I am an idiot

October 4, 2010
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Last week I went on and on and on about how awesome Korea was for making me love my most hated vegetable — the cucumber. As it turns out, I was not eating cucumbers, I was eating 애호박, or the Korean version of the zucchini… or what all my friends seem to call a “young [...]

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my mini velo bike

October 3, 2010
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I bought a regular size bike last month, but it was stolen after 4 days… I took this as a sign from the universe that I was not meant to have a big sturdy manly bike, and that instead I should buy one of the metro-sexual Asian mini velo’s (to go with my man-purse). So… [...]

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street taekwondo

October 1, 2010
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A few years ago I was volunteering for a mayoral candidate in Hartford in hopes that he would defeat the now imprisoned Eddie Perez.  A friend and I asked him what his plan was to get people downtown.  His answer was “street theater.”  We both kind of stood there with our mouths gaping because all [...]

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Happy Football, Happy Yellow

September 30, 2010
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A few weeks ago some friends and I went to see our hometown “professional” soccer team play — the Seongnam Ilhwa. There’s not much interesting to say about it except that the only people there (aside from us) seemed to be young Army soldiers.  I grew up in an Army town, but I’d never experienced [...]

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sunrises; I hate them

September 29, 2010
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I don’t like sunrises.  One has to wake up obscenely early or go bed obscenely late, and either way, 5:30am never feels good. And if I don’t like sunrises, I positively hate the photos we take of them.  I don’t understand how we, as a species, could be so universally attracted to the sunrise & [...]

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Abai Village — a North Korean village in South Korea

September 28, 2010
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After seeing Naksansa, I took the bus back to Sokcho.  I wanted to see Abai Village/아바이마을 (Korea’s tourism info). Abai Village is a small enclave of Sokcho, officially named Cheongho-dong.  Evidently, many North Koreans from the Hamgyeong province (wikipedia) moved here during the Korean War (1950-1953) and since many of them were older, the village [...]

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cucumbers & bean sprouts

September 27, 2010
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UPDATE: Because I am idiot, I just realized that these are NOT cucumbers… they are zucchinis. One reason I love Korea is that they have somehow managed to make me love (make me love so much that I buy them now) my most hated and despised vegetable… the cucumber. But, it’s not just the cucumber, [...]

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Naksan Temple

September 26, 2010
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Last year I read several blog posts about Naksan Temple, or Naksansa/낙산사 (wikipedia), and I really wanted to visit.  It is one of the few temples that are on the coast (as most are on top of mountains). But, living in Andong and getting out of work at 11pm really prevented me from traveling too [...]

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my Chuseok week

September 25, 2010
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It is Chuseok (추석) week.  (Here’s some info on Chuseok, commonly called Korean Thanksgiving.) I already wrote about re-visiting Andong and Hahoemaeul last weekend.  After Andong, I came back to Seoul to rest as I thought I might be getting sick… but I ended up traipsing all over the city all day. I started with [...]

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Hahoemaeul… again

September 21, 2010
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I went to Hahoe Village (하희마을/Hahoemaeul) again this weekend.  This will be my third post on it, and I would leave it alone except that I spent a lot of time in the Southern part of the village, which I hadn’t done much of before. It really is one of the most beautiful places I’ve [...]

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my buckwheat pillow

September 15, 2010
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I got a buckwheat pillow. I didn’t exactly mean to… I was walking down the street and a man was making them from his truck.  I needed a new pillow and had heard about their health benefits… so I bought one. I love it. It only cost me $14 (after asking for a discount, which [...]

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10 lbs in 3 weeks on the Seoul diet

September 14, 2010

I came back to Korea 3 weeks ago — since then I’ve lost 10 lbs. Last year in Korea I lost 59 lbs, and I expected to lose more weight when I came back to Korea, but this rate has surprised me. Last year everyone asked what I was doing to lose so much weight… [...]

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2NE1: To Anyone

September 12, 2010
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I love buying CD’s in Korea.  They put so much effort into it, and each one is different (at least with the kpop idol singers). So, I was doubly excited today when I went to buy 2NE1‘s new album and in addition to the 47 page lyrics & photo book that come with the CD, [...]

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Chicken Art Museum in Seoul

September 12, 2010
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I was so excited when I found out about the Chicken Art Museum.  However, none of my Korean friends knew anything about it, and upon learning of it, were not entirely thrilled at the prospect of going. So, earlier this summer I dragged a friend to come with me… The grandmother working was so excited [...]

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janggu and me

September 6, 2010
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Reason #3 for moving to Seoul: I started taking janggu (장구) lessons this weekend.  It wasn’t my first choice (I wanted to learn the gayageum), but I was pleasantly surprised after my first lesson.  It was a little harder than I expected, but hopefully not too difficult. From Wikipedia: The janggu… is the most widely [...]

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moving to Seoul; love & gayageums

September 5, 2010
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Reasons for moving to Seoul: Reason #1 was so I could date, fall in love, not get married, and live happily ever after. Reason #2 was so that I could do fun things that did not involve batting cages. Things were going swimmingly with both.  I was two dates away from changing my Facebook relationship status [...]

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Back to America (and lots of pictures)

September 1, 2010
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It’s been a while since the last post… the last month has been me saying goodbye to everyone in Andong, saying hello to everyone in America, saying goodbye to everyone in America, saying hello to everyone in Seoul, and cleaning out my apartment from the last tenant who thought he would be nice and leave [...]

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Hahoe with an H!

August 9, 2010
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The main reason we visited Hahoe Village this weekend was to see our friend Usher perform in a musical. It was really, really great.  I didn’t understand the plot given that my Korean is pretty much limited to ordering food, ordering more food, and telling taxi drivers how to get me to said food.  But, [...]

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Hahoe Folk Village… again

August 9, 2010
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Some friends and I went out to Hahoe Folk Village this weekend.  It’s so beautiful there, and I was happy I got to see it again before I left Andong. Hahoe Village is a traditional Korean village from the Joseon era (1392-1897).  The homes, the rice, the river… it’s all rather wonderful.  And people actually [...]

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Miss A — Bad Girl, Good Girl

August 6, 2010
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This has to be the best Kpop song to come out in a long while.  It’s a new girl group, so I didn’t (initially) have high hopes… but, I’m obsessed. Earlier this week I was listening to the song on YouTube and an elementary student saw part of the video where the girls slap their [...]

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