Random Musing

I have found out recently that my wife is pregnant. People have been congratulating me. I think that it is a bit early in the game to receive all of the adulation. I haven't really done anything that special yet. Give me pat on the shoulder when the kid has graduated from college without a drug problem.

Stuff I Have Been Watching

I'm doing a post in the style of Mr. Wonderful. That is I'm going to talk about T.V. show's I've been watching. On Monday, I did a Brian in Jeollanamdo type post where I talked about festivals in Jinju. Today I'm copying another Korea expat blogosphere legend.

After you get married, there really isn't that much to do other than watch T.V. and eat stuff. Also you can spend time wanting to win the Lottery or just figuring out other ways of not living in Korea. Don't get me wrong, I like living in Korea, I just don't want to do so for the rest of my life, but everyday it looks more and more like I'm stuck here for the long haul.

Things to watch:

1. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia I literally fell out of my chair watching this.
2. Mad Men I resisted watching this for a while, but finally caved after reading so many Frank Rich columns in the New York Times that compared something from our times to the early sixties when Mad Men was taking place. The best thing I like about it - the Suits- I started wearing suits and ties after I moved to Korea. It's nice to not look like shit all of the time.
3. Breaking Bad Kind of in the formula of Weeds where a person in need starts to sell drugs. It's a formula that works. Besides it is kind of cool to see a Chemistry teacher do bad things.

Korean Shows
생생정보통 This is one of those documentary type shows where they take a camera crew to different restaurants all over Korea. It's about the only kind of Korean show I can stand. When it was on I really liked High Kick.

I'm not really a fan of those reality type challenge shows. Infinity Challenge can be interesting some times, but One Night and Two Days can be a bit grating after they go in to a forest somewhere and play rock paper scissors for the hundredth time.

That kind of monotony is becoming common all over the world though. When I went home, I watched a show on the discovery network called, "American Pickers," that had two guys who just drive around the American Midwest picking through piles of junk and then buying random shit from the people who own the piles of junk. The suspense comes when the guys negotiate the price. After that show is another show that is basically the same except it takes place in a pawn shop.

Those shows made me want to produce my own show for Discovery called, "American Number Sayers." Here is a preview:

Announcer: Tonight we go all the way to Reno to say some numbers with some kitten ranch whores.

Jake: One hundred.

Kitten Ranch Whore Two hundred

Jake: One twenty five

KRW: One Fifty

Jake: I'm gonna have to call Murphy on that. (Cuts away to Jake in a confessional) My friend Murphy has a lot of experience negotiating with whores. (Cuts back to Jake and whore)

Okay I called my friend Murphy, and he says that One Fifty is a good number.

Announcer: And then we join Melissa in Spokan as she randomly shouts some more numbers out the window of a Ford Fusion. Build Ford Tough.

I'll post more shows after the fall seasons start.

Korea's Most Important Expat Blog Focusing on Fine Dining In Jinju's Geumsan Myeon

Yeah, I have to play around with google a little bit more. I googled my name, James Kruska, or Jim Kruska, under the images section today and didn't like what I saw. I'm also trying to get google to recognize this blog as "Korea's most important Expat Blog, about restaurants in Jinju's Geumsan Myeon.

Restaurant Review The Geumsan Mom's Touch

Fun Times in South East Korea. Korea's most important expat blog reviewing restaurants in Jinju's Geumsan Myeon. (Jim Kruska is awesome...why do I say these things...just google my name I'm not who pops up.)

There is a phenomenon sweeping Jinju. It's called Mom's Touch. Korean chain restaurants and coffee shops seem to take over places like army ants. If one franchise opens up, sooner or later five or ten more open within three or four months. Jinju has two such places like that now. One is the impossibly expensive coffee vendor, Cafe Bene, the other is the fried chicken sandwich joint called Mom's Touch.

I'm not proud to admit my times spent at Cafe Bene, where more than once I have paid up to 7,000 won on cups of brewed coffee. However, I will stand behind the blissful occasions I have had at Mom's Touch, where time has stopped for me to graze through that lovely combination of grease and carbohydrates, all washed down with the Hite of liquid refreshment.

