turkey breast, various cheese, hard salami and pepperoni. They carry lots of pickles, but they're all the sweet kinds.

Well there you have it. Not too exciting but I thought people who have never to Korea might enjoy seeing how we shop here.

Korea Life Blog - Greatest Warrior


I'm up early (10:30) and I'm off for an interview with the public schools. The job will be 1-6PM, 4 classes/day as an assistant to a Korean teacher. The position is part of the new government program to employ a foreigner at every school in Seoul. The pay is really good considering the short hours and includes the visa trip and a housing allowance. I should get it as they have a lot of openings and they want teachers who are in the country now with experience and degrees in English Education or ESL certificates. It's about time I do something a little more respectable than working in a kiddie hagwon. I just hope I can still use my bag of word search puzzles...

Sky Life is coming today. They just installed Satellite TV for the entire building and should stop here this afternoon to hook ours up. The deal is 150 channels for just 19,000 won/month ($16) as a package for the building.



So Julie and I went out and got this Samsung 29" flatscreen TV at Walmart last night. Not a bad deal for 350,000 won ($315). The problem was they wouldn't deliver it for a few days. Julie can't go another day without TV so we brought it home using a Walmart cart. It was pretty difficult and, well, embarrassing. The security guard in our building got a kick out of us bringing the cart and huge TV into the building and onto the elevator.



It's a beautiful day outside my window. Wow, is that what the sky looks like? I'm so used to hazy polluted looking weather. It should be a nice trip across the city. See you when I get back from the interview.

Korea Life Blog - Giant King Crabs


There's a restaurant next to our place that serves lobster and GIANT King crabs. We haven't had the nerve to eat there...not so much because of the scary looking crabs, but because of the scary looking prices. 100 grams = 6,000 won (about $6). Sounds cheap when they break the weight down that way. However, looking at the size of the crabs, that could work out to be a fortune. They must weigh 20 times that.


Julie has a look. Like me, she can't believe how big some of them are.


The alien crab lurks in the tank awaiting his fate - to be dropped in a vat of boiling water. Notice they don't clamp the claws shut. A couple of times I got freaked out when this big one started reaching over the edge of the tank. Also, the ajushi in the picture above started petting it. Smart!


Julie put her hand up for perspective. As you can see, Julie has a small hand. That was a poor attempt at humor. The Crab is just huge!

Korea Life Blog - Korea Life Blog is Back in Korea


There was some rumors circulating today about the block being lifted. James said he could view my website from work, but I thought he was yanking my chain since I was still unable to see it. I just checked again and it's true - Korea Life Blog is back! A warm welcome back to my readers in Korea. Now you can view my website directly and post comments again.

The government must have felt the heat coming off the recent articles in the paper and the coverage in the international magazine Newsweek that just came out. I'm glad I didn't go through with starting a new site as I was planning to.

Korea Life Blog - Practice Rooms Update and Bonus Arm Wrestling Pics


Well we ended up having a great time at the practice room. We played for 2 hours and the kind owner gave a full hour more as "service" - meaning for free. We were so busy jamming I barely took any pictures but here's what I did get:



As you can see, the room is identical to the pictures on the website. I half expected the old "bait and switch" but I couldn't have been more wrong. The owner was extremely nice too, accommodating our every need, even letting us use his friend's superb effect pedal set-up (not shown because I'm an idiot).



Good thing because James, smart as he says he usually is, remembered his effects processor - but not the cable to plug it in.



Several different amplifiers to choose from. James used this one mostly (or the one next to it) and I used a nice Fender on the other side of the room with the effects hooked up. Sounded really nice.



Another shot of the equipment. According to "Doug" (I'll call him Doug as I'm not sure if he wants his name posted on the internet after suffering an embarrassing and crushing defeat at arm wrestling as you will see a bit later) the drums were really good. Much better than in the practice rooms in Japan, he said. He'll be coming back to Korea when The Korea Life Bloggers take the show on the road.



These guys are multi-talented. They both could play the guitar, drums and keyboards, sing and juggle porcupines. Humbling, truly. They were in a band together years back in England and played for stadiums full of beautiful screaming women. I think that's what James said when he was drunk anyway.



Doug, who could ride a note like a sailboat gliding gently on the sea, continues to experiment with the keyboards. Mostly he played the drums.



James banging away on the drums and singing his favorite lyrics: "Hey hey we're the monkees!"

