Sunday, November 26, 2006

T-Day

On my way home from work on Thursday, I realized it was Thanksgiving. So I stopped by one of the local chicken places and bought myself a chicken dinner. Unfortunately, they tend to sell family sizes, as in whole chickens. On the plus side, the do have a wide variety of flavors and breadings available. I settled with some sort of spicy chicken, which turned out to be a little too spicy and messy to truly enjoy. Nevertheless, I stuffed myself on chicken for Thanksgiving.

On Friday, the other foreign teacher at my school invited me to a Thanksgiving dinner that her husband's co-workers were having. They're all consultants for a pharmaceutical company here in Korea, and make a few more won than your average teacher. The person who hosted the party (high up on the food chain, so I hear) had one of the nicest apartments I've ever seen. A penthouse apartment with a roof top terrace. And the food was even better. Almost all of it was imported, via Costco (which they have in Seoul). Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad. And no sweet pickles on the side. And that alone qualifies it as one of the best meals I've had in Korea (Note: sweet pickles some on the side of everything here. Even the Uzbek restaurant in Seoul serves sweet pickles on the side. Although, chicken is usually served with a side of pickled radishes.)

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The Fish Market

Pictures from the Sorae, a fish market near Incheon. The seafood here is as fresh as you're going to get it anywhere. A lot of people buy their food and eat it right outside the market.

Fresh fish,


dried fish,


crabs,


crab meat,


snails,


prawns,


octopi,


and some kind of sea worm.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Ganghwa-do


Just a short update to regarding my bicycle trip up to Ganghwa. Ganghwa, marked on the map above, is an island along the northwest coast of Korea. They have a lot of historic sites, but I just visited some of the old forts and batteries along the east coast. There's some more stuff on the island I'd like to see, but I'll wait until the weather starts to warm and the days start to get longer.

One of the most interesting aspects of the trip was the road along the coast from Incheon up to Ganghwa. As you may notice on the map, it is just down the coast from North Korea (the yellow line). So the ocean side of the road is lined with a couple of barbed wire topped, chain link fences, and guard towers all along the route.

That's about it for the excitement here. I'm heading back down to the fish market tomorrow after work to get some more pictures. So stayed tuned.