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Saturday, June 27, 2009

some things


it's been nice watching this community garden behind work transform. there are very few free standing homes in korea, you either have to be the owner of a large piece of farmland or be extremely rich. everyone lives in apartments and has no land. i believe you can rent small pieces of land on which to grow some vegetables. i'm not certain, but i would say there are at least a dozen people who have little areas in this garden to grow. i haven't walked through it, but everyone seems to grow essentially the same things. a few different types of cabbage and lettuce, scallions and spring onions, few varieties of pepper.

on my walk to the bus stop there are some large rice paddies and some other small farms. the paddies seem to be coming along nice. i've also noticed that koreans will grow vegetables anywhere. i don't have any pictures, but there is a ditch that runs along the road i walk up to the bus stop and on the other side of the ditch is a huge dirt parking lot for a church. well there's corn growing in and along the top of the ditch and there are little rectangular patches at the end of some type of lettuce. i've been noticing these little gardens everywhere set up in really awkward locations. at first it might seem like a good idea to grow your vegetables in a ditch that's catching all the storm water runoff, because of the amount of water, but all the garbage, vehicle oil, etc. would sure deter me from growing there.


this thing was at least 15 inches long. it's called 노각 (nogak). it's some type of domestic 오이 (oi)-cucumber.

the peel was quite tough. edible but not enjoyable. the flesh was nice, crunchy and watery like fresh cucumber. used it in some spring rolls and made 오이김치 (oi kimchi) with it, which i thought was super good.


and this came last night during an evening out with the coworkers.

its presentation is quite nice, but i preferred seeing the squid in its natural form: swimming.

this week is my vacation. let's just say i'm "staying in korea".