Expect Me When You See Me

I estimate that about 10% of the population are wearing masks because of MERS. Not only is this weird to see considering it isn't spread by air unless in hospital conditions, but it pisses me off how many of them are wearing them improperly. I have to wear a mask whenever the air quality is poor so I've gone through a lot of masks finding one that works against the yellow dust and pollution. These people buy cheap masks which don't even seal to the sides of their mouth and somehow think that it's any use whatsoever. Then there's the idiots who pull down the masks so their noses are exposed. And let's not forget the woman who got on the train next to me, while not wearing a mask, then put on the mask for the duration of the ride, only to take it off before she got off the train. In what world would that have been helpful? It makes me want to not wear a mask in order to not be lumped in to the 'paranoid and stupid about MERS' crowd.

So, I went down to Daegu and Gyeongju this past week to do some research. I'd been to Daegu and the museum before and was just taking impressions of the drill holes of beads which I had already examined. This took a few hours, then I caught the express bus to Gyeongju (which only takes about an hour). Gyeongju was the former center of the Silla Kingdom during the Three Kingdoms Period and this was my first chance to visit. I took another short bus ride and checked into my hotel. This hotel, called Mini Hotel 141 is the only one I could find in Gyeongju that was explicitly non-smoking. Considering my asthma is highly triggered by smoking, it was necessary to pay whatever it took to stay in a hotel that was smoke free. Luckily, this one was only about ten dollars more than the cheaper hotels and it's location close to the train station put it close to a lot of the attractions. I got there and discovered that it was also a really nice hotel which provides toiletry kits, and even had a western style towel (this is amazing, believe me). I headed out then to find the mounded tomb park, which, since there was a tomb viewable from the corner near the hotel, I assumed wouldn't be too hard. As luck would have it, I just followed the trail of tombs to hit the park right around the sunset.

I headed inside of the actual park and just wandered around the tombs. I checked out the inside of the Cheonmacheong tomb, which was full of replicas but fun to see laid out. I ended up explaining what was there to a Korean family who was there and who didn't understand the layout and what was what. I then wandered to the far end of the park and did a giant circle before heading back out of the gate I entered in. I then headed back into town proper, ending up on the fashion streets. I got some spicy beef fried rice for dinner and an ice cream which I ate when I got back to the hotel. I watched Korean tv for a bit, marveling about how there are two channels for watching pro Go players and two channels for watching pro video game players. (At one point they were playing a game which hilariously looked like Yugioh as played by Kaiba and his holograms.) Then I went to sleep early because I had to be up early to get to the archaeological center.
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The next day I slept as late as possible but the room was noisy because Indians use their horns on their cars all the time, and my earplugs just muffle sound not block it completely, plus it was really bright so I only slept until 11am. We took our time waking up and showering before heading out for lunch at The United Coffee House which is about a 15min walk from the Fulbright house. The Coffee house is pretty posh but clean and the food was good. R. got a tomato lamb couscous dish while I had badshatti kofta which was a tomato curry with paneer cheese balls in it. The cheese dumplings were nice but the curry had less tomato and more cumin than I prefer so I ended up dipping our garlic naan into R.’s lamb dish. I really liked the achar they had on the side which is pickled veggies in oil and spices. Apparently most foreigners don’t like it but to me it tasted like spicy olives. From there, we were on a mission to find the local pharmacy and replenish some supplies like ibuprofen which is only sold in small quantities in Korea. That took forever for some reason but we got what we came for then ended up wandering into the levi store and buying jeans. Mostly because not only were they cheap, but they tailored them to your height for free when you bought them. We headed back to the Fulbright house to rest for an hour then took a rickshaw to pick up the jeans before heading out to get dinner.

We ate dinner at Amichi Café in Khan Market, though first we stopped in at the bookstore there since I’d already read through my English language books which I brought. Then we headed to the café which had some amazing pumpkin ravioli in an anise sauce which I thought I wouldn’t like because I don’t usually like licorice but it was really nice and didn’t really taste like licorice at all. We also had some pasta carbonara which was good though it was too much to finish. We then got milkshakes to go which was a mistake on my part since I haven’t been having much dairy in Korea due to hating their milk so my stomach was a bit upset that evening. I took some pepto bismol and it settled down but it’s wedding season so it was particularly noisy out that evening, plus all the cars so even with an eye mask and earplugs I barely slept.

