Monday 30 October 2006

we're number 1!!!

just a quick note... i don't know why, i don't know how, but when you google the words "tak galbi" my blog is the FIRST result!!! just thought that was uber cool... i'm number one on a google search... try it and follow the link to keep me up there! *not that anyone is really searching those words, right? but still!!!! ;)

sunday dinner

i totally forgot yesterday that my halloween post was my 100th!!! yay!


while i was writing it, i was waiting for dinner to finish cooking... my third attempt at korean cooking was a total and complete success. now i don't have to live on kimchi fried rice and ramen! haha!

i got up in the morning after about five and half hours of sleep... couldn't sleep any longer. with the whole day ahead of me and nothing to do with it, i decided to head to the homeplus for my bi-weekly foreign food excursion. usually the foreign food consists of dill pickles and ritz crackers, but this week i discovered a few new ones.
yes! NACHOS! now i just need an oven so i can smother them in cheese!
and what would nachos be without SALSA?!?!?! it's a little hot for my taste, but it's salsa, sweet, sweet, salsa... (insert homer gurgling noise)
lipton ice tea mix! mmm.....
with catechin (whatever that is) and vitamin c! mmmm... goodness!

i was determined to cook a nice dinner for myself though, and not just hog out on nachos...so i searched the internet for korean recipes and found "dakdoritang". simply put it's like a chicken stew. here it is:
in a heavy pot mix together: 2 tbsp of minced garlic, 2 tbsp kochujang (hot pepper paste), 2 tbsp kochukaru (red pepper flakes), 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar, 2 tsp oil, 1 tbsp fresh ginger, 2 cups water.
add chicken, about 8 peices - whatever parts you like best - this was the first time i bought chicken (or meat of any kind) in korea, and this turned out to be a whole chicken chopped up into bits.chop up an onion, a large carrot, and a few potatoes, and throw them into the pot.

mix it all up in the pot...
cover, and cook on medium heat for about 40 minutes.

the recipe that i found says to serve it with rice, but it isn't really necessary. with all the potatoes, it just turns into too much starch...it doesn't look so beautiful, but it was delicious! and i have enough left over to feed myself for ages! and what would a nice dinner be without some nice wine... this is one of my favourite wines, and i got it for free!!! the last time i went to homeplus i bought two bottles, when i got to the cash they told me that these bottles were 2 + 1... that means buy two get one free... but they were OUT... so they told me next time i came i could have my third... and here it is. i still have a bottle on reserve for next time i have anyone over... if ever.

anyway, it was a really nice dinner, think i'll make it a regular thing... every week a new korean recipe.

so, i'll be 'offline' until wednesday nov. 1 in the afternoon because tomorrow i'm being sequestered at the gimhae foreign language high school tomorrow. i'm recording their 'listening exam' and in order to protect the integrity of the exam i have to be hidden away until the students take it... you know, so the parents don't try to bribe me! haha! i'll document it all as best i can, hopefully they'll let me take photos. until then!

Sunday 29 October 2006

happy halloween!!!

so yesterday, saturday, i went to Changwon with kim. Changwon is about a 20-minute drive or 40 on the bus. we met up and took the bus (only about $3) at four o'clock.

she had plans to meet a friend that she met on her 'visa run' to fukuoka, japan - Jin-Bum (yes, pronounced exactly how you think it is...mmmm... gin.... bum... haha...sorry couldn't resist!) we almost missed the "station", which looked like your average bus stop, but got off at the last moment.

then we hopped into his swank Kia SUV and headed for some bossum - pork...always pork... i don't know where all this pork comes from... but yeah, dinner.
we started with this spicy soup, it had cabbage and seaweed in it. i think there may have been mushrooms too, but i didn't taste them, so it was all right. it was good. this is the bossum... it sits on a flame to keep it warm. you take a peice of it and wrap it in the leaves, similar to the bacon that me and kat had... lots of korean food is eaten in this way. it was pretty tasty, though a little fatty for my taste.
since the koreans are all about the side dishes, this came with it. from top around to the right - some kind of smoked pork (tasted a bit like smoked meat or pastrami), potato salad, green salad, kimchi, and pumpkin. in the middle is a little dish of mustard . some korean rice wine to go with...
and to finish off, cold noodle soup with egg and veggies - quite good.

