happy new year!

hark! it's the first sunrise of the year! the decade!

a few days on korea's southeastern coast without a rental car or kaopectate proved a disastrous combo. that said, highlights included taking in a very pretty 1st sunrise with his majesty just south of gampo, and lots of good historic sights and one good meal in gyeongju...

on that note, while they can take credit for being the first to unite the korean peninsula, the home of korea's shilla dynasty cannot claim the land's finest cuisine. geesh.

oh, happy new year to you and yours!

i love america's military footprint

the american military is almost like magic!

let's say the king isn't the world's best planner. and maybe he means well but is a bit of a procrastinator. imagine his shock when he couldn't get dinner reservations at a nice place for christmas when he called on christmas eve!

on! and judy doesn't live here. that's when the u.s. military saves the day (he and i have re-enacted mcarthur's incheon offensive many times! ... huh?) anyway, thanks to america's military occupation of korea, in a clutch with christmas almost in the shitter, i called my new friends at the dragon hill deli, and after placing an order for real down home fixins' at 10:30, they were ready for pick up at noon at gate 17 of the yongsan military garrison.

who ate this meal for 10? just us, but leftovers were always the best part of t-day and x-mas, no?

thanks, shilla.

thanks to language barriers, the king and i prefer to communicate via espresso art.

a birthday is a great excuse to do the shilla lunch buffet, a 60,000-won ($48) date with painful gluttony. ma tum feels permanently stretched. happy birthday queen abby! xo

the seollal ox

seollal is all about the deep fried vittles.

hey lovers,

by now you should know that koreans use two calendars, one that’s solar and the another that’s lunar. so while koko celebrated the near year on jan 1 with much of the rest of the world, today was day 1 for the year o' the ox.

samchon puts the final touches for the jaesa ceremony.

this special day is called seollal (설날), and it, along with chuseok (추석), are the two most important holidays. along with an estimated 28 million others, i made my way to the family's hometown in daegu to see the fam. per usual, lots of yummy food, and me straining to understand what's being said made for a pleasant time with family.

a quick pit stop on the way from daegu to seoul.

i couldn't land a train ticket back to seoul this afternoon so i bussed it. given snow forecasts and epic traffic, i was surprised the ride took only approx. 5 hours. anyhow, aloha. what follows are a few more blurry pix from the past 24 hours.

새해 복 많이 받으세요! (happy new year!)

g-cash still going strong after 93 years.

sumo skimming the top of the ddeokguk, the traditional seollal soup.

sumo and hyeong cooking up the jun.

(click here for last year's brief seollal post)

among blood

g-cash is looking a little glum.

it's been over three months since i've made the daegu family trip (shame!). so last sunday, despite a hefty slew of new work projects, i took the 100-minute korea train express (ktx) to the city of big apples. the ride down was fun since mr. hoon was also doing a gyeongsang province family reunion, but his was in busan.

anyhow, at east daegu station, i transferred to the subway, and 7-ish stops and a 15-minute walk later, i was at the family compound. tho pretty damn lucid for a 92-year-old great-grandmother, my halmoni tried speaking to me in japanese again. at least she realized her error and started laughing. her physical health seems ok but her spirits were low. she smiled infrequently and i'm concerned about a large, textured growth on her right jowels. anyhow, i need to get back on my once per month visiting schedule.

i arrived at about noon and left at 5:30. a shamefully short visit and halmoni wasn't pleased. per usual, wesukmo (my aunt) was in a constant state of food prep and clean up. she is chatty, but me thinks her audience wasn't ideal:

1) a 92-year-old know-it-all matriarch who asks the same questions repeatedly.

2) a mentally-retarded husband whose boyish non-sequiturs always take a conversation off-track.

3) a korean language beginner (me) who latches onto a coupla key words and context, but whose questions and reactions expose his paltry 23% comprehension rate.

