Dog Days of Summer

August 7, according to the Korean Farmer's Almanac, was the end of the Dog Days of Summer. It was a pretty hot summer in Korea, as everyone keeps on telling me, but I'm sure not as oppressive as the record breaking heat that everyone in the States have gone through. To mark the end of the oppressive summer heat, the Korean tradition is to eat a hot lean stew, like samgaetang (chicken ginseng soup) or bosintang (puppy stew). Yes, no joke. Some of the Koreans weren't happy with that and decided to lock themselves up in a cage.  I love that picture of the dog just chillin like he's not going to be someone's dinner tonight.

I know, I know, I'm very behind on the blog updates. Lot of things have been consuming my time.  But starting next weekend, I will be able to add some overdue articles, since I'm coming back to the U.S.!!!  I told work that I need a break and that I will be back after Labor Day when flights get cheaper. And they bought my story but I still have to keep an eye on my projects. Anyways, I can't wait to indulge in some Chipotle, crab cakes, peking duck, $10 pinot grigio bottles, and mom's cooking. I've actually become exponentially more productive after buying my plane ticket. English speakers, I can't wait to catch up with you guys!

Drought and Typhoon

Korea went through a two month drought in May and June, and finally the heavens poured open on the last day in June.  It's been raining every other day since then.

So I thought nothing of it when I looked at my Weather Channel app and saw heavy rains in the forecast, until my friend messaged me and told me that a typhoon was forecasted to hit Seoul today.  I get 'typhoon' and 'monsoon' mixed up, so just groaned thinking that the rain would never stop.  Then I Google News-ed 'korea typhoon' to get an estimate of how long the rain was going to last, and found out that typhoon was the regional equivalent of 'hurricane.'  It had a cute name: Typhoon Khanun.

Now hurricanes I am familiar with, especially after all the coverage from Hurricane Katrina and working on post-Katrina regulations.  The Koreans were freaking out and the U.S. Embassy even sent out an alert yesterday.  I immediately went to the store and bought some bottled waters and used this opportunity to try out some of the canned Korean food.  Yes, of course I also bought Spam!  The eye of the storm was supposed to hit early this morning, and it was...forgettable.  I just heard a lot of rain overnight (it helped me fall asleep) and there was no evident damage, except for the usual bad drivers during the morning commute.  Let's just say that people freaked out more about a 50 mph decreasing storm than a North Korean test rocket launch.  Me thinks that we have conflicting prorities.

Speaking of derecho and hurricanes, I attended the 1st Annual International Disaster Management Conference in Seoul.  Kind of like the World IT Show, the attendees were 99% Korean.

They had a German govie talk about his country's emergency management methods, and a Korean professor from Texas A&M who did a presentation on "System & Plan on Disaster Management Policy in the United States."  I thought it was pretty comprehensive and thorough EXCEPT for when he mentioned NIMS and said that it is used for mutual aid and assistance agreements.  Oh l'horreur!  The Koreans in attendance were only interested in the pictures from Hurricane Katrina where the civilians were protecting their property.  They were very perplexed that civilians were allowed to have guns.

They live in a densely populated penninsula (more like an island since they can't directly access Asia because of North Korea) and don't understand the concept that in the U.S., people live miles apart from each other in parts of the country and a man's got to protect his family.

Speaking of disasters, I spent an hour trying to order pizza for the office this evening.  I first was on the Pizza Hut Korea website and the payment system was such a disaster that I couldn't get them to process my order.  The problem is that the optimum browser for Korean websites is Internet Explorer.  Need I say more?  So I called the local Pizza Hut to take the order, but they said that they only accepted orders from the official delivery hotline.  So I called the official delivery hotline to take my order, but they said that they couldn't give internet discounts.  When I told them that the internet ordering wasn't working, I had to call the Pizza Hut Online Customer Service line.  She couldn't walk me through the payment option, so I lost my cool and said, "I just want to order a damn pizza!  Are you trying to run a business?  Why won't you just let me order and pay for a damn pizza?"  I think the lady got it, and she processed my order, discount and all.  But Jess, how was the pizza?  Damn delicious! How can something called "Cheesy Bites Cheese King Pizza" ever be disappointing?