after dinner we had a few hours to kill before heading over to O'Briens for the halloween party so we wandered around one of the downtown areas of changwon. there's a big park where they have a light show every night using the giant fountains in the middle of the lake... we have the same thing in gimhae, but i have yet to go... anyway, we had to kill time before the light show, so we went shopping! we went to the E-Mart (!?!) and picked up some costume accessories, then went for coffee at DD. (those of you who know me well, know that i never got there, but i wanted something hot and familiar...)

to my surprise, dunkin' donuts is very different here. first off, you pick your own donuts:
yes, the donuts are all displayed along one wall, and each person takes a tray and some tongs and picks out their donuts... i must admit it makes the employees' jobs' easier, but still really weird. i got a coffee...mmmm... american coffee... haven't had a filter coffee in over two months, it was great. this is the 'roll up the rim' display! they ripped of tims... i forgot to roll it up... :(then we finally went to the light show - too bad i didn't have a tripod. there was classical music blasting and the lights and the water... it was nice, but in a really cheesy kind of way...

finally we headed to o'briens. you may remember it from a previous post (nachos...). there are two o'briens, one in busan and one in changwon. i like the one in busan better, but the one in changwon has better decor. it was a real halloween party, with costumes, jack-o-lanterns and beer... the music was great, and it was a really good time. here are some of the better costumes i saw:
girl in shower - i've heard of this but never seen it before!

GHOSTBUSTERS!!!!
rob as a ninja

pink floyd!
me, the angel... with jin-bum.
and what would a south korean halloween party be without kim jong il??? love it... and so did the koreans! good for a laugh at the least...

i just realized i don't have a picture of the 'freudian slip' - kim...there were so many pictures being taken, that i'm sure there's a couple floating around... i'll have to get one. notice i've picked up the korean peace thing with my fingers? ya, i do it on purpose now. anyway, for more check out my picasa album, there were some really great costumes, i could have been at any bar in canada. it was a great time, despite the massive hang over from friday, i only had one beer the whole night...

stay tuned for my latest attempt at cooking korea...

Saturday 28 October 2006

muse

as usual, the arrival of friday meant going out to the B & Girls... (i love having standing plans like that... it's so nice to be part of a 'community') i like the place, most of the time... it's good for conversation and a couple of drinks, but the beer makes me violently ill (damn the korean hite...the cheapest stuff here). so my friends Abbey and Kim suggested we go to the muse. it's a bar/restaurant a couple of blocks from the B&G and they serve real drinks - i.e. gin and tonic. they're way more expensive than the pints at B&G, but worth every penny. so i finally experienced another bar in gimhae - three down, who knows how many to go!


it was and even better idea since it was just us girls and we wouldn't have to hang out with CJ (creepy james - more on him later). so here we are, girls night out, at the muse.
ellie came along with us - she's the korean teacher that helped me get a cell phone:
the place was loads of fun! they have live music - these two phillipino bands:
this was was good, they had choreographed dancing, but they weren't as good as this one (sorry for the crap photo):
the singer on the left has the most incredible voice. we were chair dancing and clapping and screaming - it was almost like being at a concert! oh! the chait dancing - we had gotten up and started dacning but one of the staff members came and told us we weren't allowed to dance ! :( WTF?!?! so we chair danced for the rest of the night. anyway, the music was really good. of course, the gin and tonic that i got may have helped with the good time:
it was tasty, but yes, that is a peice of tomato... i've never seen that in a G&T before, very strange - and i took it out before drinking it. when we finished them (abbey got one too) we ordered more, but were told they were "out of the ingredients". we assumed they meant tonic, because how could they be out of gin?? for that matter, how could they be out of tonic? argh! what to do? so we ordered long island ice tea.
no tomato! they were really good - but i probably should have stopped at one... oh well, we learn something new all the time. it just tasted so good that it went down like, well, iced tea!

so, we were there, having a great time, when all of a sudden out of nowhere comes the reason (one of them anyway) that we weren't at the B&G with everyone else - Creepy James:
i hesitate to post the photo here, cause he makes my skin crawl... but see what i mean? doesn't he just look like a creep? but that's not the only reason i say it...

