Indigo

Indigo is a cute cafe/restaurant in Noksopyong near Itaewon. The front and side has ceiling to floor windows that are open in spring and summer time. And the walls are covered with random old European ad reprints and bright child-like drawings.

The entire menu is western food, sandwiches, salads, and brunch ranging from traditional (roast beef sandwich, BLT sandwich, scrambled eggs and bacon, etc.) to more “modern” fare (salmon and feta salad, balsamic chicken and feta cheese sandwich, etc.). I had the balsamic chicken and feta cheese sandwich, which came with slightly stale potato chips and stale pretzels and hot chocolate. The sandwich itself was delicious, a nice combination of sour and salty with a hint of sweetness and the fresh tomatoes  topped it off just nicely.

Halloween 2009

I dislike Halloween, it’s my least favorite American holiday, as far as I’m concerned, the only redeeming parts of Halloween is bottlecaps (the candy, especially the root beer flavor one…what can I say, I’m somewhat a root beer addict) and the really little kids cutely dressed up as princesses, pumpkins, pirates, cats, dogs, etc. Other than those two points Halloween is a terrible holiday.

My earliest memories of Halloween include Steven, my adoptive brother, hiding out in the Halloween isles in Wal-mart, halfway dressed in some random Halloween costumes that usually included a grotesque mask and some blood or fangs or something that was guaranteed to scare the crap out of me.

First Round Heroes had an early afternoon show at the VFW near Itaewon, so of course I went, so I could go to bed at a decent time and not have to pay a taxi home. The VFW was nice,but on the small side. I felt bad for the boys because the light was hitting them directly in the eyes and John’s stuff kept on breaking down. After the show, Josh and the owner/operator of the VFW (mainly) and John (sort of) messed around with the broken amp trying to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it. Jun-mo, his friend and I watched on, not really understanding what was going on. So Craig, a Brit, decided that a joke would appropriate: How many Americans does it take to fix a broken amp? haha very original.

Because it was Halloween, basically the entire street was turned into a temporary version of 6th Street in Austin, the lovely smells of food floating in the air, music (some good and some not so great) coming out of different bars and restaurants, and people dressed up as whatever they felt, appropriate or not. If you comfortably wear clothes that are size 14, you shouldn’t wear something that is a size 3, please don’t.

And that was Halloween 2009. Other than the terrible, terrible band playing at Orange Tree and the on-and-off rain, it was a nice afternoon/early evening.

Random Korean Restaurant

I met with a friend of mine for dinner at a homey Korean restaurant near Jamsil. It was a pretty limited menu, all traditional Korean noodle dishes, like, sujebi, kalguksu, etc. We had seats near the noodle pulling station, so of course I was fascinated by the speed and technique that the guys make the noodles.

I had the seafood sujebi, which wasn’t made with sesame seed flour, but regular wheat flour, seaweed, and the broth was clear seafood base. It was good but way too much shells, I think most of the bowl was shells rather than noodles.

And the Animated Movies Title Goes To…

Yahoo movies broke down the stats between the top two animated movie giants, Pixar and DreamWorks.

I was surprised to find out that DreamWorks has outsold Pixar internationally, I figured that since Pixar did so well domestically, the numbers would transfer over internationally. The fact that both studio’s bug-related movies were the “worst” movies financially that they put out. The difference in Oscar nominations and wins didn’t surprise me though.

But later in the day after I had read it, I thought about it and the marketing strategies that both studios employ to the international markets. Disney/Pixar generally hires voice actors, they don’t have the habit of chasing after big name stars, they turned down George Clooney when he wanted to be Mr. Incredible in the Incredibles. And their marketing plan is usually story driven, in Seoul, the marketing focused on the house and the balloons and possibly the directors/producers of previously hit Pixar movies. Whereas DreamWorks movies usually have a whole slew of A-listers and the promotions usually focus on the same A-listers that you will hear in the movie.  Which possibly explains why DreamWorks outsells Pixar internationally.

