Success!
I think the mackerel-like fish I got WAS mackerel, and the vegetable I got which is like yucca or jicima in texture is actually this Korean radish, which is what was in the dish Friday. I didn’t add sugar, because I didn’t want to own any sugar since I’m trying to eliminate whatever sugar and salt I can from this already too heavily sugared and salted Korean food.
Anyway, it tastes exactly the same. How totally easy. I like how the kimchee turns into the same kind of taste that stuffed cabbage has, while the spice just becomes mellower and flavors the broth.
I’ve also spent the entire day narrowing down language exchange partners. I have one college age boy I’m meeting tomorrow who lives in Anyang and has taught foreign friends Korean before, and another guy around 30 who’s between jobs who is going to drive me to the market and teach me about living traditional Korean culture on Saturday mornings, and he also taught someone Korean two years ago.
It took all day narrowing them down, as there are a lot of really attractive guys who were mostly dangerously too young for me, and I had to remind myself constantly what my goals were. I actually could have a dozen language exchange partners, if I had the time and energy, as there were a lot of responses. Of course everyone attractive was younger. Of course everyone my age was married or a salary man (i.e. boring suit) or religious. Or lived too far away. Must stick with the program.
Mi-Young would have been better to take to the market with me, but I fear I frightened her away. I tried to text her and it kept ringing her phone, and then I’d slam the phone shut too late, and I’d try again. Then the text went to drafts and I couldn’t figure out how to get it into the outbox. Rinse. Repeat. So she got A LOT of calls. Finally, I bit the bullet and just called her (it’s cheaper to text so I was trying to learn how to send the damned things) She was busy. She returned the call but I could tell she was freaked out. I told her how happy I was to get in touch with her, apologized about all the almost calls, and told her I’d meant to get in touch earlier, but it took me this long to get a phone, and I told her it would be great to get together again. Anyway – she hasn’t called back. Do I sound like a scarey stalker?
I will also ask my evening class if any of them has a bored mom who would like to hang out with the English teacher now and then. I might wait for a few weeks for this, though. I’m already getting pretty heavily scheduled. Sundays are my days of rest. Next Saturday evening (I don’t know if I can afford it though) is a Rueda meetup in Seoul. And when the Canadian teacher I’ve been corresponding with gets better, I plan to meet her as well.
I’m trying.
Must do some last minute lesson planning. What the hell am I going to do this time? I wonder how many other teachers are fretting all weekend about their lesson and pulling it together at zero hour? Probably just me. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks I guess…
ADDED:
Language exchange guy has emailed four times and texted twice.
Great. Just great…
Hello Korea ! 
You go girl! Making it happen, riding the ups and downs. Right on.
Is that surprising? I’ve spent my whole life climbing out of abyss after abyss.
but I appreciate the props!
I love that you have to “remind yourself what your goals are”… PS almost all the girls I’ve met here who have Korean boyfriends started out as “language exchange” partners.
I’d give anything to be 25 right now…hell, even 35…(sigh) but at 45 I don’t even qualify as an “older” woman!
So I’m leaving it up to you Kelly – and ask if they have an older brother for me…
the fish soup seems yummy. we used to it often at st-paul’s orphanage. i haven’t it any since more than three decades.
i was 34 when i was there. i was considered an old lady by the other korean adoptees volunteering at ilsan holt town because they were all in their 20s. Our fellow KAD who went there last summer also said she was the oldest of her group, everyone else being in their 20s too.
i’m having a silly and funny thought. how about a younger guy than you? my nephew is around 38. i can give you the phone number of his mother who had denied contact to me.
ha! yeah, i don’t like to refer to my siblings as such either…
wouldn’t that be a little weird though? whereas i’d like to meet you one day, i have zero desire to meet your family, unless it’s to slap them.
but 38 is such a nice number. i like 38 just fine.
we loved each other so much when we were kids. Me at 6 years old, he was like my baby brother, my only little friend, and him at 1-2 years old,I was his favourite aunt, always playing with him.
i told my parents few times that if I was ever to date an asian some day, I would have to be careful because I might fall in love with my own nephew and I wouldn’t recognize him.
he became a handsome man. I think that I would have fall in love with him if I didn’t know he was my hephew despite my aversion to asian.
I was disappointed he had no memory of me.
having fun with my imagination now. if you could fall in love each other, he would be so much in love with you that he would let you slap my sister.
got any photos? :)
and, um, how tall is your sister? i might need an arm extention…