Lately, I’ve been doing some programming on my other site – UlsanOnline.com. On this site, however, I’ve been fairly lax. I was looking at the front page the other day and decided I needed a makeover.
A lot of traffic just comes to this blog directly and that’s fine. But there are some who start out at the main page and click down into this blog. If you haven’t seen it, go there now and check it out.
There’s a few things I have worked on with the Ulsan site that I wanted to recreate over here and show off a few flashy and sizzly things. Nothing terribly extraordinary, and nothing any serious web designer would drool over, but just enough to keep my hands and head in a small technology space. If the images don’t change to color or the menus don’t fly, you likely don’t have javascript turned on with your browser.
My internet rocks, and yours doesn’t. Something I’ve known since 2004 when I first came here – Korea’s internet kicks ass and America’s doesn’t. Bizjournals has a brief article on how behind the US is compared to us here in Korea.
At the bottom of the article it mentioned the universal service payments on your phones. When’s the last time you paid the advertised price for your cell phone or landline? Never – it’s so laden with fees that are supposed to help pay for all that wonderful infrastructure that you don’t get. My home phone here cost – $5/month.
OK. I’m done sticking my tongue out at you people in the US. I’m going back to downloading more movies and music.
It’s friggin’ hot. Of course, it ain’t Texas-hot, but it’s hot. Almost 1pm and it’s 86 with enough humidity to make it feel like 93. That’s hot enough to give me what my brother John so eloquently called “butt gravy.”
What happens when you’ve got a geek with a lot of time and a large collection of music on his hands? You get this. A short video. I was just watching my computer run through the screen saver which is a random collection of all my photographs. Some from way back, some from just this month. Made me curious about putting together a short “me” movie. Just faces. No context. No other people.
Last year, getting marriage paperwork through the US Embassy in Seoul was easy, if not romantic.
This year, I needed a new passport. I read their website, gathered all the required paperwork and photos and had my current passport delivered. I figured it would take (like most things in the US Government) weeks to process. Nope. One week, from sending it via courier to getting the new one and the cancelled old one with entrance stamps still there.
I think they’re are the only governmental organization with whom I’ve ever worked with that did things expediently, efficiently and without trouble.They’re great!
Do you suppose we could put the Seoul Embassy folks in charge of the health care fiasco?
Unless of course you worked on a chicken farm or a chicken processing plant.
Any Guesses before I further describe this?
MyeongHee and I drove up to downtown PoHang yesterday to visit one of her high school friends, SukHee. She runs a chicken restaurant and so while they talked I feasted on a couple of chicken dishes. We had fried wings and fried legs and the man dish was “Dak jjim,” a spicy soy-based sauce of rice noodles, veggies and chicken. I like this dish, although sometimes it can be monstrously hot and spicy. SukHee toned it down for me and it was just right – not too spicy, not too dull.
I was busy devouring the stuff while they talked and found a rubbery little piece of chicken. Figuring it for your average gristle, I took it out of my mouth. Upon examination, I discovered it to be one of those myths of Korean dining one hears of but rarely sees.
The above little morsel is “? ??” (Dak ddong jib). Literally translated, this is “chicken shit house.” A nicer way to put it is that this is where the shit lives in the chicken.
So, great, I munched on a chicken’s asshole. Not entirely, though, as I said I only ate part of it. But then I found more pieces. Here’s a better view of something I know you’ve never seen in America – a chicken asshole on a spoon.
Mmmm, good! Makes you wanna run right out and get some of your own, doesn’t it? The entire dish wasn’t all asshole – there were plenty of pieces of tender breast and thigh chunks. I just left the assholes aside.
But if you’re the type that really likes this stuff, you can get all the assholes you want. I glanced at the menu board on the wall and saw this lovely dish.
? ? ? ?? - Fried Chicken Assholes
That’s right, folks! For a mere $11 you can get a whole plate of fried chicken assholes.
Since we were visiting MyeongHee’s friend at her restaurant, I didn’t want to insult her by not eating her assholes which she so lovingly prepared for us ahead of time. (She knew we were coming and, this dish, which takes a long time to prepare, was piping hot and ready for us when we arrived). I simply gave the assholes to the dog.
SaTang wants more chicken assholes
A dog in a restaurant? No problem in Korea. Although some may object they would only do so among themselves. The Confucian style in Korea is to not cause anyone embarassment or to “lose face.” In other words, they wouldn’t say shit even if they had a mouth full of it – or of assholes.
No, not the rapper. This is MyeongHee’s younger brother’s new baby girl. They adopted her last month. Her name is Kim Ga-Eun (family name is always listed first in Korea.) We visited MyeongHee’s mom’s house this weekend got to meet her for the first time.
She Liked Uncle Martins big strong arm. I am called Gomo-Bu here, which means father sister husband
She has to wear the mittens for a while, as she has a tendency to scratch her face. Without seeing the fingers, it always looked like she was giving us a salute when she waved her arms.
She likes Aunt MyeongHee, too, who is called Gomo, or fathers sister.Daddy went fishing early on Sunday and around noon both father and daughter take their nap together
For another weekend, the only chair I’ll find is the front seat of the car. We leave tonight to go to MyeongHee’s mother’s home in Pohang. MH’s younger brother and his wife adopted a baby girl last month, so this will be our first chance to meet her. They have been unable to have kids of their own and finally decided that adoption was the only way out. Their baby is only the second addition to MyeongHee’s family in 11 years (me being the first last year).
I hope to come back early next week with a few pictures of the newest Kim.
