Trip to Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea - Jan 29th 2010

The news this morning said that it was -6.6°C outside at 7:15. Went downstairs for breakfast as it is included in the stay at the hotel. Beats rushing around looking for somewhere decent to eat. Had a big breakfast. About 8:30 we made our way to a bus stop on Jong-no which wasn't far away. Bus 5500-1 took us to Suwon and about 1km from the traditional Folk Village.

"Welcome to Hell ladies and gentlemen" - shop sign captured from the bus.

Advertising for a marathon from 4 months ago. What's up with that?

Why not watch TV whilst stuck in traffic?

Huge noise barriers alongside the Expressway.

Fuel prices. I always like to take a photo of them when I travel.

Bang Bang - clothing not weapons store.

Frugal Bastard rugged up against the cold.

Yep, it's winter alright. The landscape is quite bereft of leaves.

Here we went sledding for a couple of hours. It's great fun but gloves are definitely recommended. I didn't have any and made sure that I bought the first decent pair I came across afterwards. The Boy beat me 8-7 in races down the hill. Hundreds of kindergarten age kids were there also. At lunch time there was an announcement and the place was nearly deserted afterwards. There were a few kids that wanted to talk to me and one of them was pretty difficult to shake off.

Frozen lake (or river). Pretty impressive sight.

Kiddies day out at the Folk Village in Suwon.

Ready for the first sled run.

The big sled run at the Korean Folk Village in Suwon.

Here comes the leader.

Miky enjoyed the sledding.

The Boy had more fun with snowballs than sledding.


So long sucker!


Frugal Bastard finishing the sled run first with The Boy a very distant second.

At one stage the snow came up through a couple of holes in the bottom of my sled and sprayed my face for about half of the run. I felt like, and resembled, the abominable snowman. Pretty cool pic, eh?

Frugal Bastard's impersonation of the Abominable Snowman.

Trying to get lunch at all of the nearby restaurants were catering for the kindy kids and so were out of bounds to us. Had to go deep inside the village for lunch - dumpling soup, seafood pancake and mung bean pancakes - absolutely delicious.

Best seafood pancakes I've ever had.

Kimchi anyone?

Korean-style village houses.

Old fashioned toilet - Korean-style.

I think that a better translation would be "Put rubbish here".

I don%'t know why the tree has been decorated this way but it does look nice.

Horse riding show.

Great trick horse riding.


Archery on horseback at the Korean Folk Village in Suwon.


Great horseriding skills on display at the Korean Folk Village in Suwon.

There was a fabulous horse riding display put on in the village. They did all sorts of tricks, rode on top of the rider's shoulders, performed an archery show and were very entertaining.

Took a ride on the amusement park pirate ship which was great fun although I was covered in snow afterwards. There was a museum within the village which was good although the Korean children that visited don't understand the signs asking them to be quiet. Also wandered about more of the buildings and there was a frozen lake where you could do a primitive form of skating. Not bad fun though.

The Pirate Ship was great fun in the falling snow.

Snow to greet the afternoon.

I love the old style.

Ice-covered lake.

Anyone for skating on ice?

We were worried about money as the cash had nearly run out and surprisingly Miky discovered that the banks weren't open anymore on Saturdays. Had to leave the folk village about 3pm and we had until only 4~4:30 before they closed. I spotted a KEB, Korean Economic Bank, and we alighted the bus. Luckily this bank had an ATM that would accept my card and allow me to withdraw money from my own account. Pity that the account it accesses didn't have enough money but I did manage to find out how much was accessable. Withdrew some money to get us by. Success and a lot of worry put to rest. As I said previously I didn't bring an awful lot of cash on this holiday.

Caught another bus to Suwon Station and took a train to Seoul Station. Went to Myeondong so that Miky could cut her hair and The Boy and I could have dinner in Shinsaegae department store. We ate a spicy bibimbap (mixed rice and vegetables) with octopus. The Boy had to mix it with macaroni and mayonnaise to be able to eat. The four cups of water that he drank also helped. We had a chocolate ice cream and went to the arranged, or so I thought, rendezvous point one minute later than agreed. When someone says that they'll meet you at a subway entrance to Shinsegae I expect to wait at the building entrance and not outside the subway when the temperature is -8°C. We played cards for the 50 minutes that we waited. When the store closed we decided to go home.

