Eating or in my case not eating in Korea

Well, food has been quite a challenge for me here. I've always been a basic steak and potatoes kind of guy. A kimchi warrior I am not ! For hose of you not familiar with kimchi, it is cabbage leaves that are fermented in a brine of god knows what. Actually I think it consists of fermented anchovy or shrimp along with red chili paste. These set outside in big vases until it reaches just the right rottenness, umm fermentation. Oh man, and the stuff leaves a nasty smell ! They actually sell special kimchi refrigerators here. The odor of the kimchi will actually permeate into your other foods if it is not sealed well. And that is not the only thing it permeates into ! A nice  bus full of Koreans can actually leave your nose burning ! The one saving grace there is that since I am a foreigner, none of them sit next to me. They eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There is just no escaping it. Laila loves it also, therefore it is at the house too. I do make her buy single serving packs and whatever she doesn't finish goes out the door into the trash bin.

Now aside from that, I don't eat any seafood. This puts me at another huge disadvantage in not just Korea, but all of Asia ! I will eat shrimp tempura, but that is the extent of my foray into ocean's bounty. When we go to Thailand, Laila and her friends love to get these fish that are broiled whole and served that way, and they fight over who gets the eyes and brains of it !

So I am left with basically pork and chicken. Even though there are plenty of McDonalds around.....

I still can't stand the burgers. Mainly because it is not American beef. American beef is banned in Korea because they are afraid they will get mad-cow disease (No joke.)

I have had some good BBQ beef though, but it is as expensive as hell ! I usually eat Dwaeji galbi, or in English, pork ribs. This stuff is awesome.

You cook the meat yourself at a grill in the middle of your table. This is good if you are quicker than the waitresses. I like a nice little char on mine. If they come over and see any black on the meat, they will pick it up and either toss it aside or cut the black off. "No good, give you cancer ! " as they light up they're Marlboro. Also, the words cross contamination mean nothing here. You have your plate of raw pork, and then you have some of it that is cooking. They grab the raw pork with the tongs and then the meat that is finished cooking with the same tongs and put it on your plate or the cooler part of the BBQ. YO ! Not cool !

For now, the last thing I would like to mention about eating in Korea, You need a strong stomach. Not necessarily for the food, but rather the lack of western manners here. Not that they're to blame, after all I'm the one who is supposed to adapt.  Eating with your mouth open, talking with a mouthful of food, smoking with food in your mouth, belching and farting in the restaurant. Sorry, but after 5 years I still can't "adapt" to that.

On the plus side of things, there are Outback Steakhouses', Bennigans' , TGI Fridays' and I just found a very good Mexican restaurant called On The Border, which is about 45 minutes away via subway.



Wow, 2 posts in as many days !

Well today's post will be a little about what you can expect from me. I will do my best to refrain from vulgar language, however, in some rants (and there will be plenty of those) it will be unavoidable. To my Korean friends I have made, I will be making a lot of generalizations about Koreans, some good, a lot bad, but if you are my friend, you know I am not referring to you.

My big bias will be towards Thailand for obvious reasons.I own a home and farm and have a semi-life there. I love Thailand. The Thai people are so much different from other Asian countries.

I won't discuss my 2nd wife other than a quick mention of in the fondest  of terms "psycho-hose-beast." AND.......Since my first wife Shirley asked me not to talk about her on this Blog,.....I think I will start with her HAHA !! I actually have nothing bad to say about her. We met in 6th grade, got married at 18 and have a 20 year old son together.

This is Her with my son Kyle behind her and my wife Laila next to her. Her other sons are Gavin and Race. Don't be too steamed Shirl that not only did I talk about you, but I put a pic up ! For any of you that don't know her, She is an awesome woman, a great and caring mother and one of the best friends a person could have. And I mean that in all sincerity
So I went a little off topic there. If you don't like it, don't read it ! I find it hard to "sugar-coat" many things' so you will find some of my post to be very blunt and to the point. Also, don't bother asking me " Are you serious ?" Because I am, although I do use a lot of humor in my musings.

I do feel as though I have let down anyone reading this, becuase so far it's just boring background bullshit. I promise to make the next one a much better read. Until then,
Sawadee Krup !

OK, first posting

Well, let's see if I will be able to do this on a semi-regular basis ! I was reading my brother-in-law Craig's blog, well I was attempting to at least. I first had to sign in, which meant making a new account. So I filled in all the info they wanted and low and behold.....An account already existed for my e-mail ! So I did a password reset and logged in to find out that I have had this account since 2006 ! Maybe I can make a better effort than 1 post in 4 years !

So I decided to name this blog " The Asian Way." Most of you that know me will already understand the name. For those of you that don't.....Well , I will give you the short version of it. In 2005, I had a nice life changing year. I sold the bar I owned in the US. I got divorced ( 2nd time haha) and I moved to South Korea. With the money I made from the sale of the bar and the wages I get teaching English here, it's like I'm semi-retired.

Well the original plan called for one or two years here and then back to the US to figure out what to do next. But, life always seems to throw these little snags at you, and this one came in the form of a beautiful little Thai woman. Yep, now wife number three.Her name is Laila. I met her on vacation in Thailand. She owned a hair salon that I would frequent to get my head shaved. It took some time and every bit of charm I could muster up, but after being shot down by her 4 or 5 times she finally succumbed. We had dinner and a movie and the rest is history.

So back on track....I first came to a city named Jincheon in Korea. It was a very small town and I hated it, but there were some great people that i met there.My Boss, Paul Perri, and Candy Kim. Then I took a job in Jinju, another small town ( by Korean standards) of 400,00 people. I taught for a year there at an all girls middle school. Well I still wanted a bigger city so I ended up in Incheon.  I have been here now for over three years. The school is an all boys middle school. The first thing that I noticed after teaching only girls of the same age, is that boys are dumber than a pile of rocks ! So even though girls are easier to teach, this school is so laid back and great to be at that I have kept renewing my contract.

So this is coming up on my 6th year now. I have traveled fairly extensively throughout Asia. China, Japan, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, The Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Macau. I am sure there are others I am forgetting at the moment, but i will get around to that later.