in case you were wondering

this is my good friend, kim bap.
'kim' means seaweed.
'bap' means rice.
the rest of the ingredients are your creative option.
we had a field trip to the world cup stadium on monday
and all the moms sent kim bap with their kidlets for a picnic.
it was sooooo gooooooood. mmm.



the kid on the right had the best kim bap in the school.
go andy's mom.



axl rose enjoys a bite of kim bap. oh so good.

all things inappropriate

jigga wha?

so i get into a cab. first thing the cab driver says . . .

the cab driver: are you from canada? do you speak french?

erin: sure. oui. vous parlez francais?

so i'm thinking, great!
i will be able to communicate with this man to get where i want to go!
and in french even!
yippie! how fun! then . . .

cab driver: no.

that's the last communication we had before i got out.
i mean besides the usual grunts and hand signals.





i'm not sure what to make of this.

do i realy look french canadian?

another cool thing about korea

there are no halloween sale aisles.
halloween aisles have not been pushed aside to make room for christmas items already.

has walmart started stocking for christmas yet in north america?
i just read that australian department stores are hanging wreaths these days.
that's poppycock!

koreans don't steal things

one thing that i've noticed since i've been here is that there's lots of stuff that i could steal if i wanted to. for example:

stores leave big, nice potted plants outside at night, not chained down.
people sort of chain their bike tires up, but not the bike itself to anything solid.
when you enter a restaurant, you sometimes leave your shoes up front.
you sometimes leave your umbrella in a large can outside shopping stores.
mountain hikes are littered with random workout equipment at workout stations.
people leave their keys in their cars, in their ignition.
there just may be a communal basketball at the courts by the river.
there are free tennis court nets left out to be set up by anyone who wants to use them.
stores leave items outside, unattended, for sale. you choose, then come inside.
public bathrooms have storage rooms full of bathroom supplies that are left wide open.
public bathrooms also leave bars of soap out for washing your hands.

these things don't get stolen here. yes, sometimes i'm sure a bike gets stolen or a car, but it's not such an issue that department stores feel the need to lock up their toilet paper with a deadbolt or the city feels it needs to stop putting money into the workout equipment for the mountain. it's such a nice feeling to walk around and see stuff sitting out and know that people won't take it. it's odd though. i don't know if people trust each other more or if they have a big citizen's arrest program or if the sense of community is just so strong that no one would even think of taking the communal basketball for their own purposes. it's really really cool.
this feeling was compounded tonight when my friend peter and i returned to a bar where he was drinking last night to pick up his backpack. he left it there last night, very late, and it was still there, with all its contents, this morning. i know that can happen in the states, it's happened to me before, but i just thought it was awesome.
there is one place that i hear is notorious for stolen purses and wallets, and that's gypsy rock, the sleezy bar where lots of westerners hang out.
i don't want to point any fingers, i'm just saying is all . . .

fun with engrish!

my first taste of korean chocolate.
i think "crunky" pretty much sums it up. blech!

we read this story to the kids at our school and then wonder why they can't speak english.

hmm . . . anna . . . have you heard of tahiti?

i won't eat eyeballs

i didn't need to ask.
clearly, it was shrimp.
tiny shrimp.
unpeeled.
with eyeballs.
and feelers.
sunny said it was okay and showed me how you just pop them in your mouth and crunch, crunch, crunch them up with a smile.
i'm sorry.

korean dining rule #2: i won't eat eyeballs.


so, it was basically this here. just like this.
looked just like this!
on a plate with steamed zucchini.
would you eat this?
really, i'd like to know.

death metal rock

being a member of the mtv generation sort of, i understand that i have a very short attention span when it comes to music videos or basically, anything with moving lights. although wanting for more scene changes in my dwindling high school left-over connoisseur-ish opinion, this video rocks hard.

and i'm not just saying that because of the tarantula.

and i'm not just saying that because it's family.

enjoy

shiver me timbers

aaarrrr! today be national talk like a pirate day! aaaarrrr!
swab those poop decks johnny . . . aaaarrrr!!!
booty!! aaarrrr!!!

(okay so maybe "national" talk like a pirate day doesn't include korea.
but maybe it should.)
aaaarrrr!

welcome niki!

please give a warm welcome to my partner in crime in daegu,
niki "dead kitty petter" quade!
she will be posting mental droppings here from now on as well.
just don't believe anything weird she says about me.
:)

that's all folks. no, really, that's all.

niki and i had a crazy night tonight.

we thought it was all over when, as we were walking home with our early morning dinner in hand, niki stopped to pet a cute kitty that was pacing inside a small cage strapped on the back of a moped. there was also a puppy in another cage on the same moped. i don't know. this stuff just happens sometimes. so niki's petting this one kitten that's pacing in the cage, and she moves over to the other side to pet the other kitty in the same cage. aww . . . what a sweet kitty, what a cute kitty, kitty, kitty! says niki. i walk over to pet the same kitty. oh, it's sleeping! wake up kitty! wake up! poke . . . poke . . . POKE!! oh god. niki, stop petting that cat. that cat is DEAD! WAAAAAGH! so we catch a cab home, the whole time laughing about our odd conversations from the evening and the korean bikers with double tank tops and fanny pack style man purses. we get out of the cab, and RUN home chanting "must wash dead kitty off hands!"