China Part III - Wuxi

It looks like whenever I finally do make the move to China, I will settle in Wuxi, located 1.5 hours west of Shanghai.  Wuxi took my breath away because it's how I imagine California was during the gold rush.  Wuxi is receiving 1/5 of all Smart City investments made in China, and in case you can't understand that, it means that billions and billions of dollars are going into just ONE city every year.  Jiangsu Province, where Wuxi is located, is receiving 1/3 of all Smart City investments in China (almost $20 billion), so there's a lot of buzz.  It was pretty evident by looking at the Wuxi skyline--all I could see were cranes and new buildings going up.

The interesting thing about China is that every secondary city (i.e., any city that is not Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong) have set aside an "Economic and Technological Development Zone."  These Development Zones encourage foreign direct investment and are a separate district adjacent to the main city.  I love visiting these Development Zones because the city governments applied every textbook lessons learned from urban transportation problems by implementing green areas, 10-lane roads, solar street lamps, etc. to an area where they anticipate enormous growth.  I have removed all thoughts of associating China with "slum,"  "shady building material," and the negative connotation of "Made in China."  The highway system (especially in Jiangsu Province) rival the U.S. roads, and even more so because all road signs are in both Mandarin and English.

Side note: Although the highway system is pretty impressive, I will take a shady U.S. rest stop in the middle of the night over a Chinese one in daylight. And don't worry, even if they have a great highway system, the driving is still terrible.

After a day of meetings, I had some free time to explore Lake Tai, the third largest freshwater lake in China.  The park surrounding Lake Tai was beautiful and scenic, and I took a ferry to Sanshan Island located in the middle of the lake.  It was 36 degrees Centigrade that day (almost 97 degrees F), sunny, and humid, so I was silently melting on the top deck while spreading my arms out to get a tan.  Apparently, that just made me look more like a foreigner to the other passengers on the boat, because they were covered from head to toe in order to NOT get a tan.  I've never seen so many people use umbrellas as sun parasols in my life.

Heading to Sanshan Island

Things that would not fly in the U.S. #56: sun parasols

While in Wuxi, I was able to experience some of the local delicacies like:

• White Taihu shrimp - It is one of the "Three Whites."  Probably no more than an inch in length, the shrimp is one of the three treasures of Lake Tai. (Taihu literally means "Lake Tai" in Chinese).  I didn't eat the head or the tail, but did eat the shell.  It tasted like fatness and tenderness.

• Oil gluten - I know, it sounds disgusting.  It's actually a vegetable protein used to make a dough, then all the starch and other impurities are washed off, leaving just gluten.  Then it's shred into little bite-sized pieces, and fried in hot oil and smothered in brown sauce.  Okay, I admit, it wasn't my favorite dish.
• Spareribs - Pork ribs are cooked in cinnamon, anise, garlic, sugar, and ginger until the meat can be easily separated from the meat.  Need I say more?
• White Taihu fish - The fish is steamed and then topped with a light broth and a mixture of fresh scallions and ginger strips.  It was so fresh, tender, and delicious. (It's actually just one fish on the plate.  The chef just splits the fish laterally in such a way that it looks like there's two whole fish on the plate.)

• Xiaolongbao - In America, we call these Shanghai soup dumplings.  Although I didn't eat it in Shanghai, I was close enough to Shanghai that these were a local delicacy.  It was good, but I would have liked the ginger soy sauce to accompany the dumplings.

I don't really know what the third treasure of Lake Tai is.  Crawfish maybe, because I have a fuzzy memory of eating that before the baijiu kicked in.

Baijiu - Oh so pretty and oh so potent

World IT Show

About a month ago, I went to the World IT Show at the huge convention center, COEX.  