i met james a few weeks back at the B&G. he started talking to me and asked if i wanted to go to the WA bar with him. i thought, "why not?" and invited a few other ex-pats with us - thank god they came! so, CJ brought us all back to his apartment (half the size of mine) for a drink before going to the bar. kind of weird, but whatever... sometimes you just feel like sharing your world, right? so we left for the bar and as we were walking there he looks over at me and says, "so, are you going to come home and have sex with me?" imagine THAT accompanied by what you see above - ICK!!! my answer of course was no. but he didn't stop there. for the next hour it was "come home with me", "i know you want it", "i'm really good", etc... you get the point. every time, a flat out no. at one point i actually said in all seriousness (never have before) "what part of no don't you understand the N or the O?" he was like a four-year-old who wanted a new toy. then he tried to kiss me and i got mean - almost go up and left and if the others hadn't been there, i would have. thankfully, he finally got the hint and disappeared, leaving us, of course, with his bill. what a fuckwad. apparently this is something that he's done at the B&G and with other ex-pats - go out for a night of drinking and not pay his bill at the end. but then he'll brag to the guys that he went out and hired a couple of hookers for $400. starting to see why my skin crawls? anyway, he's always rude and crass, doesn't pay his bill, and really no one likes him. but he still comes out every weekend.

so, it sucked when we were out for girly night and the CJ showed up... i finally got really pissed off at him at the end of the night for being a cheapskate and told him to fuck off and that i never wanted him to talk to me again... he still didn't get it. whatever, this post is already too long...and i don't want to waste any more "breath" on him. just wanted to put it out there... if you ever see this guy, run, run as fast as you can...

still, he didn't ruin my night, we had a great time, i got to experience a new bar and drink some really tasty drinks... not to mention hangin' out with the girls... good times.

stay tuned for: my korean halloween... which will also mark my 100th post on this blog!

Friday 27 October 2006

art...

although i love my wallpaper (tiny white squares) it's high time i had something else to look at. lucky me, i do. last weekend at the festival that abbey, kim, and i went to we were given a sort of program for the artists showcased in one of the tents... so tonight i cut out a bunch and put them on my wardrobe. i didn't want to tape anything to my pretty wallpaper in case it wouldn't come off after... don't know what happens if you screw with the walls here. i've also put up my latest creation from the gimhae museum of art and a photo of me and kat that we took at suro tomb... for your viewing pleasure, here they all are:

i know it's not much, but at least it's something!

three down, three to go! (see post more gimhae for the others)

yes! kat and liz in traditional korean dress... kat you'll get yours if we ever see eachother again!

i've gotten some paint and a couple of canvases, so if i ever get my butt in gear i'll have even more art up on my walls... those will have to be hung with a nail... hope that's ok with my landlord... keep reading, i'm sure to have some kind of misadventure to write about after the weekend of partying that is about (hopoefully) to happen. ;)

Thursday 26 October 2006

international banking...continued

ok, so i was getting to the part about the cute banker...but TOTALLY got side-tracked on that last post... yesterday i got paid, on time, though not quite in full as far as i can tell... i've got the dork working on it for me now... should be hearing about it next month - if i'm lucky. point is, i DID get paid, and on time to boot!

so i got off work early to head to my "bank" where i withdrew a million won. this is one of the strangest things that i do on a regular basis... the maching at my bank will only let me take out 700,000 at a time, so i have to make two withdrawals and then take the hundred bills i have to the bill counting machine to make sure i haven't been ripped off. yes, 100 bills! the largest common bill here in korea is the 10,000 won note... so, a million won, is 100 of these puppies.

anyway, i take my money stuff it in a paper bag (supplied by the bank), then stuff it in my purse, and walk out. i'm always a little paranoid about this, thinking that someone is going to mug me, but i only have to walk a block. though now that i've posted this here, i think i'll get them to transfer it electronically...i'll have to figure that one out... anyway, i take my money to JJ my wonder banker and he takes care of everything for me. he always gets me a great exchange rate, and never charges me for the wire transfer....

of course, there was that time that he totally screwed up the western union transfer for my bro, so now he owes me... at least that's what the korean english teacher who sits next to me says... so i finally gave him my number yesterday, we'll try and go out for some pizza soon. but he works until 9pm every night and lives in busan - and hour and a half on the bus. maybe he'll drive his car one day... anyway, he called me last night just to chat, and it was all right - though i did find out he doesn't like drinking beer - or alcohol at all for that matter... wonder if he's maybe really religious... gets ya thinking anyway. i don't think i'm going to pursue the matter really, but it's nice having a friend at the bank.

