I’m a little burnt out this week. I got a bunch of extra work dumped on me at school without a lot of warning (which is pretty typical in Korea). I’ve been trying organize some new classes that are basically starting uh, now. I don’t have any big chunks of time to really sit and plan at school and even if I wanted to take my work home (and I don’t) I’m too tired when I get home to really think about it.

*whine whine*

Anyway - I wasn’t writing to whine, just to say that I fell off the treadmill a little bit, but I am getting back up slowly and surely. Baby steps.

I’m still making lunches every day - although Wednesday I woke up super late and made the ugliest lunch ever. I still brought my food to school. I’m starting the 100 push-up program. I won’t say what level I’m at because a lady doesn’t say that kind of thing. (Yes, I totally made that up.)

Next weekend will be a five day holiday. I really wanted to get out and about(as in leave Korea and go somewhere fun and new) but I don’t think I have the time to figure out where. Who knows, maybe I’ll pull something together at the last minute, but for now it looks like I’ll be in and around Seoul.

Tandy has been shedding everywhere, apparently he’s of age now and is shedding in order to make a love nest.
So there’s a short update for you.

According to this AP article I just read the federal courts have ruled that Bush administration, via the Agriculture Department, has the power to prevent companies from testing more than 1% of their livestock for mad cow disease.

It’s not a very long article, so I’ll go ahead and re-post it here.

Court: US can block mad cow testing

By MATT APUZZO – 3 days ago WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday.

The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meat packer that wants to test all its animals.

Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests.

The Bush administration says the low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease. Mad cow disease has been linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Great Britain. Only three cases have been reported in the U.S., all involving cows, not humans.

A federal judge ruled last year that Creekstone must be allowed to conduct the test because the Agriculture Department can only regulate disease “treatment.” Since there is no cure for mad cow disease and the test is performed on dead animals, the judge ruled, the test is not a treatment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned that ruling, saying diagnosis can be considered part of treatment.

“And we owe USDA a considerable degree of deference in its interpretation of the term,” Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote.

The case was sent back to the district court, where Creekstone can make other arguments.

I can’t imagine what Koreans would make of this.
Bush has the power to prevent mad cow testing? Why would he even need that power?

I’m wondering how more testing would hurt anyone or anything. If a company wants to spend money making sure it’s product doesn’t harm people then let them. Heaven forbid that a company would want to hold its product to a higher standard than is necessary. I think the only problem I would have with this testing is if it was environmentally hazardous in some way.

It seems that the government is trying to keep people from becoming alarmist about mad cow disease by asserting that testing for mad cow disease is just not an essential safety measure, while simultaneously trying to protect big businesses. If a small company can afford to consider testing all of its livestock, what is preventing that testing by big companies? The whole thing is very anti-capitalist.

As a biology major, the part that gets me is “diagnosis is part of treatment.” Well yes, but only if there is something to treat. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that testing isn’t actually treatment if there is nothing there to treat.

Anyhow - what do you all think? What’s the real motivation behind this ruling? Do you agree or disagree with it?

Here are pictures of yesterday’s lunch. I used my second lunch box set, which is a Lock and Lock with an insulated container for soups and such. I think I should have pre-heated the container longer (I poured boiling water in to heat up the container before adding the hot soup).
My soup was warm, but I would have liked it to have been hotter.

Lunch box number 2.

White rice with furkikake. I tried to make a furikake cat shaped sprinkle but I gave up and made a rectangle instead.

Mandarin orange and baby bananas. The bananas were frozen and melted in the bag. It looks icky but tasted fine.

Samgyetang. I can’t take credit for cooking this because I just heated it up. Samyetang-in-a-bag is better than I expected. I added some green onions because I think it tastes better that way.

Geothermal Sewage
Yesterday after getting home from school and the grocery store I decided that I need to keep a notebook of stuff I make for lunch, an inventory of stuff I could make for lunch (I might hoard food and ingredients a tiny tiny bit), things in my freezer, lunches that worked well in the past, etc…

So, I went back out into the rain to get a notebook for this purpose.

Normally I would buy a notebook at a stationary store because it’s cheaper and usually cuter. Yesterday I decided time and momentum were more important ( I have to ride these waves of productivity when I get them!)- so I grabbed a notebook (the only notebook) at my SoldOut. SoldOut is the convenience store that is literally five steps from the front of my officetel.

When I got up to my room and out of the rain I looked at the notebook.

The cover of my new pink notebook.
In case you can’t read that it says:
Technology to extract the heat would the heat would be very much like that used in a geo-exchange ground source heating systemwhich capturesheat from the ground What makes the sewer even better is that the temperature of the sewage water is higher to start with making it much easier to extract a viable amount of heat

Errrr. Random bolding aside, is my notebook trying to convince me that we can get geothermal energy from excrement?

I mean I’m sure it’s worth looking into - but why write that on a notebook?

In case you are baffled by this message on the front of the notebook or somehow depressed that we aren’t making the best use of our sewage temperatures just turn to the inside cover.