First of all, the name "World IT Show" was misleading because 98% of the companies present were Korean companies.  It's like Major League Baseball calling their championship games the World Series because one of the team that is able to participate is from outside the U.S.  If Montreal still had an MLB team, I would be fine with calling it the World Series because French Canadians are a different breed, but I consider Toronto and any city in Ontario to be part of the U.S., eh.

Anyways, I digress.  I have observed that Korean trade shows are funny because they open the show floor up to anyone, and not just qualified attendees/buyers.  As long as they are willing to pay 5,000 won (~$5), come right in!  It just so happened that the day that I went, every teen that lives in Seoul decided to descend on the IT show to play with the new emerging technologies.  I must've been Robespierre in my past life to be cursed with such an experience of being surrounded by a sea of pubescent teens that day.

Three halls were displaying products for the IT show.  The first two halls that I visited were pretty boring, but quickly became enjoyable because there were no teens here.  It turns out that they were all in the final hall where LG, Samsung, SK Telecomm, etc. dominated with their huge interactive displays.  It looked like they each easily spent over $1million on their interactive areas.  One of the highlights for this show was the launch of smart TVs, including LG's and Samsung's.

One of the interesting/amusing things I learnedfrom this show was the launch of Diablo 3.  I've never even heard of Diablo 1 or 2, but it's another one of Blizzard Entertainment's popular online game that Asian people obsess about.  Apparently, it launched the same week that the World IT Show was happening, so the company was giving out free tickets to to visitors to play the game for an hour at a nearby PC 'bang' (PC room).

The second amusing thing I learned is that there's a cult group of amateur photographers who show up to any show at the COEX to take pictures of the display girls.  Yeah, like equivalent to WWE girls or the Dallas Cheerleaders.  These amateur photographers spent thousands of dollars on high end DLSRs just to take pictures of certain display girls.  Papa-paparazzi.

Taxicab Dialogues (Part V) - Taxi Drivers on Strike

I hope everyone recovered from the aftermath of the storm that hit the mid-Atlantic.  I can't imagine what you guys are going through--100+ degree days and no electricity.  I'm following the news since my parents lost power and were living in the comforts of the cool basement for the past couple of days.  Thankfully, Pepco got electricity to them Sunday evening and I heard little Cleo was conserving her energy by not acting like a crazy dog for two days.

The Korean taxi drivers went on strike for a day on June 20, so it was Wear Walking Shoes Day.  The cab drivers had a list of grievances that Bloomberg covered, so I won't be repetitive here.  Thankfully, the Seoul Metro added more trains and increased the frequency, so the subway wasn't as crowded during the morning commute.  But I met some people up for dinner, so when I was on the subway at 11pm, it was crowded and I wanted to puke from the stench of all the drunk people.  Ewwww.

Actually, I didn't even know the cab drivers were going to be on strike.  I haven't really been following the Korean news, and it just so happened that I was cabbing back home the day before.  I was starving so was eating some White Cheddar Cheez-Its (not readily available to Koreans) and offered the driver some. He thanked me, and then I guess he was feeling guilty, so asked if I knew that the cabbies were going to be on strike the next day.  I told him I wasn't aware of anything, so he explained that almost all the Korean cab drivers were not going to be on the road.  But he said that he owns his taxi instead of being part of a company, so he gave me his card and said if I needed a cab the next day, he would come pick me up.  And it all started with Cheez-Its, which I think should now be called Friendship Cracker or UN Biscuit.  (I also noticed that salt and vinegar chips have the same effect.)

Speaking of foreign food, I moved into a new place in the Itaewon neighborhood over the weekend. The foreign market that I frequent is within a three minute walk, and I have access to different types of international food (even Uzbekistan and Egyptian cuisine) and street kebabs, all within walking distance. I'm closer to work and it'll save me a lot on taxi that I used to spend to go to Itaewon, my weekend playground. Win-win!

