The Top Ten

If you had asked me last December to guess what things we'd miss, most of the stuff on this list would not have been on it, because it simply wouldn't have occurred to us.  The list includes everything other than friends and family of course, because that is too obvious.

The Top 10 Things We Miss

10.)  Decent Radio.

The only radio here is the BBC, Top 40 and a couple of Mandarin stations.  The BBC is fine, except that they repeat the same news stories every single hour, so it's completely annoying to listen for more than 60 minutes at a time.  Internet radio is an option, but not in the car.  The Top 40 is okay for a pop-culture fix, but the DJ's are so overly enthusiastic that even though I sort of like Top 40, I can't sit through the the siller banter long enough to get to the good Miley Cyrus song.

9.)  Products.

We cannot find Edge Gel shaving cream (David has used it since puberty and was mildly traumatized that he had to switch to Gilette), Advil (it works, and it's even got that yummy coating!  It's like candy for adults), Aveda (I'm not sure what I'm going to use when my Be Curly runs out), Pureology (Best. Shampoo. Ever), and Cetaphil (I can get it here, but it's $30 vs. $6 in the US and I just can't bring myself to buy it).

8.)  Great Businesses I Discovered Just Before We Left.

First, Jenner Stevens of J. Louise Design.  With the task of having to decorate an entire new house, I miss having an un-biased third party to help those of us who can be paralyzed by indecision over how to arrange a shelf, or completely retarded when it comes to accesorizing a room or even where to hang a picture.  Jenner would stop over and help with anything, all for a very reasonable fee.  (And she's great with husbands who think they know what will look good but really don't.)   

Second, June consignment store on Lyndale.  It opened right before I left, and has fabulous clothing finds for super cheap.  And it feels like an upscale boutique, you don't have to paw through overstuffed racks to find that one cool shirt.  There's no such thing as consignment here, not that my size is easy to find anyway.  (I needed a stiff drink after one shopping excursion here in Singapore, when I asked a salesperson if something came in a size 8, and she responded with "Sorry, no extra-large.")

7.)  Reasonably-priced Alcohol and Dairy Products

If  you can find a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer for less than $20 here, you'd better snap up a case.  Organic milk is $16, and good parmesian is $68 a pound.

6.)  An Easier Job

This is for David, who now works 60+ hours a week instead of his usual 40.  He wanted me to also include the lack of time for afternoon coffee breaks.  There are coffee shops nearby his workplace, but see #4 for the reason there it's just not practical.

5.)  TV

David misses ESPN, specifically SportsCenter (I liked The Top 10 highlight clip show in the morning - I could talk intelligently about big games without having to actually watch them) and any channel with Twins or Dodgers games.  I miss Bravo, as now I have to pay for all my guilty-pleasure shows through Apple TV.

4.)  Stores With Parking Lots

Not only are there no parking lots here (you either park in a ramp or on the curb, neither of which are free), but there is also no Target.  So for your basic list of items you have to go to a hardware store, grocery store, pharmacy, and a mall, all the while trying to find, squeeze into and pay for a parking space each place.  Every errand takes at least twice as long.

3.)  Food.

For David, Chipotle and Pepitoes are on top of the list.  There is Mexican food here, but the few places that we've found are sit-down restraunts, not ones that deliver or have food to-go.  I miss pretty much any cold sandwich in general (Subway is the only place here that serves something even remotely close.), as the last thing I usually want when I'm hot and hungry is to hunch over a steaming bowl of spicy noodles.  Oh, and none of the restraunts have chocolate desserts.  They're all tapioca or rice concoctions, and not nearly as satisfying.  Last of all, anything organic is freakishly pricey, and there's no such thing as local, because everything is imported from Malaysia, China, the Phillipenes, or Austrailia.

2.)  Our house.

I really miss my kitchen, with it's dishwasher reasonably located in the kitchen, and not outside and around the corner.  And our garbage disposal.  Due to the location of the dishwasher, I hand wash dishes way more and have to empty the mesh drain-thing about ten times everytime I do a batch.  I also miss our huge leather sectional we bought last year, the couch we have now is a bit formal and is for sitting up, not lounging (I sit on the floor a lot).  And lastly, my garden, where I actually know what all the plants are called, and can look forward seeing things come up in the spring.