If Fox Is Really That Bad…

With all the hoopla that the White House is feuding with FoxNews, over fair and unbiased information, which I personally find hilarious because CNN and MSNBC are anything, but fair and unbiased. I mean the faces and comments that the anchors and hosts on CNN and MSNBC say about Republicans and right-leaning individuals are nothing but unfair, rude, and biased. I do a gree that FoxNews is biased…but they don’t pretend to be anything but a Republican/right-leaning news channel to combat the Democratic/left-leaning CNN and MSNBC.

So it was interesting in reading an article about how some Democrats are more than okay with being on FoxNews because they feel that Fox is more than willing to hear the other side, even if it goes against the right-side’s opinion. Lanny Davis made a comment that Fox by far has more left-leaning guests than any of the competitors.

And the collection of responses that Politico is a mix of yes and nos to its question, ‘Is FoxNews legit news?’

Food news

After I checked my e-mail, I looked around Yahoo! and found some interesting food-related articles. If you’ve read any of my previous posts, I LOVE food, from buying the ingredients to the preparation of the meal to the cooking of the meal and of course the eating of the food.

If you want to get my attention, talk about books, food, or have a great conversation.

There was a great article on why you shouldn’t make it a regular habit to drink carbonated drinks, what the different ingredients in carbonated drinks do to your body and can cause in your body, and some alternatives to carbonated drinks.

A study was done with civil servants in London studying if there was a link between diet and depression. It was found that people that ate a diet high in fried foods and processed food, etc.  were more likely (more that one out of two people) to be depressed.

Apparently Kellogg cereals is taking advantage of parents’ concern over their children’s health with a claim that Kellogg cereals will help protect their children’s immunity.

Newspaper Articles

Recently in the Washington Post, there’s an editorial column by Anne Hornaday about the declining number of movies with women as the leads, particularly strong women characters.

Hornaday points out that it’s been 9 years since Julia Roberts portrayed Erin Brockovitch and an additional 9 years since Jodie Foster was in Silence of the Lambs. In addition, movies with women are either Twilight damsels in distress or rom-coms like Mamma Mia.

Kinky Friedman is trying to be the governor of Texas again.

Shale could be the alternative to coal in the States.

Apparently a couple was denied a marriage license because they were not of the same ethnicity.

The NHLPA is a mess and there’s no end in sight.

This Direction, That Direction, A New Direction

It was always an odd to me since I moved to Korea that although Koreans drive on the right side of the road, foot traffic is the opposite, except on escalators. So obviously, I generally am on the wrong side of the flow of traffic, like in a bad rom-com movie.

Recently, there are “helpful” signs and stickers plastered all over the subway stations telling riders which side to walk on, although I don’t think that anyone has actually read the signs. Mainly because I’m still on the wrong side of the traffic flow.That and people still get their bags, hands, legs, etc. stuck in the moving subway doors, although there are posters and commercials – live action and animated – telling you not to rush into a subway train while the doors are closing.

Go figure why the Korean government felt that this was a needed change. I would have thought North Korea, the bad economy, growing socioeconomic gaps, etc. would be more important than on which side do people walk.

A Note For Your Calendars

Starting November 5th, you can join the worldwide consecration to Jesus through Mary. St. Louis Marie de Montfort creating a 33-day preparation, consisting of things/concepts to think about, Bible readings, and prayers, to begin and complete the process of consecration.

You can get more information at the Station of the Cross.

Oh the Lines

Singa Elementary School was built in 1987 and opened in 1988. Which was before (Western) toilets were widely available and found in Korean households, so obviously most of the toilets at Singa are of the squat (Turkish) toilet variety.

I’ll be honest, I always use the Western toilet because it’s generally cleaner and during my off-periods, it’s usually the one that’s open. But in-between classes, when the first graders are running around and using the bathroom, there’s a bit of a line for the Western toilet. And they’ll stay in the line until it’s their turn, refusing to use the squat toilets.

And then I realized that they’ve never seen or had to use a squat toilet in their lives, especially since they’ve lived their entire short lives in Song-pa-gu (the second richest part of Korea).

It’s another example of how much Korea has changed in the last two decades, at least monetarily and technology-wise.

On a related tangent, in Korea, because some/most of the sewage lines are old or not that big, used toilet paper goes in the trash, so to keep the lines from becoming blocked. While I was in Russia, frequently there were signs in the bathrooms of major tourist attractions, telling people to flush their used toilet paper and not put them in the trash.