Missing in Action (Part II) - KJI's childhood

Sorry again that I haven't been posting anything lately.  I'm in between a trip to China, hosting Chinese officials in Korea, and moving to a new place in Seoul, so a *bit* overwhelmed.  I promise I will write some new blog articles about Wuxi, China (exciting!), a commentary on Chinese drivers (so bad that I was laughing everytime I was in a car), and a new Taxicab Dialogues - Drivers on strike edition.

I do have an interesting story to share.  I was at a luncheon a couple of weeks ago, and sat next to a professor who used to ride tricycles with Kim Jong Il in Pyeongyang before the Korea War started.  Alas, KJI was pulled from school because his daddy had to go answer to his Soviet puppet masters and there was this penninsular war that he was trying to start.  Well, you know I'm interesting in anything about KJI (especially him looking at things), so I obviously asked if KJI was "ronery," but nobody in the table laughed.  C'mon people, where's your sense of humor?  The correct response is obviously "...so ronery."

Korean National Museum

For Coming of Buddha Day (May 28 - paid holiday), I spent the afternoon at the Korean National Museum in Yongsan.  It is the sixth largest museum in the world and the only one that happened to be open on a Monday.

The inside of the museum is gorgeous and reminded me of the British Museum in London.

One of the rooms that left a deep impression was half of the second floor, with galleries dedicated to historical pieces donated by individual Korean donors.  Since 1945, a total of 22,091 items including archaeological artifacts, pottery, wool and metal craft pieces, stationery, paintings, and books have been donated.  These people answered a noble call to leave a legacy of the country's history.

One of the donated piece was this Roman headpiece from Sohn Kee Chung, the 1936 Berlin Olympic (aka Hitler Olympic) marathon gold medalist.  He didn't receive this headpiece until 1986 and that's because Korea was under Japanese rule in 1936.

My family friend from home, Arthur, asked me a while ago to send him pictures of Asian dragons. While I was fulfilling this mission at the museum, I fell in love with Asian dragons ("Yong"), especially the fish dragon.  Here are some of the unique pieces with Asian dragon designs.  You will also note that some are National Treasures.  Yes, Korea has designated things as National Treasures, and National Treasure Number 1 is actually Namdaemun, which partially burned down through arson a couple of years ago.

Brick with Dragon design from Baekjae Dynasty

White porcelain with openwork dragon and cloud design in underglaze cobalt blue - Joseon Dynasty 19th Century

Jar - white porcelain with dragon and cloud design in underglaze cobalt-blue - Joseon Dynasty 18-19th Century

Fish dragon shaped pitcher in celadon - Goryeo Dynasty 12th Century.  National Treasure Number 61!

Buddhist gong

Top of Buddhist bell - Goryeo period 1058.  National Treasure Number 1166.

The second thing I fell in love with at the museum are Korean Lions.  Why?  Because they look like this:

So cute and cuddly and no flowing Simba mane to speak of.  Methinks someone has never seen a lion before.

In case you're wondering, I celebrated the Coming of Buddha Day by seeing Buddha...lots and lots of them.  I always wondered why people sculpted Buddha with his eyes closed.  After seeing the difference between the Indian Buddha statues and the Korea Buddha statues, I understood.  It's not that Buddha had his eyes closed, he just was given slits for eyes.

This is the "Thinking Buddha."  Maybe it inspired Rodin to create The Thinker?

Hall of Buddha statues

China Part II - Beijing, the new Rome

My first impression of Beijing was on the plane as we were approaching the airport.  As I looked out the window and saw the immense-ness of Beijing,  I felt like a person 2,000 years ago seeing Rome for the first time, in awe about how big and expansive and developed the city is.  The enormity and magnitude of the city took my breath away, and I knew immediately that this is where I wanted to be.  It was nice to be greeted by Jeremy Lin at the airport.

