Today, for the first time in ten months of living in Korea, I enjoyed driving. I wasn't even in my Jeep, I was in the dong-cha (Mike's car), which is badly in need of a wash and some power steering fluid. But I wasn't in the city--that was the key. I was driving all of our baked goods out to the range where the guys are training, north of Dongducheon.
There wasn't a whole lot of traffic, and the route was beautiful. I saw my first Korean rice paddies. (I also saw some kind of theme park or zoo; the sign said Paleolithic Area and there was a giant rock arch with a woolly mammoth and pterodactyl statue. Interesting.) Everything is flagrantly, gorgeously, green. As much as I enjoy the convenience of Seoul and the views from my apartment, there's something about being surrounded by green mountains that I miss when I'm in the city, especially this time of year.
The next time I'm in Dongducheon while Mike's working I think I might drive up that way again and explore a little more.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Redneck Betty Crocker, and a Deployment Flashback
Tomorrow is our very first Cobra Company Family Readiness Group fundraiser. (You might ask why it's taken me eight months to organize a simple fundraiser. You would not get a good answer.) The wives are sending a load of baked goods out to the range where the guys are training for the month. We've done bake sales before at the Battalion level--which I participated in but thankfully had no part in organizing--so I've developed a stand-by repertoire of baked goods that are easy to make even with our manic-depressive Army-issue oven and limited time. Namely, trail mix and Rice Krispy treats. My plan for this bake sale, after organizing the whole thing, was to finish up work in Yongsan on Tuesday, come up to Camp Casey early Wednesday afternoon, go to the commissary, and put everything together by early evening. But, the best laid plans, etc., I got stuck in Yongsan until late evening. I willed the subway to go as fast as it could, but still didn't get up to Dongducheon in time to go to the commissary before it closed. Big. Bummer.
My first stop was the "shopette" on post. This convenience-type store doesn't have a huge selection, but sometimes it will surprise you by carrying something random that you just happen to be needing at the moment; I was hoping it would come through with some Rice Krispies and marshmallows, or at least some nuts and dried fruit. But it was not to be. I left with only a few packs of M&Ms.
My next stop was Lotte Mart--similar to my beloved E-Mart, and very much like a Korean Super Target. I wandered the grocery section, hoping to be struck by inspiration or some miracle marshmallows. But, no. They had nuts, but the only dried fruit other than jujube berries (which may be delicious, but as they are untested in my trail mix I decided to pass) came in very small, very expensive packets. That would not do. Since it was looking like I was going to have to bake from scratch, picked up some eggs, and started looking around for the butter. Lotte Mart had a surprising selection of cheese (Asians in general not being too big on dairy), but I didn't see any butter in any of the refrigerator cases. It was looking bad for the good guys. In circling back around however, I walked through the Korean junk food aisle, and into a display of Choco-Pies. They're kind of like Korean Moon Pies, and decently yummy. I hesitated. We're not allowed to sell packaged goods from the commissary, since they're sold to military members at a discount and the profits go back into the family support funds anyway, but anything we buy "out in town" is fair game. Still. Did I really want to be THAT wife? You know (well, at least those of you who have lived in the South) that mom who brings Twinkies to potlucks?
Yes. Yes, I was willing to be THAT wife. I was running out of options, after all, and needed a fall-back plan in case my from-scratch baking was less than successful. And it wasn't like I was going to put my name on the Choco-Pies.
That decision made, I continued the hunt for butter. I asked an employee ajumma. "But-toh?" "Yep." "Uhhh...wait a minute, please." Hmm. That didn't sound promising. While I waited, and it was more than a minute, or even a few minutes, while she consulted two ajummas and searched the refrigerator cases, I wandered over to the paper products section. I was delighted to find some cute baggies and boxes--perfect for a bake sale. Now if the ajumma could just find me some butter...
"Yogi-yo" she called--"over here." She was back in the cheese case. I came over. She picked up a package stuck between the "kids' chee-juh product" and some white cheese. It was indeed but-toh. It was just individually-wrapped but-toh. I gave an involuntary shudder.
