My parents came to Seoul!

During my severe lack in posting, my parents visited me in Seoul.  They arrived on a Thursday night and stayed for 8 nights! (April 28th-May 6th)  We did a bunch of touristy things while they were here which is great because I haven't actually done much of that.  Now that the weather is bearable, I'm going to try to do more sightseeing in this city I now call home.

Happy April

I guess it's April now, but it sure doesn't feel like spring yet.  It has slowly gotten a little warmer..so much so that I haven't had to wear a winter coat in the past 2 weeks.  However, it's still not what I would consider "spring weather."  So let's see.  It started getting cold at the beginning of November, and I've been wearing boots and coats until 2 weeks ago.  What ever happened to 3 month seasons?






Also, with the start of spring came the "yellow dust" season.  These yellow sand storms bring in all kinds of things including "Sulfur (an acid rain component), soot, ash, carbon monoxide, and other toxic pollutants including heavy metals (such as mercury, cadmium,chromium, arsenic, lead, zinc, copper) and other carcinogens, often accompany the dust storms, as well as viruses, bacteria, fungi,pesticides, antibiotics, asbestos, herbicides, plastic ingredients, combustion products as well as hormone mimicking phthalates." [thanks wikipedia]  So yeah..not much to worry about.  The first warning was last month, and of course I didn't know about it.  I went outside that day, not realizing anything was wrong.  When I started hacking up a storm, I discovered the severity of my mistake.  Next time, I'll wear this.

Korean Cooking 2

I first saw this banchan on Korean dramas (hello Boys before flowers) of course.  It's called 계란말이 (gaeranmari) which is basically just a rolled up egg.  Not rocket science here.  First start by chopping up whatever you want in your egg.  Think of it like an omelet.  

I think I used onion, green onion, korean turkey ham, mushrooms, carrots, and a slice of torn up cheese.  Second mix 3 eggs with the rest of the ingredients.  This is where my pictures start.  Heat a frying pan up with a little oil and pour 1/3 of the egg mixture onto the pan (this is important..if you pour it all in at once, it will be too thick and won't roll properly).  Let it cook and then slowly start to roll up one edge with a spatula.  Once you roll it a little, pour in some more of the egg mixture (about half of what's left) and swivel the pan around so the egg mixture covers the remaining area.  Continue rolling and repeat the process with the remaining egg mixture.  When the roll is complete, cook on all 4 sides to ensure the roll holds together.  Then slice the roll into small sushi-roll like pieces and you're finished!  I like to arrange the pieces on their sides so you can see the rolled up part and think of myself as fancy.

Mix everything together with the 3 eggs..sometimes I add a little milk if I have it too..

Spring Break

I might be the worst blog upkeeper ever, but for those of you (5 people who read this blog) who don't know, I went to Malaysia for spring break!  Spring break aka the random week the kids have off school in between the end of one school year and the beginning of the new one.  We went to Langkawi for 5 days and then spent one night in Kuala Lumpur before flying back to Seoul.  In the midst of a seriously frigid winter here, it was amazing to land in a country with hot and humid weather for a change.  The morning we arrived, actually as the plane was landing in Kuala, there were tons of heat lightning bolts.  Then when we got to Langkawi, it was raining during our short cab ride to our motel, Sandy Beach.  We immediately ate some food and took a short nap to recover from the overnight traveling, and the rest of the trip had gorgeous weather.

It was kind of a short trip considering we only had 4 full days, but we made the most of them!  We laid on the beach, went swimming in the Strait of Malacca (ya that's the body of water, who knew?), took a cable car up a mountain, walked across the sky bridge, hiked up 300+ stairs, swam in the Seven Wells waterfalls, got swarmed by wild monkeys, had fresh coconuts, went island hopping, got a massage in a strangee house (thai spa 3), took a moped ride along the coast, ate 4 times at the Red Tomato (amazing American style breakfasts), took a boat to a random island for the half moon party, and spent plenty of time drinking chang and tiger at the Babylon.