We stayed in the Wangjing neighborhood near the airport, and I was treated to real Peking Duck the first evening.  Now I consider myself somewhat of a conossieur of Peking Duck.  The skin of this duck was AMAZING.  It was like eating an M&M: crispy texture but melts in your mouth, not in your hands.  I wouldn't mind never going on a diet again if I can just eat crispy duck skin everyday for the rest of my life.  My overall impression of the Beijing Peking Duck: the ones at Peking Gourmet Inn in Falls Church, VA is still the best.  It's because they have a very unique and flavorful hoisin sauce, they give you an ample amount of spring onions, they have this amazing spicy pickled peppers, and the duck is served with homemade flour wrappers.

My little friend being carved.  Check out the fast knife skills!

They carve the duck differently than at Peking Gourmet Inn.

My real purpose for going to Beijing because my uncle was going to be a guest lecturer at Tsinghua University.  My uncle's lecture was on Noise Control for Petro-Chemical Plants in China, and I think the students really enjoyed his lecture from the feedback and questions they asked in the end.

One of the posters advertising the guest lecture series.

My uncle's bio, all in Chinese.

Afterwards, our driver spent the afternoon driving us to the Olympic Bird's Nest and Tienanmen Square.  In memoriam of the 23rd anniversary of Tienanmen Square Massacre this week, here are some of the picture I took.  The square size is no joke and I can see how the Communist Government was able to roll the tanks in.  And those aren't pollution monitors: it's networked security cameras that are installed in every lightpost to prevent smelly people from opening tents and making a temporary permanent residence for the Occupy Tienanmen Square movement.

The Olympic Bird's Nest Stadium

Tienanmen Square

Monitoring cameras on every light post

The big picture of Mao at Tienanmen Gate

This area in Beijing is known as "Chinatown".  Yeah, I'm confused too.

I had some free time in the afternoon before another farewell banquet and karaoke, so I went to get my nails done.  I had an adorable Chinese boy who individually painted each nail.  It was 70 yuans (~$11).  Unbelievably cheap!

China Part I - Weihai Dreaming

June 6 is Korean Memorial Day (also known as D-Day for WWII history buffs), so no work and I finally got a breather to log my trip to China.  If you're wondering how many holiday's I've already had since arriving in Seoul two months ago, I'm wondering the same thing.  I think I've had four paid holidays: (1) Election Day, (2) May Day, (3) Coming of Buddha Day, and (4) Memorial Day.  It would've been five if Children's Day/Cinqo de Mayo fell on a weekday.  Oh well, my next holiday won't be til August 15, which is V-J Day and when Korea gained their independence from Japan in 1945.

I was in China for a business trip a couple of weeks ago.  The first leg of the trip was Weihai, which is located in the eastern part of China and is a resort town.  For a couple of days, I was going to serve as an acoustic consultant and engineer.

Apparently, the outfit was too big for me and makes me look like a blue penguin.

At first, I was told that it was a Chinese plant and I was actually looking forward to seeing anti-suicide nets and dormitories.  But it turned out to be a semiconductor plant so everything was clean and pristine and the people actually received a decent wage.

Weihai is less than an hour's flight from Incheon, the main Seoul airport.  I was expecting a rigorous and burdensome process through immigration.  Instead, it was pretty painless, except the immigration officer asks you to choose a buttons to evaluate his performance that looks like the pain scale when you go to the emergency room.

I had less than five seconds to decide if the immigration officer's performance made me: greatly satisfied, satisfied, checking time too long, or poor customer service (e.g., take out to the back and execute immediately).  I was caught off guard because who would've guessed that the Chinese were asking for feedback on their performance?  I wish I could rate TSA's performance.

The best part about this business trips was being pampered.  We stayed at the five-star Bliss International Hotel.

The indoor courtyard

Intricate furniture carved from wood in the hotel lobby

Every meal was a feast and we had a driver to take us around anywhere the whole time we were in Weihai.  I even was treated to a genuine Chinese foot massage!  I was a bit paranoid in the beginning about the Chinese monitoring me through hidden cameras and stuff in the hotel room.  Why?  Because things were a bit too suspicious.  When I was taking a shower, I wouldn't even touch the faucet handle yet the water temperature kept on changing.  I also spent the first evening looking everywhere for the hairdryer.  The next day, the housekeepers kept the hairdryer out in a place for me to find easily.  I just assumed that they were watching, so kept on repeating, "Long Live Mao!"

