Lunch with Nan

During my week of Korean chilbo lessons, Nan, my chilbo teacher wanted to take me and Rocketman out to lunch one day.


She brought along the guy that does the amazing metalwork. He knew a little English, enough to tell me that he wasn't married and was poor. I took this photo and caught them as they were finishing the meal. We went to a restaurant that turned out to be not too far from our Korean apartment.

I always like to get a photo looking down on the table. It never ceases to amaze me all the dishes that are used and I always feel it looks like a painting. I also think about the poor soul that will be doing the dishes later. This wasn't even all of them, they kept coming but we had already started to eat.

This was raw fish and the only thing people ate was the fish not the white stuff but we were told that was for decoration.

Closeups of some of the side dishes.

This is the pot that your rice came in. It is one of those hot pots that doesn't cool. After the rice was gone except for the burnt rice you couldn't scrape off, they come and poor tea into the pot and you stir it and eat it like a soup. It also cleans the pot. How does it taste? Well, to me it tastes like tea and rice. I was so full by then it was hard to eat very much.

It came with a nice wooden stand built around the pot. There were some pregnant pauses in conversation which is to be expected. We were dining with two Koreans with little English knowledge and two Americans with one having little Korean knowledge. Rocketman does very well in understanding a lot of Korean. He would disagree but it's true.

I found out that Nan's husband works in a city 3-4 hours away so she never really sees him. This is not uncommon in South Korea and we know several couples that have done this. I can't imagine but it works for them. She also has a 15 year old daughter who is just as talented as her mom.

Maedeup Monday!

This week's "Maedeup Monday" comes from our recent visit back to South Korea. My maedeup teacher had recently given birth to a baby boy. In the old days the baby was not taken out of the home until 100 days because of the high mortality rate. It's not quite so strict but most do not take the baby out for a month just to be safe.

Su-Mi lives south of Suwon so Hellena (my Korean girlfriend), Rocketman and I took a bus and taxi to reach her apartment. She wanted us to come visit her so badly and I'm wouldn't have been able to without Hellena's help.


We came for lunch so while the girls slaved away cooking, I took care of the baby. It was a joy and delight.

I have found that sometimes when we would go to a Korean home for a meal, it was 50/50 if the meal had been prepared in advance. In this case, Su-Mi hadn't started cooking so Hellena helped her.

She made this delicious tofu and rice side dish. We also had spaghetti with garlic toast. It was the first time she had made either and she had to check on the Internet for the recipe. The spaghetti came with what I call Korean shrimp meaning that the shrimp looked just like it came out of the ocean, eyes and legs still attached. I had no idea how to get the meat out but Hellena didn't even wait for me to ask. She took my shrimp and like a surgeon only with chopsicks she removed the meat in seconds. She is amazing!

We saw the baby's room and this is a diaper cake she had received as a gift.

I had never seen anything like this before but this is what now I know is a hooter hider where you can breastfeed and see your baby. I found them on the Internet here too but they weren't quite like the one Su-Mi had. Su-Mi wanted me to take this picture and it turned out great.

This is what the hooter hider looks like from the front. This was in Su-Mi's bedroom. The bedroom reminded me of a little girl's room with all the roses and pink. It was really frilly and I wondered what her husband thought of it. She loved it so that's all that matters.

I learned some more things about Korean new mothers. Su-Mi wasn't suppose to bathe for a month but she only lasted 3 days. She also keeps pretty covered up with blankets because if you don't, you could become arthritic when you are older. They also keep the baby warm even when it is very hot, the baby is swaddled tight in a blanket.

Su-Mi's mother-in-law stayed with her a lot to help out and make the seaweed soup that she had to eat every meal for the first month. It helps you recover from childbirth. Her husband has been traveling a lot so I'm sure she appreciates the help. Hellena told me that her sister actually went to a place for mothers after they deliver. There they take care of mother and baby. No bathing! Her sister stayed for a month and it was 1100 WON ($1100 US). I would get pretty stinky after a couple of days and in the summer, forget it.

It was so good to see Su-Mi. I will be taking more classes when the baby gets a little older. She is hoping to start teaching maedeup in her area then too.

Rocketman took a lot of great pictures with his new camera.

South Korea - Part 4 - Dinner and a Birthday Party!