Wednesday 25 October 2006

international banking baby

i'm a whiz at banking in korea! well, okay, maybe it's just the cute bank guy - JJ - that makes it so much easier, but after our first meeting a month ago things are going pretty well.

the first time i tried to send money overseas was to my brother to repay him for my flight here. i went to my bank - nonghyup.

anyway, i went in - after getting special permission to leave early from school - eqipped with a sheet of paper that said "i would like a draft in US dollars" written in korean by another teacher. after waiting my turn the teller called my number and i presented my paper to her. she looked at it, looked at me, looked at it again, and then a confused look came over her face. "no US," she said to me. then i looked confused and said "check" - more confusion. this went on for what seemed like forever before i finally gave up - how can a BANK not deal with US money?

as it turns out, nonghyup isn't a real bank...it's a cooperative. in canada this means the same thing, but in korea it means they don't deal with foreign currency at all. what kind of idiot is my co-teacher to open me an account at a bank that doesn't deal in foreign currency? wish i had an answer for you. i just couldn't wrap my head around it, and i needed to get this transfer done. she was telling me to go to another bank, busan bank. well, i was thinking, "where the hell is that?"

i whipped out my map of gimhae and asked her to show me. oh! of course it's only a block away and they'll do my draft for me. great. i was already frustrated - discovering that my bank can't do the one thing that i need to do every month... argh!

so i headed to the busan bank, what choice did i have? i walked in, took a number and sat down. after about ten minutes, my number was called. i walked up to the teller and passed her my note. she shook her head. what?!? she then pointed at some desks in the back and managed to convey to me that i had to go there. oh, well, that's not so bad really... right? yeah... we'll see.

after waiting another ten minutes, the man at the desk came to see me. again, i produced my now withered sheet of paper. he looked at it, looked at me and said, in plain english "oh, we don't do that here." i don't know if it was the rejection, or if it was the frustrations of my first three weeks in korea finally hitting me, but i burst into tears. that's right, balling like a baby. i couldn't control it... that's what makes me think it was the cumulation of weeks of frustration...

anyway, the look on this guys' face was incredible, he didn't know what to do with me. he looked like he wanted to hug me, or throw me out... (more like hug) i tried to explain through the tears that i was told i could do this here, and oh god, what am i going to do now? it's already four thirty and all the other banks are closing... what am i going to do? sob* sob* sigh* sigh*... you get the drift.

well, he passed me some tissues and told me to sit down. by now his colleague had become aware of the balling foreigner and they were on task. that is, they were on the phone, to i don't know who, looking up occasionally to see if i was still sobbing or had myself under control. finally he came back and told me i had to go to the korea exchange bank... but it was too late, all the banks were closed and so i just came home.

my first experience at international banking was horrible. i didn't know what i was going to do... that night i looked into western union to send my bro his cash. guess where you have to go to do that? uh huh, that's right, busan bank.

me and JJ are buddies now. my trip to the bank today was a walk in the park... we even have a little flirtation going on, and he wants to take me out sometime... sometimes being a big baby can be of benefit - it makes people want to help you and take care of you...

Sunday 22 October 2006

just a little update

friday i had plans to meet up with Rob - a Canadian i met at the board of education in my second week here. we hadn't met up since we'd met and i told him i'd take him to the B & Girls to meet the "gang". so first i went to his apartment - which is incredibly close to mine, being only a 10 minute walk. he was hanging out with two of his korean teacher friends - jason and another guy i named doug (he took to it like a duck to water). after a couple of rye and cokes we headed to the B & G where we met up with a bunch of other foreigners. i made a new friend - Kim from michigan:
i'd met her briefly last week, but got to know her better on friday and we made plans to go to the museum on saturday. after a couple of hours, i headed home early since i felt like i was coming down with a cold, and thought i'd be a good girl and get a good nights sleep.

saturday afternoon i made my way to the gimhae art store where i found some zinc white acrylic paint and a couple of canvases. then i headed over to Suro Tomb to pick up the pictures that Kat and I took a few weeks ago in traditional korean dress... awesome! i'll get it scanned and post it. then i met Kim and Abbey at the museum. yes, it was my second time there, but i wanted to make some more korean art... i left it at kim's house so no pics this time round... but will post when i get it. then we went to a festival near the tombs...

local artisans set up these tents and sold their wares - jewelry, art, etc...
this stage was set up and there was traditional korean music and dance shows.
we all had some korean corn on the cob (say THAT ten times fast!) but it wasn't very good... they steam it instead of boiling it and it was less than properly cooked... more like little nodules of gummy, hard, well, corn. i managed to get most of it down before giving up on it.

