Y’know those awkward times when you’re checking into a motel with someone you really should be doing that with? There is a wide open industry here to handle those concerns. For starters, certain motels are known as “love hotels”. You can spend a night there, but you have to check out during the day so they can rent the room for one or two hours at a time during the day. You don’t have to get the fish eye from the hotel clerk because you can pull into the parking garage and pull the garage door behind you, go directly to you room, slide your card and make yourselves comfortable.
There are even pictures of the rooms above the garage door so you know just what your getting into.
I’m going to try to blog more often than once a month. So, since my last entry we’ve done what we often do, that is go out somewhere for some kind of activity for at least part of the day. Like, yesterday we took a local bus to a place where we then walked about 5 miles to a waterfall. That “69” love hotel was one of many on the way to that pretty place.
I changed the setting on my camera and got an interesting blue hue to the base of that waterfall.
After that we went to Myung’s Friends’ restaurant and chowed down on Korean barbeque with them and other friends. I didn’t have take any pics there, but it was some of the same crowd that are in this picture from last month which I posted earlier.
Today we’re going to the local market, what Americans would usually call the farmers’ market. It’s every 5 days on dates that end with 1 and 6, except the 31st. It’s the cheapest place to get fresh food including fish and meat. It’s a regular activity for us on market days. I think I’ll take a few pictures and get back to this with them after we come back.
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Hi again. We lazed around watching the Democratic convention on CNN then walked to the market. I should have taken a picture of the ‘hood but didn’t think of it till we got to the river. They are working at beautifying it. It should be nice when it’s done. So far they have cleaned it up, put in bike paths on both sides as far up as our neighborhood, and made some crossings and steps down.
You walk through town a while and get to the area where the market is, which is basically about four blocks of blocked off lanes. Here is one of the entrances.
I took a bunch of pictures of the stuff in there, mostly some of the stuff we bought today. It’s like most Asian markets in most ways, very traditional. Nothing is pre-packaged. I’ll just post all of these, even though you’ve seen so many market pictures and potatoes aren’t exactly exotic. Here’s Myung buying white potatoes.
Here she is buying doraji, a root similar to ginseng. She sauteed it tonight with seaweed in sesame, garlic, red pepper and probably something else. Most things are prepared with those ingredients here, in varying amounts and proportions. Obviously this vendor is selling many other things.
Here’s some ginseng. Most varieties are inexpensive here.
One common way of eating is to wrap stuff in leaves and pop it in your mouth.
Probably the most popular leaf is the red leaf lettuce Americans are quite used to. Another popular leaf is sesame leaf.
Koreans like to buy their carrots still dirty. Myung says they are fresher that way.
Here’s rice and legumes mostly.
Here’s the kimchi. Myung makes ours, but this gives you the idea how many kinds are common. There are actually dozens of kinds.
Apples and peaches. the peaches look great, but they aren’t very juicy or sweet. The apples and Asian pears are great, though.
Mushrooms are one of the few things that are cheaper here than in the States.
Bored yet? This will be over soon. If you like steamed corn, like most Asian markets, you can grab a bite while your at the market.
Or stop and smell the flowers.
Lastly, I’m down to the phish photos. Today we bought these squid. We often eat mackerel. there are many kinds of fish but most of it is pricey. Those long ones are razor fish. They are good but not too heavy, so $5 each is a bit much. The third pic is of dried little fishes of different sizes. They can be eaten as is. or lightly sauteed with, what do you think, garlic and red pepper. The last pic is of these tiny rockfish about the size of your hand. Pathetic. They barely qualify as juveniles, I’d guess. They have to be 20 years old to reproduce. Oh well. It’s happening all over.
So, we got home and made dinner. Most of it was Myung’s doing. I made a traditional American salad with red lettuce, onion, bell pepper and carrots with thousand island dressing I made out of mayo, ketchup and pickles Myung made. I forgot to put in the cukes. The pot has kimchi stew. You can see rice there, doraji with seaweed, these pancake things like Indian pakora which she made out of sweet potatoes and greens this time, spicy long green peppers with sesame, and the little fishies. Typically, Koreans have a multi-course meal like this. As you can see, I didn’t exactly make the table look picture perfect. It’s our one table and it’s gets used a lot.
Okay, that’s it for now. Be well, all of you.