Goodbye Korea

It is my last day in Korea. I fly out tomorrow afternoon heading for Yemen.  This will be my last post from Korea.  Instead of writing a lot, I have written this whole year about different things in Korea,  I will mainly post some pictures.  First a few more sentences about Korea.  On my last day of work a Korean co-worker told me "that I look like a foreigner but act like a Korean."  When I did hear that it felt good to know that I had become a part of the culture over this year.  Before coming to Korea I had hoped to learn about Korean culture and it seems like I accomplished that goal.  Now it is onto new places where I hope the same thing will happen wherever in the world I may live.  All right, now for the pictures.  These pictures are random pictures that I pulled but hopefully will show some of the highlights of this year.

Being a tourist in Korea

Last week having finished my contract I was on vacation for a short time.  I decided to stay in Korea since I will be leaving here very shortly and plus there were a few more things I wanted to see.  I ended up heading down to an island south of Korea that is known as Jeju-do.  I took a short plane ride from Seoul down to the island.  I planned to stay down there from Sunday through Thursday.

On Sunday after arriving on the island I took a bus down to a town known as Seogwipo.  This town is on the Southern coast of the island and I went down there to explore the bottom half of the island for a couple days.  First night I did get in kind of late and so I walked around the harbor area.  The next day I was able to see a lot of neat things including a smaller island, a couple of waterfalls, and some funny looking sculptures.  The sculptures were all over the place and specifically along the coast line.  The second waterfall was real neat and supposedly is the only waterfall in Asia that falls into the ocean.  Luckily it was low tide so it was easy to take some pictures.

On Tuesday I left Seogwipo and headed to the East coast for another famous island.  After a short ferry ride I was on the island of Udo.  It is this smaller island that has a road that is close to 14 km long in order to go around the whole island.  This island has some great scenery.  Plus this island is also famous for female free divers.  This is actually true for the whole Jeju back in the day but on this island they still do it.  They aren't doing it for sport but instead for food and products to sell.  It was very interesting what they were picking.

What they were diving for that day 

After spending majority of the day biking the island I headed to Jeju-si.  Jeju-si is the biggest city on the island and is on the North coast right next to the airport.  I spent two more days up there but during the day I left the city and went to see more things outside the city.  Jeju is famous for its scenery and beautiful weather and so I spent most of the time outdoors enjoying the nice weather and sites.  A few other things I was able to see was a lava cave, a forest area, a big mountain from a distance, open fields with horses, and lots of coast line.

I flew back into Seoul on Thursday evening and ended up staying in Seoul for the night.  I stayed up there so that way I can go on a DMZ tour on Friday morning.  So Friday I did get up and headed out to see the DMZ area.  For those unfamiliar the DMZ is the "demilitarized zone" that separates North Korea and South Korea.  Technically these two countries are still at war and the DMZ does give an interesting reminder to that situation.  For the tour I was able to see things such as the Freedom Bridge, the 3rd tunnel (was meant to be a way for the North to invade South Korea), Dora Observatory (could see into North Korea), and Dorasan station.  Dorasan station is a train station that is right on the border and I think was the neatest thing out of the whole tour.  This station I think gives hope for a future unification of Korea where they can be one country.  That time won't happen tomorrow but hopefully sometime in the future it will happen.

After the tour I headed back to Boryeong-si.  I have been hanging around here this weekend.  I went out to the beach for the last time yesterday.  Plus I have been saying goodbye to a lot of friends who hopefully in the future I will be able to see again.  It is neat because we are all global travelers and all have an interest in everybody else's adventures.  Plus with the friends I have made whenever I do travel somewhere I could potentially have a local friend in countries all over.  Tomorrow I head up to Seoul for one last time.  Have a few errands to run in the big city and then fly out of Tuesday.  I can't wait for the new places I will be going.  I will write later.    

Interviewing in Sweats

My original contract here is good for only a year.  There was a chance to resign and stay in Korea but I think it is time to move on and see other places.  It has been quite an experience here in Korea this year.
With knowing that I would be unemployed after my contract was up I started looking for a new job a few months ago.  Most of my job searches have been online and they all have been long distance.  I ended up sending out my resume and a cover letter to a good amount of postings.  In the end I ended up having about four different job offers, but before talking about the offers the cool part about interviewing long distance.

Interviews in general aren't usually fun but with Skype interviews or over the phone interviews I was able to interview in sweats.  If it was a Skype interview then only the top half of me would be seen and for the most part we stopped video after a short time and simply switched to speaking without video.  This was to preserve the internet connections and make the interview smoother without lag.  It was really comfortable doing interviews at least dress wise.  Besides that there are of course downfalls such as bad connection, hard to show enthusiasm via video, hard to read reactions, interviews at strange times (time zone differences), and a few other not so good things.  Overall I would prefer an interview in person even if it does require getting completely dressed up.  I personally think it is easier and a lot better chance to show the employer some potential.      

So after some different interviews I ended up with some job offers thankfully.  They included a part time position in Jordan and then the rest full time positions in Mexico, Chile, and Yemen.  I first started mainly looking in the Middle East region but jobs were hard to come by and so then I started switching to Spanish speaking countries so hence some of the countries that I was offered a position.

In the end I end up choosing Yemen.  In fact the contract starts in about a week from today!  I will be back in the Middle East where I originally started blogging about three years ago.  It is going to be a big difference from Korea and hopefully I will be able to show some of that with future posts.  So yes I will be using the same blog for Yemen and maybe I will arrange the layout differently but too busy for that now. My Korean contract was officially up on April 17th and since then I have been traveling seeing some more things in Korea before leaving.  I will be heading straight to Yemen from Korea especially since not much time between contracts.  Korea has been great year but at the same time I am excited. . . stoked for this change.  I will post a few more things about Korea here shortly but I need to start getting ready for dinner.  It is a goodbye dinner, which I have attended a few of them for friends but now it is mine.  I will write later.       

