So much food so little time!

Since I arrived here in Seoul it’s been all about the food, within three hours of landing here I was eating traditional Korean Barbecue point being made! This was not just a trip to be reunited with my daughter but a culinary adventure not to be forgotten.

Many of the restaurants don’t speak English so you go by looking at the person’s food at the next table or by the pictures on the menu (if they have pictures). As you make your decision on what to try,  the excitement builds to a fever pitch while eagerly anticipating if you’d made the right choice or not. As there are a number of unidentifiable ingredients it makes for great conversation.

The first dish that came to mind was dakgalbi, a mixture of lots of vegetables and chicken that is cooked on a grill at your table. A waiter will come and give it a stir until all the hot spicy goodness is sizzling and ready to eat. You eat it straight from the grill…… Wouldn’t you know it, I came across IN NO TIME an unidentified ingredient! Nicolette explained it was toppoki, a rice cake stuffed with cheese, also there were mushrooms, potatoes, cabbage and onions, so good. This is Nic's favorite.

 



One of my favorite foods here is dumpling soup and there are many variations. The common denominator is the broth a big bowl of rich meaty, garlicky, perfectly seasoned goodness and served piping hot. The filling for the dumplings vary, most of them I have no idea what’s in them, maybe rice, ground meat, vegetables. All I know is that when you bite into that light fluffy outside your eyeballs will spin like the numbers on a slot machine in Vegas!!

garlic sauce to add to soup

dumpling soup

bulgogi soup

Next was Bulgogi this is a cross between a beef soup and a stew with an added kick to it. The broth is so flavorful and perfectly seasoned with lots of garlic maybe some soy sauce. Bugolgi is made with beef (there is not much beef eaten here mostly pork or chicken) yet again not sure what kind of beef but it is almost shaved and very tender. The dish is laden with lots of vegetables and rice cakes (disks of pasta like goodness) rice is served on the side and you mix it in your soup…so good!

Lamb masala and Naan

Seoul is a multi cultural city and as anyone who knows me, knows Indian food is at the top of my list (Nic too) so our next amazing meal was at an Indian restaurant in Gangnam. We stumbled upon this place and boy was it a gem aesthetically pleasing and off the charts food and service. Here we ordered Lamb Masala this is a spicy curry with a tomato base and Lamb Korma a mild curry with a cream base. Both of these dishes were excellent! I love spicy food so the two chili pepper symbol beside the Lamb masala did not scare me. However our waitress seemed a little concerned at this blonde haired Caucasian hijma (Korean for Grandma) had ordered something she couldn’t handle…..this would be a recurring reaction during my trip. We scooped up our curry in crispy flavorful naan bread the flavors meeting together in our mouths was indescribable. Like I said to Nicolette “This is not just a party in my mouth, it’s New Years Eve!”

chicken soup and many sides. Radish kimchi is red stuff

Nicolette explained she was taking me for lunch to a special place where you can get Samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) First of all the sides came out peppers  garlic and a paste (of which we didn’t know what it was) and  radish kimchi. Kimchi is Korea’s traditional dish kimchi is the “process” not the “product” so anything basically can be kimchi if it is treated in the Korean style of fermentation) it is very spicy and has lots of chili pepper in it. THEN the big moment…… in front of me was a piping hot bowl full of broth and a WHOLE chicken floating in the middle.

chopstick master

We cracked open the breast and to our amazement it was stuffed with sticky rice, ginseng and two other things that we debated on……..maybe a fig or a date? Then you added your sides to the soup until it was to your liking. I am truly baffled as to how I could not used chopsticks in the US, but now I dissected the chicken in front of me like I was a top surgeon at any hospital! This soup is known to have healing powers for anything that ails you, like our chicken noodle soup, but much more fun!

soy sauce

many ingredients in my soup

So I decided after all the soup I’ve been eating I should give it a shot and make my own. Chopped Challenge Korean style. I started out by going to a local grocery store where no one speaks any English. I took my time perusing the fresh produce isle. I did recognize some of the vegetables, some of them not so much. After filling my bag up with the ingredients I realized I needed soy sauce. I went apprehensively to the clerks and mouthed really big “SOY SAUCE” two blank stares and lots of Korean chatter. I’m just going to take a guess, part of the fun right? So with my back-pack full I’m ready to go home and whip up some soup. As you know I love to cook so had a great time that afternoon and my soup came out pretty good. We named it SEOULful chicken vegetable soup!

