comments on costco, crockpots, chili, chips and cheese

Once in a couple of months or so, Ken and I try to head to Costco in Daegu. You can find alot of staples that you usually can't find here - or that you can find here but the price is doubled. Brenda and I decided to head for Daegu, which is around 2 1/2 hours away, one day recently. Brenda's husband picked Ken up for work so that I could have the car. We had a GPS from the office in it with Costco programmed in, so we felt pretty good about finding our way. We actually made it there with only 2 turn arounds, which is pretty good.

I bought a crockpot. A staple in Ken's diet is chili (especially when I am not here). He mainly like to make "nuclear nachos" out of the chili. Nuclear nachos is basically chili and grated cheese over tortilla chips. He used to order this at a restaurant in Norman, Oklahoma, when he was in college there. For some reason, the name stuck and we call this concoction nuclear nachos. Anyway, Ken also does not like kidney beans in his chili. He prefers pinto beans. So we try to bring a few cans of Ranch Style Beans back to Korea with us whenever we go to Texas. I also have brought back some dried beans on occasion to make a pot of beans. Ken came up with the idea of making beans to go into the chili so that we didn't have to bring cans of beans in our suitcases. So when I saw this crock pot, I decided to buy it to make beans. It is a Rival crockpot and it was packaged in an English language box. The only difference is the plug - so that we can use it here without a transformer. However, I got a kick out of the packaging. First of all, the instruction are entirely in Korean.
Fortunately I know how to turn a crockpot on to Low, High or Warm. But it made me think about the instructions of objects you buy in the U.S. The instruction booklets are sometimes huge because they have everything written in English, Spanish, French, and a myriad of other languages. However, I have never noticed that Korean is in that list. Maybe they are paying us back by printing their instructions in their country only in Korean. It makes sense.

I also thought the enclosed cookbook was pretty interesting.
They have it divided into Korean food, Chinese food and Western food. The Korean food section had the usual Korean mixtures of chicken, veggies, seafood, etc.













And the usual dishes with an egg on top.






And the usual dish with red chili paste.








And all the soups had cute little garnishes on top.




But my favorite dish was in the Western Food Section.


Who would have ever guessed that you could make a pot pie in a crockpot?

Back to Costco. I bought my usual supply of ground beef, cheddar cheese (for only $9 instead of $15), tortilla chips and lunch meat. We were the only foreigners in the place, probably since it was a weekday. We also had the biggest baskets of food. I chucked two big bags of peanut M&M's into the basket for Ken and had 2 Korean ladies eye me, then turn to their other two friends, say something, and then all of them turned and stared into my basket. It is so frustrating to not be able to say "I only come here 3 times a year, so I stock up" or "I have 10 children at home - I give each of them 2 M&M's a day" or something of that sort. But I just smiled at them.

For some reason, we couldn't get the lady to talk on the GPS. But we made it home with zero turn arounds. And the guys were excited that we had food and that they didn't have to go. Brenda and I decided that next time we would explore some of the area around Costco. Daegu is known for making textiles and we saw some interesting looking buildings we could try out before we stock up on cheese and chips.

cloudy day collage

We are now officially in the rainy season, or jangma, as it is called in Korea. I think the only day it did not rain this week was Thursday. Supposedly the rainy season is from the end of June to the end of July. I am sure I will get sick of it soon, but I seemed to keep busy this week.

Since it cloudy outside, I thought I would try to add some color with a montage of photos and my ramblings.

I know I haven't talked about my art class lately. But here is one of my latest - I just need to finish a little bit of a wash around her feet. I liked the way she turned out, so I think I might actually get her framed. I have now started a detailed scene that has taken me forever to draw and outline. This scene is from a book and I think I need to go buy a magnifying glass to really look at the people so that I can draw them correctly (in their proper attire and such). Mr. Park usually draws the pictures for you if you want him to, but I have been trying to draw my own.