I will pause here for a disclaimer about my deployment on the aircraft carrier--it was not scary. Unlike my soldier-husband's deployment, there were no improvised explosive devices, terrorists, or shots fired in fear or fury. There were, however, chocolate chip cookie cakes. I had started the practice of making cookie cakes for my sailors' birthdays (if you can't beat 'em, bribe 'em) when we were in port, and didn't think it would be fair to miss birthdays just because we were underway. So I worked out a drug deal--a few hyper-caffeinated beverages and an extra plate of cookies each time--and the ship's cooks let me bake in their kitchen, with my cookie mix and their eggs and butter. Only, resupply on a ship is affected by things like weather, operational tempo, and logistics routes, and the four thousand or so sailors on the ship ate a lot of butter. It happened on multiple occasions that the galley--the ship's kitchen--was out of butter blocks. And it turns out chocolate chip cookies baked with olive oil have a funny, vaguely vegetable, aftertaste. So, adapt and overcome. Turns out butter blocks go faster than butter pats--the individual servings used for toast, pancakes, etc. So I would hang out in the galley, sweating in my uniform, trying to stay out of the way of the real cooks trying to feed four thousand people, peeling butter patties for what seemed like an hour but was probably only twenty minutes or so.
So back to Lotte Mart. I suddenly had a vision of spending the evening peeling butter pats, and almost went back to the Choco-Pie aisle to pick up a few more boxes and maybe see if I could find some Korean Twinkies. The ajumma must have seen the look on my face, because she reached down and handed me another package--a blessed but-toh block. I gave a sigh of relief. It didn't matter that the butter was labeled in grams instead of tablespoons or that it cost $6. "I'll take it!"
And that, friends and family, is how I came to supply made-from-scratch cookies and breakfast breads and bought-from-Lotte-Mart Choco-Pies for our inaugural Cobra Company Bake Sale.
Tomorrow I'm going to the commissary to stock up on Rice Krispies.
My first stop was the "shopette" on post. This convenience-type store doesn't have a huge selection, but sometimes it will surprise you by carrying something random that you just happen to be needing at the moment; I was hoping it would come through with some Rice Krispies and marshmallows, or at least some nuts and dried fruit. But it was not to be. I left with only a few packs of M&Ms.
My next stop was Lotte Mart--similar to my beloved E-Mart, and very much like a Korean Super Target. I wandered the grocery section, hoping to be struck by inspiration or some miracle marshmallows. But, no. They had nuts, but the only dried fruit other than jujube berries (which may be delicious, but as they are untested in my trail mix I decided to pass) came in very small, very expensive packets. That would not do. Since it was looking like I was going to have to bake from scratch, picked up some eggs, and started looking around for the butter. Lotte Mart had a surprising selection of cheese (Asians in general not being too big on dairy), but I didn't see any butter in any of the refrigerator cases. It was looking bad for the good guys. In circling back around however, I walked through the Korean junk food aisle, and into a display of Choco-Pies. They're kind of like Korean Moon Pies, and decently yummy. I hesitated. We're not allowed to sell packaged goods from the commissary, since they're sold to military members at a discount and the profits go back into the family support funds anyway, but anything we buy "out in town" is fair game. Still. Did I really want to be THAT wife? You know (well, at least those of you who have lived in the South) that mom who brings Twinkies to potlucks?
Yes. Yes, I was willing to be THAT wife. I was running out of options, after all, and needed a fall-back plan in case my from-scratch baking was less than successful. And it wasn't like I was going to put my name on the Choco-Pies.
That decision made, I continued the hunt for butter. I asked an employee ajumma. "But-toh?" "Yep." "Uhhh...wait a minute, please." Hmm. That didn't sound promising. While I waited, and it was more than a minute, or even a few minutes, while she consulted two ajummas and searched the refrigerator cases, I wandered over to the paper products section. I was delighted to find some cute baggies and boxes--perfect for a bake sale. Now if the ajumma could just find me some butter...
"Yogi-yo" she called--"over here." She was back in the cheese case. I came over. She picked up a package stuck between the "kids' chee-juh product" and some white cheese. It was indeed but-toh. It was just individually-wrapped but-toh. I gave an involuntary shudder.
