taking over the city/menu

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

taking over the city Current mood:green Today is a beautiful Spring day, no kidding. It is still, and sunny. Crisp still in the morning, but we did put some diapers on the line before I went to work and they're probably dry by now (less than an hour later). We are considering some travel for our upcoming four day weekend. But we'll have to see. The delicate matter is that my big test is in 10 days, so this upcoming weekend is really crunch time. But we'll see. We are pretty sure about traveling to Japan in July, but even with that, we keep postponing the purchase of our tickets. Isaac's solo steps are becoming more frequent, but he still hasn't switched mobility modes, and that's just fine with us! He has started to communicate a little more with sounds other than primal screams, and also with his hands. He is a little eater, that's for sure. We are always thinking of nicknames for him since it turns out Isaac is a popular name. I think Peach is out of the running, however. At church, an "interim pastor" sat by us this week and gave us a brief sketch of the sermon. She has been put in charge of taking care of us, I think. Beginning yesterday, Orry started taking care of a little bear puppet we have at the house. We are talking about sending him to preschool starting in May so we'll keep you posted. The hills are greening, the dandelions are taking over the city, and the cherry blossom petals are littering the streets. We went hiking on Saturday morning and took some more photos, which we'll have to share. One of the critters we photographed is a red squirrel. Now, I thought I knew what a red squirrel was, but, being a native American, I didn't know, really. the "red" squirrels in the New World are not red squirrels, see. Red squirrels are Old World squirrels. And their ears are extra tufty, giving them quite a distinct appearance. Moreover, they don't have to be red. The one we saw was a charcoal gray color. No signs of morels yet. I haven't been able to determine if they exist here, but I suspect they do. Tuesday, April 28, 2009 taking over the menu Current mood:sea snaily Dear reader, it has been too long since I reminded you of the culinary delights I feast on from day to day. Lest you imagine, in your mind's eye, that I feast on hamburgers or mashed potatoes and gravy for my school lunch, with a side of canned corn and a brownie or some chocolate pudding for dessert, let me remind you: no. Today, for example, we had what I guess after some translation attempts are sea snails. Yes, I just found it: Sea Snail Salad featured on this page. Sea snails, vegetables, and of course, pepper paste. And the verdict? I have to say Yum. The other day, the surprise was squid and apple salad. Now I guess Spring is the season for these curious salads, but this, too, was slathered in pepper paste. And again, Yum. A curiously rewarding combination. Other than that, lunches are the usual. Some soup, usually spicy. Rice. Kimchi. The occasional fruit, like the cherry tomatoes we had the other day. We also had a curry with pineapples and raisins in it recently. I know it's not common to get two blogs in one day from me, but here they are, today. The beautiful Spring day turned cold Winter, that cold beast void a soul, licked his lips and took back the day, bringing cold rain and black clouds, and nothing for us to do but shiver in his icy breath. Coming up, I must at some point blog about torrents. Wow. And still waiting is the blog about where dead Koreans go. For now, all my best.

salamander eggs and numbered days

It's raining now.

Over the weekend we saw a bunch of salamander eggsacs. We saw one salamander. We saw this on our Saturday morning exercise hike. We also saw lots of frog eggs. It is that time of year.

We have continued to use our laundry line on the roof. When it's hot and dry and windy it takes less than a half hour to dry things!

Isaac was sick last week but he's feeling better now. I was sick too, but I was never feeling all that bad. Isaac's temperature was up past 103. He had some tonsillitis and got some antibiotics from the doctor. Isaac didn't like these antibiotics at all.

The cherry tree blossoms in Taebaek are all quite fantastic. It's so nice to see the springtime blossoms. I guess these April showers will bring some May flowers, too.

I have had my nose in the actuary exam study guides. 18 days.

Which reminds me. My calculator has a built in function for determining the number of days between dates. As in, Isaac was 300 days old on March 7th. My dad was 10080 days old when he had me, and I was another hundred days plus old when we had Orry. And Trent will be a little older come November than my dad was when he had Trent. And my mom and Bonnie are close to the same age when it comes to their childbearing. As you know, we passed up my 11111st day last summer. But did you know we also passed up Orry's 1000th day? Anyway, stuff like that.