One day this past week, Ken and I met at Quizno's for lunch. Okpo's only places to get fast food is Domino's, Dunkin Donuts and Quizno's. The menu is pretty much the same and is heavily populated at lunch. We were sitting in the back and I noticed a large glass container sitting on a hutch with something I couldn't make out in it. I got up and looked and there were hundreds of tiny origami paper cranes. When the waitress brought our food, I asked her about it. She said that she made those when she was pregnant for good luck. You are supposed to make 1000 of the paper cranes. I went home and looked up the 1000 crane thing. It ended up being very interesting. First of all, Wikipedia said "A thousand paper cranes is also traditionally given as a wedding gift by the folder, who is wishing a thousand years of happiness and prosperity upon the couple. It can also be gifted to a new baby for long life and good luck." But even more interesting was what I read about about the original 1000 cranes. It started in Japan - a little girl named Sadako Sasaki from Hiroshima was almost 2 years old when the atomic bomb landed on her city. Ten years later, she developed leukemia, or the "atomic bomb disease". A friend of Sadako's told her the Japanese legend that anyone that folds a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako folded 1000 paper cranes before her death. I have provided a link to tell you more of her story. I also printed out some instructions for making a crane. It probably took me 30 minutes to make the first one. I can't imagine how long it took her to make 1000 (maybe 9 months?) - and hers were so so tiny.

However, I also found someone on ebay selling 1000 prefolded cranes for $50.00!!

I am sure you are all waiting for your knitted socks and scarfs to arrive in the mail any day. Well, I am still knitting here and there but not with the Norwegians. I don't know where they all went to and I miss them. I know that for awhile they were spending all their free time sunbathing on top of Beverly Hills III (one of the apartments here). I guess that when you come from a cold country like Norway, a warm, sunny day is alot more enticing than knitting. Anyway, I have played around with making flowers (sorry, no socks and scarfs at this time). Here are a couple of them. I will probably attach them to a pillow or something. And hopefully my Norwegian friends will return in the fall.

When I was in Texas this spring, my sister and I took a road trip down to Austin. While we were browsing the stores of South Congress, we noticed a small airstream trailer across the street with a big cupcake on top of it.



Of course we crossed the street and discovered that it was called hey cupcake! and had a line of people buying cupcakes.
Even though we hadn't had lunch yet, we had to indulge.





Here is Shannon digging in. Yum.
And what a darling idea.






Speaking of Texas, on Mother's Day my father took us on a tour of Clark Gardens. If you are visiting this site, please click onto the link to see the gardens during different seasons of the year and to read the history of it.

Daddy actually works for the Clarks and has built numerous buildings, waterfalls, arbors, gazebos, a chapel and most everything else at the gardens. He retired from the Army and then became a building contractor. He sort of eased out of that when he started building at the gardens. He has really enjoyed his work there.


It was cool and windy but we still enjoyed the flowers

and the scenery.

I am going to end with a picture. This bulletin board is hanging over my "craft table". It has a collage of pictures and items that are important to me and/or I like at the time. Here is a part of it.......I especially love the pictures of the girl and the little dog boy.

See you soon my little ones.

a selection of shoes

When we moved into the rowhouse, it was pretty much furnished. We had all the necessary furniture, electronics, sheets, towels and a somewhat limited selection of kitchen and dining utensils. However, there was one item I didn't expect to inherit when we moved in......shoes.

We have the usual Korean entryway with a shoe cabinet.
It is quite handy, especially since I don't have too much room in the bedroom closet to store shoes. Even though I don't always take off my shoes when I enter, I find that friends always seem to even if you tell them it isn't necessary. Come to think of it, I always take my shoes off when I go to their homes. It just seems like the thing to do.

Anyway, the cleaning lady always takes her shoes off when she comes to clean. And we have a ready supply of slip on shoes for her to wear when needed.





These are in the downstairs bathroom.







These are in the room off of the kitchen that has the dryer in it.









These are at the back door. I think I need to get rid of them as they are starting to shed foam whenever you wear them.






These are outside one of the doors to the balcony upstairs.