A funny thing happened as we were leaving our hotel to meet one of Rocketman's co-workers for dinner. This woman (the one in red) ran over to me, grabbed my arm and dragged me to a table filled with all kinds of food. Thankfully, Rocketman's co-worker, JG, was there to translate.

It was her birthday and she was having a party. She wanted us to eat and drink with them. It was funny because she was the only woman I saw at her party. They handed kimbapto me with chopsticks and how can you refuse when it's presented right in front of your mouth. Then they gave me a glass of mokgeolli. They were so happy to see us so I had to drink it for their enjoyment.


I had Rocketman take these pictures and they loved posing for them. Somehow JG got us away from the party and we headed to "Vomit Alley" to eat dinner.

Here we are in "Vomit Alley." Someone took this picture for us but I have no idea why it is so small.

We ate at a popular galbi restaurant. It also had stools so we didn't have to sit on the floor.

JG and Rocketman partook of some more makgeolli while I stuck to a Coke. The food was delicious and we saw why the restaurant was always packed at night.

After dinner we went to a bar for what is "Round 2" in Korea which is a bar. JG and Rocketman ordered more food along with more alcohol. I was so full from dinner that I just nursed another Coke.

By then, it was getting pretty late and JG had to get up at 2:00am. to drive back to Gwangju. He drove 3 hours just to see us. I was really touched. JG and me go way back to when I first came to South Korea to hunt for an apartment. The plant manager had a dinner to welcome us to Korea. JG was there and gave me a lecture on Korean men telling me that Rocketman would be considered a Korean man which meant that he would be going to dinners with co-workers during the week and coming home very late sometimes after 1am. He told me that I am not to get mad that this is just the way of the Korean man. He nodded his head to me letting me know that he was finished.

I had politely listened to everything he had told me and he thought that was the end of it. I looked at him and said, "That's ok but then I want the phone numbers of all the wives because when this happens, I will be calling your wife and the others and we will go out to dinner too." You should have seen the look on his face and everyone else there. They had a good laugh and thought I was kidding. Rocketman knew I wasn't but it was our little secret. We've been buddies ever since.

I have another JG story. He took another position in the company and I never saw him unless I asked Rocketman if we could get together. Shortly before we left Korea we went out to dinner. He got pretty toasted by "Round 2." He told me to tell his wife who was home in Naju that he says that she is beautiful. I told him that when I meet her I would tell her. He takes out his phone and calls her and then hands me the phone telling me to "Tell her." So I took the phone and told her that her husband says she is very beautiful. We talked a little, her English being excellent and then I gave the phone back to him. He was so happy and I thought that was a first for me.

So we make our way back to our hotel and what do we find still going on.... the birthday party but it had moved into a red ginseng tea store which we found out that she owns. We decide to drop by and say "hi" before we enter the hotel. She sees us and once again I am grabbed and dragged into a room full of Koreans. This time there were both men and women. We sat down and again food and drinks were shared. They all seemed pretty full in their cups and the laughter was pretty constant. She told me that they were all her boyfriends. I was wondering if she really understood what that meant in English.

It was funny trying to communicate when my Korean is minimal and their English was the same. So I did what I usually do when I'm nervous, I tried to get one of the men to sing Kim Bum Soo's, "Bogoshipda." No one would and they just laughed even harder when I sung a few bars myself.

JG really had to go so we only stayed a little bit but they were so glad that we stopped by. JG bought some tea for us sometime during our stay and presented it to us as a gift.

It was the most fun I had in a long time. I can't remember when I had crashed some one's birthday party.

Insadong, South Korea

Insadong is crazy busy on the weekends. We went to meet friends.


On the weekends, you can find Koreans looking for holding signs looking for hugs. It was part of that "Free Hug" campaign from years ago. Rocketman didn't want to take my picture but I made him.


And then I made him do it also. He wasn't too jazzed about it but he did it for me.

We met our friends for green tea. This is what Rocketman ordered.

This is mine.

It was almost too pretty to eat. The teahouse had three floors. The first floor was their retail store. The second floor was a tearoom where you could sit and enjoy a tea. The third floor was pretty much the same as the second floor but the tea was more expensive and the seats were more cushioned. We opted for the second floor.

California Dreaming

Last weekend, we jetted off the LA to see our good friend, Holly. Holly's puppy, Miss Mabel, loves my Rocketman. The weather was perfect, 70's and sunny. The food was fantastic with Holly taking us to all sorts of great restaurants.