And Number One...

1.)  A cool breeze.

We're on the equator, remember?  I miss taking a walk with Millie without needing a shower afterward, or walking three blocks to the bus stop without having to use up a packet of Kleenex to mop the sweat out of my eyes.  There's no Minehaha Creek to let Millie splash in, and I can't remember the last time I wore shoes that required socks.  (I've explained to David that this requires pedicures to fall under "necessary" in the budget.)  Talk of "windchill" has been replaced with "heat index".  Heat index of 105F yesterday, by the way.

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I'm sure we'll think of more, but that covers it for now.  Next entry, a tour of the house!  I was going to wait until all the pictures were hung up, but without Jenner, I can't decide and I have to admit it's just not going to happen in the near future.

Quantum Leap

I'm going to fast-forward from early March to mid-April, going from the DMZ to sitting in front of the TV watching the 5th straight episode  of How I Met Your Mother.  I love Apple TV.  Have I mentioned this before?  After taking a break from the uber-blogging, I'll be back soon with the day-to-day stuff.  In the meantime, I'll leave you with a Singlish primer...

ANYTHING CAN:  anything is possible

ANG MOH:  Caucasian (literally 'red headed' in Hokkien)

AUNTIE:  a respectful way to address an older lady

CAN AH:  can you or can't you?

HOW CAN:  how is that possible

LAH:  no translation, Lah is added for emphasis

ORSO CAN:  no problem

SO HOW?:  and the answer is?, what is next

WAH:  wow, another emphasis term or word, as in, "Wah, so cheap lah!"

Gye-iggity-ongbo-iggity-kg-iggidy-ung

[FLASHBACK]

Friday, March 6th - Seoul, Korea

I visited my first Korean palace today.  You can't tell by these pictures, but it was about 15 degrees outside, and the wind was a-blowin'.  This combined with the audio tour thing-a-ma-jig not working properly (I couldn't get it to stay in English), resulted in a pretty quick tour of the grounds.  This place was huge, but all the buildings started to look the same after a while...

Here's the first gate:

Here's the second:

I won't bore you with the third, it was the same as the first two.  But they shore don't make roofs like they used to...

I'm sure this would be lovely if it was 40 degrees warmer:

Here's where the king conducted his official business:

I probably wouldn't get any work done, I'd just sit there looking up and thinking how cool my ceiling was.

All around one of the main buildings they had stone representations of the Korean Zodiac, and I started walking around try to figure out what they all were, and where the Ox was (my sign).

This was obviously Rooster, and I figured my sign had to be cooler than this.

But being a dragon would be awesome!

What the...?  Oh.  Sheep.

"My Precious...". (Monkey)

By process of elimnation, this was Ox.  Or a tribute to Where The Wild Things Are.  Hard to tell.

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And thus endeth our trip to Seoul.  Back to the tropical grind tomorrow....

Recipe for Recovery

[FLASHBACK]

Thursday, March 5th - Seoul, Korea

After last night's revelries, I spent the day today working quietly in the hotel room, with only a pizza and Coke Light break as the excitement for the day.  I'm not sure why they don't use the word "diet" here, it's the same in Singapore, and it's hard to get used to.  I like the tall skinny cans though...

I was also amused by the pizza box:

Feeling fully loved by Mr. Pizza, I turned in early.

Shopping and Soju

[FLASHBACK]

Seoul, Korea - March 4th

My mission for my afternoon break today was to finally get to some hardcore shopping!  My first stop was the Lotte Department Store, where *gasp* they sold Aveda!  I immediately stocked up, as it's not sold in Singapore and my stash was running low.

The next stop was the Duty Free Store, which actually took me a while to find.  The elevators didn't stop on that specific floor for some reason, I went up and down several times before I figured out that I had to go one floor above, and then take the escalator down.  Very secretive.  The place was packed, though, so apparently I was the only one who couldn't figure out the elevator system.  My score for the day was Fendi sunglasses at duty free prices and 50% off.  I bought three.