All in all a great session considering how long it's been since any of us played in a band. We played Airbag and Just by Radiohead as well as a few others I can't remember the names of. The rest of the time we just improvised - creating incredibly spontaneous and awe-inspiring noise. When it was over, there were several agents waiting outside the room with recording contracts and a stretch limo and James had to fight off the groupies with a can of spray-on chest hair he had in his guitar bag.

Later we hung around at the hotel James lives in and drank a couple of vodka-and-orange juice cocktails. I planned on taking the last train home but they had stopped running earlier than usual due to the recent strike. Met back up with the gang for a late dinner and then out to a bunch of the clubs until morning again. I'll let James cover the fascinating aspects of that on his website. There were a few problems because I was dressed in shorts and sandals (didn't plan to go out) and apparently there's a strict dress code in Hongdae these days I had no idea about.

Now for the arm wrestling match that took place at 6 or 7 in the morning back at the hotel. James has been taking protein and eating cretins, I mean Creatine (maybe both) in a hopeful attempt to become a "brick shithouse" and beat his friends up back in England next month. He and Doug decided to put his newfound strength to the test.



Doug won the first couple of times but apparently he had been cheating.




After a lot of whining on Jame's part, Sam came in to adjucate the match.




Two fearsome warriors locked in a mighty battle. Who will be the champion?




Hahahaha, chump! With a mighty roar James finishes off Doug once and for all - showing the world he really is a hero in his own mind, err, time.

Korea Life Blog - Practice Rooms





I always wondered how bands could practice in this country as most homes are apartments and houses are very close to each other. Now I know. James found a place in Hongdae (click on the picture above to see the website). It makes sense as you often see guys walking around there carrying drum sticks and guitars and other gear. The rooms look great on the site. They come in A, B, C, and D, depending on the level of equipment you want to play with. The A room is 20,000 won ($18) for an hour and D is 12,000 won. We're going to get the C room at 15,000 which has everything we could want. All you need is your guitar or bass. James plays guitar and sings, I play rhythm and lead and another guy that's visiting from Japan where he teaches will be playing the drums. Julie's going to play the bass...heh, yeah right.

I'm not sure if they have these kind of places back in the states or other countries. I know in Syracuse where I'm from they have practice rooms but you have to bring all the equipment.

Since it's out first time together I'm envisioning two hours of ear splitting raucous noise. I'll bring my camera and have an update tomorrow.

Korea Life Blog - Fireworks


I heard a bunch of loud explosions tonight. Honestly it flipped me out a little. Thanks to my mother, whenever I hear a loud noise I think of her comforting words: "Any day those North Koreans will come charging out of the mountains again and then it's over for you." Turns out it there was some kind of fireworks show going on somewhere off behind Walmart.












We have no idea what the event was but it was a pretty good show and went on for at least 15 minutes. I managed to get these decent shots from the roof. I left them as-is (sorry dial-up users) so you can click on them for full size.

Korea Life Blog - Julie's Kindergarten


I should have brought my camera but I didn't think of it until it was already there.

I made a guest appearance at Julie's Kindergarten yesterday. Her boss wants to hire a foreigner to come in once a week and teach English (with Julie). I went once for a test run and it was a raving success. With a couple of exceptions the little runts were totally adorable.

Julie called me today and told me about little "Sarah" who is now in love with me. She ran upstairs early for class and almost broke into tears when Julie said I wasn't coming today. Julie had to send her outside to calm down.

Now there's only one problem: the boss. She wants a foreigner to bolster her school's image yet at the same time she doesn't want to spend the money. I ended up working the first day for free. In fact, the boss barely said two words to me and didn't even watch a class. I didn't mind so much because it was actually fun but I'm not about to do that every week.

The good thing is all the kids in the three classes really liked me. They kept shouting "Goodbye Shawn!" as I walked down the stairs (strategically by the boss's office). Now they're in the halls crying over my absence. Hey, wouldn't you? Julie's telling all the kids to tell their parents about the "wonderful foreign teacher"...heh. We'll see what happens.

Julie was really surprised. I usually tell people how I goof-off and read the newspaper when I'm supposed to be teaching. Though I sometimes do that, I'm not always such a slacker. When I actually teach in a proper setting I get into it and make the kids laugh a lot. I was running around like Jim Carry acting like a clown and teaching English. It's just when you have so many classes it's hard to maintain that energy.