Tuesday, December 25, 2007

My Absence (or, Ho Ho Hospital)

Where has Kyle been for the last few weeks, you may ask? Well, funny story: in what seems to be a necessary part of traveling to a foreign country for me, I was once again hospitalized for severe food poisoning. There is no small irony in the timing of this occurrence, as roughly one week prior the illness I had decided that in an attempt to improve my health and save some money for Seoul, I would significantly cut back on my alcohol consumption, and make an effort to stick to less exotic (and more affordable) foods. I followed this plan, eating a fair amount of western or chain restaurant food during that next week, yet somewhere in the period between eating an innocent bowl of rice and vegetables for lunch and a chicken sandwich later for dinner I apparently consumed an insidious little bit of nastiness that would send me to the emergency room the next day. the other possibility is that I got sick from eating at a Mexican food restaurant here on the island. While I fully realize the parallel here, that after getting sick in a Latin country from eating Oriental food I have now done the same thing with Latin food in an Oriental country, in my defense it was not just a cheap hole-in-the-wall sort of place, and everyone gets homesick for elements of their old life every one in a while.

The ER in Korea is fairly modern (certainly less 70's retro than the one in Ecuador), and the procedure was rather standard, with an x-ray and an IV, then hours of waiting. It took some effort to get to the actual "treatment" stage of all of this, as when I first came into the hospital, hardly able to stand, I was met by two attendants who looked at me, then each other, and began to debate who would try to speak English to the foreign guy. After about 30 seconds of this nonsense, I was frustrated and nauseous enough to simply take matters into my own hands and pick a bed, though it seems that me walking away was the necessary action to prompt them to overcome their shyness and do their job. I find that Koreans are often so hung up on saying things the exactly correct and proper way, that they often will say nothing at all, a problem which as an English teacher is of some concern, but as a distraught and disoriented food poisoning victim who is trying his best not to make a mess in the hospital lobby, it is a much more distressing issue.

Hell, it's better than the other hospital visits I've had, in which while trying to set up an appointment with a physician or ask directions to the pharmacy I am met with naught but giggling nurses who seem to find the idea of a westerner in the hospital amusing and absurd. Anyway...

So, I'm better now, though it's been a long weekend. I had to go back a few days later because the condition I had, enteritis, or the inflammation of my abdomen, had not subsided. This led to a CT scan which, though pricey, was significantly cheaper than in the US, costing only around $130. Perhaps the strangest element of the entire ordeal was the CT scan. Though I had an interpreter who had lived in Baltimore for 38 years, there was little she could do when the technicians were vague in their descriptions of what was going to happen, which happened quite a lot. I was told that following an IV injection of some sort of clear liquid (tracking solution), I "may feel hot, and smell". I couldn't imagine what the last it meant. The heat came quickly after we had begun, and I could actually feel the stuff as it spread through my blood. It was only after my entire body was flush and burning that I realized what "smell" meant. I thought I may have some sort of odor later on. What it actually meant was that there was such a high concentration of the solution in my blood that I could smell it through my own vessels, and for that matter, taste it in my tongue as well. It hit me right as I was supposed to be holding a deep breath, and was almost too much. Then, just as it had come, it seemed to all disappear.

The results showed that whatever it was had made itself at home, and I would be required to take a seven day course of antibiotics and for one week eat only juk, or Korean rice porridge, which is quite possibly one of the most boring foods there is. Christmas was difficult, and I can't say I didn't sneak a few other foods, but the next three days are nothing but juk, juk, juk now. I've got to be recovered for Seoul: we leave on Friday.

A result of this is that I've once again got a bit of a blog backlog, so I'll be trying to post as much as I can once I get back from Seoul. I should have a whole new set of stories by then too. More to come!

And, by the way
Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Hold Yer Horses

I'll be back as soon as possible. Maybe tomorrow. I've been busy with Korean taxes, Christmas plans, and an awful case of black mold that's taken over our apartment. Tomorrow is election day, so we have it off, so it's likely that between planning out my winter camp lesson plans, I'll post tomorrow.