Seoulful soup

Well that’s it for today but stay tuned there’s a lot more eating to do!

The best Valentines Day Ever

 

Today was the day it was finally here the day I get to meet Nicolette’s class! For close to six months now I have seen the pictures watched the videos I know each one of them by name. As I get ready making all the individual Valentine bags I feel a little nervous what will they think of Ms .Nikki’s Mom? I checked all of the bags one last time, made sure I had the gifts for Nicolette’s manager’s, It’s time to go and put names to faces.

As I got closer to the school I was going over in my head what the Kids would say what I would say and suddenly I felt a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. These were the children Nicolette talked of as her  own, endlessly nurturing them for the last few months.  There’s the school well here goes. The first person I meet is Nicolette’s boss and we chatted for a while, I gave her a small gift as a token of my appreciation (this is customary in Korea.) I sat and waited for Nicolette to come and get me and my excitement was mounting what would it be like to meet them in person?

Finally Nicolette appeared beckoning me to come, now I’m walking towards the classroom with a big smile on my face.  Nicolette opened the door and a loud bustle of excitement greeted me she announced “this is my Mom” Jason replied “She’s old” I died laughing. All of the kids rushed up to me giving me their handmade Valentine’s cards and offering me candy. The feeling I had in my heart was one I’ll never forget. Nicolette rounded them up and got them to perform “Lean on me” a song they will sing in an up and coming production as a part of their graduation. They sang so loud and proud I was smiling from ear to ear what a great job they did. It amazed me that they could sing all of this in English and not miss a beat…Nicolette is a very gifted teacher.

After the song we had time for pictures and then it was over. This is a memory I will carry in my heart forever, the best Valentine’s Day ever.

  

  

Things that took my breath away

Monday February 11^th (Glynis’ dictation)

Today is a day of sightseeing. We have seen temples, shrines, palaces, and even the Mayors house! Insadong is where you will find all of these amazing things! The first place we went to was Jongmyo Shrine. It was very beautiful and the snow was still on the ground which made it even more picturesque. We saw groups of men gathered together and we were baffled to what was going on. As we got closer we saw that they were playing chess, in 20 degree weather!

After this we went to see Unhyeongung Palace, this was a small compound that was in traditional Korean style. We got to see inside where the soldiers and staff lived it was very interesting.

We then found our way to the street market where the little cobble roads were full of venders .It was so much fun to meander along and listen to local entertainers, we even saw a cute little elderly man dancing to his own radio! We had lunch at a small restaurant (no one speaks English so you have to guess what’s in your meal or go by the pictures) and I tried chicken dumpling soup, I’m getting hooked on the soups here especially the dumpling soups. I’m definitely going to try and make some soup while I’m here, see what I can do .It seems that this trip is definitely about food as was proven by right after lunch we tried several types of “street” food! More about this on my next blog devoted especially to food.

We then walked out of the market area and to my amazement there were the mountains right in front of us. What a beautiful backdrop to Gyeongbukgung Palace. This magnificent structure with its Korean style was breath taking. As we approached we saw soldiers lined up in traditional attire so we ran to see what was happening. To our delight and good fortune we got there just in time for the changing of the guard!

As this happens only once a day we were truly blessed by the beautiful traditional spectacle before us! On our way out of the palace grounds we saw two beautiful little girls in Hanboks (traditional dress) all dressed up for New Years. I had to have my picture taken with them…so cute! (picture at top of blog)

The last place we saw was the Mayors house and yet again the magnificence of the mountains took my breath away. (Also the single digit weather may have added to this) We were all exhausted so it was time to go home after a truly memorable day.