I will pause here for a disclaimer about my deployment on the aircraft carrier--it was not scary. Unlike my soldier-husband's deployment, there were no improvised explosive devices, terrorists, or shots fired in fear or fury. There were, however, chocolate chip cookie cakes. I had started the practice of making cookie cakes for my sailors' birthdays (if you can't beat 'em, bribe 'em) when we were in port, and didn't think it would be fair to miss birthdays just because we were underway. So I worked out a drug deal--a few hyper-caffeinated beverages and an extra plate of cookies each time--and the ship's cooks let me bake in their kitchen, with my cookie mix and their eggs and butter. Only, resupply on a ship is affected by things like weather, operational tempo, and logistics routes, and the four thousand or so sailors on the ship ate a lot of butter. It happened on multiple occasions that the galley--the ship's kitchen--was out of butter blocks. And it turns out chocolate chip cookies baked with olive oil have a funny, vaguely vegetable, aftertaste. So, adapt and overcome. Turns out butter blocks go faster than butter pats--the individual servings used for toast, pancakes, etc. So I would hang out in the galley, sweating in my uniform, trying to stay out of the way of the real cooks trying to feed four thousand people, peeling butter patties for what seemed like an hour but was probably only twenty minutes or so.
So back to Lotte Mart. I suddenly had a vision of spending the evening peeling butter pats, and almost went back to the Choco-Pie aisle to pick up a few more boxes and maybe see if I could find some Korean Twinkies. The ajumma must have seen the look on my face, because she reached down and handed me another package--a blessed but-toh block. I gave a sigh of relief. It didn't matter that the butter was labeled in grams instead of tablespoons or that it cost $6. "I'll take it!"
And that, friends and family, is how I came to supply made-from-scratch cookies and breakfast breads and bought-from-Lotte-Mart Choco-Pies for our inaugural Cobra Company Bake Sale.
Tomorrow I'm going to the commissary to stock up on Rice Krispies.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Shanghai: Days Three and Four
(I posted this a week or so ago, but Blogger had an outage and the post disappeared.)
Sunday morning Mike and I went to Yu Yuan, a garden / tourist attraction / shopping plaza in the old Chinese part of Shanghai. It was really crowded, but we enjoyed wandering the area.
I stopped for a minute by a booth selling a hair gizmo; I thought it might be useful for putting my hair up for work. I got closer and asked the guy how much the tool was; he countered by asking if he could style my hair.
That afternoon we were able to attend an Easter church service at an international church in the French Concession. It was a great time of worship and celebration, with a crowd of people from all over the world. As a small reminder that we were still in Communist China though we were told several times that the service was just for foreign passport holders.
After church we stopped by a local Sichuanese restaurant. Sichuan cuisine is known for its spiciness--the Sichuan peppercorn called "hua-jiao" has both a distinctive flavor and unmistakable heat. There were a couple of Sichuan dishes that I wanted to be sure to have while we were in China: mapo dofu, or spicy tofu with pork, and gongbao jiding, known in the U.S. (in disastrously Americanized form) as Kung Pao Chicken. We enjoyed a meal of the real thing.
That afternoon we visited another of Shanghai's iconic sites--the Bund. This area along the Huangpu River has some beautiful architecture, Art Deco on the west side, and ultra-modern on the east.
As it's a tourist destination both for foreigners and non-Shanghainese Chinese, it's also a great place to people-watch.
Dinner was Shanghainese food in the trendy Xintiandi neighborhood of rebuilt shikumen style buildings housing boutiques and restaurants. It was a great meal, and almost made up for the fact that Yang's Kitchen, the Shanghainese restaurant I had planned to go to for dinner our first night in Shanghai, had closed down.
After dinner we made our way back to the river and across to Pudong, where we had drinks and dessert on the 88th story of the Jin Mao Tower, where the views were almost as good as the food.
Monday we only had a few hours before we had to leave for the airport, but we made good use of them. We stopped by a hole-in-the-wall tea shop where we sampled some Chinese favorites and bought a couple of small gifts, then spent the rest of the morning browsing the Taikang Rd. neighborhood, which is full of art galleries, boutiques, and cafes. (Have I mentioned my husband is long-suffering?)
It was a great trip. I'm already looking forward to going to Beijing sometime in the next year or so!
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Buddha's Birthday
Buddha's birthday is celebrated here with a week of festivities. Last week I went to the Lotus Lantern Festival in downtown Seoul, where Buddhists, tourists, and other festival goers gathered to watch the two-hour parade of lanterns.
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