For the next hour or so, I wandered around trying to find some fun clothing, and wondering where these people shopped.  Black is the uniform for spring, I think...

I then found Zara, which I never seen before and went nuts stocking up on some great Korean fashion.  I found out later, though, that what I had traveled all the way to Korea to buy I could have gotten in Singapore.  They have Zara all over the world, even in the US.  Oh well...

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Later that evening it was out for some Korean BBQ - below is the entire dinner menu.  We chose Meat 2 and Meat 3.

I was elected as the first chef, but was quickly replaced because I apparently wasn't rolling out the meat fast enough.

One of our hosts kindly showed us how to make soju bombs (soju and beer):

This was David's reaction to another drink, which is nameless and potent (soju and wine).  It was at this point I realized it was going to be a long night for one of us...

Thanks again to our great Korean hosts!!!

War and Wine

[FLASHBACK]

Tuesday, March 3rd

I spent a couple of hours today in the Korean War Museum.  Since the visit to the DMZ, I've been a little obsessed with learning as much as possible about the Korean War.  I won't do my history-in-a-paragraph here, but check out Wikipedia if you're interested in the basics.  I thought one of the most interesting things was that the war could have been over in only one year (instead of three), but the higher-ups couldn't decide on an exact border - the orginal 38th parallel determined after WWII, or a border a few miles north of that.  The fighting moved north and south something like six times before an agreement could be reached in 1953.

Here's a few pics outside of the museum:

The Tower of Korean War:  "Symbolizing the images of a bronze sword and a tree of life.  The bronze sword represents the time-honored history of the warrior spirit.  The tree of life symbolizes the prosperity and peace of the Korean people."

Statues Defending the Fatherland:  "The statues represent 38 people from all walks of life who overcame the Korean War and depict the suffering and pain caused by the war while embodying the sublime spirit of sacrifice and dedication to the defence of the fatherland of past patriots."

The exhibits inside were pretty good, but the wax figures and dioramas got a little boring after a while.  One of the highlights was a room showing constant different footage of combat on 8 huge all at once.  It was mesmorizing.

Here's the charter of the United Nations if you've never read it:

And a teardrop of dogtags, representing the over 4 million casualties of the war in just over three years.

Later that evening, in desperate need of a drink, I was treated to some of the best sushi in Korea, and more importantly, was introduced to Plum wine.  I'm on a search for it here in Singapore.  Thanks to our hosts!

I Thought I Said I Didn't Want It Looking At Me

[FLASHBACK]

Monday, March 2nd in Seoul, Korea

I worked from the hotel room today, and ordered room service for lunch.  I had Bibimbap, pretty much because I like saying it:

Later that evening, we had dinner with a few of David's collegues at a really great Korean place.

I forgot to take a picture of the piles of shoes (you have to leave them at the door), and the on-the-floor seating (we had to decline because I was wearing a skirt), but took plenty of the food!  There were about 20 courses of food that came in waves.  Wave 2:

Wave 4:

Wave 5:

I'll leave you with this parting shot.  No, this wasn't to share, we each had one...

No, You're a Dipthong!

[FLASHBACK]

Sunday, March 1st

David and I continued our culture dip with a trip to the National Museum of Korea.  My Lord this place was huge...

We only made it through one floor (The Archeology Gallery) before we needed to take a sweets break.  My feet were then aching after the second floor (The Historical Gallery), but I had to sit and wait for David because he is facinated with Hangul, the Korean written language, and there was a special display about it.

Hangul was invented in the 1400's because the Korean people never had their own written language;  they were using Chinese characters to try and express Korean words.  I think David likes it because it's so scientific and logical.  The alphabet emerged from a study of the speach organs (toungue, mouth, throat) and the shape they take while speaking.  Characters are stacked and combined in groups of two to five to create syllables, and then the syllables are grouped from left to right to form words.  I say blah blah blah what?  I think the most interesting part of Hangul was how this broke major social boundaries.  It was so easy to learn and use, that the upper class were no longer the ones who had the time and money to learn how to read and write.  That and some of the characters are called "dipthongs", and this allowed me to say "You're a dipthong" to David after I was tired of waiting for him.

