THANKSGIVING

November 23, 2015

THANKSGIVING

After being in Korea for one month, we find that we really love and appreciate:

KOREAN CHILDREN

They are so adorable! When I see them I just want to play with them.

PEOPLE

In the pictures below we introduce the Jo family. The father is the Stake President. They have ten children, which would be an anomaly in the United States. It is beyond unusual in Korea, where most couples have one or two children and live in small apartments.  The children are obedient, well behaved, and very polite. We were invited to their home for Family Home Evening.  On the left hand side sit Brother and Sister Bowcutt, who trained us for our jobs and went home last week.

Each of the ten plays the piano; the 17 year old girl is the organist for the ward, and the others  play  beautifully.

They had about ten hymn books, and ten primary books. The singing was impeccable.

MISSIONARIES

We love them all

I have moved from Stage 1: looking at missionaries as potential boyfriends when they get off their mission, to Stage 2: looking at missionaries as one of my children, a friend of one of my children, or a boyfriend for one of my daughters, to Stage 3: looking at them and thinking that my grandchildren will be there in only eight years!

OUR WARD

These families are so strong, so faithful, and work so hard to do what is right. They are wonderful.

I AM THANKFUL FOR WATER

We really are lucky! Even though we can't use the tap water for drinking, cooking, or washing dishes (we have to add bleach to the rinse water), we do have water - it comes out of the shower every day (so far) and gets hot. We don't have to go to the river to fill jugs and carry them on our heads as we walk several miles home.

I AM THANKFUL FOR FUN OUTINGS!

A couple of weeks ago, we went to a movie. There are American movies with Korean subtitles. This room, "Blockbus" was next door to the theatres. You might be able to see the stacks of Legos on the shelves, the kids playing with blocks, and the train table in front. This is a babysitting service for people who want to go to a movie. Great idea?

HIKE - GRATITUDE FOR NATURE

Saturday we walked about a mile from our home, to Geumjeong Park, where we got a cable car/sky ride to the top of the mountain. We took several pictures of Busan as we ascended the 3,500 feet to the top.  There are three different views from the mountain.

VIEW #1

VIEW #2

VIEW #3

In just a few minutes, we are out of the city, and enjoying the fall leaves, mostly on the ground, and the pre-winter landscape. 



We had planned to hike down the mountain, but when we got to the top, there was so much to discover that we didn't make it down. First of all, we ran into an ancient wall which surrounded a fortress. 

Your weapon of choice fits nicely through the perfectly spaced square niches in the wall.

Soldiers were stationed at these watchtowers to look out for invaders.

It looked like no mortar was used.

We came upon a Buddhist temple. All around it, hiding in the crevasses of the boulders, were carved Buddhas of all shapes and sizes.

Brenda at the watchtower

Brenda at the Turtle Tomb

On our way back, we got lost! Luckily, we ran into this Dad and son who first told us the right way to go, then gave up and said, "We'll take you to the right way to go." They became our new best friends, and saved us from the impending doom of losing our way on a mountain without a map, a cell phone, or knowing how to communicate, especially as it began to get ominously darker and colder... 

 Who saved the day? - of course the 10 year old boy who spoke enough English to do the job!

 They completely changed their plans and went a different way just to help us out. We are thankful for wonderful people.

Last but not least, we are thankful for a little humor...

The food at restaurants is made extra appealing by advertising pictures or drawings of the real animal. Here are two examples of some lovely pork restaurants:

Next to these doors, there were pictures of several of the favorite pork delicacies! Yum!

Carrots and Other Things

November 2015

CARROTS, LUNCH, JUNK, SHOPPING, AND OTHER THINGS

The carrots are huge, so you think they might not be delicious - no they're great!

Our friends from the English class picked us up at 11:00 am one day for "lunch". They said the restaurant was a little far away. After driving for an hour - very scenic and interesting - we arrived at this old Confucian School. We wondered if this was the restaurant? No, just used to hold classes occasionally.

Next stop was the restaurant - an old traditional Korean house with a thatched roof. We watched the man making thatching outside.

Inside we sat on the floor - and we had the usual thirty courses, beautifully displayed. The people are so kind, friendly, and generous. (Back left corner: Sister and Elder Bowcutt, me, Bryan, Harriet; Right side of table: women from our English class.

Harriet, Brenda and Ann 

The old-style restaurant had a thatched roof, with flowers and squash were growing all over it.

After the lunch, we walked around looking at the grounds, the "museum" items and old artifacts. It was a wonderful combination of food, architecture, history, and good company! We enjoyed every minute. 

These clay jars contain a year's worth of Kimchi fermenting outside the restaurant. The women make it in November/December, traditionally put it in these jars, then cover and wait for fermentation to take place! Nowadays, the modern Korean family has a special "Kimchi refrigerator" just for Kimchi. 

THE DILEMMA OF WHERE TO PARK YOUR CAR

                                                

Here in Busan there are 5 million people, lots of cars, very narrow and winding streets, and nowhere to park. People have to find ways to park, such as pulling up on the sidewalk blocking the store or business.

 What to do if you can't move?  Every car has to put a phone number on the front dashboard. If that car is blocking your car, you can call the phone number, which is the car owner's cell, and no matter where he is or what he is doing, he will come out and move his car. If no one answers the cell phone, the car gets towed away! Problem solved.