Today I went looking for a folklore museum which was supposed to be near Namsan park in the center of Seoul (at the center of which is a mountain and on top of the mountain is Seoul tower fyi). So I got off the subway at Seoul Station and decided to walk to the park since it was only another subway stop away and it would take just as much walking to get to transfer to the line going that way anyway. I set off, past Namdaemun market and then when I thought I went too far, I turned right and started heading up hill, wandering amongst neighborhoods and hotels. My path led me to a tiny concrete trail next to a fence with the highway below me. I headed up. And up. Then I found a map which was useless since it didn't show the museum and the map on my phone didn't look like the map on the board. Google maps on my phone said I was in the right place but nothing was there. So I climbed a truly enormous set of stairs, discovering halfway up that this was the same staircase where they filmed the finale of My Name is Kim Sam Soon (which is good since I spent a lot of that scene wondering why the hell that staircase was so long in the middle of a city). Once at the top, I found another map, and it had been recently altered. In front of me was a fenced off area. Peering through the cracks showed what looked like a covered up excavation to me. I found a sign saying it was the site of the excavation of the city walls. Possibly the museum had been there or it was somewhere else and had been renamed or it just closed down. I decided to give up and headed up a bit more, then down some stairs to arrive at the trail which wound around the mountain. It was bordered by a pretty stream and the occasional waterfall so I didn't mind walking a few km.

I ended up coming down the mountain at Namsangol Hanok Village which is a collection of restored Korean houses complete with furnishings and whatnot. I was most fascinated by the ondol (or under the floor heating system), a modern version of which graces my apartment and many other Korean people's today. I arrived near the end of a rice cake and alcohol festival which was a bit like a country fair since they were handing out awards to women in hanbok (traditional Korean dress) for best rice cake and whatnot. The tasting had ended unfortunately, so I just looked at the pretty cakes, the bizarre coloured drinks, and two men demonstrating straw weaving.

My feet were really tired at that point but it didn't seem worth hoping on the subway just to go one stop again so I walked back to the Myeong-dong area and followed vague directions to get to a Cat Cafe. I'm allergic to cats, so I'd taken some allergy medicine in prep and it seems to have worked since I was able to stay for about 1 1/2hrs petting and playing with kitties. You basically pay a flat fee when you come in and get a free drink with it which isn't all that bad a system and you can stay as long as you want. They provide some cat toys, and you can pay a little extra to get a treat to feed the cats which I didn't bother doing. All the cats seemed a bit tuckered out to be honest. Some played and seemed to be having fun, but there were so many people, I think they get more attention than they needed or possibly wanted on the weekends. I think I'll go to one on a weekday and I bet the cats will be less overwhelmed. They had two of those cats without fur and they were really cute. I'd never seen one in real life before and it was nice that they were taking good care of one who was missing a leg.

After that, I wandered around looking for a restaurant to catch my fancy. I spotted one saying it was famous for pan fried rice (bokeumbap) and figured since they made me wait to get a seat, it was pretty popular and would be tasty. I ordered the chicken fried rice which they cooked in front of me in a big cast iron pan. When it was done, I was surprised to see it looked much lighter than the picture of it in their displays. "Shouldn't it be redder?" I asked, and pointed at the picture in their menu which was labeled as what I had ordered. And he was like, "You want it spicy?" "Yep." So he called someone over to add red pepper paste to it at which point it looked more like, you know, what everyone else was eating. I can't figure out if I was supposed to order it spicy (which would be weird for Korea cause everything is just automatically spicy), or if they left it out on purpose because I'm a foreigner and there's no way I could handle their (really not as hot as they all think it is) food. It was very tasty at least.

I then wandered around for a bit to digest. I ended up buying a chocolate/strawberry ice cream cone which was a good way to digest the rest of the meal even if soft serve ice cream here sucks (I think it's because they use the wrong kinds of milk to make it because their milk is kinda weird here too). I then got lured into Nature Republic. They give you free stuff to get you into beauty stores which if you take, you're obligated to go in, though not to buy. I got handed a snail mask (ie, a face mask made from snail goo which is supposed to be good for your skin) and I happily took it because I spotted the most amazing thing - hand sanitizer. Nature Republic pretty much stole Bath and Body Works idea of having cute, nice smelling pocket sized hand sanitizers and while $2 a bottle is a lot for something so tiny, it's a pretty good deal considering how expensive and rare hand sanitizer is here. So I picked up a few bottles, then got lured into buying some almond body wash since it was buy one get one free. And then the salesperson threw even more freebies into my bag so I ended up with 3 snail masks, 8 tiny bottles of whitening cream (which I have no idea what to do with cause I really don't care to whiten my skin), oils, and steamers (whatever those are. not really sure how to use them). Did the salesperson just like me or do they do that every time is my question?