The two "C"s.....Country bar and Church

Country Bar (Glynis’ dictation)

After our long day shopping on Saturday we had a little sake and then wanted to hit the town. Me and Nic got ready to go out with her friends Kyle and Trista. We went to an area just outside of Itaewon for dinner. Kyle suggested a place with great burgers, because Kyle knows so much about Korea! After an amazing dinner we went to a nice brewery that had a nice choice of beers. We stayed there for a bit, I revealed some of Nic’s childhood secrets, and then we went to a new place called Country Bar. This is a little place in Itaewon that is a little taste of NC in Seoul. What an amazing evening full of laughs and memories. After some good ol’ country songs, some line dancing and pictures, I became very excited to return on the night of my birthday this upcoming Saturday. I told the bartender Kim, a 74 year old women, to look out for me this coming weekend! Us ‘hajima’s’ (Korean for grandma’s) are gonna get down to some country music!

Church, Sunday February 10^th (Glynis’ dictation)

After a late night we decided to sleep in. We got up, got ready for church and were out the door. Nicolette attends New Harvest Ministry, an English part of Sarang Church in Gangnam. It is so much like our church in NC! The music was very familiar and the pastor had the same passion and humor that our pastor has at home. What a blessing, worshiping with Nicolette on the other side of the world. We then decided to go and have some food in Gangnam. With is being New Year’s weekend here in Korea, many places were shut, so we walked along a bunch of side streets until we came along a little Indian restaurant that looked interesting. We love Indian food so we decided to try it. This restaurant was so nice inside with a great ambiance. The food was supurb. We had lamb masala and lamb korma and topped it off with Naan bread. So delicious! We spent a few hours there talking about other countries in Asia and thinking about places we would love to travel to one day.

We got home around 7pm and I spent the evening coloring and cutting Nic and Trista’s hair. I have now done hair on 3 continents and counting. Wherever I go, I get to make others feel better with a new do!

Spicy food, markets galore, Gangnam style

February 8th (Glynis' dictation)

My second day in Korea started off with a bang....jet lag and a late night at barbecue didn't make for the easiest wake up the next morning, but I was off to the gym to fight my bodies temptation to be on American time. Going to the gym by myself was an interesting experience as nobody in the gym spoke English. But I managed to communicate that I had a free pass, and had an excellent work out, setting the tone for the day. After the work out I met Nicolette and her friends for lunch when they were on their lunch break from work. We went to a popular chain restaurant called '2900', which had cheap and delicious Korean meals. I proceeded to try new Korean dishes, one was a chicken curry dish and one was a chicken with fried rice and omelet style dish which was drenched in a brown sauce. This was called chicken omarice (spelled wrong I'm sure), and this was so tasty.

Nic and her friends went back to work and I set off to do some errands for Nicolette. She had given me a little map that she scribbled on some origami paper and I ended up getting a little lost. This made for a very interesting adventure trying to find my way around streets I had not ventured through before. P.S. I should have learned Korean before I came here.

After Nic got off work, we went into Gangnam on the bus. She took me subway shopping, a popular past time here where they have numerous shops in the subway stations. There were lots of cute and crazy clothes. I bought three pairs of earrings and then we went to eat dukgalbi. This is a delicious spicy dish that has tons of fresh veggies, chicken, and rice cakes that are all drenched in a spicy red sauce. It is cooked in a grill in the middle of your table and so it is as fresh as it can get, and piping hot! It was so spicy the back of my head was sweating a little bit. (this is a common theme when I'm eating Korean food it seems)

After that we went home and had some Sake. Nic wanted to break in her gift to me that she bought me in Japan which was sake cups and a sake bottle. She was excited to heat up the yummy stuff and try it out with this authentic gift! The atmosphere was set with candles, Christmas lights, and Nicolette's friend Kyle who came up and serenaded us with his guitar. All of this combined with the warm sake made for a very fun and relaxing evening.