Holly also took me to a witchy store. I love the hours: 12ish -. It was the coolest place and one of the clerks was dressed as I would imagine a modern day witch to dress. Poofy long hair with lots of black eye liner and red eye shadow wearing a long black dress. The other clerk was dressed in casual wear.

She was the one to get into an altercation with a customer who questioned her Wicca beliefs on some specific points. She yelled at the guy to get out of her store. Then she was still so upset that she sat down while she expelled the bad energy. At least that's what she told me. It was quite a show for this gal from the Midwest.

I felt bad for her so I started to talk to her and when I told her we were from Minnesota, she jumped up wanting to show me something. She got out a small black cauldron, placed a flat charcoal briquette into it and used a match to light it. Then she got out four different kinds of frankincense and placed each one on the heated charcoal to let us smell the smoke. Then she got out some myrrh for us to smell. She said it was the same stuff used back in biblical days. I had no idea that you could find it. By then I was getting a little light headed from all the smoke I was inhaling.


Also while we were there this blonde woman walked in wearing pink and little else. Holly told me she was famous but I had never seen her before. Her name is Angelyne and she is known for the billboards she had appeared on. Holly and Rocketman got this picture of her car. The girls in the shop didn't seem surprised to see her and she left to come back when it wasn't so busy.

The actual name of the witchy store is Panpipes Magikal Marketplace and in the apothecary part of the store, they sell oils called atars which you wear like perfume. They gave me a binder to determine what I wanted. They have atars to aid you in just about anything you could imagine. The photo above shows the ones I chose. They smell soooo good and made with 100% natural ingredients. When is the last time you could say that about a perfume? You can order through their website so you don't have to visit their store in Hollywood but it is entertaining to say the least.

Next stop was a visit to Koreatown. Holly had not been there before and we were surprised at how big it was.

CGV is the name of the movie theatres in Korea.

Shabu-Shabu is so yummy. We didn't really find anything there since it was so spread out. Next time I should do some research before we go but it looked a lot like Korea. They even had a Mr. Pizza but we didn't see the "Love for Woman" anywhere on the windows like you would find in Korea.

Time flew and it was time to come home.

South Korea - Part 3 - Korean Kids!

I got the opportunity during our visit to go out with our favorite little girl, Yeo Jung. Rocketman had to work that day so he missed out on all the fun.

I brought her a Cinderella Barbie and she was was intrigued by the tiara.

I also got to meet Yeo Jung's little sister, Yeo Rung. We ate at VIPS which is a steak restaurant that has a great salad bar. Yeo Jung loved their broccoli soup. She had two cups.

Her mama took this picture of us.

We also went to dinner one night with Choi, my yoga buddy and his family. He brought along his granddaughter who spoke perfect English and I mean perfect. He told me that she learned on her own watching television and reading books. Rocketman and I were shocked at how well she spoke. She is really amazing and understood everything we said. She was a little shy at first but it didn't take long for us to win her over.

Here she is with her grandma!

She wanted us to come back again very soon and she wanted me to pinky swear so I did. The jewelry she was wearing was made by her mother. It never ceases to amaze me how many incredible friends I made in the two years we were in South Korea.

Maedeup Monday!

This is actually a chilbo and maedeup Monday. While taking chilbo classes in South Korea, I wanted to make Carol (of HGTV's The Carol Duvall Show) a chilbo sock monkey. It was amazing how easy it was to convey this to my chilbo teacher. I swear she understands English and I understand Korean.

This is the finished wall hanging including the maedeup. See how chilbo is such a perfect compliment to maedeup which was one of the reasons I wanted to learn chilbo.


Somehow using the information I gave her, Nan (my Korean chilbo teacher) found this picture which happened to be a pair of polymer clay sock monkeys that I made when I did my first ever Carol Duvall Show. It still amazes me what you can find on the Internet. Nan printed the picture out and I traced it onto a piece of prepared copper.

We made two so I would have one too. We made one using silver to outline the sock monkeys...

and also copper.

Problems with blogger photos again but this is the finished silver wall hanging. It turned out great. Nan even showed me a photo she found of Carol wearing a maedeup necklace I made her using one of Nan's chilbo pendants. The photo was taken at the 2010 CHA Winter Show and Carol was posing with a fan. I don't even know how Nan found it but she was THRILLED to see Carol wearing it. I was thrilled too!