The pad thai I made from scratch tonight. With firm tofu and chicken and real tamarind.
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We finished up the first (and only *sigh*) season of Unnatural History on Memorial Day. I really love how that series is basically Aang, Sokka and Hermione solving very silly historical mysteries. The one that really boggled my brain was the one that ended with showing that the colonists at Roanoke built giant hidden cliff statues of the Norse gods (wtf?) but that episode was doomed to be infinitely wrong for me considering it featured an archaeological dig. And Benjamin Franklin built atomic weapons, doncha know? Ah, the absurdity. Still, funny lines, and great comic timing (the best scene provided by the "sokka"s father was when he was locked out of the museum so he went through the ducts like the kids often do. He fell out of the ceiling, pinned them down with his gaze and went, "Two can play at the duct game." *L* It's such a shame that it wasn't renewed but crap like Tower Prep was *sigh* (My icon celebrates this show.)

Yesterday we went to see POTC: On Stranger Tides which isn't very well liked by critics, but if you're like me and would be happy watching Jack Sparrow go to the supermarket (why hasn't so comedy series (Dead Ringers maybe?) done this?), it was a relaxing and fun time. Not that the plot made much sense, but, uh, when has it in the POTC movies?

We've been indulging in culinary doom by making all our favorite foods each evening, complimented by not just rainbow ribbon cookies but rainbow ribbon cake and exotic cheeses from the awesome Shoprite of Awesome (Kirk loved the cheese selection). So the first night we had fajitas, the second okonomiyaki and the third, a tomato curry in which Kirk really outdid himself. So damn tasty. I was through my first serving before Kirk and Dad had even gotten their plates.

Other than that, Kirk and I have been playing an intensive game of Civ. 4 with the Gods of Old mod on which makes it infinitely harder. We pretty much spent the entire first third of the game having war declared on us. Then while we were in the middle of one war, another person on our other side would declare war on us. So we'd make peace with the first person so we could go fight the second one. It's been crazy and we're not even close to finishing. I'm guessing we'll be playing for a few more weeks.

My allergies are killing me today despite being loaded up with allergy medicine. I sound like I've got a massive cold. Even weirder, my watch gave me a rash, so I stopped wearing it, only to discover that the rash gets worse whenever I go outside, and disappears if I spend enough time inside. (Stupid pollen *pout*).

Bento today (there was none last week cause I was at uni all day last Tuesday). My bento box also broke last week so rather than rubber band it back together, I switched to a square tupperware container for the evening. This might be the last bento of the term.



Inside the cabbage leaf is a creamy ranch pasta salad with chick peas, bacon bits, carrots and peas in it. Under the cabbage leaf and visible next to it are a lot of grapes, plus a fresh strawberry, it being the season for both of them. The yellow, sideways heart is made of sweet cornbread. The hamburger (as the Japanese would call it) is actually made of buffalo with a million spices mixed in and marinated in teriyaki. There's okonomiyaki sauce underneath it to dip into (okonomiyaki sauce tastes good on a lot of things that aren't okonomiyaki...) In the blue cup is a thin layer of rice, covered by tomato curry with quorn, bella mushrooms, cabbage, and onions. It's very spicy and was our dinner on Sunday (which is when I made the cups).

I haven't posted in awhile. Sorry about that. I've been trying to figure out what to do about phd apps in the fall and trying to find a summer job. I'm at the background check stage of one job but they take forever to do things so I'm just hoping they get back to me soon. I need to have several hundred dollars by the end of the summer if I want to keep attending Rutgers and apply for phds. I have a job at Rutgers in Sept., but it's not very helpful right now. Meanwhile, I need to do a new, comprehensive phd search with much broader parameters. I'm also going to apply for some internships and try to get an article published (though having never done that before, I don't have a lot of hope. Anybody got some advice?). It's all looking a bit daunting atm.