JUNK

                                                                                            

Since trash is such a big deal - no landfills at all and everything is recycled - there are many people, it seems, who make money gathering and sorting junk. Entire lots are devoted to junk piles, and people are out during the day sorting it. There are also people who go around with little carts and gather up cardboard for recycling. 

SHOPPING

There are literally hundreds of little produce stores like this. They usually open early and stay open late. It's really fun buying the fresh produce, inexpensive, and delicious!

These handmade stick brooms are the cool thing to have!! Everyone has one. You can buy them at the little stores.

SPAM

Spam is a favorite food, a delicacy, as shown by this giant display. They make huge gift baskets of spam for Christmas presents, etc. 

MASKS

 

It's true - tons of people wear these masks!! We had always heard that it was to prevent your lungs from the toxic air you breathe as you walk down the street. We found out that masks are also worn if people are afraid of getting sick - or if people are themselves feeling sick and don't want to be contagious to others. It is completely 100% totally acceptable, and masks are seen on old people, young people, children, men, women, cool people on motorcycles, beautiful young girls, everything!

BEAUTIFUL SIGHTS ON THE WALK HOME

 Bamboo forest along the sidewalk

Wooded path near the apartment

Autumn leaves outside the apartment

Can anyone tell me what this is? I look at it frequently and wonder if someone lives there, someone works there, or it just sits there? Curious: umbrellas, bucket, watering can, refrigerator with decorative stickers,  stick broom, and a chair on top of a table.???

FOOD!

November 8, 2015

EATING IN KOREA

Gopchang, pig intestines

Kimchi

Eating with chopsticks is only part of it...

In Korea, if you go to a restaurant or have a "traditional Korean dinner", you don't have a plate. The meal comes out on many different little plates or bowls. The bowls just keep coming. One lunch we had at a restaurant had about 30 bowls of different kinds of food. Some of the bowls are very small, but there are lots of courses and "side dishes".

A common drink is water with cooked rice in it. They cook the rice in lots of water, and when it's done they save the rice/water and serve it as a drink. Kimchi is served three times a day with every meal, or in between meals as a snack.  Korean women gather together as a family and make it in the autumn time when the cabbage is "good", then they store it in a special "kimchi refrigerator" all year, as it ferments. So everyone has a regular refrigerator, and a kimchi refrigerator. The kimchi can be made with different kinds of seasonings, and some of it is very spicy and hot, other kinds have a very strong garlic flavor, fishy flavor, or whatever.

Korean restaurant owners sometimes advertise their food specialty by putting pictures of the animal from which the meat comes on a sign outside of the restaurant. One sign had a picture of a pig, a duck, and a dog with a big arrow pointing to the restaurant. Another restaurant had pictures of a ferocious looking fish swimming around on the windows of the restaurant. We asked, "What kind of fish is that?" They said, "The kind that was in your soup".

The waiter brought these little skewers with something wrapped around them. It was sort of string-like and purple - baby octopus legs. Bryan tried to eat them but said they were too rubbery. The larger metal bowl has dried seaweed in it, some of the bowls have a vegetable you've never seen in a sauce - sometimes very spicy. When you think  you've had enough, they bring out more! This picture shows about half of the total.

Dessert is always tangerines. The fruit is delicious!

LIFE IN BUSAN

November 2, 2015

LIFE IN BUSAN

THE APARTMENT

Our apartment complex has twenty buildings all together with parking lots in between. They are called the "Lucky Apartments". The apartment has some really funny things about it. For one thing, the bathroom has a shower with no shower doors, just a shower curtain and the drain is in the middle of the floor, so when someone takes a shower, the floor is flooded with water. If one of us comes in to brush teeth or take a shower, the entire bathroom is already soaked and you find yourself standing in a little puddle. The great thing about it is that when you clean the bathroom, you just get the shower hose and hose it all down when you're done!

 Outside on the balcony there is a washing machine - Yea! However, there is no dryer, so all the clothes have to be hung out. It's OK except for the towels - they seem a little scratchy. We are spoiled. We do have running water, but we can't drink it. We have to brush our teeth with water from a water machine (like Sparkletts), and when we wash dishes, we are supposed to rinse the dishes with bleach in the dishwater.

TRASH

No disposal!  Getting little bits of food out of the sink and throwing it away is not too bad...then you have to separate your trash into all these different categories, carry it downstairs, and put it in various bags and containers. The really difficult thing (for Americans) is that the food trash (banana peels, rotten leftovers from the refrigerator, little bits of food on people's plates) has to be taken to a central trash machine and weighed. We are charged money for the amount of "food trash" we have each month. It's not super fun to put your rotten leftovers into a huge food trash full of everyone's rotten leftovers, but we do it. Of course no one wants to run down ten floors to the food trash receptacle after every meal or snack, so most people put the food trash in the freezer. Pretty soon the freezer is chock full of rotten bags of food trash until someone is brave and industrious enough to take it all downstairs to the giant food trash monster! Missionaries are famous for having so much food trash in the freezer that they can't even use it for freezing real food.

There are eight trash cans here in front of the mission home. You have to sort your trash into eight different categories - metal, glass, plastic, aluminum, paper, etc. etc. So there are all these recycling containers everywhere!

UMBRELLAS

Have you ever seen an umbrella holder with space for 24 umbrellas with numbered holes for them?

You can't see the little numbers but it helps you remember which umbrella is yours. Apparently, umbrellas are a big part of life.

Next blog topic: FOOD!