I was very impressed by Weihai.  Their 15 miles of coastline was covered with parks and bike paths.  After waking up in the morning after spending an evening in Weihai, I felt magically refreshed and felt some of the stuffiness of Korea evaporate.  It must be the Baijiu, my new drink of choice.

30% Wendengxue Baijiu

One of the parks adjacent to the beach area in Weihai

I love how this boat got left behind by the tide.  The people are digging for clams.

Feng Shui

Missing in Action

Happy Memorial Day and the official start of summer. Hope everyone had a great weekend through the heatwave. Monday was also a holiday in Korea, though not Memorial Day. It was "The Coming of Buddha" day, equivalent to Christmas for Christians.  There were colorful lamps hanging all around Seoul and the Buddhists celebrated by watching kung fu monk movies.

Sorry for not blogging last week. I was in China for business all week and have been overwhelmed following up with everything. In case you are wondering, I loved China and will have a couple of blog articles coming soon once I get a breather.

Taxicab Dialogues (Part IV)

I was very tired this morning and it was hot, so instead of riding the metro, I hopped in a cab hoping to get a little nap during the 40 minute drive (lots of traffic).

Taxi Driver: You're not Korean, are you?

Me: What do you think I am?

Taxi Driver: Japanese.

Me: Nope, born in Korea but just came from the U.S.

I put on my sunglasses and leaned back in the backseat -- the universal symbol of "I'm sleeping so don't bother me."

Taxi Driver: Isn't Korea great?

Me (mumble): Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Taxi Driver: You know there's a lot of distinguished Koreans all over the world.

Me: Uh huh.

Taxi Driver: The UN Secretary, Ban Ki Moon, is Korean.  And the World Bank just got a new president who is Korean and he was the president of Dartmouth College.  Even the Philippine president is dating a Korean news announcer.  They are going to get married soon.

Me: Uh huh.

Taxi Driver: Well, I guess it's not confirmed if they are dating, since the Philippine president is kind of corrupt.  But wouldn't it be great if they are dating?  Girl's Generation was in the U.S. a couple of months ago.  They performed at Johnny Carson's show!  (It was actually Letterman.)  Korean music is becoming really popular all over the world now!

Me: Uh huh.

Taxi Driver: Do you know that the World Expo started last weekend?  Can you believe that a World Expo is being held in Korea?  The last time an Expo was held in Korea was in 1993 in Daejeon.  The theme this year is on environmental and water conservaton and that's why it's being held in Yeosu.  Yeosu is such a small city and it's incredible that they are even hosting the Expo.

Me (sighing, I raise my sunglasses over my head and sit up): Yeah, well, the organizers are doing a piss poor job.  I can't believe they didn't upgrade their infrastructure.

Taxi Driver: They built a huge hotel!

Me: Yeah, great.  What is the total number of hotels now?  Four?  Do you think approximately 1,000 rooms are enough to accommodate an expected 10 million visitors in the next three months?

Taxi Driver: Well, the organizers didn't want to build too many hotels in case people didn't come back after the Expo.

Me: No one wants to go to the Expo because they can't get a hotel room.  And they didn't make it any easier for foreigners to reserve rooms.  Why do you think the international participants are pulling out?

Shades are back on and I lean back in the seat for that long awaited sleep.

BTW, I'm off to Yeosu this weekend to see the Expo.  But Jess, why are you going if you think it's going to be piss poor?  I'm old school like that and barely even got a hotel room (it's 23km from city center).  Think back to how amazing it would have been to see the Crystal Palace in 1851 (London), Eiffle Tower in 1900 (Paris), the Space Needle in 1962 (Seattle), etc.

