Randoms

I was looking through my picture file today and found a few random photos that never made it on to Facebook, Blogger, or Flickr (not that I've used Flickr in ages, anyway). Since I have the day off today (thanks to the Chuseok holiday) and I'm currently sitting in Starbucks and focusing very hard on being nonproductive, I decided to throw some of the pics up here. So let the randomness begin....

The Market:

Ken and I shop at the Haeundae street market as often as we can (you know, supporting local business and agriculture like the good people that we are). I realized the last time we were there how accustomed I've become to seeing things like these on a relatively regular basis, so I had Ken (my personal photographer, apparently) snap a picture of it so we could shock and awe people back home:

Yes, these heads previously belonged to hogs and, yes, you see these at nearly every Korean market place. At least they appeared to be happy about being decapitated. Have I ever eaten the meat of a hog's head? Probably, but it sure didn't look like this on my plate.

We bought nuts and (what we thought was) brown rice at this stand once. Upon cooking the "rice," however, we realized it definitely wasn't what we originally thought it was. It was chewy and tasteless... and we still had no idea what it was. Needless to say, I chickened out and took my brown-rice-business to a grocery store chain (I'm a little ashamed of myself).

The Great Flood of 2009:

A couple of months ago, Korea had it's largest rainfall in over 80 years. Lucky for us, we got the day off due to flooding. Unlucky for the city of Busan, some of their streets ended up looking like this:

Under the water is a street. Over the water is an overpass for walkers and bikers. I'm just guessing, but the water seemed to be about 15 feet deep. Ken took some more pictures of the flooding (and all of the stupid people who insisted on driving their cars through the flood and promptly got stuck), but they apparently didn't make it onto my computer as I can't seem to locate them. Ah well. Moving on....

Norae Bhang:

I've mentioned the norae bhang here before, but for people who don't know what it is, let me just say: it's my number one favorite thing about Korea. A lot of Westerners refer to it as Korean karaoke, which is accurate. But the difference between Korean karaoke and North American karaoke is that it isn't a bar and you get your own private room in which you can bellow away with no one there to boo you off the stage. You can rent rooms of various sizes, but the average "singing room" can accommodate four to eight people and it comes complete with microphones, tambourines, a huge selection of Engrish and Korean songs, and (the best part) a strobe light. Ken and I are big norae bhang nerds, so we frequently go on Friday nights (just the two of us) and sing until we can't sing anymore, which usually takes about three hours.

These three are our favorite norae bhang partners, for obvious reasons. Andrea and Meaghan really get into it, and Kevin is an accomplished tambourine player.

Ken frequently gets annoyed with me for messing up his songs. I've been officially banned from "Phantom of The Opera."

Cooking Adventures:

Here is a picture of a coconut chicken curry we made (adapted from the mango chicken recipe on Elana's Pantry... we couldn't find mangoes, so we had to improvise):

And, yes, we might have the ugliest plates (or bowls... I'm not really sure what this thing is) on the planet. But they were free!

Ken's Hair:

A couple of weeks ago, Ken decided to shave his head. He does it on a fairly regular basis, so this news isn't normally noteworthy. This time, however, he accidentally put the wrong attachment on his razor and didn't realize it until after the first swipe:

And THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is what I have to look forward to in the future:

Try not to be jealous.

And this concludes my randomness for the day. I feel strangely productive, considering the amount of time I've just wasted.

----------------------------Update!------------------------------

I forgot to include a picture of our '96 Avante piece of crap that GOT HIT TODAY by a Korean lady who apparently wasn't trained to check her rear-view mirror before backing up. Our poor car got crunched as we were following her out of a parking lot this afternoon. Fortunately, the front license plate took the brunt of it and rendered our bumper dent-free. Phew! Anyway, as much as I love the car, this picture is a teensy bit deceiving. It doesn't look nearly this lovely in real life, plus it is currently covered in about a 1/2 inch of crud and has a recently-crushed license plate perched precariously on the front bumper: