home plus, traditional dress, more foreigners, and kimchi fried rice

friday kat and i woke up and headed to the homeplus, which was closed in the middle of the night... and that was probably a good thing... it was huge... this is the soya sauce aisle... so you can imagine everything else. i'll be back there so i'll cover it more in some future post.

yes, Cherry, this one is for you... i couldn't resist.

my shopping cart when we got out. i spent WAY too much, but i got a lot of staples. a new pillow, towel, soy sauce, cooking oil, red pepper powder, flour, sugar, coffee, DILL PICKLES (which are already almost gone), kimchi, green onions, garlic, bean paste, pineapple, ramen, cabbage, eggs, dak (rice things) fish cakes, carrots, a chuseok present for jay, and...

REAL ritz crackers... mmmmmmm..... :) it feels like i should have more, and i'm sure i got some other things that i'm just forgetting now... oh, 12 one liter bottles of water... the worst part was when i got to the cash and couldn't find my wallet. i started freaking out. the first thing in my head was "this can't be happening" i'm so paranoid about losing it (it's only happened to me once, so i don't know why i am). finally kat whipped out her card and paid, then we loaded the bags into the cart and as i picked up my last bag - there was my wallet sitting on the counter. i almost walked away from it - had the korean lady in line behind me not stepped up, i would have left it there... thank god! of course, i felt like a total moron! so we went home, dropped off the shopping and headed to the kings tomb - second time for me, but i thought kat might like it. here are a few shots.

this girl is dressed in traditional clothing - koreans all do for chuseok... isn't she adorable?

then i got a shot with her parents (i've emailed them both to them).then kat and i discovered that we too could dress up... we got a real photo taken and i'm going to pick it up next week... it was only 5$ each and we got to look like korean queens. i'll post it when i get it.

then it was off to the beer and girls to meet up with chris and lois. i also met their son richard (he's lived in gimhae for ages), and ben (super hottie from england who smelled like heaven). steve was there too, and later on a canadian named pat came with one of his co-teachers... it was nice to speak english at a normal pace with more than one person at a time, but i did drink too much... leaving me disabled on saturday... :( oh well, it was loads of fun and totally worth it.

saturday after i recovered sufficiently from the night before i cooked my first korean dish - thanks for the recipe and help kat! kimchi fried rice. basically throw onions, kimchi, tuna, and rice in a pan with some chili powder, chili paste, garlic, soya sauce, and oil into a pan and fry it up. i've made it three times now - the only thing i've eaten all weekend! it's delicious.
out of the pan and into a bowl... yummy, yummy...

well, now i'm almost caught up... i still have to post about today, went to the museum, the other tombs around gimhae and just generally wandered around... that's next, but it'll have to wait a couple of days... keep reading, hope you've enjoyed the latest installments, sorry for so many in a row... i just like to be on top of this thing we call a blog... keep the emails and comments coming... miss you all back home... but not the cold weather! it's still 25-27 every day!!! not to rub it in or anything...