Now I must go prepare for teaching second grade.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

BPOP, and an eventful weekend

The first bit of news to report is that on Wednesday I noticed a
curious small bump on the joint of my left middle finger closest to my
palm and on the palm side. It is a bony nodule about the size of a
lentil. So Thursday morning I hit the Internet research and gave the
self diagnosis of a small bone tumor that is rarely mastitic, or, more
probably BPOP. BPOP stands for bizarre something something
proliferation and as it may suggest to you reader, this little lentil
might grow into something more, well, bizarre. This sort of growth is
known as Nora's Lesion after a doctor who described it in the early
eighties. Apparently it is an odd pathology that occurs most commonly
where it occurs on me in people my age. Next on the docket is to see a
doctor and get some documentation and recommendations. It is
removable, oftentimes with recurrence, presuming, of course, it is what
I think it is. On the other hand, if it weren't to bizarrely
proliferate, I am fine with leaving it alone for all of my days. It
doesn't seem to affect me much, except in knowing that it's there,
which has really bugged me the past five days. Also, it is "in the
way" in the sense that its placing is inconvenient for holding things
and pushing strollers sometimes. But no biggie. Yet.

So, how does one keep his mind off of a bone tumor? Well, on Friday we
took a day trip to a nearby flower festival, where I went on national
news again. Here is what I didn't tell them in our brief interview:

I found out last week that Friday was a school vacation day for our
school, so we planned on traveling to some nearby cities where they put
on festivals to celebrate the beautiful spring blossoms. We decided on
Samcheok, the next town over, which is putting on a canola or "rape
flower" festival. Did you know that canola's name as such comes from "CANadian Oil Low-Acid"? It's modified rapeseed, or as the Korean's call it, "rape flower". I
don't know if what we were in was canola, or actual unmodified
rapeseed. Probably the latter I guess.

So, we called a Samcheok Tour Info number and spoke with some people
about how to best get to the festival. We planned on taking the train
and it doesn't have a main "Samcheok" stop, but has a couple stops in
Samcheok. We were told to get off at the Shingi station, whereupon we
would take a bus into town and then another bus to the festival site.
Too many buses, I thought--we'd probably just take a taxi. But anyway,
we set out for our family adventure.

This is all after I went and exchanged some won for dollars at the
bank. My new idea is to change our money into dollars but keep it in
Korea, and if the exchange rate goes bad again, I can change dollars we
have here into cheap won, speculating that the won will get good (or at
least better) again. On the other hand, if the won keeps getting
better, that's okay, too. It keeps us from having to change money at
the worst possible rate. Unless of course it gets real bad, and then I
change my money back into won, and then it never ever gets good again.

The train ride was beautiful. Just leaving out Taebaek station, we
started getting into areas where the cherry blossoms were at their
best. Actually now, just a few days later, I am seeing more blossoms
in Taebaek too. I guess because of our altitude, we usually experience
the cherry blossoms up to a month later than elsewhere. Anyway, it was
wonderful to see the blossoms and the Spring scenery. This continued
on until our destination, the bustling Shingi station which is near the
middle of nowhere.

At the Shingi station, I realized that we were misled, because the
helpers there didn't seem to be very familiar with getting into
Samcheok by bus. Well, they were able to find out easily enough, and
they told us. There were two buses we could catch, and they showed us
where. One was leaving in 10 minutes, and it was a short walk. But
another was leaving in 40 minutes, in case we missed the first one. We
hiked up there and missed the first bus. Actually, we were in the
right place at the right time, but we didn't know it. Until later.

We gave up waiting for the first bus, which had already come to the
stop we passed up unknowingly. We then proceeded to wait for the
second bus, which was the right place for the first bus. We waited and
waited, and finally gave up. Now, I will admit, this would have been a
good time to have a timepiece. Because as soon as we crossed the road
to inquire at a convenience store/shop/restaurant about getting a taxi,
the bus went by, not a minute off schedule at 1:30pm.