I skipped Bujinkan last night in order to comprehensively study for my Japanese lesson test. Due to me misunderstanding two test questions on the last one, I got an 84 on the last test (and was publicly humiliated for it to boot) and had to beg to get two points back because a kanji (that I'd written perfectly right below it on the exam) had gotten partially erased. She gave me those points back, but it only brings it up to a 85, which is still too low for my liking, so I decided that it'd be safer if I got a 90 or above on the final two lesson tests, hence the studying. The test went well (I think), despite my massive allergy attack throughout the damn thing.

Bujinkan last week was a bit meh. I trained with a new guy on Monday and he was a bit of a whiner - always making excuses for every little mistake he made. I told him at one point that I knew he was new and that he'd make mistakes. I was pointing them out to him so he'd get better, not because I actually care. He got on my nerves though by making fun of my height. First bending his legs and hunching down so he'd be at a level where he could punch me (for the record, he's not that tall so there was no need), to which I responded with a scornful look and a "Stop that." He then later tried to use our height difference (which was, as I said, less than a foot's difference) as an excuse for why something wasn't working. I said, "No. It has nothing to do with my height. Your distance is wrong." and resolved not to hurt him for idiocy. It pisses me off though cause if I were a guy, he'd never have been making those jokes/excuses about my height. Asshole. I did a good job teaching him though - when Jack came by he took a look at the guy and said new guy was 'getting it'. Maturity ftw!

Bujinkan on weds was walking/running at the boardwalk because there was a rummage sale at the building where we train. I changed into my walking clothes in the bathroom there and accidentally left my bra. I keep wondering if they sold it... Jack walked with M. and I for the first part which was, like, the longest period of time I've ever talked to Jack. M. and were both weirded out *L* We did the whole boardwalk and on the way back, M. and I had to occasionally run to keep up with the guys who were speeding up now that Jack was at the front. Afterwards, we went to the pub for a drink, which was nice, but then I had to rush home to register for fall classes.

While I was wandering this week, I ended up Borders who evilly were offering 40% off on the new Dresden Files book, Changes. I'd only intended to read a bit of it in the store, but with that much of a discount, I decided the book was worth it. Since I was, overall, dissatisfied with it, it probably wasn't, but oh well. If you've read it, my review (spoilers included) is here. Right now, I keep getting its' plot mixed up with fanfic I've read, which isn't a good sign.

The Uric novel has reached chapter 6 and 19,000 words, but I'm sort of stuck until I can think up an appropriate revenge plan for the kiddies to implement against Alexis. If I can't think of something soon, I'll skip to a later chapter and wing it so it's not the end of the world, but I would like to think of something since I write better linearly. I'm very curious as to how long the novel will actually end up since chapter 7 is the midpoint of the novel. Assuming chapter 6 ends up just as long as the earlier chapters, that puts the novel over the 40,000 estimate I started with.

I'm going to try to take a nap before my next class. Ja ne.

With the addition of the hot dog, today's bento looks very American.



It's actually a turkey hot dog with a cut down bun made out of a hamburger roll. The two green things on either end are sweet gherkins which should go well with the hot dog. In the cup is a piece of cantalope left over from a fruit basket Dad and I have been snacking on. Same explanation for the strawberry. The white things are daikon, which, along with the carrot, were sweet and sour pickled by me a few weeks ago. Yesterday when I made pancakes for lunch, I also tried my hand at making dorayaki but with peanut butter and maple syrup instead of the sweet red/white beans you usually see in them. It worked, but I failed to take into account how viscous the peanut butter would become and I made only three before I gave up on it. I cut one of those in half and used it to block in the butter and herb rice in the centre there (with parmigiana cheese on top). I wish I knew where to buy some plastic partitions for this particular bento because it'd make dividing up sweet/savory/wet/dry things so much easier. This does have the distinction of being my fastest bento yet. It only took maybe 20 minutes all told.

Since my little bro is home from uni this week due to his college's weird schedule, I made three bentos this week and was constrained by a few more veggies my brother wouldn't eat.

That's basic rice on the top. The hearts are also rice with a beet/salt furikake (my Dad and bro got three hearts each - I told them it was made with luv! *L*) Turkey salami separates parmigiana breaded cauliflower with a bit of cheddar on top. Next to it is a grape tomato and a mini seaweed furikake onigiri. In the cup is part of a red bean mochi for dessert. Next to it is my triumph - a pig in a blanket *L* The triumph being that I made the dough from scratch in my first ever bread making in my life. Before this, my experience was limited to what I saw in Yakitate Japan!. I had just enough time to make the dough, kneed it, let it sit, shape it, let it sit more, then bake it before class today. It tasted pretty good, much to my surprise *L* I'm also proud that this is the first bento I've made that was packed together enough not to shift when held vertically.