then we met up with ben and dave and went out for some BBQ and a couple of drinks at the girl and beer (not the beer and girls) - the boys were off to watch football (soccer to the north americans) and the girls went back to abbey's for drinks and girl talk. i went home early again cause i wasn't feeling so hot, but this time it was my stomach... i think it's the beer in korea... the most popular beer is called 'Hite' and apparently it's a malt liquor and not really beer (?correct me if i'm wrong?) anyway, every time i drink it i feel sick, i wasn't sure that it was that, but i'm going to test my theory by not drinking it ever again... i'll pay the extra money for heineken in a bottle - mix drinks are not freely available at many of the bars we frequent... maybe we need to change the bars we go to?! anyway, i headed home early around 11... my new friends must think i'm such a lightweight! i'll show them next week!

today, i didn't get out of my pyjamas. i spent the morning watching sex and the city, friends, and the gilmore girls on TV, and the afternoon reading half of Abbey's four year long blog. i can't even imagine having one for that long! it's really interesting... i'm going to get permission before posting the address here. so that's been my "chill" weekend. museum, corn, and friends... sweet.

Friday 20 October 2006

mmmm....Kimchi....


“It’s rotten cabbage.” My introduction to kimchi by a friend couldn’t have turned me off any more. I like cabbage, for the most part, but rotten cabbage? I wasn’t so sure about that. “It’s like sauerkraut,” another friend told me, I still wasn’t convinced. Well, as it turns out, kimchi isn’t really like either of those things, so in order to dispel the myths of kimchi, here is the truth.

I was hesitant the first time I tried it. I picked up a piece of leafy cabbage, turned the colour of a sunset by chili powder, and put it in my mouth. My first reaction was to spit it out, but you can’t be rude like that when surrounded by a table full of Koreans. They all looked like children on Christmas morning, waiting to see my reaction. I managed to chew it and get it down. I smiled, and said, “it’s not that bad,” even though I didn’t like it at all. It was pungent, with a strong odour, and a little too spicy for my liking. But not all kimchi is made alike, or so I’ve learned since my introduction to it.

Kimchi is, technically, rotten cabbage, as my friend so eloquently put it. But it is also much more than that. The Kimchi Field Museum, in Seoul, has documented 187 varieties, and different recipes abound. According to Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corp., the main ingredients of kimchi are Chinese cabbage, sliced radish, parsley, mustard leaf, green onion, garlic, ginger, salted fish juice, rough salt, powered red pepper, and seaweed. Some recipes call for pyogo mushroom, raw oyster, raw shrimp, or fish. After mixing all of the ingredients together, the kimchi is put in a ‘kimchi jar’ (large earthenware jars), and then it is buried – about a foot underground, until it’s time to eat it. The length of time kimchi is fermented varies depending on the recipe, but it can be between a week and years. The longer it ferments, the stronger the flavour.

Kimchi has been around since around the 7th century. Koreans needed a way to ensure vegetables were readily available during the winter months, and so kimchi was born. Early variants did not have the all-important chili peppers – they were only introduced to the peninsula in the 16th century, by Portuguese traders. Even then, there are no early recipes showing the use of chili pepper in kimchi, it is thought they only became a part of the mix in the 18th century. Chinese cabbage is also a ‘new’ addition to the Korean national dish. It has only been used since the 19th century, before that it was made with indigenous vegetables like radish, cucumber, and perilla leaves.

Kimchi has been called on of the healthiest foods on earth. One of the reasons for this is the lactic acid bacteria that is formed during fermentation. This bacteria is partially what gives kimchi its distinctive sour flavour, but also prevents other bacteria from growing. It also helps relieve intestinal disorders and can be a major part in preventing obesity, diabetes, and intestinal cancer. It is low in fat, high in fiber, and full of many different vitamins – a little kimchi a day, will keep the doctor away. On the flipside, it has been speculated that kimchi can also be a cause of gastric cancer. In 2005, Korean researchers discovered a 50% higher risk of stomach cancer among ‘heavy’ consumers of kimchi. But, you would have to eat around 70 pounds of it a year for your entire life for this to be a possibility, so eat up!

Kimchi is an acquired taste – I’m proof of that. I didn’t like it the first time I ate it, and now I have it with almost every meal. I’ve become a wiz at making kimchi-fried rice, and have it a couple of times a week now. You can also make kimchijeon – Korean pancakes with kimchi – kimchi soup, kimchi noodles, kimchi and curry on rice, kimchi pizza, heck, you can make just about anything with kimchi, and if you have a dish that doesn’t need any, it’s always a great side-dish.

Questions? Comments? Let me know.