4) a small maltese-ish mutt who is 130 in korean dog years (13x10). in this case, i think the american x7 tradition works a lil better (i'm not sure why i've included "maek-seu").

anyhow, this couldn't have been a very satisfying audience.

a hot summer weather favorite: aunty's delicious samgyetang (삼계탕)

the fam don't speak any english and that's a good thing, i guess. they are not accustomed to interacting with foreigners, so they don't speak slowly, use seoul dialect and/or simple vocabulary for my benefit. no, matt, this isn't sogang korean language institute level 1... and thank goodness, because language school doesn't serve you three meals in under 6 hours (#1: curry rice, #2: samgyetang (whole boiled chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng and dates), #3: bulgogi (marinated grilled beef... probably from america).

a fond farewell

mr. kim will be missed.

over the past few weeks i've hosted three farewell parties for friends who are leaving korea. last night was hyochul's turn. later this week he'll make his way to australia for a master's program and his beau. he's lots of fun and the best drinker i've ever met, so the evening was a fun few hours among an intimate group of guys (all korean/korean-ish save 2) and one white chick from the midwest usa (hey, girl!).

after what was a fairly disastrous yay gay! party at the end of may, it was nice to enjoy having people in my home again. despite it being before 12 on a saturday night in a building filled mostly with young folk, i got yet another noise complaint. my friend hoon explained that the house party is a bit of a foreign concept to most koreans.

homo hijinx.

the party's success was due to 3 things: the guests' affection for hyochul, his excellent taste in friends, and some absurdly delicious sangria i cooked up the day prior. it was a huge improvement on my last attempt, which i can only think was thanks to the scotch. whisky makes everything better. so if a summer party plan is in your future, may i suggest the following:

mmm... fruit juice!

nice day's summer sangria

booze:

5 bottles of red wine (a spanish/latin american variety is a nice touch)
4 cups triple sec
6 shots scotch whiskey (or brandy)

peel and slice:

3 apples
3 oranges
2 lemons (squeeze 'em!)
2 asian pears (please don't call them japanese)
3 nectarines (invented by koreans, i might add)
4 kiwis
4 cups of frozen strawberries

...stir and then let it marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours to the fruit can become fully infused with the likker. 30 minutes prior to serving bring her out and add lots of ice. stir some more. garnish with a few edible nasturshim flowers to celebrate homosexuality. if your friends are lushes like mine are, a big bin should last 10 your guests about 3 hours, tops.

yup, we did.

maybe it's just cause we were drunk, but continually adding more red wine and whiskey throughout the night still tasted pretty good. i chock that up to how thoroughly the fruit was marinated. to stick with the spanish-ish theme, i think next time we'll try mojitos.

...and a few hours later at the every-saturday, 02:30 drag show at itaewon's trance:

that's me asking to be let up onto the stage.

have fun with your summer parties!

churning (please help!)

a bad first impression.

something terrible has happened.

it's been 32 hours since i ate some cheong gukjang (청국장) and it's felt like my entire abdomen has been fermenting ever since. if only i was so lucky to be having diarrhea. no, instead everything just painfully churns without resolution.

i've tried pacifying it with milk, laxitivizing (a new word) with coffee and fruit purées, but nothing helps, just more churning... just more of me on my couch or bed alone in the doggystyle position because that's what feels least horrible.

this is what i get for experimenting with a new restaurant and ordering good ole doenjang jjigae's (된장찌개) much stinkier fermented soybean soup cousin. sure, many foreigners think it smells like old socks, but i thought that was unfair... look where my open-mindedness got me now?! any suggestions?

according to wikipedia:

cheonggukjang is believed to aid in digestion.

you don't say?

churn churn churn!!

update 5/21/2008: three days after my ill-fated meal, finally, all seems calm on the innards front. thank you for your patience and support.

seeking culinary diversity

salmon salad at chungjeonggak.

i love korean food (how could one not?) but a little culinary diversity is welcome. however, while koreans enjoy imitating "western" things, their well-meaning and enthusiastic execution is usually awkward. so i was pleased this weekend to find two restaurants that serve non-korean fare that's tasty, graceful and unpretentious.

an architectural breath of fresh air.

case in point, last week was gorgeous so i walked home from city hall. along the way i found a beautiful restaurant in chungjeongno. chungjeonggak is far off any beaten path in seoul where one would expect to find an italian eatery meets modern art gallery. nevertheless, the fetching setting is a 100-year-old house just off of subway exit #8.

books as table legs? c'mon now.

tucked behind more typically ugly seoul edifices, chungjeonggak's modern, whitewashed innards are filled with art (much of it very silly), and a large terrace area with huge trees and potential. after enjoying a chilled smoked salmon salad, i had the oven spaghetti and a nice house red wine, while boy wonder ordered a delicious and subtly nutty carbonara. our waiter was attentive but not a babysitter (we were the only customers until half-way through our meal). all in all, unless the mosquitoes sabotage my plans, i'll head back soon with several friends for a terrace dinner party.