February 9th (still Glynis)


Today was Saturday, and it was an amazing day filled with Korean culture. After a long night sleep and feeling ready to go and explore, we headed for Namdeamu market in Seoul. This is a district of Seoul about 30 minutes from Gangnam. We took the bus to the market and in Seoul everyone is in a hurry! So there is no MESSING AROUND.....on the bus.....off the bus....at a very high speed! We arrived at Namdeamu market and it was a feast for the senses. The market was crammed with vendors with a multitude of things for sale. Anything from fur (lots of it) to silk worms, and everything in between. When the say in the song "Gangnam STYLE" they mean WAY over the top. I got to see some of these flashy items first hand here. The more bling the better. We laughed so much as we explored the market.

One of the fun things we experienced was the making of Ta-rae. It is a cake made out of ripened honey and malt, which was once presented to King Sangung. It is made into 16,000 strands, suggesting the prayer for longevity, health, and good fortune. We then had lunch at a very popular restaurant that has only four soups on the menu. One of them is the famous Myeongdong dumpling soup. This restaurant is in the Myeongdong district of Seoul next to Namdaemu market. It is in the center of another amazing market full of fun and interesting things to buy. I can tell you that this soup was the best thing I have eaten so far. The temperature today was around 10 degrees Fahrenheit so this delicious bowl of noodles and dumplings in a wonderful rich spicy broth was just what we needed to thaw us out. We then made a few purchases as we passed the vendors to catch the subway back home.

My final thoughts for the day in being immersed in Korean culture in 4 words....WAY OVER THE TOP.

Welcome to THE Korea....

Thursday February 7th Seoul, South Korea (Glynis's dictation)

Been traveling now for almost 24 hours now and am feeling pretty good. I'm so excited to see Nicolette. I'm on the bus now, and must admit I was a little apprehensive about this bus ride....but it's a pretty luxurious ride. And so far everyone I have encountered has spoken English. My phone died in San Francisco, and because of a break on our plane "OVER HEATING" (surprising), we had a slight delay disembarking. --sidenote: the plane's tires overheated and three firetrucks escorted us around the airport making sure it cooled down. This took about 20 minutes, and with frequent encouragement from the captain I somehow did not lose my cool. The only worry was that time was ticking for my next flight as my layover before my flight for Seoul would be leaving in only 1 hr and 15 minutes.....tick tock -- So, it became a bit of a sprint to the International terminal in San Francisco once I was off the plane....about 1 mile to run. After checking in with my boarding pass, I tried charging my phone but it would not respond.....oh well...."Ce la vie."

Arrived in Seoul after a 12.5 hr flight (20 hrs total from NC), and got on the bus to Gangnam where Nicolette would be waiting for me. No problems getting this bus ticket, but traffic was a huge problem due to the holiday weekend which is the Lunar New Year. As I was sitting on the bus and the time was ticking, I was concerned that Nicolette would be worried where I was, and I could not call her as my phone was dead. What to do? So I looked around the bus, thought WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH , and then proceeded to ask a nice Japanese man if he could call Nicolette's phone for me so she would know I was OK  Thank goodness he spoke English and was so kind as to do this for me. Once I knew that Nicolette knew I was alright, it was more or less smooth sailing from there.


I was shortly reunited with Nic; amazing!  She asked me how I was feeling, and I said 'fine', so we went out for Korean bbq at the local joint around the corner! So much fun! We drank So-make. This is beer mixed with Korean vodka, a traditional drink that people have with their meals here. We ate kimchi and pork and yummy veggies I could not pronounce, and it was all grilled in front of me. Piping hot, just how I like it. I then got to meet Nicolette's two friends, Kyle and Trista, and we laughed for hours! It was a fantastic first night in Seoul!