you'd think that'd be the end of all the insanity. but, no. the "nice" korean lady who spoke good english at that one early morning restaurant that was the only kim bapish place open with the huge spiders in the window didn't actually sell us kim bap. WAAAAAGH! more like, barley bap. and it was soooooooo expensive too. 3,000 w's, or $3 amurcan. or $4.5 canadian. that's a lot considering it was microwaved in a plastic cup and good kim bap at the place is only 1,000 w's. seriously you guys, seriously.

but in the end, i think it's all okay, since we schooled peter at basketball earlier in the day. :) nighty night!

this is my job

a typical hair day at little genius

don't ask, don't tell

korean cuisine is really rockin'. i loves it. it's spicy and flavourful (oh boy, i'm a little bit candian yet, eh?) also, there's lots of fish. now, i like seafood. like, red lobster seafood. i will branch out a little, but not much. here, i have been branching out. basically because i get free lunch at school, and i just mow down before i realize what i'm eating. first time it happened, i said to grace, the korean teacher i eat lunch with, "mmm, these are good crunchy noodles!" needless to say, they weren't crunchy noodles. they were fried fishies, heads and all. hurl. then there was the "chicken." odd. huh, i don't remember chicken have suction cups. oh god. hurl. i have since adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. i eat anything, just don't tell me what it is until i'm done. that way i can be adventurous and not sick to my stomach. there's lots of "sausage" served at lunch too. don't ask, don't tell. and i never want to know what's in kim bap. i just love it too much. don't ask, don't tell. and there are these things called "fish cakes." don't ask, don't tell. and there's a kind of fish jerky that's sold on the street corner. yeah. but they eat a lot of pork and chicken and cow too. i've eaten more fried chicken since i've been here than i have in the past 6 years.



here's a photo of traditional korean eatin'. a huge table with communal bowls and everyone just goes at it. lots of pickled stuff, lots of spicy stuff, always soup. every single meal has soup of some variety. niki and i had one that tasted like the ocean once. that wasn't all that good. clear water, two bean sprouts floating on the bottom, and tasted exactly like ocean. but it's usually yummy. tonight i went to dinner with a buddy of mine and we had to take off our shoes and sit on cushions on the floor. i wasn't allowed to take pictures for embarassments sake (whatever, i'm not from here) or i would have. it was so much fun! and we ate spicy spicy soup with pork on the bone. you eat soup with a spoon and chopsticks usually. plus there was rice and some pickled stuff. like kim chi. mmm . . . kim chi. so yeah. korean food = good food. i'm not tired of it yet. i hope i never am.

i'll be there in 5 minutes, or 15 i guess

traffic lights are ridiculously long here!
you can tell someone you'll meet them in 5 minutes,
and it should only take that long to cross the bloody street,
but 15 minutes later, there you stand, waiting for the crosswalk.
and heaven help he who crosses without the walk signal.
red lights aren't mandatory for motorists here.
and you will die.

very important poll

you want to morph the two words "entertainment" and "information."

do you go with:

a) infotainment

or

b) infortainment

(entermation and entemation are not options)

fun with video!!

1. outrageous

2. double outrageous

gratuitous birthday post

brand new birthday shoes! niki's are blue, erin's are green.
yay shopping!
(ps. niki's have naked ladies like on mud flaps on an 18-wheeler. huh huh)

the pre-party on the roof.
(sunny, kim the aussi, b-day girl, peter the canuk, and my girl niki)

unfortunately for niki (it would seem), we took two cabs.
guten tag andreas! hee hee!

aaron (moose) and vanessa (v)
bar owners, yoga instructors, lifestyle coaches,
and all around good folks

note the "tiara"

a "flaming moose" shot. i drank it with a straw
so as not to burn my birthday lips. it was just that good.

here you see all four "tiaras".
i rotated colors throughout the evening. :)

keepin' it real, niki winks for the camera,
and sunny goes double outrageous, winking both eyes.

aww . . . whoa, wait!
hey, why are YOU wearing tiaras!?!

kim, and her hat

it's the "i love you" portion of the evening

so there's the night in a nutshell. it was stupendous. i am now going back to sleep until yoga, and then i will begin to write emails to all my homefries back west. thanks for the good wishes!

happy birthday to me!

you'd think they'd have better tacos

it appears that "chichis" means "boobies" in korean.
interesting, very interesting.
those little korean kids teach the most useful words to me at lunch.

arachnophobia

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
these are SPIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
spiders that live here with me.
the "little" bugger used to live in my bathroom.
he met an unfortunate end at the wrong side of a shampoo bottle.
but he was fast. too fast if you ask me.
and like cirque du soleil on his little web string. eep!



THESE things are nastily numerous and are ALL OVER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
the PLAYGROUND!!!!!!!!! at school. hughghicklyssshshglargh!







it's like a discovery channel special every day.
it's like the temple of doom!!!
you can't tell from photos,
but it looks like cotton candy out there in places!!
and don't worry mom, i used the zoom.
and i won't be chasing after ANY lost soccer balls.
if it's gone, it's just gone, kids. i-c-k-y = gone

I just have to go ahead and admit it!
I knew it would happen and I'll be fine.
I'm sorry I'm not writing.
I'm sorry I'm not calling.
But when I sit down to write, I just freeze up!
Give me a few days and I'll come around
and I'll start writing back.

thanks mom!!!