Remember. When I feel blue, With a Smile, Smile, Smile

I hope you will all smile smile smile.

Called in sick Friday to school, so no lunch pictures from Friday. I was not feeling well Friday morning and I knew I would be destroyed at the end of the day if I had went.
I rested all day Friday and most of Saturday so I’m mostly ok now - just tired.

Today’s un-pictured lunch is samgyetang (삼계탕) in a bag (from Homeplus), rice with furikake, a mandarin orange and two baby bananas. Not very creative - but I’m still tired.

Sam = ginseng, Gye = Chicken, Tang = soup. It’s something I started eating in America and still one of my favorite Korean dishes. I think it beats chicken noodle soup when I’m sick. Chicken noodle soup was never my favorite, come to think of it, probably because most of the chicken noodle soup I’ve eaten has been from a can.

I’ve only attempted making chicken noodle soup from scratch myself a handful of times.

At any rate - JY laughed and said I was weird because I’m American but I’d rather eat samgyetang than chicken noodle soup when I’m sick. Actually I think that’s very American of me. We’re always looking for new better things. Samgyetang might not be newer but I think it’s better.

I had a really good weekend, saw some friends Saturday night. Stayed overnight in a sauna and wandered around Itaewon on Sunday before heading to my friend Dan’s house for a farewell dinner party for his good friend. It was just wonderful. Hopefully I can write more about that soon. It’s nice to have friends, and it’s nice to keep finding new and interesting people to make friends with. I’m enjoying it a lot.

I found these books while browsing through a 1,000 won shop (like a dollar store) near my house yesterday. I may or may not have been looking for bento/dosirak/packed lunch supplies at the time…

FAIL!
Do not buy study supplies from the 1,000 won (cheon won) shop. Unless you want to study Englise.

I didn’t look inside, but both the pink (해외편 “overseas”/foriegn edition) and blue ( 일상편 ordinary/everyday) books misspelled the target language on the cover. I wonder how many other mistakes riddle the text of these books.

Completely unrelated, did you spot the cute turtle on the right side?

Fall is coming soon, and though it won’t stay here long (two weeks is not long enough to be called a season!) I’m still looking forward to it. Today’s lunch has foods I think of eating more in the fall. I also made blood orange tea, the last of my blood orange tea in fact. It was delicious.

Today’s lunch is a story.

A lone rabbit, staring at the moon. Wishing he had a friend.
I bought cookie cutters, so I thought I’d use the rabbit one to make a cute little scene on the brown rice.
I cut the moon and the “ground” by hand. The rabbit is chili powder and cumin with a nori/kim eye.

Look! True love, bunny style.
Cheese rabbits on leftover chili. I’m not sure if I’ve ever written about my first experience with cheese in Korea. “American” style processed cheese is pretty gross anywhere. Here it tastes like plastic. Literally. I’m not kidding. I had to check and make sure I wasn’t eating the wrapper the first time I tried it. These cheese rabbits are more for viewing than eating.

Cherry tomatoes and polenta hearts round out this tray. There’s also a small sized Japanese rice cracker package that I didn’t take a picture of.

This one’s not very cute. Grapes and baked squash. I hadn’t baked squash in Korea yet, I was n’t sure how it would turn out in my toaster oven. It was good though. Next time I’ll go for a sweeter seasoning. This recipe was squash dusted in salt and pepper flour, and sprinkled with chopped garlic and parsley. It’s better than I expected.

I wish I had a bigger refrigerator. Once I buy something like grapes, or tomatoes, I have to eat it pretty much all week. I’m only buying food for me and sometimes Tandy, but it’s not easy (or cheap) to get food in appropriate portions for a single twenty something and her rabbit. I was worried that making my lunches would be more expensive (not that my health isn’t worth it, it totally is) but I think it evens out. I’m not throwing away nearly as much food as I was - so I’m getting more out of the food I do buy.

Sorry about the bad lighting.
Bottom container: chicken salad with green onions for color (using chicken I poached on Monday for packed lunches), toast squares, sharp cheddar cheese and lettuce to separate everything.

Cheese has gotten even more expensive here - buying these pre-sliced pieces of cheddar at Homeplus set me back almost 10 dollars. Cheese = gold?

Top right: Mini brown rice onigiri in a triangle, star and flower shape using a mold from the dollar shop. I made these last week and froze them, then defrosted them slightly in the microwave. I’m hoping they don’t fall apart. I had a heart shaped one as well but it fell apart earlier this morning. I ate it.

I’m not sure if they’re really onigiri since they have no filling. They’re not kimbap because it’s not a roll, and they’re not really rice balls either since it’s not a ball. Rice thingies just doesn’t sound that cool.

JY told me that the onigiri like things are called 주먹밥, which means fist rice in Korean. I think I’ll just use that label. It seems like it’s the most appropriate.

Um. Anyway. I sprinkled some salmon furikake on top for color. (I think it’s salmon, the package is Japanese so I’m not so sure. It might be something else entirely!) There are some cherry tomatoes, and a tiny bit of parsley leftover from Tandy’s breakfast (Tandy is my rabbit). I used leftover lettuce to divide everything again and soak up any water.