a cute hole in the wall for brunch. like most of hongdae, i think the yellow bike is just for show.

in search of sunday brunch (american-style brunch is not as ubiquitous in seoul as some new york times articles would have you believe) i did a first: i used a korean internet portal (naver) to find a brunch location near-ish to my house. no big surprise we were directed towards hongdae, the way-too-trendy neighborhood abutting hongik university, which is just one subway stop away from sinchon. thanks to a bad map, we wandered down several alleys covered in silly, designer graffiti and ridiculous konglish before finding a simple one-room rectangle of a café called d'avant.

almost done... with half a jug of sangria to wash it down.

my choice was a slightly sweet pancake filled with ham and topped with cheese and two fried eggs (with sour yogurt on the side) and he had a savory waffle with bacon, eggs and cooked cherry tomatoes. oh, and we shared a pitcher of sangria. mmmm... that made everything better. precise directions escape me, but walk down the car park street to almost the very end. take a left and then another left on one of the small streets.

konglish encore: gay food

i love these. as an addendum to an earlier post on the topic, some curiously homo konglish food products for your pleasure:

for those of you who need a homo english primer, a "potato queen" is a gay guy (usually asian) who typically only dates white guys. a big box of these should be mailed back to the states, where i'm sure they'd be popular (photo from here).


i bet these are delicious (photo from here).


hmmm looks like someone couldn't resist and already popped this can o' dick sticks open. i wonder what they taste like. and i also wonder how this name was conceived/approved.

the seoul cost of living

the horror!

something terrible has happened.

on my walk home from hongdae i stopped into a kimbap jib (small restaurant selling, among other things, rolls of kimbap) to pick up a couple of rolls in lieu of a proper lunch. walking around seoul while popping 2 piece-bites into my mouth and being somewhat self-conscious of my walking-while-eating-obviously-foreigner behavior, is integral to my korean experience. but the sign at this establishment said that an all-veggie roll was 1300 won - 300 more than i was willing to pay. so, i exited in a huff and walked past another vendor, one of the ubiquitous and cheap kimbap heaven (김밥천국) franchises. guess what? 1500 won!

the unmistakable sign of a price increase.

and while the corner joint near kbs was still selling 1000 won rolls as of thursday, it seems that inflation is striking the once-sacrosanct symbol of cheap korean eats. no longer will two crisp 1000 won notes buy me a few hours of hunger alleviation. pretty soon, i may have to start... cooking.

cheap thrill no more.

with this precious symbol of food thrift destroyed, all that talk of seoul being such an expensive city is starting to resonate with me. according to mercer human resource consulting's definitive annual cost of living survey, seoul was the world's 3rd most expensive place for expats to live in 2007 (down from #2 in 2006). the top slots went to moscow and london, with tokyo and hong kong rounding out the top five. the most expensive us city was new york, at #15. the survey covers 143 cities and measures the comparative cost of 200+ items in each location, including food, housing, transport, household goods and entertainment.

i'm moving to malaysia.

re: 정월대보름 (and other korean holidays)

looks like fun.

today is jeongwol daeboreum (정월대보름), one of korea's 14 traditional holidays. begun 1,000 years prior during the unified shilla period, "daeboreum" means "great full moon" and that's what it celebrates- the lunar year's first full moon. to celebrate, men dressed in traditional hanbok passed out walnuts to the confused foreigners who work at kbs's world service.

why nuts? the tradition holds that cracking them today keeps your skin and teeth healthy all year. beyond nuts, there's the five-grain rice dish appropriately called "ogok-bahp" (오곡밥) and unsafe traditions like climbing ice-clad mountains in the middle of the night to be the first to spy the first moon-rise and giving children holed-cans blazing with charcoal to spin around their heads.

re: unsafe, for the past 11 years, scenic jeju island on korea's south coast has hosted a 3-day daeboreum fire festival. what begins with a torch relay ends in the burning of an 82-acre parasitic volcano. after viewing the following video clips, i think i need to visit next year:



this second clip is over 6 minutes but the end is pretty amazing and scary. since the closing minutes resemble carpet bombing or the end (or beginning?) of the world, it could frighten little children or other fragile beings.



a good example of korea's conspicuous contrasts of old/new, east/west, etc., is the integration of its traditional lunisolar calendar with the "western" gregorian one. the upshot is a lot of holidays- some of which are fixed while others wander. you decide which system deserves which adjective.