February 7th, Seoul, South Korea (Nic's dictation)

I was SOOOO excited and nervous all day knowing my Mom was flying across the world. During my lunch break I was trying to google where her flight was and being on a Korean website I clearly was reading it wrong, and for a moment I thought she was stuck in San Francisco! My poor friend Kyle who was trying to change the site to English for me got the brunt of my frustration as we tried to figure out WHERE IN THE WORLD WAS GLYNIS! Luckily, we found her, finally, right over the ocean on her way to Asia. Throughout my classes I told my kids that my Mom was coming for the first time to Korea. They made her cards and in quite a few of them it said "Welcome to THE Korea." I guess this is an important place or I am a really bad English teacher. :) Nevertheless it was cute as can be, and became a joke that my Mom was coming to THE KOREA any minute now!

I left work a little early to go and meet her near a subway stop where the bus would drop her off. I was supposed to meet her in a little cafe because I was thinking originally that she would be there before me. As I walked there in the bitter negative 27 degrees Celsius weather (it was about negative 16 Fahrenheit)  with my eyes running because of the intense wind causing even my mascara to run down my face I thought, "This weather is going to make her hate Korea! I wish I was going back to NC weather instead of her coming here!"

I then waited.....and waited.....for about an hour as she did not show up in the cafe trying not to freak out and think of every possibility that could have gone wrong, as she entered a new Asian country for the first time without a tour guide. I tried to instead think of the amazing new pastry I was eating and how we could come back and eat one together another day. Soon my phone rang and it was my Mom explaining about the traffic, and all my worries went away. We were reunited soon after and I showed her a cute sign from one of my kids saying "Welcome to THE Korea" and she feeling special and excited! Dressed up like Eskimos we began dragging her suitcases to my apartment!

I felt like I was talking a mile a minute when she arrived because I had SO MUCH TO TELL HER! I felt like I was my sister....haha. We then went to go eat one of my favorite foods, Korean barbecue  and it was a very funny and entertaining evening. My friends loved her, and it seemed so natural to be together.....we could have been in NC for all I knew, minus all the Korean people around us! It was a great first night together in Seoul.

The power of touch

I was aware of the power of touch from a young age. My Mom and Dad were not the type of parents that would give me a pat on the back and a hug once a month. I would get hugs and kisses everyday! I remember always holding my Dad’s hand and him picking me and my sister up constantly, and my Mom hugging us and snuggling with us whenever she could. Sure they would also tell us with their words that they loved us, but there is something so comforting about holding someone’s hand when you are upset or running into a warm embrace. Looking back at my childhood, I can see now that those little touches were such necessary outward expressions of love that helped me grow into who I am today.

Well, this became a natural part of who I was. When a friend was upset I would reach out and touch their hand, I became a ‘hugger’, and I am totally comfortable holding a strangers child. (for hours upon end…just ask anyone who went to Belize with me on a mission trip!) So when I went to my first job out of college, a very intense special needs camp for Adults, I had to retrain my brain. You see, many of the adults that I worked with had a dual diagnosis, many with Autism and mental retardation. Many of my campers were also nonverbal men in their 20’s, so my first thought was that I would just touch them to tell them what to do. (keeping in mind they were all taller and bigger than me, I was hoping a gentle touch here and there would be all I needed to build a rapport between us.) Well, anyone who has worked with someone with autism knows that you have to be very careful in this area, as many people with Autism do not like to be touched, at least not until you have crossed that trust barrier. I remember absolutely wanting to pull my hair out as my camper, Sean, was yelling and screaming because he did not want to take a shower…..but he would not let me hold his hand to calm him down or try to comfort him! My words were all I had, and I had to convey the genuine love I had for helping him in order for him to ever let me into his world.

After exactly 9 days, he did exactly that. He let me hold his hand as we walked around the camp, going on paddle boats, drawing, and eating lunch together. This simple expression of love took so long to be able to express, that once I was able to do so I was ecstatic. The power of touch, how much it meant, and how significant it was had never hit home so much as it did that day. I never took it for granted again.