Top left: Korean grapes, these have seeds but they’re really really delicious. I haven’t figured out what these grapes are known as in the States yet. A tangerine with some mini-bon bons to keep it from sliding around. I think the flavors are lychee, apple and li hing mui but I’m not entirely sure. I’ll tell you later. Finally there is some mini Chex mix from a 100 calorie pack.

I don’t think I’ve shown a picture of my lunchbox yet.

It’s not the prettiest lunch bag ever, but it works.

I also packed some gim 김 to eat with the onigiri/rice ball things. It doesn’t fit in the lunch bag so I just slid it under the handle on top.

I hope lunch pictures aren’t boring anyone. It’s keeping me motivated.

I found some egg molds on Gmarket. If I can keep packing my lunch all this week I’ll buy them as a reward. I’ve decided to buy one cute accessory for lunch each month I stick to packing my lunch. That should keep me from getting carried away with spending time of making lunch cute instead of nutritious, but it will also keep me interested. I’m going to earn those cute accessories damn it.

Packing my lunch in the morning is also helping me get up on time (something I’ve struggled with pretty much my whole life) since if I don’t wake up I don’t eat lunch. Which is a pretty powerful motivator.

I’m feeling better in the afternoons because I’m actually eating my whole lunch, and I have enough energy to function.

I’m hungry. I can’t wait to eat my lunch!

Beef and Mushroom Chili with cheese stars and hearts. Polenta and cherry tomatoes. Grapes, celery (nothing to dip it in grosssss), and panda cookies. The panda cookies came with a frosting tube so you could make little sandwiches. It was fun but didn’t really add much to the taste.

Chili before the cheese melted.

Yay a food meme (ht ZenKimchi food journal). Like everyone else I’m bolding the things I have eaten.

I got a 72 out of 100. Interesting.
The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush Read the complete article »

The second leg of my journey to Hawaii was from the Osaka-Kansai airport to Honolulu. I flew on Japan Airlines. I always sit in the aisle on long distance flights, because I’m fidgety. This means that I don’t get to look out the window as much, but it’s worth it to be able to get up and walk around without bugging anyone.

Japan airlines had cameras that allowed you to see form the pilot’s viewpoint and underneath the plane. I hadn’t seen that before and I thought that was pretty cool. Most of my flight was at night so it didn’t really see much - but it’s a nice feature.

It makes taking off and landing really interesting, the TV screens in the aisles and on the bulkhead show the forward view automatically during both.

Personal screen where you can select camera views.

Down view.

Shaky landing view, the forward cameras are shown automatically on the aisle monitors.

Dinner was really good. I could smell it being heated up and I was just dying to eat by the time I got my food.

Badly lit dinner.

Vegetable tray. This wasn’t anything special, it tasted like steamed veggies and mashed veggies accordingly.

French onion soup and cheese covered toast. This was the heavenly smell. As far as I could tell it was French onion soup with cheese toast soaked in the broth. I would have eaten four of these if I could.

Desert was red-bean filled fish shaped cake. I love these, although I don’t know the name of this particular Japanese pastry. It was soft, sweet, and delicious.

Mmmm.

The deep sea mineral water trend has extended to water on flights. I guess it’s all over Asia.
I still haven’t posted about that yet - but Joe from ZenKimchi talked about it on one of his SeoulPodcasts.

The flight was pretty uneventful, except for my rather poor choice of movies. On Japan Airlines you choose whichever movie is starting at the time, you don’t get to play movies on demand. I ended up choosing a Japanese movie called 10 promises to my Dog as the first thing I watched. It is a really good movie, and I would have enjoyed it a lot but I was feeling really emotional for some reason and the movie ended up making me cry a ton. I’ve mentioned before I’m one of those people who always cries at movies, it’s just the way I am, but this movie had me sobbing into my blanket for no good reason at all. Not good for a long flight.

10 Promises to my Dog

I also watched some of Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who, but I kept falling asleep.

I arrived at the Honolulu airport. I was pretty tired at this point, but I had to transfer to Kauai still. I ended up walking to the other terminal for inter-island flights, and I spent a long time trying to figure out how to call my Dad on the pay phone and let him know i had arrived. I finally gave up and checked in for my inter-island flight and was able to reach him on a pay phone from the other side.

Once inside the terminal I realized I was hungry again. I wanted Chinese food so I ended up with this meal.

Chicken and chicken of some sort and rice. It wasn’t very memorable. The juice was really good though. I love guava juice.

Wahine. Hawaii might be America, but it’s still very different from the mainland. Even the bathroom signs remind you of that fact.

I also liked how there were lots of signs in Japanese all over Hawaii, to cater to the Japanese tourists.

The last leg of my flight, to Kauai, was uneventful.
I did have a window seat though, finally.

OooOOoooH.

One last airplane snack.

Yum, water, corn syrup and fruit puree. It wasn’t very good or healthy, but I was thirsty.

Next up, Kauai pictures.