Tomorrow is the last day of the first half (il ch'a) of the fall term, and I'm holding a cooking class of sorts for my Smoo students. On the menu will be exactly what I made for my Korean friends a while back. I was planning to show my students how easy it is to prepare the shrimp/parsley/garlic section of the meal, in the hopes that they would, by the end of the class, be able to prepare it on their own, but I'm having second thoughts because it's a huge amount of food and equipment to carry over at one time.
Mom and Dad, ever the caretakers, took me on base and let me shop at the Yongsan commissary*, which is pretty damn large. "There's so much junk food!" Dad marvelled when we were inside. He was right. The produce section was dwarfed by the aisles of variously packaged, canned, and otherwise wrapped goodies. In defense of the soldiers, I remarked that the commissary was probably catering to what the soldiers were craving while in Korea.
Being at the commissary brought about that space-warp feeling I get whenever I'm on base: it's as if I've teleported out of Korea to military installations I know in northern Virginia: Fort Belvoir and Fort Myer, for instance. It's always jarring to step off base and back into the streaming life of Seoul.
Today's base excursion included a ride on the free shuttle, which took us from Dragon Hill Lodge to the commissary. I was amused to see so much English graffiti on the backs of the bus seats; I was getting used to seeing street wisdom expressed in Hangeul.
Now it's time to buckle down, eat a quick bite, and make a miracle happen. Can I get tomorrow's meal prepped before midnight? We'll see, grasshopper. We'll see.
*Er, technically, I wasn't supposed to be let in. But let's not dwell on that. It's in the past. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
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LOL Kevin,
ReplyDeleteHow in Gods name did you manage to get past the ID card/ration card checker? And don't tell me you slipped by when she wasn't looking!
Did you get to fill up the cart with Nutella and other goodies?