Thursday 19 October 2006

magazines

hey. this is a call out to everyone to send me old magazines. anything will do as long as they're in english. i have a few students that i think would benefit greatly from being able to read more in english - especially well written english. so if you can send anything, let me know and i'll give you my address. just send me an email lizmavorATgmailDOTcom. thanks!

Tuesday 17 October 2006

the eternal hunt...

IS OVER!!!!

that's right! you heard it here first! i have a PHONE!!! yay!!! the korean teacher from another school in gimhae called me today and we went to get it. she has a friend who owns a cell phone store. we met down the street from my house and we drove all the way into Busan - about 45 minutes and i picked out a phone, picked a phone number and that was that! i can still hardly believe it! i ended up spending a lot more than i wanted, but at this point... really?!?!?! it's a sweet little LG model that has an mps player, camera, tv, internet, the works... here's a picture of it:


and it slides open:
i can't believe it!!! now i can call all the new friends i've made! yay! i don't know how to repay Ellie, but i'm starting with beers on friday...

trisha, this is for you... imagine it on a 6 foot tall man:
i tried to just take a photo of him, but he would only let me do the shirt... i'm on the lookout for pucca things for you, but it's not as easy as you would think...

Monday 16 October 2006

Teach English In Asia

i've been meaning to write this for a few days... so here it is. i'm marginally involved in this new web site called (you guessed it!) Teach English In Asia and i've been posting some of my blog posts and photos and other stuff to it. i figure i can put it on my CV as an online writer... i'm the new food critic! just wanted to promote it a little bit and let you all know about my new endeavour...

home?

today i finally got letters from Canada - three of them! i'm almost sure this means that the post office wasn't sure what to do with them for quite a while. they were all sent at least a couple of days apart - not to mention that two of them were stapled together (very odd). anyway, one was from my mom, one from my grandma (i've been corresponding with her since i was a little girl) and the last (but not least) was from Bilal. i call him my nephew because his mother (Alexia) is like a sister to me - we've known each other for twenty years. he sent me pictures of his trip to France in the summer and a drawing that he made for me. since he's only just turned five, he can't write yet, so his mom wrote it for him, but he signed it. i miss him a lot and call him semi- regularly so he won't forget me! though i don't think he actually will. anyway, it was really nice to get letters from "home". especially since i got them right after coming home from the homeplus (!home!) after buying my first Korean houseplant! haha! so much HOME - a good enough title for this post, i think! anyway, i usually have a black thumb (not green) but i figured what's two dollars?


buying it went something like this:

me with hands in the air: sun?
korean lady (in korean): two thousand.
me with hands waving in the air: sun?
korean lady: no. no sun.
me: okay. i'll take it!

my apartment does get some sun, but i want this for my kitchen where i don't think it'll get much light, i wrote the name down in korean "shinsangbum" and will investigate to see what kind of care it requires. it's just a little thing, the picture makes it look bigger than it is, but hopefully i won't kill it. maybe i should talk to it, give it a name? then i'll really be certifiable! talking to my plants! haha! anyway, i'll let you know if i kill it.

so where's home really? thoughts? comments?

Sunday 15 October 2006

tag board

this sucks. i switched to "blogger beta" and now i can't get my tag board to work again.... it may take me a while to figure out -i'm going to email blogger help... if i ever get it back up and running... so, it's back to the comments section for us all... thanks. have a great week!

photos

hey all. i'm entering a korean photo contest - the prize is a pat on the back...no fame and fortune here - on Dave's ESL cafe (a website all about teaching english as a second language) and i was hoping for some help in choosing which photos to contribute. i'm allowed 16 entries and though i am allowed to submit up to 8 from other countries, i'm going to stick with korea... so here are the four that i think i definitely want to enter: (click on them to enlarge and have a closer look)

"orange flower"

"little man"

"rice"

"pebble walk"

here are the "maybes" that i'm not sure about... regardless, i need to have 16 entries, if you think that any of these aren't suitable at all, that's okay, i have until december to take more... and you know how i am. so, please let me know your favourites (above included... if you don't like them, let me know - be as critical as possible...)

"Yeonji Park"

"Fish"

"Reflections"

"Wheels"

"Wheat"

"White Flower"

"Lotus and Lily Pads"

"Lotus Flower"

"Rose"

"Gwangalli Bridge"

"Rock"

"Unbos House"

"Stairs"

"Path"

"Lotus and Rice"

Seriously. tell me anything... good or bad...