Later in the day we hit another shopping district, which was supposed to be a great place to buy Celedon, a certain type of Asian pottery.  We didn't buy much that day, but it had some good people watching as usual.  Ooooh, a crowd was gathering, this must be interesting...

Sort of.  It was just some guy with his pets.  But they were pretty cute.

Since it was a weekend, this place was packed.  Enough culture for one day, back to work tomorrow!

Eating Our Feelings

[FLASHBACK, FEBRUARY 28, 2009]

DMZ Part II

In memory of uncle Tom...

My uncle Tom was a Vietnam Vet who unfortunately died just a few months ago.  He was a marine, and among other things, a history buff.  At family get-togethers, we used to play Trivial Pursuit, and it would be Uncle Tom playing again the entire rest of the family.  They would still lose.  David remarked once or twice during this DMZ trip how much Tom would have liked this, which he would have.  He would not, however, liked our tour guide.  Tom was a bit of a stickler for details, and our tour guide, when asked questions, would either not give any details, or give us the wrong ones.

Operation Paul Bunyan

For example, other people on the tour had asked a couple of times if we would be able to see "the tree", and they were told "No".  I had no idea what they were talking about, and when we asked our tour guide what The Tree was, he said something like, "South Korea cut the tree down every year, except for one year when the North Koreans killed two Americans who were trying to cut the tree down."  Uncle Tom would have gone nuts if he heard this version.  We were able to read more about The Tree later, and below is slightly abbreviated but much more correct version.

Engineers from the United Nations routinely trimmed a poplar tree that was in the line of sight of a checkout point in the DMZ.  One day, 30 North Korean soldiers surrounded the engineers, ordered the engineers to stop the tree cutting, and at the command "Kill the Americans!" attacked the engineers and the few supporting un-armed UN troops with the axes that were supposed to be used to trim the trees.  Two people were killed, both Americans.  Here was North Korea's version:

"The American imperialist aggressors sent in 14 hoodlums with axes into the Joint Security Area to cut the trees on their own accord, although such a work should be mutually consented beforehand. Four persons from our side went to the spot to warn them not to continue the work without our consent. Against our persuasion, they attacked our guards en masse and committed a serious provocative act of beating our men, wielding murderous weapons and depending on the fact that they outnumbered us. Our guards could not but resort to self-defense measures under the circumstances of this reckless provocation."

The only problem was that the whole incident was captured on camera, and clearly showed that this was not how it happened.  Kim Il-Sung (President of North Korea) later expressed "regret" at the incident.

In response to "The Axe Murder Incident", the UN decided that the tree should be cut down with the aide of force.  In the following three days, Operation Paul Bunyan was planned and carried out.  It included a convoy of 23 American and South Korean Vehicles which included teams of military engineers and heavily armed security forces.  A US infantry company in 20 utility helecoptions and 7 Cobra attack helicopters circled behind.  Behind them, B-52 bombers escorted by US F-4 fighter jets and ROK F-5 fighter jets were visible flying across the sky at high altitude.  And just in case they were needed, F-11 fighters were armed and fueled and waiting at an airbase nearby, and the aicraft carrier Midway had been moved to just offshore.  The convoy moved in, and cut the tree down.  North Korea did not respond, except for shooting at one of the helicopters, but no one was hurt.

The tall stump was deliberately left as a reminder.

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After an exhausting day, David and I needed some comfort food.  I read on Frommer's that the best burgers in Korea were in a little place called The Smokey Saloon located right by our hotel.  We waited outside for over an hour (think Al's Breakfast in Dinkytown for you MN folks) staring through the windows at the people inside, mentally willing them to eat a little faster, and groaning and rolling our eyes when someone would order seconds.  How selfish can they be, knowing hungry people are standing outside in the cold?

When we finally were able to make it inside, we saw the reason for the wait.  There were only six small tables...

David couldn't resist the Ambulance Burger.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but the burger was topped with a cheese, hash browns, bacon, and a fried egg.  And it was worth the wait.