For some reason, there aren't any in the upstairs bathroom. Whenever she cleans the bathrooms, she just hoses down the floor and walls with the attachment on the shower. I don't know if you remember, but I commented on this attachment in the downstairs bathroom - there isn't a shower or tub, but we still have a shower attachment on the wall. Anyway, she has a supply of shoes to put on when she goes outside to hang the sheets up to dry or to air out the bathroom rugs on the balcony railing.

Ken needed some sandals to wear to the beach, so I had the occasion recently to go into a couple of the shoe shops in Okpo. There is a multitude of slip on sandals along the street before you go in. They even have ones that have something like a dust mop on the bottom. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of that but I promise one for the future. I guess you wear them around the house to keep the floor dusted. They have tons of adorable children shoes - so bright and colorful, like most of the children clothing here. Yes, these are little girl's shoes - my daughter would have gone straight to the ones with rhinestones and pearls when she was little!



One last note. For some reason, I collect little shoes. Maybe it started with wooden shoes from The Netherlands when Ken worked there. But I have added a few to my collection since we have been here. These are some shoes I got in Hong Kong at a street vendor -
they are replicas of what women wore when they had their feet bound.







I also got these in China - I don't know the significance, but I thought they were cute.


I bought these in Okpo off the back of a truck that was loaded with all sorts of straw items, like baskets and such. These are called jipsin, or traditional Korean straw shoes. They were originally worn mainly by commoners and farmers. In present day, they are still sometimes worn to funerals. This is to show respect to the deceased and also to prevent you from slipping while walking to the grave site!

good day sunshine

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days. Not only have I been busy, but my computer has been acting up. I put Adobe Photoshop on my computer last week (no, I don't have the slightest idea of how to use it yet) and everything slowed down to a crawl. So after alot of deleting and defragmenting, everything seems to be better for the time being.

This past Friday, June 6th, was a holiday in Korea - Memorial Day.I went to painting class and Ken only worked a half day on Friday. It was a gorgeous day, so we headed to the beach for some fun in the sun. The weather hasn't been too great lately, with clouds and/or rain and we welcomed some sunshine. Ken promptly plopped down on a lawn chair we brought and I did my usual wandering up and down the beach looking for shells and sea glass. Pickings were very slow. However, there is always a plethora of other items to be found. Of course there is the usual sea life.

And evidence of the people frolicking on the beach.






Driftwood and other pieces of bamboo and wood.
Ken once made the comment "What if we were walking on the beach and found a body part, like a hand or a foot?" - don't ask me where that came from...! Anyway, how about a leg?

My next usual order of business on the beach is looking at the scenery and the people.
There were the usual young couples.








I like this mother with her phone, taking pictures of her daughter.
Note the shoes - I don't know if you can see the heels, since they are buried in the sand.





After we were significantly tanned, or burned (in Ken's case), we got in the car and drove around enjoying the beautiful scenery.
There are tons of yellow daisy-like wildflowers along the road right now.


Sorry for the picture out of the windshield, but there usually isn't enough room on the road to pull over. Speaking of taking pictures out of the car, how about the ride this cutie is getting on the back of a motorcycle?
We had such a great day on Friday, that we repeated it on Saturday and Sunday. (I think it was mainly because Ken wanted to get his tan a bit more even! LOL) On Saturday, on our drive after the beach, we stopped at Haegeumgang.
They have an observation area where you can get a great photo of the are. You can see the people walking out on the rocks. We have climbed out there in the past, but have yet to take the ferry out to the rocks. We also came across a small beach on Sunday that had some unbelievable stone work and landscaping being done.
We have no idea what it is for.
There is no building behind these steps, but maybe someday? It is very close to the point where the bridge from mainland Korea (Busan) to Geoje Island will be. With this, I have to interject a sad note. Alot of the beaches have so much trash on them. I am sure with the tide coming in and going out, it is worst at some times more than others. I am not saying that all of the trash is from people that come to the beach - it is from the sea itself.

But my collection of sea glass is growing.