it's been a little difficult for me to discern the difference between "official" and "government," "public" or "commemorative" but here's my best estimation of what public offices and most large companies observe:

new year’s day (01/01)
lunar new year (three days around 1st day of the 1st lunar month)
march 1 independence movement memorial, or “3-1 Day” (03/01)
children’s day (05/05)
buddha’s birthday (8th day of 4th lunar month)
memorial day (06/06)
independence/liberation day (08/15)
national foundation day (10/03)
chuseok (three days around 15th day of the 8th lunar month)
christmas (12/25)
and dates of presidential and national assembly elections (varies)

2008 marks the first year that constitution day (07/17) is no longer celebrated, and although hangul day (10/09) was reinstated as a national holiday in 2005 after a 15-year hiatus, it's not a legal day off. parents' day (05/08) is "observed" but not "public", whatever that means. as far as i can tell, labor day (05/01) is the only day with its own law (the labor day act) designating it a mandatory official public holiday applicable to all employers. beyond may 1, however, korean employers are not required to give any public holidays off, and if the special day lands on the weekend, the previous or following weekday isn't offered instead.

nyc II: people/places/things...

in what's become a semi-annual ritual, this past weekend i spent 4 days in the big apple to visit friends and see some sights. the highlights... via two different, tangram-esque color schemes:

a→ ink drawing titled something along the lines of "there's no reason to fear" [moma]
b→ the world's most famous homo haunt [stonewall inn]
c→ dapper mr. leroy and his tongue [los dos molinos]
d→ me and ky outside the legend [stonewall inn]
e→ yours truly getting goofy with the half-chinee cindybro [barrage]
f→ pinoy santi from way back when [b bar+grill]
g→ picasso's "les demoiselles d'avignon" [moma]
h→ john w's trademark pose [barrage]
i→ my awfully large straight whiskey (thanks, john) [barrage]

j→ the view approaching washington square park (and my hotel) on a glorious winter day [washington square hotel]
k→ the ever-skeptical (and green) dave serving up woodside thai [sri pra phai]
l→ museum-worthy industrial design [moma]
m→ sampling some of nyc's great architecture [greenwich village]
n→ oh the stories mrs. zahid should write [therapy]
o→ just because it was that large, the whiskey glass (and the troubles it tried to hide), encore [barrage]
p→ mr. hoon, the affable lad [kunjip]
q→ ms. ky, light wine, and an 8-cheese plate in the village = a perfect thursday afternoon ['ino restaurant]
r→ new backlit midtown signs proclaiming nyc's very own k-town. [koreatown]
s→ mr. nice day with mr. chas "wonderful energy" yesman [los dos molinos]

b bar+grill
americana cuisine
40 e 4th st nyc

barrage
gay bar
401 w 47th st nyc

'ino
italian restaurant
21 bedford st nyc

koreatown
manhattan's korean business district
31st-36th between fifth and sixth aves nyc

kunjip
korean restaurant
9 west 32nd st nyc

los dos molinos
mexican restaurant
119 e 18th st nyc

moma
museum of modern art
11 w 53rd st nyc

sri pra phai
thai restaurant
64-13 39th ave woodside (queens)

stonewall inn
gay bar
53 christopher st nyc

therapy
gay bar
348 w 52nd st nyc

washington square hotel
family-owned, boutique hotel
103 waverly place nyc

nyc I: food

eating good food should always be a priority when visiting new york. a few of the many yummy highlights:

a→ spicy bloody mary (x2) [mesa grill]
b→ barbeque pork and oaxaca cheese quesadilla with hot and sweet cabbage relish [mesa grill]
c→ steamed pork shumai [kelley+ping]
d→ fried squid with salt and pepper [new pasteur]
e→ rough cut raw tuna nachos with mango hot sauce and avocado crema [mesa grill]
f→ thai soft-shelled crab [sri pra phai]
g→ pumpkin soup with cinnamon crema and pomegranate [mesa grill]
h→ panang beef curry [sri pra phai]
i→ pad se ew pork with noodles [sri pra phai]
j→ kamjatang [kunjip]
k→ chilled caramelized grapefruit with blackberry-mint salad [mesa grill]
l→ 8 cheese plate with olives and warm toasted bread (+wine) ['ino]
m→ barbeque pork with vermicelli [new pasteur]
n→ crispy thai catfish meat salad [sri pra phai]
o→ scrambled eggs chilaquiles with roasted tomatillo sauce, white cheddar cheese and sour cream [mesa grill]
p→ tropical fruit salad with guava lime sorbet [mesa grill]