I find the name "Mom's Touch," to be a bit of an oddity in Korea. Who is this Korean mother, who is making fried chicken sandwiches for her kids? "Honey, you home from school, I'm going to fire up the broaster, you want light meat or dark meat?"

This week a new Mom's Touch opened in Geumsan in the place that once was Tae-woo mandu. (I wonder if the place was named for Korean former president No Tae-Woo.) Now I don't think that I can do justice to the place in a review today. I feel very strongly that Mom's Touch should be enjoyed with beer. Sometimes I see students milling around outside of school grounds when I have my lunches, so I don't really want to get caught by a bunch of kids seeing me krunk it up during work hours. Secondly, I had a bulgogi burger.

I'm just about ready to give up on bulgogi burgers. I don't find them satisfying. If I ever find myself really needing bulgogi burger, I'll have a lotteria han-woo bulgogi burger. Even at Lotteria though, the bulgogi burger isn't my first choice. Anyway, Mom's Touch tends to go all out on somethings, and on others, you kind of wish they would have just stayed inside. The bulgogi burger, and the oven chicken sandwich are items that don't merit my ordering a second time. I also had the displeasure of eating cold fries at the Geumsan branch.

I'll order something else later and then finish this review. For now I'll refrain from getting touched by any mothers.

Festivals in Jinju

First there is the Jinju floating lantern Festival. Or the 진주남강유등축제. It will be from October first and will conclude on October tenth. It is always fun to go down by the river to look at the lanterns, and to play the games that they have. The lantern festival commemorates the first battle of Jinju during the Imjin war. Citizens put lanterns in the river to confuse the Japanese. It would look as though they were approaching the city, and then blam, they weren't approaching the city, it would just be a bunch of lanterns in the water.

Then there is the 91st sports festival. 제 91회 전국체육대회 I'll be interested in watching some of these events. I may have said before that in a past life I was quite the Taekwondo aficionado. Anyway the city of Jinju built a big stadium and a swimming facility just for this event. It will be from October 6th until the 12th.

My first brush with Korea was at the second international Hwarangdo festival in Jin Cheon county. The town went all ape shit to host us. I liked being a part of a large raffle where the prize ranged from bicycles to body wash. The organizers of the raffle yelled out the raffle ticket numbers in Korean, and when nobody would claim any prizes they would just say: Aw hell just give it to a foreigner. People from many different countries took place in that event.

Gacheon arts festival: They usually run this at the same time as the floating lantern festival. It can be hard to tell where the lantern festival ends and the art festival begins. But from the website it looks like there are some performing arts. It might be a good chance to see the "Jinju Sword Dance," which is something that I have never seen but have always wanted to.

The silk exhibition: 진주 실크 박람 회. I'll have to find out more info on this one. Usually it is at the same time as all of the other festivals. Jinju silk vendors set up shop in the city hall and then sell their silk products. Two years ago they set up a tent next to the river, near by where all of the other festival stuff was going on.

The Jinju Drama Festival: Also goes from October first to the twelfth. It looks like there will be an awards banquet. A famous Korean orchestra and famous Korean singers and actors will take part in an original sound track concert from Korean dramas. This will be at the Gyeongnam arts center on Sunday October 3rd at 2:00 P.M. On October 4th, it looks like there will be some talent scouts at the Gyeongnam arts festival. It looks like they will do a kind of American Idol type thing. That will be from 7:00-9:00 P.M. There are other events that seem to be going on here too. If you are into K-pop or K-dramas, this might be a good place to go. On the 2nd there will be a red carpet event at six in the evening. In years past, the late Andre Kim, has used the Drama festival as a platform to show off his new Hanbok collections. He always make a point to buy Jinju silk for his hanbok.

I hope you all can make it out to Jinju to see the festivals.

Top Traffic Scares in One Week Comming Back to Korea

So I was gone for two weeks to the lake-lands, as I said before. I experienced many of the things that people commonly bitch about Korea when I was there.

My parents and I took drive back into the deep forests of the Sand Lakes-Kirkland Warbler Quiet Area. (Kirkland Warblers are endangered birds that nest in the forests of northern Michigan.)