Bento day today (this is what I tell myself rather than 'boring Japanese in the morning, late, but interesting class in the evening' day).
So today's bento has inari sushi as its main ingredient. I realized at the last minute I didn't have any sushi vinegar so I had to whip up some from the rice vinegar I had, which isn't hard, but is a pain. The star is made of tamagoyaki. I think my second attempt at it went better folding wise, but I liked the first one better since I added more sugar that time. The tri coloured chocolate covered thing is a rainbow ribbon cookie which I have been hiding from my Dad since Sunday *L* Next to it is corn fried yellow squash with ketchup in the centre. I wish I had a smaller container to put it in since the ketchup really isn't contained by the mini cupcake cup I'm using here.


While I was making it though, I realized I was really craving apples and the few that were in there now wouldn't satisfy me, so I put some more in under the inari. And since I was making furikake onigiri with the leftover rice (that wasn't sushified), I made a tiny onigiri out of it, blocking out the star, but for some reason, I think it looks better this way. I certainly got a lot of colour in there.



Very few people showed up for Bujinkan last night (scared away by the snow, I'd imagine). It reminded me of training years ago when we had less people in general. Since I didn't feel like training with the newbies, I grabbed one of the two green belts (C. grabbed the other, doing the same thing I was doing *L*) to train with. Our training was a bit crazy with lots of 'acting' on top of the actual moves. So for example, if you were passing someone by and you wanted to surprise them with a punch, you point off to the side with your non-punching hand and look in that direction, wait until they do so as well (you can speak too), then punch, cross step, then kick in the same spot. We did a lot of variations on that, but I have a hard time focusing when we have to act like that cause it feels very silly. (I've used these in real life to fake out friends and fight my little bro, but for some reason, I can't take them seriously while training.)

Since there were so few people, I got a lot of attention from Jack, which was a mixed bag for me since I mess up a lot more when Jack's watching. It's nice when you succeed while he's watching, but some days, I'd rather he didn't watch at all. (M. has the same problem, much to our mutual lamentation). I also got to practice an ankle lock that I had down on a person's left foot, and got horribly dyslexically confused about on the right one. We were doing a sort of strike with both your thumbs (in a fist) to right below the ribs on a person's sides (going low), then you dropped, cupped one hand around the back of the person's heel (of whichever foot was forward), and braced your other arm against their knee, then pulled on the ankle and pushed on the knee. The person topples right over. Jack's advice for me was that he wanted to see me whallop the guy (preferably in the balls), then get very far away. Sensible advice. Next we switched to the person trying to throw you, and you interrupt it very early to throw them. Various throws here, the one both my partner and I kept getting, then messing up, then getting again was the reverse arm lock throw. This resulted in a lot of tries of it on both our parts, so my wrist was aching quite badly from it after training, plus my knee is still aching from all the walking in NYC last week (stupid knee. stop being weak. it was only a few miles). I've got some fun bruises on the underside of my upper arm too from the throws. At the end of class, I was (finally) given my third and fourth dan certificates (yes, it's only been years since I got the 3rd one *L*). I can't say I do much with the certificates, but it's nice to have them.

Everybody who's ever tried one knows that green tea kit kats are the bomb. I tried quite a few flavours while I lived in Japan and couldn't say that was the case for a lot of their other weird flavours (pretty much every single berry flavour they have was poor tasting, though it was only the apple one that made me gag). Today, while browsing around, I was linked to the official japanese kitkat site (weird, weird place), so I went to see what other flavours they had to offer. I was kinda impressed since not only did they have ones I remembered, but also corn, shouyu (hard liquor), miso (yes, as in the soup), and wasabi. (Scroll down to see.) I can actually see the corn and shouyu ones tasting good because corn does taste good sweet and shouyu has barely any taste at all. I'm not sure if I'd dare try the miso one though, and the wasabi one either tastes brilliant or is so awful it makes you retch. Needless to say, I totally want to try the wasabi one *L*

ps. I need a food icon since it feels vaguely wrong to be using Larry the Cucumber...