Purple drink meets soju

The weekend before last we went to a Brazilian steak house.  If you've never been to one, you really should try it.  Just don't bring any vegetarian friends.  Husband and I went to one in Fort Worth called Texas de Brazil.  They have them throughout the U.S. and -presumably- Brazil.  Be prepared to spend $25 or more per person and don't eat anything for the day prior!  

These steak houses cook many kinds of meat on long skewers/swords.  As the meat becomes ready to serve, a number of waiters come to your table offering their selection:  Chicken, Filet Mignon, Butter steak, sausage, bacon...  Some places also give you a card with a red ("My food is settling.  Come back soon.") side and a green ("Yes, please, keep it coming!") side.  There is also salad, bread, and side dishes either on the table or at a buffet.  It is so good!  This is definitely not a restaurant to frequent, but once in a while it is a real treat!

Next on the agenda: Soju.  Wait, make that "Purple Drink".  I had heard there are many different kinds of Soju, but I never considered all the different ways it could be mixed.  Soju is a rice liquor, which is apparently commonly home made like Moon Shine.  The bars serve it out of reused juice jugs.  I'm not even kidding!  They aren't even labeled.  First we had "Purple Drink" with Soju and random purple unknown liquid.  It tasted like Kool-Aid; delicious:)  Do you love the purple (is the matching intentional or to prevent staining?) crushed velvet chairs?  They go perfectly with the glowing nightlife street scene.  

The Soju I'd heard of before coming to Korea is prepared in a small steel kettle.  Soju plus one or two or three other liquids are combined and the result is a fluorescent green beverage.  You take shots of this, which also taste like Kool-Aid.

Pictured is a the main downtown strip in Songtan.  There are restaurants, shops, and bars all squished and stacked together five stories high including the basements.  The city is really safe, the people are friendly, and the entertainment is what we were missing the past few years!

Order calms

Photocredit: Hardtodescribe.tumblr.com

I am so overly organized.  I remake lists to make them neat.  Everything has its place, and everything has a secondary place for where I put it when I don't actually feel like putting it "away" (i.e. "properly").

Sometimes this drives Husband crazy.  He can't find things because I've put them "away".  (Ironically, the one thing I can never seem to remember where I've put it away is something Husband would never lose: my Leatherman.)  He protests with good reason.  I defend my OCD tendencies.  You get the picture.  We laugh, we love, and it all works out at the end of the day.

Recently I organized Husband's closet.  This was a brave move on my part because it's his closet, but I proceeded boldly because, after all, I'm the one putting the laundry away.  I told him what I was doing and said it was to make his life easier.  Lucky day for me, he was grateful because

Order Calms.

He reminded me that we really should get a painting/picture/print made (because they do that kind of thing for the cheap here in Korea) like the one Mrs. Head had in the downstairs bathroom, the room with the delicate antique hand mirrors on the wall and tins of long-time-ago toiletries on the shelf.  These wise words are why we cherish it:

Listening to your heart, finding out who you are, is not simple.

Order calms.

Live what you believe - make your whole life your art.

Nothing you are doing is wasted time.

I didn't know until recently how much Husband also cherished this simple piece of art in the Head's downstairs bathroom.  He said, "I used that bathroom a lot," which translates to: 

"I spent so much time at Colonel and Mrs. Head's house during those big, hard, formational years while I was at the Academy.  I'll always remember, love and respect them for the magnitude of their hospitality, wisdom, knowledge and joy.  Rereading these simple words, I remember their legacy, and my life is better because of their presence in it."  

And I couldn't agree more.

First snow and downtown song tan

I wasn't sure if Korea would be more cold/dry or cold/wet.  I heard both before I arrived here.  So far it has only snowed once and it was just a dusting with a snowy haze that stayed around throughout the morning.  I heard they got quite a bit of heavy snow earlier this winter.  I was just as pleased with the dusting though.  It made everything pretty, sparkly white for a while

We've been exploring the town more every weekend.  Getting to and around the base is no problem now, and I can navigate the downtown area fairly well.  So far I haven't been outside of Songtan since I arrived, but it's nice to start to be familiar with the city.   

The common description of Korea is "not quite right".  Case in point:  The Red Face.  Ever heard of The North Face, anyone?  Yes, this would be a total and complete knock-off.  Even the products inside are almost exactly like The North Face.  Trademarks mean nothing here.  Logos are just thought of as pictures here.  You can even get a hat from a street vendor with Ralph Lauren, Nike, and Adidas logos all together on it.  The same also goes for replicating store names.  This JCPenney is no coincidence!  

We had dinner the other night at a lounge.  It was just as smokey as the picture looks unfortunately, but you never can tell quite what you're walking into here.  The meal made up for it!

Teriyaki chicken!  It was the best teriyaki I've ever had!  The snacky thing next to my drink appeared to be peanuts.  I have no idea what they actually were though...my best guess was Peanut Butter Captain Crunch.  They were tasty:)

Another night Husband and I went out with friends for beef bulgogi.  That was delicious, too!  I should have taken a picture of our table setting.  The metal pipe on the side of the picture is a vent because directly under it is a gas barbecue.  The marinated beef was cooked there.  We also had rice, salad (medium-sized green/purple lettuce leaves mixed with chili sauce and ?), and bachan.  Bachan is a variety of small amounts of "side dishes" served in tiny bowls.  They are meant to be shared by everyone at the table, and ours included lettuce leaves, soy sauce glazed and cooked strips of tofu, bean sprouts, kimchi, macaroni salad?, chili sauce, garlic, glassy looking noodles, and I may be missing others.  We also had rice on the side served in a small steel pot.  By the way all the pop bottles are glass.  They have Hangul print on them, but we still understand the Coke logo:)  

I don't know if it's this way in other Asian countries, but in Korea never stick your chopsticks or other utensils straight into your rice (or presumably any other part of your meal) and leave them there.  It is considered disrespectful.  Just thought you'd like to know:)

Husband is working LONG days.  It's so nice to get to enjoy the weekend together!

Coming soon:  Soju and other escapades.

First impressions

Kamaseyo!

These are some of the first pictures I took in Korea.  I took them while on a walk -perhaps my first walk- and they are in general order of the walk, starting at my apartment.  They will probably seem really random (they are) and you'll be thinking "What in the world am I looking at?" (so was I).  

I'm not going to describe each picture.  You know almost as much about this place as I do.  Just take note of the fact that Korea does not have any apparent zoning laws:  residential, business, and agricultural land uses are all mixed together.  Also, it's a small country -roughly the size of Indiana- so they use every inch of space available to them.  Things often look -for lack of a better word- trashy, and in a way they are.  The reality though is that they are just using and reusing what they have.  Our lives might look much the same if were in the same situation.

       

 Lots of dead cabbage and other vegetables.  I finally know exactly what a chinese cabbage looks like, or at least a dead one.  All of this produce and rice is going to be beautiful in a few months!

Now we're back to the apartment, home sweet home:)

The area around us is basically rice paddies, dairy farms, a few businesses, and several apartment complexes.  It's an unusual (for me) mixture, and it so weird to have pumpkins growing next to the parking lot and herbs alongside the road, but it really works here.  I'm glad you came by to see what it looks like here.

Komsameda!