Thanks, and happy holidays!

Sunday, December 9, 2007

From the Stable to the Table: Equine Cuisine Part 2

Last Friday night, a group of nine foreigners descended on the back alleys of Sin Jeju (New Jeju) near Halla Hospital to search for a very special sort of restaurant. After several weeks of attempting to marshal up enough interest from a few of my fellow foreigners, the night had finally arrived, and now, walking through the frigid winter we were wandering through aging blocks of flats, trying to find a place that one of our ranks had been to long before, but apparently forgotten the precise location of. Finally, after asking a number of the locals, we found what we were looking for- Malgogi Chanmun
, a horse restaurant with a specialty in malgogi hoe, that is, raw horse. Since the moment I had heard of its existence, I had wanted to try this. The fact that even the less adventurous individuals who had tried it all agreed that it was delicious made this prospect even more appealing. An unfortunate number of months passed in between, but finally we had settled on a night and gone out for horse sashimi.

The cost of this delicacy (I assume it must be a delicacy, because of the cost) was around $25, which included three courses. Shortly after popping open our bottles of soju and starting in on the standard marinated horse banchan, the first course was delivered to our tables. It was rather thick for raw meat (compared to, say, carpaccio), and was flecked with sesame seeds. The middle-aged woman who owned the place showed us how we were to consume it, sandwiching it between sheets of dried seaweed, and dipping it in a wasabi/soy sauce mixture. She seemed to believe that this demonstration, though perfectly clear in pantomime, required her to lovingly shove it in to our friend's mouth as an example to us. I dunno, maybe she was interested in him. She told us that this course was very much like tuna, and I definitely see the parallels. In fact, just very recently in Japan, a tuna shortage led to the consumption of horse sashimi as a substitute. The dried seaweed laver was a bit overpowering, but without it, the soy-and-wasabi mixture did a wonderful job of bringing out the sweetness of the meat. When eaten completely unaccompanied, it had a very bizarre texture, like wavy fish, that was a little off-putting, but completely masked when coupled with the seaweed or sauce.

The first course.


The first bite.


The next course, the proper horse tartare, usually came with a raw egg cracked into it, but my friend did the best she could to stop this, though I am almost certain that the kitchen didn't listen- it came out fairly sticky. This dish consisted of much more roughly chopped meat topped with poppy seeds, and laid out on julienned Asian pears. The best part about this is that, in something that struck me as belonging much more in Santa Fe than Korean, they brought out a fried egg as a side dish. Without the fried egg, the tartare was very good, and surprisingly a bit more tender than a similar preparation of beef would be. The Asian pears matched quite well with the meat, but I have to say that nothing was as strangely delicious as the mix of the raw horse and fried egg. It was almost like comfort food, something Southern, to be served in a diner.

Horse Tartare


A (Not-Too-Appetizing) Close Up


The Egg 'N' Horse Combo


It was a bit anticlimactic to have begun the meal with the most exotic dish and then proceed to a simple stew, but it was nonetheless delicious. The stew, galbijim, is in my opinion one of the better Korean stews of the vast multitude that exist, as it is light on the vegetables and heavy on the meat and mushrooms. The rib meat used in the dish again defied my previous notions of horse meat being tough and stringy. It had been stewed long enough to give the broth of the stew a shimmering glossy appearance, but not to reduce the meat to stringy ribbons. The meat was lean (presumably due to the amount of fat that had soaked out into the broth), though occasionally I'd scoop a a chunk comprised of more than half horse fat, which I found pretty tasty, but my friend actually spit out after accidentally eating a piece. Once we had picked out all of the meat and the scarce vegetables, the owner poured a bowl of horse bone marrow broth into the remainder, and provided us with a palette of multicolored noodles for it. The noodles were black, orange, and purple, which were made from buckwheat, tangerine, and cactus respectively. Did they taste any different? Not particularly, but they at least looked kind of cool.