Korean Diner

One of my foreign friends in Korea thinks that I have a food blog.  I do tell him that is not true all the time but of course on occasion food is included. Since he lives in Korea as well maybe he can let me know if my food descriptions are accurate. A Korean diner has a few things in common with an American style diner.  For the most part they serve comfort type food that everyone is familiar with and some of them are always open.  Those are really the only similarities to comparing a Korean diner with an American style diner.  So what is a Korean diner like?  Like previously mentioned side dishes are still served and of course chopsticks are in all diners.  One thing that is pretty unique in all restaurants and not simply just diners is the menu posted on the wall.

  

Following I will describe a few comfort type foods that are found all over the place.  First I will describe kimbap.  Now a little Korean lesson in what kimbap means: kim means seaweed and bap means rice.  So basically in every kimbap there is seaweed and rice and then usually other things in the middle with it all being rolled up.  Some different ones include: tuna, beef, cheese, plain, kimchi, etc.  My favorite one pictured below in the middle has: radish, egg, crab, a root, carrot, and a green vegetable.  This one is a basic one but the one I seem to like the most.

    

Next will be dhakboggie.  There is not much to this dish with the main thing being dhak (Korean way to say rice cake) mixed in this red sauce.  Typically there are also pieces of cabbage, fish cake, and a hard boiled egg that comes in this dish too.  To add more to this dish you can order raboggie which simply adds rameon noodles to this dish along with everything else already mentioned. This food is also considered a street food and is a favorite amongst Koreans. 

Found at a market plus on far side are fish cake on stick in a broth substance. 

The next dish goes by the name of bibimbap.  This is a bowl of rice with different things inside plus a spicy red sauce to top it all off.  Typical things found inside it are seaweed, bean sprouts, green vegetable, lettuce, roots, radishes, and a fried egg.  Of course there are different variations.  With this dish most people mix it all up and eat it together. 

Next dish is more of a stew type dish.  It is called Kimchi jiggae.  Jiggae roughly translates into a stew type dish and so there are multiple types of jiggae.  As the name does suggest there is kimchi in this dish.  Other things found in the dish are onions, green onions, tofu, and pork.  This dish can be a little spicy.  Even with my dislike of kimchi at the beginning, I have always seemed to like this dish.

Final dish I will describe in detail is known as a donkassu.  This basically is a breaded piece of pork that is fried up and has a sauce over the top of it.  There are plain donkassu and also cheese donkassu which is the one that is pictured below.  This dish originally is a Japanese food item but Korea has adopted it over the years.  Plus to my knowledge this is the only dish where a fork and knife are used.  

      

Of course there are other items I didn’t describe in detail.  Other items include different rameons (Korea has a ton of Rameon varieties), different fried rices, different noodle dishes, omrice (omelette rice concoction), different stews, dumplings, etc.  Overall though that was a look at some Korean food that is found at a diner or along the streets of Korea.  Last weekend I went up to Seoul with some friends where we watched a ballgame.  It was a good weekend but could have been better if it was warmer.  This week at work is pretty typical.  This weekend I don't have set plans yet but I might take a day trip to go see some friends.  I will write later.  

Market

One thing that is common throughout most countries of the world is an open air market.  This was true in the Middle East region and even in the various Asian countries I have visited.  In Korea there are markets that are open every single day it doesn’t matter about the weather.  I currently live close to the market area for my city of Boryeong.  The market is always open but every five days there are more people who come to sell more items, and so it is a little bit bigger every five days.  Most of the people selling stuff every day have little building right next to the market and so they live right there and make their income on simply their market sales.  

The people, who come every five days, to make a bigger market, usually bring in their stuff simply for that day.  Majority of the stuff carted in are smaller items such as fresh roots, vegetables, mushrooms, fruits, and smaller edible items.  These items are carted in by older woman who are known as “ajuamas” in Korean.  They sit out trying to sell their items while at the same time prepping the items to make it more presentable and easier to eat.   

There are different types of markets depending on what is being sold.  A couple specific markets found in Korea include fish markets and clothing markets.  Usually these specific markets are in close proximity of the general market and so it isn’t hard to find everything you need when at the market.  An exclusion could possibly be a market on the docks similar to some of the pictures from the last post.  Plus Korean markets are very seasonal and some stuff you can't find if it isn't the right season.  

Typically items at a market are cheaper than items found in a store.  Plus at markets it is possible to haggle for a better price.  Of course this does mean knowledge of numbers and some other language skills are necessary.  This is true for Korea as well but there is one down fall to the markets in Korea.  They love to sell the stuff in bulk.  This is because most Korean houses include the extended family and so the stuff won’t go bad before it is used.  So instead of buying a few items of fruit they sell big bundles of one particular fruit. 

In the market and around the market there are different food items that are considered street food of Korea.  I will leave pictures for now and describe the food in a later post when I talk about street food and ‘kim bap’ establishments (Koreans version of a diner).  This week seems like it will be a normal week but of course in Korea that could all change with very little notice.  I meant to post this earlier in the week but I was locked out of my account until today.  It is Friday afternoon and so the weekend has started.  Tomorrow a group of us will be going up to Seoul to see a baseball game and hang out for the evening.  I will write later sometime. 

Selling fermented items is common in Korea

Not sure if used for honey or you just want some pets?