Hmm, where to start?

Although usually I have no excuse for not updating this blog, I actually have a good one this time: I just finished up my solo vacation this past Sunday. My entire vacation consisted of one week of WWOOFing on Jeju island, followed by two weeks learning how to make Korean Buddhist dishes from the cook at a temple in in south Chungcheong province (충청남도). Both trips were transforming and revelatory in many ways, and there's much that I want to share on this blog (in addition to getting back to posting Thailand and Malaysia stories, that adds up to a lot...).

Working on my knife skills (no match for hers!)

However, it's M's birthday and I'm headed out to celebrate with him (Japanese style ramen; we're going to try a place near Sangsu station mentioned in this article), so I will have to stop here for now, but I promise to write more soon!

In the meantime, here are some highlights:

-Hiking snowy Hallasan
-Participating in the early stages of making dongdongju (hint: it involves lots of stomping)
-Watching the sunrise from the top of Yeonam mountain
-Meditating daily in a room where Kyeong Heo Sunim stayed for a time after attaining enlightenment

43 Thailand #4: First Cooking Lesson

On our first morning in Chiang Mai, my friend A. and I made fried rice and tom yum goong (sour lemongrass soup with shrimp). In her sunny kitchen we fried the aromatics for the soup and chopped ingredients for the fried rice. A. cooks like me, by feel, so it was a lot of fun to cook with her. She had lots of tips to offer. For one, she showed me how to cut a lime so that each piece is easily squeezable. Basically, you cut around the center so that all of the hard pith gets extracted. Dad used to cut his limes the same way and I never understood why, because they weren't in perfect wedges, but now I finally get it.

The fried rice was a bit mushy but very flavorful. My favorite part was the slices of naem, garlicky pink sausages that are cured somehow so that they're safe to eat "raw" but I feel better cooking them. Growing up I used to see Dad eating them like string cheese out of their plastic wrappers.

Back in a week...

...I'm going WWOOFing.