I experienced another example of the power of touch when I was on a mission trip in India in 2011. We went to extremely rural areas of the country, where the houses consisted of dirt floors as the floor and straw as the ceilings. We would sing songs and someone from our mission team would give a sermon to the crowd of people from the town. (which was usually about 20 to 30 adults and children) The sermons would be translated by a local pastor, as they did not speak English there. After each sermon the people in the towns would line up in front of a team member, myself included, and want us to pray for them. They would grab our hands and place them on their head for prayer, or sometimes another body part (like their arm or leg) if they were injured. I would pray in English, out loud, for them and they would pray in their language at the same time. I would always feel the power of the Holy Spirit in that moment through wherever we were touching, through wherever my hands were on their body. They had no idea what I was saying, and I had no idea what they were saying, but through our bodies touching there was power, sincerity, and meaning in that moment. Many times it moved me to tears. It was a type of power, moving through myself and whoever I was praying for, through our connected bodies, that I cannot describe.

The power of touch has proved itself to be important here in Korea again. I am volunteering at an orphanage once a month here in Seoul, and once again there is a huge language barrier. Now, these children are neglected, abandoned, and in need of love. If you cannot talk to them because you cannot speak their language, how do you show them love? My answer was this; through rubs on the back, pats on the head, through hugs, holding hands etc. But you see sometimes if the kids are not young, which most of these orphans are not, their guards are up and you must earn their trust before getting to communicate through kind and loving touches.

I became very aware of the wall that was up between many of the older children in this orphanage and the world on my first week. You see, they are used to people coming in and out of their lives so they did not give me some big warm welcome, nor did they let me give them hugs when I left. But this past Saturday was my 3^rd month going there, and I have begun to form a bond with a little boy named Minjune. Since I know about 5 words in Korean and he knows the same amount in English, our communication is mostly based on gestures and lots of playing and laughing. Last month instead of being a ‘helpful teacher’ and cleaning up after the huge mess the kids made making kimbap (a rice and seaweed snack), I ran around the gym with him playing soccer. Now, I am NO GOOD at soccer but I knew it would make him laugh and I could sneak in a few loving hugs in the mix. When I would block the ball I would grab him in my arms, spin him around and steal the ball, and he would laugh and yell at me in Korean. I would then proceed to score a ‘goal’ in the open doorway we were using and he would be unaware he just let me ‘sort of hug’ him. It has been these little moments I have happily been stealing from him that have helped his walls come down and our relationship to grow.

So with my 3 months of consistency, he has grown to know my face and grown to want me around him. I have ‘earned some trust’ from him, just the way I worked hard to earn trust with my camper with autism. Trust is trust after all, and no matter what age, disability, or situation it deserves to be respected and earned. This time instead of doing activities at the orphanage, we took the kids to the movie theater to see Monster Hotel. We needed to pair up, child and volunteer, and Minjune was paired with someone else. He looked at our volunteer leader, said a few things in Korean, and she looked at me and said “He wants to be paired with you.” My heart warmed. We walked down the street towards the subway and just as any typical 8 year old boy he tried to run down the sidewalk with his friends away from me. I grabbed the hood of his coat to keep him in arms length, as holding his hand was not ‘cool’ and he was still keeping some distance from me. We got on the subway and he joked around with me, playing pranks and trying to speak English. We finally got to the movie theater and I kept laughing with him as he was teaching me how to count in Korean and I would teach him how to count in English. I would rub his head or his back as we laughed together, knowing he was getting more comfortable with me. I bought him some popcorn and a soda, and then we sat down to watch the movie. He demanded that I eat more popcorn with him, and when he ran out of soda, I gave him mine. He sat so close to me in the movies and we laughed at the screen together. (even though it was in Korean and half the time I was lost.)

Soon the movie ended. We left the theater and as we walked back to the subway I put my hand out and he grabbed it. He grabbed it….and we held hands most of the way home. We may not speak the same language, but somehow I have gained his trust. I could not have done it without the power of touch and it’s capability to express everything we are unable to express in other ways. It’s moments like these, when I realize how much we need to not be afraid to love one another this way, and we need to stop talking and let our actions take over. It’s important to remember that our actions, a sweet touch here or a hug there, can help people of all cultures, situations, or backgrounds to trust and love one another.