I think any normal person would be experiencing dismay or anger at this
point. But not me of course. I garnered more chi and waited
peacefully for another 40 minutes for the next bus. Bonnie, actually,
was the peaceful one. We learned some Korean from a Learn Korean book
we thankfully brought.

It turns out, that not but a five minute walk away from where we waited
for more than an hour, is one of the most splendid looking museum
complexes I have seen.

click it to see more:


But, it's probably good that we didn't know it, or as opposed to
waiting around for more than an hour, we would have walked there, and
we would have been sucked in, and we would have missed the rapeseed
festival.

We did see it right away after boarding the bus, though, again to my dismay.

Getting into Samcheok was worth it though. The main bus terminal
offered the peace of mind I wanted because they had buses going back to
Taebaek later in the day that we could take, instead of getting back
out to the Shingi station or trying to discover an alternate train
route. The actual twon of Samcheok is right near the coast, so the
weather was milder (It was downright hot where we waited near the
Shingi station).

As soon as we got the taxi to the rapeseed festival, we were in another
sort of heaven. All the dismay and hot waiting melted away into the
distant past, as we watched the cherry blossoms fall like snow. The
fields of yellow lay ahead in promise, next to the festival tents, and
other colors drugged our eyes while the mountains on the one side and
the sea on the other made us forget all our troubles. Or, maybe it was
the beautiful smells. It was like sticking your nose in a morning
glory, without the trouble of keeping it there. Our atmosphere, for
the couple of hours we were there, consisted not of air, but of that
delicate delightful aroma.

When I was eighteen, and I lived in the little farm house east of
Jerome, and I moved a lot of pipe, I moved pipe in canola fields. I
did tell the interviewer that I had seen rapeseed before, in my
country. But I didn't tell him about the farmhouse.

The interviewer and his camera crew snatched us Taebeckers and took
their footage. It was a quick, pleasant experience actually. Of
course we didn't know for sure if we would make the news, but at church
yesterday we heard a lot about it.

We saw beetle grubs bigger than mice. We ate rapeseed pancakes. We played in bubbles and smiled and laughed. It was fun.

We took a bus back to Taebaek and that's the end of my rapeseed festival story.

However. That was just Friday. And now I realize I must hurry to
describe the rest of our weekend in just a few minutes. I have to go
to class, and I'm sure you have to do something important too.

Saturday morning we hiked with Trent to our exercise mountain. Then
instead of coming home the way we went, we took a roundabout
exploration that got us home seeing some new things, new routes, new
exercise stations. We saw the names of some flowers which I'll have
to describe another time. Later in the weekend we found that our
favorite exercise mountain bird is called a black-capped chickadee.




Yesterday we started our happy Easter by making use of our rooftop clothesline. That was fun.

And our Sunday included a hike up to another new place right outside of
downtown, which is another mountain climb. We just walked up a little
way to a neat resting place, temple, and coal workers monument (of some
sort). There are some beautiful tulip trees blooming these days. Some
girls were collecting dandelion greens. This was Trent and me, Orry
and Isaac. It was fun.

It makes me want to write about the Korean dead. Because on hillsides
like this, you'll see some graves. But I'll have to write about that
another time.

Then that evening we had porridge together with Nicole's parents. As a
Korean treat, we all went out after that to Noraebang, and we all sang
songs and laughed and danced.

To top it off, later that night, Bonnie and I watched a Woody Allen
movie we had downloaded. Michael J Fox, Woody Allen, and Blossom, of
all people. Don't Drink The Water.

What a week.

Tang & Exotic Fowl

There are these rice dumplings that have the consistency of marshmallows. Also there is banana milk, apple milk, and grape milk, the last of which reminds me of goatmilk yogurt flavored with Tang, which was a remote treat in a the goaty memories of my childhood. The milk doesn't taste goaty, to be sure. It's just that the grape flavoring reminds me of the Tang.