One thing that I and others tend to complain about Koreans, is how they throw garbage everywhere. Well, I was reminded that rednecks also do that. I saw a few empty beer bottles and other assorted garbage in that particular wildlife refuge. The Eagles didn't seem to mind though.

I also happened to have been driving behind some pick up truck hillbilly piece of shit who was throwing his McDonald's lunch garbage out the window as he was driving down the road. It made me equally as angry as when I took my seat on a bus behind some bitch in Korea who threw a paper cup out of her window while the bus was parked at a bus stop.

Now the prospect of riding shot gun in Korea is usually a terrifying event, since laws of traffic or physics are often neglected on the Korean roadway, but I had a similarly terrifying experience driving from the coast of Lake Michigan last Thursday, while trailing some moronic college or high-school kid who was stoned out of his mind.

Nonetheless, in the short week that I have been back I have pulled out and have been tempted to pull out my middle finger at people's disregard for the fact that the public roadways carry large and dangerous machines.

1. Tuesday morning: Saw a taxi driver drive on the sidewalk to avoid stopping at a stoplight.
2. Tuesday morning: Flipped off a guy in large blue truck for making a left turn at the exact same time our car was in front of him. It seemed that he was thinking he could pull in front of us if he just went fast enough.
3. Tuesday morning 30 seconds later: Moronic woman changes lanes in front of us without signaling, tries to use car to cut in the car line in front of her. There was a right and a left lane. The right lane was for turning onto a bridge. She pulled over into the right lane and then straddled the dividing line as she tried to pull into the left lane. I flipped her off.
4. Wednesday afternoon: Took a ride with a guy who missed two red lights within 200 meters of each other.
5. Thursday night: Rode down a road with my wife. Cars were parked on both sides of the road. In one instance, cars were parked on both sides of the road and a truck was double parking them in, meaning two lanes of traffic were taken up on a two lane road.
6. Thursday night, on two different occasions cars game speeding out of cross streets and then skidded to stops with their cars hanging in the middle of the road, after they finally looked to the left side and saw that there was cross traffic coming.
7. Later Thursday night: Teenage girl on a bicycle was riding in the middle of the road while talking on a phone.
8. Friday morning: Had to restrain my self from yelling at elementary student for walking across a very dangerous three way intersection diagonally. I figured it wouldn't make any difference because I lack the Korean to talk any sense into the kid, but I think sense left the building when his parents let him walk around busy streets by himself. (He looked to be about six or seven.)

Well that's enough whinging for one day.

Geumsan Restaurant Review 진우동

"Fun Times in South East Korea. Korea's most respected expat blog about restaurants in Jinju's Geumsan Myeon."

The last place I reviewed went belly up and is now going to become a Mom's Touch. I feel this is kind of a loss for Geumsan. 태우 만두 was pretty good, but so is Mom's Touch. I don't know if I'll eat at Mom's Touch though. I like to eat in Geumsan, only when I'm having lunch, and I feel that Mom's touch requires beer. I don't think that it is a very good idea for me to be having work beers between classes.

A few weeks ago a new 분식 chain restaurant opened up in Geumsan. It is called "Jin Oodong." I've been there three times this week, and one time before I went home.

The first time I went there I had the Oodong. Oodon, is usually too salty or not salty enough, or too fishy. This Oodong was passable. I don't really remember it too much.

Last Tuesday I had some Bi bim Mandu. A lot of small places like this do Bi Bim Mandu by frying empty skins and then leaving the vegetables to be filled. This place simply uses fried mandu with the vegetable medley. I think that I like the later version better.

Yesterday I had some Kimchi Chiggae and Kimbab. This wasn't a very memorable meal. The Kimchi in the Chigae was a bit bland. It got points for having some big chunks of pork in it though. The Kimbab tasted a little off, but it was okay.

Today I had hot Bi Bim Bab in a stone bowl. I have to say that this was pretty good.

The highlight of Jin Oodong though is the 반찬. The 반찬 is pretty fresh and numerous. One could get full simply by eating the side dishes. The 계란 말이 (Korean omelet thingy) is flavorful combining a saltiness with a strong onion influence. The other side dishes aren't bad either.

I recommend this place for a good business lunch with friends. Deliveries are also available.