I want to be a part of it.

Fee-Fi-Fo-Food

Yesterday, I had this amazing fried squid off the street.  This cart is only open in the afternoons, but Rosa's boyfriend begged them to stay open til 9pm because he was bringing a guest who came all the way from the far side of the U.S. to taste their fried squid (a.k.a., Me).  Did it live up to the hype?  YES!  They took fresh squid and dipped it in a doughy pancake-like batter, and it was perfect coming out of the fryer.  There was a 7-11 next door, so we bought couple bottles of soju and drank it with the fried squid...right in front of the cart.

I've had some memorable meals in Seoul, and the best meal, if you haven't already guessed, was the Pork Curry Tonkatsu.  If the location wasn't so far away from my house, I would probably eat it everyday.  It is delicious and perfect.

Other memorable meals:
- Soondae (blood sausauge) stew - Even when I was going through my "I can't eat anymore Korean food or kimchi" stage, the soup was so delicious and good.  I need to jedi mind trick the co-workers to go there for lunch.
- Burger Project at the COEX Hyundai Department Store (there are multiple Hyundai Department Stores in Seoul) - The burger is so flavorful and juicy, and even better with a side of blue cheese steak fries gratin.
- Mandoo (dumplings) - It's my food obsession in Korea.  I love the ones that are served pan-fried.  I feel like I'm living my own version of Old Boy because I eat mandoo a couple of times a week when I can't decide what to eat for dinner.  I currently have three bags of frozen mandoo in the freezer.

- Grilled pork bellies - Korean BBQ places are everywhere, and the thick cut pork bellies are the best.  I'm not a huge fan of soju, but I can definitely tolerate a lot of it when paired with pork belly and lettuce wraps.
- Dtuk - I never much cared for rice cakes.  Even in the US, we eat them at weddings, family gatherings, after Christmas mass, etc.  But then I tasted the ones that my mom's older sister makes, and I'm in love.

Weird things that I enjoyed:
- Cow intestines - It's cut into bite-size pieces and cooked on the table top with a side of raw liver.  Dip it in sesame seed oil and it's pretty chewy buy swallowable.  I don't eat the liver raw BTW.
- Seafood - This is all types of seafood, from BBQ roasted eel to raw animate octopus to freshly caught fish sashimied.  The Koreans do well with seafood.
- Hanyak - After taking this medicine for a month, I think my mouth has acquired the taste for raw garbage.  At least I stopped gagging when I drink it.

In addition to having memorable meals, I've had some meals that were so terrible that I need to remember them just to not make that mistake again:
- Dtukbokgi - This is Korean college students' favorite food.  It's rice cakes cooked in a spicy chili soy paste.  It's street food at its best, but they have restaurants that serve Ddukbokgi and you can add more stuff to it, like ramen, mandoo, and sausage (i.e., hot dog meat).  So simple that it would be hard to mess up, right?  Wrong.  I really wanted to like it, and I can't even describe what I find it to be so cringe-worthy, but I will never eat dtukbokgi in Korea again.
- Kimchi jigae - This used to be my favorite Korean food.  But then I had some terrible ones in Seoul that my face inadvertently cringes when someone mentions kimchi jigae.  I think I will only eat kimchi jigae if I make it, and that's because it's made with bacon.
- Egg - I can tell you the exact moment when I lost interest in eating eggs.  It's when I had a burger topped with a fried egg right before I started taking hanyak. Fail.
- Mom, I'm sorry to say this, but your little sister's cooking is pretty terrible.

Things from home that I miss:
- Mom's cooking
- Ellen's tuna fish sandwich
- Jessica Roll
- Fois Gras mousse and spaghetti and meatball from Proof Restaurant
- Diet Coke
- Bechamel sauce lasagne and nutella ravioli from Floriana
- Happy hour wine deals

I dreampt about New England Clam Chowder in a sourdough bread bowl earlier this week.  Let's see how much fun I can have trying to find those ingredients!