@#$% crazy korean weather!
March 22, SEOUL, South Korea — People make their way through central Seoul on March 22 as an unseasonal snow falls in the South Korean capital and surrounding area in late March. (Yonhap) (END)
via rokdrop.com
an interesting article from ‘the chosun ilbo’
How Korean Food Is Perceived Abroad
Korean food is unpopular and considered overpriced in the U.S., a survey shows. But it is widely popular in China and Japan, where it is seen as cheap.
The straw poll was conducted among 2,000 foreigners, 500 each in China, Japan, the U.S., and Vietnam, by consulting firm Accenture for the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
With Americans, Korean food ranked only eighth in popularity among 12 cuisines — Korean, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mexican, Thai, Vietnam, and others. They enjoyed Italian and Mexican food most, followed by Japanese and Chinese. Asked why they do not enjoy Korean food, the biggest group of 18.5 percent cited a limited menu, followed by sanitary issues (15.3 percent), spiciness (13.2 percent) and price (12.5 percent). Americans in the upper income bracket earning no less than US$8,700 per month said Korean food should taste more Korean, while those in the lower income bracket with an average monthly salary less than $2,900 thought that flavor and ingredients should be adapted to American palates.
The consultants recommended that upmarket Korean restaurants in the U.S. should adhere to traditional flavors while cheaper restaurants would be well-advised to adapt to local tastes.
Asked which dish comes to mind when they think about Korean food, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese selected kimchi while Americans said galbi or grilled beef ribs.
In Asia, Korean food was one of the most favored dishes. In China Korean food was the most popular foreign cuisine over Japanese or Italian dishes. It was the second favored foreign dish in Vietnam and the third in Japan.
In China, a Korean meal cost an average of $8 per customer, the lowest price among 11 foreign cuisines surveyed and only a quarter of French meal, which was $37. Accenture pointed out that there are scores of Korean restaurants run by a Chinese without a proper knowledge of the cuisine and serving poor-quality dishes. It warned that the perception of Korean food as low-price and low-quality might persist.
The image of Korean food was not much better in Japan, where a meal cost on average $10. But In Vietnam, Korean meals were the second most expensive with an average $5.60 per person, following Italian food with an average price tag of $5.94.
english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/03/16/2010031600231.html
from smithsonian magazine, photos from the korean war:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/multimedia/photos/?c=y&articleID=30706239&page=1
seeing the bustling metropolis of seoul today, it’s hard to believe just sixty years ago it looked like this.
the philippines was gorgeous, and just what i needed. i can’t wait to go back.
alas, all good things must come to an end.
well it didn’t start snowing until christmas night, but it’s been pretty snowy and wintery ever since — the first real snow of the season.
ice on the han river, seoul [joongang daily]
it’s actually not been that bad so far. sure it’s in the frigid single digits fahrenheit, but it hasn’t been excessively windy. it has, however, been extremely icy, which makes it hell walking up and down the mountains to my barracks building and office. and apparently, driving as well:
someone is going to have some body work to do on the underside of the chassis….
seven days until the philippines, sixteen days until my challenger srt8 gets to korea!!!
courtesy of ROK Drop:
Naked News Korea Girls Start New K-Pop Band, The Naked Girls
I am sure everyone has been awaiting in anticipation to see what would happen to the unemployed Naked News Korea girls and now we have our answer, K-Pop!:
“We have gathered Minkyung, Jaekyung, Hyeji and Taehee to form this girl group, and will officially debut under the name Naked Girls in January next year. Their performances will be composed of inappropriate songs and choreography, definitely not suitable for youth. The girls’ activities will be focused more on musicals rather than national television.” [Extra Korea]
Here is more on the group’s signature calling card, “the sexy cal“.
You can see more pictures of the girls here.
james & miwa outside the seoul hilton hotel
well, another christmas away from home. it was pretty relaxed. spent christmas eve at the commander’s place, and then went to seoul to see miwa on christmas day. she made a nice christmas dinner for me and her friend doo hee.
courtesy of doo hee’s phone:
so i met miwa after work in hangdang, where we sat down to a delicious meal of shabu shabu and lots of silliness, as always. miwa is so terrible though! we were walking to the train, and this hajima was selling puppies. they were so cute! well, miwa convinced me that they were for food. i was soooooo upset! turns out she was lying and was just trying to provoke me. i nearly flipped out. not cool!
puja, korea, 27 november 2009
so unfortunately, we were working friday over the four-day thanksgiving weekend, because every time i have anything planned, @#$%ing 2ID or 210 Fires BDE comes up with some last minute tasking—in the case of last wednesday, it was division safety stand-down day. consequently, thanksgiving consisted of serving lunch to the joes in my dress blues at the chow hall, followed by dinner at the commander’s house, and finally a blitz back to camp casey to get some sleep before 0430 wakeup the next day.
by 0600 we were on the road to scout out some sites around korea, which generally means within shooting range of the DMZ, along north korea air avenues of approach. we hit our sites without too much trouble, except for one road which was mislabeled on the map and sent us on a two-hour long detour.
the cool part was taking a break and stopping to get some lunch in paju book city, a pretty artsy-looking area north of the han river that runs through seoul. we drove up to simhaksan, which holds a buddhist temple complete with a giant statue of buddha. alas, our fearless driver missed a turn on the return trip, which brought us directly to the DMZ near warrior base, where we do our grenade ranges, and in the general vicinity of panmunjom, the village just south of the 38th parallel where truce negotiations were held to end the korean war. so we kind of took the scenic route, but we made it back, which is all that matters.
also, don’t let sgt epps take photos. he’s a good soldier; a good photographer? not so much. ::james shakes his head::
