Seinfeld

Something reminded me of Seinfeld a few weeks back and somehow I got to looking it up on the internet. I wish I could remember why I did that. Anyway, I read that Seinfeld was voted the best sitcom ever, or something close to that, and that inspired me to download the whole series to watch during the school holidays.

I remembered the few episodes that I saw on SA Television were quite good, but after watching the first series I was starting to doubt my own memory. The first season sucked big time. I am wondering how this show ever got in to a second season. The characters felt forced, Jerry’s jokes at the beginning and end of the show were terrible and the people laughed at nothing. Worse, they felt the need to show people laughing at his nothing. Despite all of this, I endured in to the second season where everything took a turn for the better. The second season was more like the Seinfeld I remembered and by the third season they were on full throttle.

One of the things I find remarkable about the show is the number of now well known and even famous actors who appeared as guests. In almost every episode there is an actor whom I would imagine was relatively unknown at the time, but who I have seen in quite a few things by now.

In a 1993 episode you can see Stifler’s Mom in her very first TV appearance. She was not that bad looking back then. Courteney Cox made an appearance as Seinfeld’s fake wife. This was about 6 months before the first episode of Friend. She had about 25 TV and Film appearances by then, but I am sure most people will agree that it was Friends what made her truly famous.

Interestingly, “Janice” from friends also made an appearance. I was amazed to hear her normal voice, and the woman is quite good looking. Did you know she auditioned for the role of Monica in Friends?

One of the most interesting moments so far was when Teri Hatcher, from Lois & Clark fame, was asked my Elaine if her boyfriend thought that he was Superman. There was no audience laugh, so I have no idea if it was intended to be funny, but I sure found it funny.

When I finish all nine seasons of Seinfeld, I think I will move on to an audio book. I found The Satanic Verses online. I think I will give that a go.

One up for Korea!

One doctors visit, three day’s oral medicine and one physical therapy session for a hot pack, ultra sound and electro therapy, only 7000 KRW (50.58 ZAR, 5.10 USD).

Another New Year

Next to Chuseok the Lunar New Year seems to be the most important event on the Korean calendar.

From the little bit that I know, the only difference between the two festivals is the date and something small like the number of times you bow to your elders. Other than that everything is supposedly the same. I think I have to ask my adult students if this is true. What I do know for a fact it that when you bow to your elders their give you envelopes with money inside. I was joking saying that I want to do that. I was told that I was welcome to do it and get money. Somehow I think the student was quite serious.

A big difference in the Korean celebrations is that it is quite boring. I am saying this from a visitor’s point of view, of course. There are no parades, parties or fireworks. Just huge meals offered to the ancestors. Of course, the ancestors never take the food, to the living end up eating it all.

I was planning on going up Seolbong Mountain early in the morning to take a photo of the first sunrise, but I was unable to fall asleep last night and by the time I had to get up I had a headache. I don’t think it is good to go out in cold weather like this when you feel even slightly sick and tired to boot. Nothing seemed to be wrong, so I will try again tomorrow. For those who read the blog, pretend that I actually took the photo today. For the rest of the world I will just have to tell a little white lie.

Update: I was mostly lazy to do a proper write up on what I would have been able to find with a little research, but here is a bit of interesting reading from Samedi. First the basics, and then a bit on the table layout and also a mention of Christians partaking in this celebration.

Eating snow, but doing it is style, I hope.

Yesterday was possibly the fist day in weeks that we had the thermometer rise above freezing at any part of the day. That was nice, but it was not the reason for this post. Laura wanted to go snowboarding at Jisan, and since I had only been once before, and had no real idea of how to get there on my own, I wanted to tag along to investigate the means of transport.

I started my day at 6:30 to take a shower and make breakfast in order to be at the bus terminal by 8 am. Apparently we can just use a local bus to get to Jisan. Once there guys from the rental shop picked us up at the bus stop, rented us what we needed, gave you a discount card for the resort, dropped us off at the resort, picked us up again and even took us to the bus stop to finish everything off. WOW. See why I wanted to tag along?

As this was only my second time I was only truly able to leave down the slopes, facing forward all the time, so I wanted to start out practicing turning to get my back facing down the slope. Laura wanted to brush up on that as well, and while I was practicing, and falling every time, se game me a tip that she picked up her previous time. It doesn’t matter what the tip is, the only thing that matter is that it worked. I picked the turning up relatively quickly and I was slaloming/falling down the training slope in no time.

It did not take Laura long to go to a more advanced slope, and me having figured out that only Olympic skiers break their necks, I wasn’t really afraid to try the bigger slopes. In no time we were crisscrossing the upper intermediate slope, and BOY, is that fun. We even went on the longest slope at the resort. The steepest will have to wait.

Note: On the beginner slopes there are to many people moving very slowly or falling around when you don’t expect them to, so you end up just being another faller yourself. Be a little bit more adventurous and suddenly you have open space to practice in.

