Socialized health care and a few art projects

I've been terrible lately about emailing family and friends. Sorry! I do have a good excuse, though -- I've had a lingering cold for about 30 days. I'm chalking it up to new diet, new country, tons of little children and stress.

Anyhow, I finally went to the doctor yesterday, and it was my first real experience in a socialized health-care system. First of all, there aren't really doctor's offices here -- everyone just goes to the hospitals or clinics, and no appointment is necessary. I googled "Finding a Doctor in Korea" and came up with a few international health clinics, though I guess most hospitals have English-speaking staff.

The hospital was super crowded and they rush you through, which I suppose they have to do because there are so many people. But when it was all said and done, the visit plus a chest x-ray and three different kinds of medicine cost a whopping... $60.

And in the evening a nurse called me at home to check up on me. It was categorically better than the health care in the States in every way possible (for the patient), with the exception of it being in a foreign language.

So, with all this sick downtime during the weekends, I've made a few shabby chic household items.

Handmade paper is big in Korea, so I made a lampshade out of some of it:

And fixed up a free, crappy bookshelf with more of it.
Here's the start (ignore the just-started painting in the background):
The paper and the nearly finished product:

A problem with persimmons

Persimmons, persimmons, oh delicious persimmons. I wrote a haiku for you:

Dime a dozen, orange
sweet, addictive much like crack
Austin cut me off

...

I'm HUGE in Korea (Part VI)

Thankfully, it was a bit taller inside!

12-decker dumpling steamer

It's Mandu! Six dumplings for $0.80! And filled with kimchi! Just like heaven! And I just used a lot of exclamation points!

I'm HUGE in Korea, part V

No, it is not, in fact, a window. It's the door on the ferry to Saryando island.

Happy Pepero!

11/11. A "Happy Pepero" drawing from a student.

The day of pepero. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the holiday: "Pepero (빼빼로) is a cookie stick, dipped in chocolate syrup, manufactured by Lotte in South Korea since 1983." The candy looks like the letter 1, so the 11th day in the 11th month is Pepero day. It's totally an example of a shameful marketing holiday.

Austerity, Eeriness, Rambunctiousness

OK. I'm a language instructor and a linguist -- I know how difficult it is to translate between languages, particularly between languages as distant as Korean and English.

But, WOW, every once in a while I just have to laugh. (You may recall my previous post about the Hot Dog sign.)

Well, I'll let my new favorite sign speak for itself. (The 'sign' is an ad on the back window of a car, in case you can't tell.)

Seriously? "From everlasting to everlasting"?

Somebody call up David -- I think Psalm 103 was just plagiarized!

Sungkyunkwan University: Unique Origin -- Unique Future

It was such a beautiful autumn day on campus yesterday, I decided to tote my camera around campus snapping pictures.  

Translation:  I had so much grading to do that I was looking for any opportunity to procrastinate.  

Just hit Play, sit back and enjoy.   If you prefer a slower pace, you can press Pause and click through one by one.  If you would like to see captions, click the little speech bubble in the bottom left-hand corner (after pressing Play).  

Shabu-shabu, thank you-thank you

Introducing... the glorious shabu-shabu!Though originally Japanese, it's still the most badass hot pot in Korea.

In the picture above, inside the nifty, divided pot in the center of our table are seafood broth on the right and spicy meat broth on the left, the bases of the dish. With shabu-shabu, you essentially cook the meal yourself by cranking the grill, boiling the broth, and then pouring in the veggies, meat, noodles and dumplings -- mouthful by mouthful. After just a few seconds of cooking, you fish out the goodies and dip them in the sauce of your choice.

See the mountain of sprouts, mushrooms, cabbage and other greens for the soup?:
Here's me adding the beef, which comes in lovely little rolls:

오바마! 오바마! 오바마! (Obama! Obama! Obama!)

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

-Barack Obama

Aruba, Jamaica, ooo I wanna take you to Saryando, Yeonhwado...

We took a trip this weekend to the southern city of Tongyeong and two islands, Yeonhwado and Saryando, just beyond the mainland. It was a rough way to spend a weekend, as you can see from this picture.




We hung out a lot on the trip:
(These would probably be more impressive if you couldn't see the grass growing out of the ground, which is just below our feet).



We tried some local delicacies:
(YES, I swear it's food -- sea urchin! Kinda slimy like an oyster.)



We made some new friends:



We even discovered an alien.
Seriously, any guesses to what this thing is? Our best guess is jellyfish.
Austin's foot, for perspective:



We visited several beautiful Buddhist temples on the two islands. This photo is from the balcony of one of the temples, which overlooks the ocean and part of the island:

A monk inside the temple:

A miniature lotus pond:

The gardens (and a gardener) surrounding the temples:




We went on the trip with an international hiking club, and here are some pictures from the hike out to the "dragon's head" on the island:



And here are a few final photos:


Check out this link if you're interested in learning more about the city of Tongyeong.