Our dinner consisted of stir fried apples which I coated with cinnamon-y toasted oatmeal (yes, I sacrificed oatmeal for this meal!), smashed potatoes with garlic, sweet potatoes (the indigo-colored Korean kind), 2 roasted chickens, a canned vegetable mixture of peas, carrots and corn, a loaf of bread and peanut M&Ms. Quite the sumptuous feast for 4 American girls feeling achingly disconnected from the celebration back home. Since we all have to work on weekdays, we did not get around to the dinner until 9p.m., but the company was worth it and we all stockpiled leftovers to continue the food revelry the next day!
It was frigid outside and the walk to the university dorms was long, so I wrapped all the food I cooked in towels and stacked the containers in my backpack to try and keep them warm.
Garlic smashed potatoes- a salty, buttery success!
Shaina, who informed us that she is not celebrating Thanksgiving with her kids because she wants to do a week on Hanukkah instead to "represent. " :)
We were so cold and hungry! The girl to the far right is Amanda's (center) co-teacher for class. She probably thought this was the strangest celebration ever. We were all flustered trying to explain Thanksgiving to her, and the fact that almost all the food for Thanksgiving is baked and takes days to prepare and cook. She just kept nodding and smiling and we were like "nooooooo, really! Americans eat phenomenal food on this day- believe us!"
So good in 20 degree weather!
Purple sweet potatoes!
My apple crumble creation- made with oatmeal, cinnamon, nutmeg, apples and stevia!
Last picture, I promise. We just don't get much American-type food over here, so we were all very excited.In class, I devoted an entire week to Thanksgiving festivities. I showed the kids "Garfield's Thanksgiving" and had each class make hand turkeys as Thanksgiving cards for their parents. Most Koreans have never seen a turkey, so the different interpretations of a "hand turkey" were hilarious! Many students literally drew their hands (fingernails, wrinkles and all) and some students drew rooster-like creatures with dancing corn and pies around them (we learned about traditional Thanksgiving food, too).
This is Jessica, but I call her "the monkey" because the moment she sees me, she wraps around one of my legs like a chimp and SJ has to pry her off before I can start class (or worse- all the other students start entangling themselves around my legs trying to hitch a ride).
I think the last time that I visited a zoo, I was on my middle school trip to Washington D.C. I've always considered zoos to be one of the most depressing places you could go...and Daegu's zoo was no exception. The best way I can describe the experience is that it was like a train wreck and even though you should, you couldn't look away.
It was a crisp 30 degree day when we visited, and even in a sunbeam my teeth were chattering. The zoo was easily overlooked because upon first glance you think you just accidentally wandered into a little park in the middle of the city until you spot the dingy, rusted cage bars bordering the park. The cages were miserably small, made of concrete and barely had enough room for the birds to spread their wings let alone give the jaguars room to sprawl out. There was everything from lions and tigers to wolves, seals and one old, decrepit elephant that looked suspiciously like he was shaking in the cold. I was with Eunice and Shaina and we all had a teary-eyed moment watching the elephant stand there scraping peanuts out of the dust and lifting them up to his foamy, crusted mouth before disappearing back into some sort of iron cage the size of a small shed.
It was tragic... and it makes me at least appreciate the seeming cleanliness of the zoo I remember visiting. Although I took some pictures, they wouldn't do anything except depress you, so I won't bother uploading them.
On a much more positive note, we also completed another TaLK-sponsored cultural trip. This time, the destination was Juwangsan Park, a very popular national park full of waterfall-rimmed hiking trails and renowned for serving up famous Korean Ginseng chicken, which is just a porridge of boiled rice with some ginseng in it and an entire chicken placed in the bowl, which you proceed to pick apart with your chopsticks. I actually had a good laugh at the meal though (whilst munching some tofu instead) because the restaurant owners brought out these little bowls of salt for all the foreigners. Koreans use little to no salt in their cooking, and if there is one thing Americans love more than sugar, it's salt! I watched everyone scrape heaping spoonfuls into their chicken/rice porridge with great satisfaction. After eating, we all just sat there, relishing the heat radiating up from the floor. It was the warmest we would be all day because after eating, we headed for the Juwang trail head to start our walk.
Calling the trail a "hike" is a stretch since it was plain walking 95% of the time. But what beautiful scenery! There were massive cliffs and lazy, semi-frozen water falls trickling all around, giving us the impression that it was raining when really it was just misty.
A beautiful way to spend the day. If it seems like I have been hiking often, it's because this coming weekend is our trip to Jeju, the island off the southern tip of Korea. Mt. Halla is on Jeju, and it is the biggest mountain in Korea. Not to mention that we will be hiking Halla in December... so there will very likely be snow on the trail. Florida is so flat, you can fall asleep while driving and probably be fine for five minutes if you didn't touch the steering wheel. So hiking is an enormous challenge because of the altitude and the temperature! Wish me luck. There will be a new "Jeju" post coming soon, assuming that we make it back alive ;)
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