Today we went to a small bird area that reminds me of the bird area one mile south in Jerome, over a ways from the Hintons. And, well, near that new Canyonside School Building, right? Anyway, what did we call that? The Bird Farm? It was a place I only went to maybe once or so if ever. But basically there is a variety of fowl. This place in the middle of nowhere had a couple of ostriches. And a peacock which fanned its tailfeathers (ah, i now recall going to the bird farm with a kindergarten or early school field trip--where I saw for the first time the same thing--peacock pomp). It also had some ponds with fish, some demonstrations of how flowing water can be made to assist with milling, a tunnel showcasing the days of coal mines (Taebaek's bygone glory), et cetera.

For a musical treat of curious exotic fowl, visit here.

There were lots of sitting places. It was a nice relaxing time in the countryside. Unfortunately it was also when the kiddos usually nap. But once in a while you've got to take adventure over routine. And we don't get offers to go see exotic fowl every day.

updates, and more about ants

Updates are in order.

The other week Isaac started signing including pointing, waving, nodding, and so on. He started standing on his own with gusto, and almost takes steps. He also loves crawling all around, giving kisses, getting hugs, playing peek-a-boo, pattycake. His babbling is a little more orderly, and he'll go into phases of saying "aba" (Korean for daddy), but it's still pretty babbly. However, he's quite adept with his hands. He started eating just about everything he can eat at this age, and likes to fill up with us whenever we eat. He is, in my estimation, a fairly easy baby, having a minimum of fits and squirms, and mainly only if he's tired.

Orry started drawing faces and objects with more discernable features. Like small circles and dots for eyes, and spiders with many legs and so on. He uses Korean more for introductions and phrases like thank you, and demonstrates a lot of new concepts and ideas every day it seems. He likes to go on excursions with Bonnie during the day, and well, he likes just about everything. He was in a really whiny phase lately, but seems to be on the tail end of it (I'm not holding my breath there). He is partly well mannered and an all around good and fun little tot. He likes "studying" Korean flashcards, and entertaining himself with reading materials, as I reported earlier. He is quite reasonable and growing more aware of his emotions.

Bonnie gets the MVP award for the last few months (if not years). And she also earns the Most Improved award. She has been gobbling up Korean food like a Korean lately, and also learning the language more than any of us. We got some books in Seoul that she's going through and I think it helps her fill in some language gaps. Plus, last week she went to this reading-to-your-tots center and got some easy Korean books that she's excited about, and all that really helps language acquisition.

I get the math award, for my continues studies and practice of applied mathematics. In a way I am making up for the lazy practice of math since my high school days. I am the type that likes to learn the theory and structure, even at the cost of believing what is taught as opposed to rigorous investigation of mathematical proofs. The upside is that I conceptually understand a good bit of the relationship and know-how of various fields within mathematics. The downside is I have always been mostly unpracticed with the mechanics of working out the applications of theory, and working on "real-life" problems that use mathematics. As it turns out, this is precisely actuarial work. So I am getting a new training on material that is pretty familiar. Apart from that, I eat and sleep and play with the tots and Bonnie a few hours each day. And I teach a few English classes each week at school, as required by my employment. My fun classes are kindergarten and sixth grade.

The mountains are snowy again, but this morning was so calm and pleasant that I suspect Spring is on its way again.

Ants, they say, weigh on average .3 milligrams, which is 3x10^-7 kg. There are between 10^16 and 10^17 of them, those little rascals. This means there are between 3x10^9 and 3x10^10 kgs of ants. Which is another way of saying three billion to 30 billion kgs. Humans, on the other hand, weigh an average of 50 kg (5x10^1kg), and as you know, there are fewer than (but close to) 7 billion (7x10^9) of us. So we weigh, collectively, less than (but close to) 350 billion kgs (35x10^10). It looks like we outweigh ants by a factor of ten.

However, I could not find good sources for the weight of an average ant, nor for how many there are. I put these figures together from a wikipedia article on biomass, which was very much less than reliable. For a good wikipedia article, though, that is well sourced, and interesting, check out this ant wikipedia entry. And, for a good read, if your anterested at all, check out Journey to the Ants. In online form, I read about a supercolony in Japan that had over a million queens and their respective colonies interrelating in one humungous ant city. I also read somewhere that an ant colony of normal size has has many brain cells as a human. Again, I am skeptical.