The Horse Rib Galbijim


An abundance of horse fat


The multicolored noodles in marrow broth


I really enjoyed the raw horse meat, an opinion which was shared by a great majority of the table. Alicia's reaction was a bit different. To each their own, I suppose. I definitely will be repeating this experience whenever my pocketbook will allow. And as an indirect result of this meal, I have become aware of some substantially more bizarre foods here. When we told a Korean friend of ours about having eaten malgogi hoe, he was able to offer up a few other suggestions. Like fried whale. Or the occasionally deadly toxic puffer fish sashimi (if you watch the Simpsons regularly, you know what I am talking about), which I had been saving for Japan, but now that I am aware that it is offered in Korea, I just might try it here. There are a few more which, in my opinion, are far more strange and horrifying than anything I've eaten so far... but I do need to hold on to a few surprises, right?

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Crocodile Town

Still recovering from the previous night, and now stuffed to the gills with yellowtail, we descended from the main road and under an overpass to the parking lot sitting on the side of a rather absurd-looking reptilian head, which given the sort of animals housed at this establishment one would assume to be modeled after a crocodile, yet the presence of horns jutting from it's crown indicated that it was more likely than not recycled from a more medieval-themed venture. Banners clung to the outside of the warehouse-like complex, depicting a Thai girl putting her head inside of a crocodile's gaping mouth. Intrigued, we followed her example and bravely marched through the jaws of the dragon, to a small ticket booth where dropped down our $12 and dashed off to make the 3:30 show which had begun three minutes earlier.

Dashing through corridors filled with objects too blurry to discern at the speed we were traveling, we followed the unique, warbling, and terrible sound of the layered reverb and crooning that is Korean balladry. The act had just begun, we saw, as we walked in on to see a woman wearing a bright red hanbok, or Korean traditional dress, doing her best to sing but still strangling the cat, perched on a platform surrounded by paleolithic killing machines. Thinking that at the end of the song she would be risking life and limb in the maws of these crocodiles, we sat on the edge of our bleacher seats, waiting with bated breath for her attempt at music to end. Disappointment soon followed, as she bowed and shuffled of the stage to backstage safety. Soon enough, a pair of Korean men came out into the enclosure, carrying Mongol spears and dressed in what might have been some sort of traditional croc-wrasslin' attire, but just looked like basketball jerseys and shorts. When they began their hunting dance, both Gabe and I got the distinct impression that we had been ripped off, that the thrills these Koreans were peddling would turn out merely to be "hey, look at these idiots dance in an enclosure of sleeping animals! Exciting!". We were relieved, therefore, to see that once the musical number was done, they ran into the water and began saturating the tile, then proceeded to drag the awakening beasts about the enclosure by their tails. While some may call this abuse, I would guess that would such a sight have ever bothered me, it has been months since that point has passed. They proceeded to try more and more daring stunts with the crocodiles, using wooden wands to seemingly hypnotize them, stroking the inside of their mouths and the tops of their heads in a repetitive, rhythmic fashion. First hovering in the general vicinity of their jaws, the performers became increasingly bold, progressively inserting more and more vital parts of their body into their open snouts and undertaking increasingly difficult stunts, starting with fists, moving to arms, then laying out on their backs. They would get a running start, slide on their stomachs across the smooth and wet tiled enclosure, coming to a skidding halt just within range of the crocodile's mouth to give it a kiss. The advert-promised climax came when they stuck their heads into the (suspiciously lethargic) beast's mouth. But if there was a grand finale, it was certainly this- an event eliminating any doubt about whether these reptiles were on drugs:


