For Sale!!

Jenga Extreme is a great gift for your Korean friends or colleagues.
It costs around 40,000 won here if you can find it, and $29+tax in Canada (superstore and walmart) last time I was there. It's basically like Jenga, except you can build the tower at different angles.

I also have several Scrabble games--wooden tile edition, still in shrink-wrap. I've only ever seen the plastic ones in the stores here.

My wife wants me to get them out of the house, so I'm offering these games for 20,000 plus shipping (4,000won). I could probably sell them for a lot more on auction, but my wife is too busy. You can combine the shipping if you want multiples. I think the shipping will be the same for 2 or 3.

Oysters

DSCN4640
Originally uploaded by skindleshanks.

Fresh, raw oysters are quite a delicacy in Korea, and definitely an aquired taste, one that I am (slowly) warming up to. Koreans generally dip them in 고추장, red pepper paste, before eating them, although they are fine by themselves.

A better use for fresh oysters, in my opinion, is in Haemul pajeon (해물파전), a thick pancake full of green onions and various seafood.

Busan's Dongrae Halmae Pajeon is the place to go for this delicious dish. It is an institution in Busan, and was a favorite spot for the late South Korean dictator, Park Chung Hee.

If you do go there, you might have a bowl of eel soup (Chu-eo tang 추어탕) as well, it is delicious and distinct from other provinces' versions.

The address in Korean is
부산광역시 동래구 복천동 367-2 367-2

It's not particularly easy to find, so it's probably best to take a taxi.

Yutnori

Yutnori
Originally uploaded by johl.

January 29th was Korean New Year’s and we had a very nice time with a good turnout from my wife’s family. Usually families must travel to the senior household on the husband’s side to perform the ancestral rites and spend the holiday together. It’s a little strange that with four girls in her family, they all managed to spend a good portion of the holiday together.

We took advantage of the larger gathering to play a game of yut-nori, a game of chance and strategy using four rounded sticks as a sort of "dice." New Year's is really the only time when we play this game--among the older generation card cames such as "go-stop" are preferred, but the complicated rules have so far eluded me.

Our game pitted the Song family against the in-laws, and I'm proud to say that we men asserted ourselves strongly, winning in straight sets.

It's hard to find a good set of rules in English for this game, but the best by far is on Wikipedia, which can be found here. Check out the "special rules"--they can make the game more exciting, too. It's really a very simple game, and one I would highly recommend to families hosting Korean exchange students.

I forgot to take a picture of our family playing yut-nori together, so I borrowed this one from flickr (Credit to johl).

From the Chosun Ilbo:

Exports of Korea’s national delicacy kimchi have been in trouble since some Chinese brands were found infested with parasites last year.

Korean kimchi had recorded more than US$9 million in monthly exports, but the parasite scandal nearly halved that figure to $4.6 million in November. In December, exports recovered to $5.6 million but again fell below $5 million in January. The main reason is that the Japanese kimchi market, which takes more than 90 percent of exports, is still reluctant to return to the pickled-cabbage side dish.

“Korean kimchi is losing ground in the Japanese market,” says a staffer at kimchi exporter Dongwon F&B. “Korean-produced kimchi has been suspected of parasite contamination after the scandal surrounding heavy metals and parasites in Chinese-made kimchi broke out and lost much of its popularity as a result.”

It was Korean papers that broke this story, and the fear of foreign kimchi was happily fanned into a fury by local producers, who felt threatened by Chinese imports. Now the shoe is on the other foot.

As my father used to tell me, "When you throw mud, you lose ground."

All the more reason to make your own kimchi at home!

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging over the (Korean) New Year's break while my good friend from Canada came to visit. For those of you who've never been to a country technically still at war, it must come as a shock to find that we live less than 100km from the ememy lines. While my friend was here, we took him up to the DMZ to see a bit of the action.

We tried our best to keep him out of trouble, but it wasn't easy . . .
(apologies to his mom)

Everything is so much smaller here in Korea!Jonathan wants everyone to know how "special" he is.

Jonathan takes advantage of his "down time" to review his photos.

Striking a meditative pose. (I'm feeling a warm breeze from the North . . .)


Thanks for coming out, Jonathan!