b bar+grill (sorta delicious)
americana $$
40 e 4th st nyc

gama (sorta delicious)
korean $$
12 st marks place nyc

'ino (delicious)
italian $$
21 bedford st nyc

kelley+ping (not delicious)
pan-asian $$
127 greene st nyc

kunjip (delicious)
korean $$
9 west 32nd st nyc

le pain quoitidien (delicious)
french $$
10 fifth ave nyc

los dos molinos (sorta delicious)
mexican $$
119 e 18th st nyc

mesa grill (delicious)
texmex $$$
102 fifth ave nyc

new pasteur (delicious)
viet $$
85 baxter st nyc

sri pra phai (delicious)
thai $$
64-13 39th ave woodside (queens)

chuseok

it felt nice to be among millions of other koreans who were en route to visit their ancestral hometowns and families for the chuseok holiday. although it's no longer the month-long weaving contest that originated during the silla kingdom 2,000 years ago, it's still a harvest celebration held for three days around the 15th day of the 8th month of korea's lunisolar calendar.

although grandpa's side is from present-day north korea, the maternal side is from daegu, korea's fourth largest city in gyungsangbukdo province on the peninsula's southeast side. approaching 300 km/hr., the ktx bullet train takes passengers from seoul station to dong daegu station in just 100 minutes. along the way i enjoyed reaquainting myself with the dramatic landscape of one of the world's most mountainous areas. just minutes outside of seoul are lush green mountains punctuated by small manicured clearings for burial mounds, terraced rice paddies, meandering streams and hot houses.

in no time at all we arrived in deagu and i hopped onto one of daegu's 2 subway lines. a few minutes later i was exiting the yeongnam subway station and met my wesukmo (aunt) under a cold rain.


originally a celebration of the harvest, whose bounty is attributed to the blessing of ancestors, these days families get together to care for the tombs and eat lots and lots of traditional foods. upon entering the family compound, it was obvious that chuseok food prep was well underway. while wesukmo squatted on the floor frying thick slices of lotus root in egg batter (고구마전) along with (동그랑댕) and several other kinds of jun- vegetable and meat fried pancakes, i was snacking on delicious muscat grapes the size of ping pong balls and some of daegu's famous apples. in addition to broiled chicken, fried fish and thinly sliced marinated steak, she had also prepared 송편, the quintessential chuseok food- rice cakes filled with chestnuts, sesame and/or beans and steamed with pine needles. to aid digestion there was plenty of 식혜, a sweet, cinnamon-hinted rice water (typically called 단술 or 감주 in the local gyeongsangdo dialect).

here alone for the first time without my mother or crazy jayne to translate, it was time to put my 4 months of korean language study to work. communication with wesukmo and my cousin was slow but possible, whereas wesamchun (uncle) and halmohnee mostly furrowed their brows at much of what i said.

an early morning prayer, a few bows, and then eating.

being here is always a striking change of pace. it's slow here, and instead of hearing vehicles, shopping announcements and construction, i hear neighbors doing laundry, dogs barking, and game show laugh tracks from their small tv, which is always on. invariably, wesamchun sits on the floor in front of the tube while a fan blows at his back. this is curious since the sliding doors are always wide open, giving the chilly fall fall air free reign inside.

outside i ask about the whereabouts of a very sorry dog, which they had taken in the last time i was here. they laughed as they told me that one night it just died. beside the empty dog house is a modest garden with an old pomegranate tree. i assume it was here when my mom lived here. initially i was confused to see it boasting big orange blossoms and a single cantaloupe-sized gourd until i noticed the squash vines that had crept up the trunk and branches.

seattle's famous japanese secret teriyaki in seoul!

strolling through hongdae i found this restaurant advertisement for "히미츠 테리야끼," korean phonetically saying "secret teriyaki" in japanese... (from seattle). fusion, indeed.

in sprawling seoul, i have the good fortune to live just one subway stop from hongdae, an artsy neighborhood currently popular with young koreans... until this fickle, fad-obsessed lot abandon it next month or year in an inexplicable mass exodus. lately i've enjoyed coming here for the cute boutiques, sorta shitty public art and the pretty young people dressed fashionably. there's also some decent mexican food here.

