Elias' Fourth Birthday

Elias turns Four today. It's been a lovely 3 years with my puppy who will always be my puppy regardless of his age. I got him some nice pot roast and a piece of sweet potato cake for dinner.

Hat and Stashbusting Scarf

I thought I would want a new hat by the end of the winter and so brought two balls of Jamieson with me to make this little guy.96 stitches on 7 needles using a five point decrease worked every round start 3/4 of the way up the pattern.I've also been working on my scarf for the season. It's a whimsical entrelac scarf on 8's using 4 balls of Silky wool that have piled up during my Latvian mitten making adventures. I'm almost half done with it.

Eli gets diminutive Korean lovin.

Gangjin Celadon

A serving dish of some variety.
I wish these weren't so blurry.
A 3 million dollar ewer.
An authentic celadon bathroom.
A teacup
An ewer.
A million dollar melon teapot.

Korea has been along so very long that nearly every town has a historical specialty. Gangjin on the southern shore of the peninsula is noted for its making of celadon. In case you want to know what celadon is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celadon . Gangin has all the indgredient for making great ceramics and was a center of celadon production for 500 year during the Choseon. era.

Nagan Folk Village

Some fifteen kilometers NW of Suncheon lies the Nagan Folk Village. A functioning , as in people really live there, 17th century korean walled village.

In fact Here are the walls.

Interestingly they are all mortarless.

They run for a solid 2 kilometers around the village and are roughly 15 feet thick. They have paved a pathway over the top.

All the houses in the village except the lords home are roofed in rice straw thatch.


Here is some recreated Korean bondage.

A rather nonplussed cow.

The ever present Korean shamanistic totems.

And a traditional Korean swing. Apparently women used to love these things.

Kimchee Festival

Today I wandered t the kimchee festival in Gwangju. It was a foodie paradise.

Every good Korean Even needs to have a mascot. I refrained from asking for a hug.

Oddly I think he is supposed to be a leafy cabbage; which is the sort you use for kimchee as opposed to the denser varieties we in the West favor.

There were dozens of kimchee booths offering up uncountable goodies of Korean provenance.

Lotus roots and Radishes.

Garlic in salt and vinegar. I bought a kilo of this for presents to my Korean teachers.

Korean Pastry.

Kimchee; lots and lots of Kimchee.

Kimchee cook offs.

Kimchee instruction for hopeless unenlightened foreigners.

Directly next to the kimchee classes for children : ) We got a cute little plastic kimchee bucket.

And finally a Magic Kimchee Garden which was ver proudly all organic and inside the convention center. I had a wonderful time.

Down to the River to Play

Elias loves his river here. And fortunately its not polluted like the vast majority of Korean waters.