Animals and Artifacts
After what we agreed was an amusing but strange show (something about the manipulation of indifferent scaled monsters backed by blaring Korean techno is patently odd), it was time to set out to explore the rest of the CrocTown facility. I didn't know what to expect exactly, though I would have leaned towards 'more crocodiles', but such foolish notions were soon put to rest as I walked through the next door, and came across the BRIGHT BLUE HAND OF SATAN! There, mere feet away from a croc stunt show, was erected a massive fiberglass hand (plus a few extra fingers here and there) clawing out of the ground. As out of place as it already seemed, a survey of the room leading out from it left us in an even greater state of confusion- a swarm of vulture-sized animatronic ladybugs flexed their wings from their mounts on the walls. Around the bend and into the next room, we found a miniature zoo of sorts, lined with glass cages displaying, on one side, numerous small reptiles, and on the other, a collection of small mammals that could very well have been dinner to their neighbors across the hall. Highlights included the Sudan Plated Rizard, and the Ratte (presumably a caffeinated rodent mixed with hot milk). There was what looked like a mix of a porcupine and a possum, the name of which I am sure I would have known when I was a child, but which has been erased by the years in between. My favorite were the panda mice, little furry pets that I found incredibly reminiscent of the dalmatian mice in The Royal Tenenbaums.

The Bright Blue Hand Of Satan


As if trying to top itself in the absurdity of its disconnectedness, the next room we entered was a hodgepodged collage of antique gadgets and furniture, complete with old rotary telephones, cracked and aged Korean movie posters, war memorabilia from the Korean war, and replica of furniture from the thousand-year-old Joseon dynasty period. I have to admit that, knowing the somewhat bitter way that some older Koreans feel about Americans in relation to the Korean War (not to mention the grudge held on Jeju towards America for 'simply observing' during the Jeju Massacre during that period), I did feel a little bad about having a Korean man take our picture as we crouched in helmets behind the plastic battlements, in front of a mural no doubt depicting the sacrifices of the Korean people in that war. This was, however, comparably solemn and respectful compared with the tourist attraction we now spotted in the far corner of the room.

War is hell...


Ghengis Kyle
Nestled back behind a large assortment of recreated royal thrones and gama (Korean litters), we saw a raised platform occupied by what appeared to be recreated scenes of ancient Korean palaces. A large clothing rack next to it held a wide array of costumes. Lingering briefly out of curiosity, we were called up onto the dais by the old Korean man who was in charge. He told us that for 3,000 won, we could have our pictures taken dressed up like important people from Korean history. Not wanting to refuse the old man, we adopted a 'might as well' attitude once again, and were promptly dressed. The only costume large enough for me was a Mongol warrior. My friend was dressed up as either a king or Confucius. The man used our camera to take around 15 pictures, though he was decidedly unhappy later when he turned around to find the king wearing the queen's wig, and the Mongol warrior having unsheathed his sword and swinging it around.






Departing from what we believed to be a dead-end in the exhibit, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a shabby curtain hanging on the far side of the war exhibit. We luckily chose to investigate, and found a dark room lit only with blacklights. It seems that, just for good measure, they had also added a haunted house on to the Crocodile Park, whose downright creepy atmosphere it owed as much to its unexpected location as to its actual contents. The contents, however, didn't hurt; styrofoam mannequins of children were painted with fluorescent paint so that in the blacklight, it looked like they were crying blood, others were chopped up and strung across the room. The first room in particular was incredibly disturbing, as we had no idea what the place was, and it was full of cute forest critters smeared in neon paint.

This photo was taken with flash, so you have to use your imagination.


One the way out, still confused and a little creeped out, we passed by the last exhibit before the door: a macaque, who because of the thick glass we were unable to hear. It was by far the meanest monkey I have ever met, as upon seeing us it charged across its habitat and began shouting at us, eerily moving it's mouth like it was swearing at us. We tried to get it to repeat the performance, and that's when it got really mad.


As it cursed and screamed silently at us, we departed from the madness that was Crocodile Park, a place that seemed to be put together from scraps of old theme parks . We can only assume that the reason for the additions was its direct competition with the other crocodile theme park on Jeju, Crocodile World. I can't wait to see how they are competing.