mr. former mankub leaves for a 6-week trip to europe on sunday, so we scheduled a rendezvous. he had a hankering for japanese lamyun (ramen) but the place was packed. choice #2 was incredibly spicy chicken, hot even for korean standards. salty, pickled food and smoking are all stomach cancer risks, so it's no wonder that korean men have the world's highest rate of stomach cancer, according to the usa-based national cancer institute.

chicken so spicy it humbles even the locals... i want a cartoon turnip shirt, too.

after how my tummy felt a few hours later, i'm on my way. both of us coughed after just whiffing the sizzling plate. one piece later my tongue and mouth stung and perspiration escaped from the pores on my nose. the light korean beer didn't help, so manfriend ordered us some 누룽지탕, a simple rice+water then boil for a while soup. my mother's cooking repertoire is scary and limited, but she often made this simple and satisfying greul, so it has positive associations for me (it's even better when you burn/overcook/forget about it!). anyhow, it worked surprisingly well so we were able to eat more and more spicy chicken (dipping it into sweet mustard and chili sauce, of course) as well as some un-spicy popcorn fried chicken, and spicy duk-bok-e. it was around the time i was admiring my big belly that i noticed the conspicuously thick ladies around us... these women would be considered thin in the states but look chunky here. i guess lots of fried chicken will do that to ya.

ok!

baby back ribs - korean style

today jayne, hyong and i had lunch somewhere inbetween the gangnam/yeoksam subway stations at a place famous for its bbae soot bool gooey (korean-style baby back ribs). but first we enjoyed yummy hae jang gook (hangover soup), two kinds of kimchee and a platter of garlic stems, onion slices and hot peppers, which we used to scoop up spicy dwen jang (miso chili paste). the ribs arrived on a large plate blanketed in a thick sweet/spicy sauce with sesame seeds sprinkled on top. the moist and delicious meat easily detached from the bones, which was a good thing, since rubbing your mouth against them in search of the marrow makes your face sting from the intense spice. yummy!

early days: hooray for cousins and curtsy squats

grocery shopping? no, just how a korean gas station says "thank you".

ive been in seoul for 3 days. what's strange is how familiar and easy the city feels. having a bilingual cousin and living in her fancy flat helps. it's nice logistically (like getting picked up at the airport when you're 1+ hour away and have heavy bags), practically (being able to search for an apartment at my leisure with her help) and emotionally (having family in new environs). i had just seen crazy jayne a week prior while in new york, so seeing her again so soon half way around the world contributed to my general location confusion.

on morning #1, she cooked me breakfast- white rice and yukgaejang, a spicy soup of veggies, egg, tofu, thin rice noodles and shredded beef in a thin miso broth. like most meals here, the main course was accompanied by several banchan (side dishes) of four kinds of kimchee (pickled veggies), some pickled garlic cloves, skinned apple slices, gim (dried seaweed) and myeolchee bokkum (fried sweet and spicy anchovies) yum!

after breakfast i experienced two examples of korea's quirky car culture. first, we got gas. upon approach attendants dressed in black suits and ties bowed, greeted us loudly and hurried the car into a space. with the engine still running, an attendant filled up our tank (there's no self service here) and returned with a hefty goodie bag of snacks and beverages. jayne said that these thank you gifts are typical at korean gas stations. second, we drove to the hyundai mall. as we approached the parking garage, we were met by 4 impeccably coifed babes dressed in english horse riding attire (i guess the theme changes periodically). each of them sported a microphone headset britney-spears style and gave our car a waist bow. what followed had me shocked, awed and laughing. as we entered the garage, another attendant performed an elaborately choreographed dance that i can only describe as a rave arm-dancing/hula hybrid followed by a curtsy squat and topped off by an complex two-arm point in the direction we should travel made all the more ludicrous since it was a one-way on ramp. i love korea.

about

yup, those are my pants on the couch. for the blogger, clothing below the waist is just distraction.
>more photos of korea (and me)

i grew up on a small island in the northwest corner of the united states. much of my childhood was spent drawing maps, harvesting sea life, and wishing i was puerto rican. after 8 years birthing and then resenting an NGO, it was time to leave identity politics usa-style behind for my mudder's mudderland.

because we share a special temperament, despite being mixed and homo i love korea and he loves me back. korea haters are boring. if you don't take yourself and/or your fetishes too seriously, you may enjoy my inconsistent mix of personal updates with regionally-relevant musings. i love maps. thanks for visiting.

email me here.

fyi: the homepage banner image was extracted from a photo by story sloane, jr., an american g.i. stationed in daegu during the korean war. it was taken in 1951 or 52.