Jajamien

There is a Chinese Restaraunt in my town. Calling the town mine might be a stretch. I am here in Korea. The town is here in Korea. I'm in the town. I doubt the town is mine though. There is one Chinese restaraunt. I go there once a week. Sometimes twice a week. I always order Jajamien.

An old man runs the place. He might be Chinese. I walk my dog down the main street of town every night. I open the door push Elias to the side and bellow, "Anyeonghaseyo". From the back bumbles the old man he grins and pushes a menu toward me. People walking down the sidewalk dart into traffic to avoid getting close to Eli. I smile and say "Jajamien joseo". He shapes a bag with his hand and points to the door. I smile and nod again. The people in this town must think foreigners smile a lot.

He shuts the door and I wait for the noodles to cook. Elias does his best to look cute. The Korean children giggle daring each other to pet him. We try to stand against the building to avoid scaring 40 year old women. The bean and meat sauce cook in ten minutes and get dumped on the noodles. The old man pops out of the door and I give him the 3500 won for my dineer. I tried to give the a bowl to put it in. They put the noodles in a Styrofoam bowl anyway. I smile, again, say, "Gansamneda" and scatter the crowd of children gathered around Elias, the noodles get cold in ten minutes.

Elias attempts to block my keyboard

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.