We were at Jisan from about 9am to 4pm, only stopping for a drink or two and a quick bite at lunch. The rest of the time we were gunning down the lift single lines to get up as fast as we were allowed. It was a great day, I impressed myself, and I can’t wait to go during the week when there are fewer people.

"Woof!" does my dinner.

I had my first experience of “real” Korean culture. As much as many Koreans like to deny that it happens, you only have to speak to your students for a short while to have them ask you if you have eaten Boshintang yet. If it was that uncommon then it would not come up in 90% of the interviews I had with my students.

The name Boshintang literally means Invigorating Soup. This is the name you give things that are in some way objectionable, be it disgusting to look at, disgusting to eat or morally objectionable. In this case it is likely morally objectionable, because I can’t see why it would be one of the other to.

Boshintang is a soup/stew made with dog meat. Yes, mans best friend is included on the menu. To may this is a “How can you!” food, but don’t forget that beef is a “How can you!” food for many a Hindu, and I do mean many. Let’s not forget the vegetarians who are vegies for moral reasons, um, Laura. For me it is just another animal. Sure, it is the kind of animal that happens to be a pet in most parts of the world, but it is still an animal. We eat those cute fuzzy things called rabbits, don’t we? I do however disapprove of the associated with raising and slaughtering the animals. I would be upset if my steak was treated in that way as well.

Enough for now about the why, and on to the what. The meat is an extremely fatty, but very tender, dark meat. It is not bad, but the extreme fattiness makes it to rich for me. It is just not something I will eat again. I like my meat trim. Lay on the venison! The dish is presented to you in a big pot on top of a portable gas stove. The meat is on top of a few leafy vegetables with a broth/stock filling the empty space. All that is left to do is to let it boil for a few minutes, spoon some on your little bowl and dig in. You do get a sauce to dip the meat in, because what will Korean food be without a sauce to mask the taste of whatever you eat. There three or four side dishes, but I only ate of the kimchi.

Personally I would have loved a few leaves to rap my meat in, like you do with Samgjupsal, but that was not available, and if it was then I was unable to ask for it anyway. All in all it was interesting, and expensive, but not something that I will eat again soon, at least not if I have to play for it.

Viva Japan.

You have to wonder what the point of a clip like this could be:

I cant figure out if it was a reply to some other post, but the statements are about as useless as the information on the average researched article in a Korean newspaper. Seems to be running in the region, this.

Interesting things about this is that the creator went out of his way to find he worst possible pictures that not only make Koreans look bad, but also shows nothing to validate his point. He show one, count them, ONE piece if research that is likely out of context and has no reference. We will never know if this was just make up or real research.

Another interesting thing is that he somehow seems to imply that South East Asians are inferior. Chinese seems to be OK, but oh those brown skinned peoples!

I do like the pictures of the women with their breasts exposed. I have hear about this, but never saw pictures of it and never really searched for it either.

* What makes people think that their race, any race,  is better than any other. What makes Japanese or Korean people think that! There is no possible way they can think that, having been stuck on their little islands for so long that the world hardly knows anything about them. 

Two men, one coffee shop, no one else.

I’m sitting in Holly’s Coffee, because they have free Internet, doing stuff on the Internet. Right across from me are two guys, one drinking espresso and one some other drink in a paper take out cup. For those of you who don not live here it will not seem that strange, but for the rest of us is will be at least a little odd.

First off, you don’t see lots of men in coffee shops and this is the first time I have EVER seen two men alone in a coffee shop. I am sure they are alone because they are at a table for two people. Secondly, one is drinking espresso. I have never seen a Korean drink that. Lastly, they are dressed like men. I mean real men. There is no pink to be seen, no girly looking blouse, no women’s hairstyle, nothing.

Back to my photo editing and uploading…

The Dok-rock Song

We love Dok-rock!

We love Dok-rock!

We love Dok-rock!

 

Thanks for letting me see this, Jennifer.

 

 

* I wish they would stop this crap. Twee Klip Eiland (Two Rock Island) belongs to South Africa. I know it doesn't seem obvious that it belongs to us, but it appears under various names, that now belong to other existing islands, in the wrong position on South African maps. It used to have people living there of whom there is now no evidence and sea lions were seen there. All these facts prove that it belongs to South Africa. It is a fact and I can must be true because  I can scream louder than you about it.

** All the sea gulls is just more proof that it belongs to South Africa.

*** I take offence that the name for the water surrounding the "island" translate to something like "East Sea". Korea should change the name as we in South Africa find it offensive that it is not called, The Sea Over There On The Top Right Of The Map is not called something else in a language that we never speak.

The F Word

I was looking for a program called The F Word. I am not completely sure what it is, but I suspect it is a cooking show with Gordon Ramsey. I tried to find an episode on Google Video, and this came up. I am sure most of you have already hear this before, but I like the way they use footage from World of WarCraft to tell the story:

More than half.

Super Awesome! Thanks Jennifer for leading me to this funny way to start 2009.

My favourite part: "The investigation showed 14 out of 23 who were blackmailed ended up transferring money to Kim and his gang,"