I thought that it would take only 20 minutes so a walk wasn't too stupid an idea. It wasn't long before I realised that we weren't heading in the right direction. And I didn't have a map with me. I was just about to grab a taxi, on account of the lack of a map, when I spotted a foreigner standing outside the Sejong Hotel with a map in hand. I asked if I could borrow it to get my bearings and the guy was most agreeable. On the walk back to our hotel I did pick up a map from an information kiosk. Forty minutes after we started we arrived at the hotel. Miky gave me quite an ear bashing for having The Boy out in -8°C for 40 minutes after having been sledding and walking around the folk village for most of the day.

Luckily, for me, our friend Keiko from Fukuoka arrived. She wanted to catch up with Miky and booked into the same hotel. We talked for an hour before hitting the sack.

Is A Grasshopper's Bite Dangerous?

Fresh from harrassing the neighbourhood wasps I had to water the grass and plants in the backyard. Just as I was packing up my water blaster I noticed a large orange and black wasp at the shed about 5-6 metres away. I soaked him well, aim isn't too bad, and we trapped him in a jar. Had an idea to feed him to the ants later.

He's a big critter, innit?

Upside down, Miss Jane.

Back to the job at hand. I did notice a grasshopper bounding about on the lawn. Grabbed him rather quickly and The Boy grabbed a jar to put him in. Just then another grasshopper appeared. We don't see too many of them so it was a bit of a surprise. I got hold of him in my left hand, hose still in the left, and I felt a half decent bite. Did have a quick look to see if it had been his leg that had scratched me but I'm pretty sure the little bugger bit me. He went into another jar and later became ant food.

I hope that a grasshopper's bite isn't dangerous.

Feeding The Pet Ants

I must have a sadistic streak. Either that or a very kind heart towards ants. As you may know we bought The Boy an ant ecosphere for Christmas. One of my biggest worries is providing them with enough food to eat and we have about twice as many ants as was suggested. So I try to give them quite a varied diet. And we have plenty of creepy crawlies about to make it interesting. Firstly they had a spider and then a big blowfly.

I fed them a live moth recently. It didn't take them too long to subdue and then devour.


Moth as ant food.

Next on the menu was a dragonfly. The Boy had caught a juvenile dragonfly earlier and they ate that pretty quickly. I grabbed an adult dragonfly and put him in with the ants. Talk about energy! He killed at least a dozen ants before he was subdued and eaten. In the morning he was nothing more than an outer shell. The ants carried their dead comrades away too.

Dragonfly as ant food.

Captured dragonfly.



Dragonfly fights for life.

Last night I came across a cockroach. A big, black, ugly bastard. Not that I find the big, brown, ugly bastards pleasant to look at. This one just happened to be black. He was easy to catch and spent the night in a jar next to the ant ecosphere. Probably had no idea what was in store for him. It didn't take too long for the ants to notice that the feeding jar had been changed and so a few of them entered. Before you knew it there were six to eight of them attacking the cockroach. He kept flicking his legs to shake them off. I was surprised that the antennae weren't targeted. Some 20 minutes later most of the colony were on the attack. It was beautiful. Better not look at the pictures if you're a bit squeamish.

Cockroach under attack from ants.

Cockroach up close.



Cockroach vs ants.


Cockroach vs ants II. Now it gets interesting.

Thai Green Curry Is A Dish Best Served...

Thai green curry is a dish best served frozen. In my opinion anyway. The missus made some for tea tonight. The Boy complained, "How come I didn't get any soup?" The reason behind that was that he doesn't have the taste for hot food so she had prepared him something made from all of the ingredients except for the curry. After being told that he hadn't received any soup "Because you're a sooky la-la" he tried some. The missus warned him but he tried it anyway.

About ten seconds later he was racing around the room and diving onto the couch, his tastebuds obviously horribly burned. And he'd only tried a smidgen. I could tell when she was cooking it that it was going to be hot just from the smell.

Well, it was hot. Damn hot. I don't understand Thai people. Ok, if they have no tastebuds I can understand but their threshold of pain must be very high. Bearing that in mind they should be a very tolerant people and never go to war.

I'd rather have it served frozen. Although the soup wasn't too bad if you soaked it up with rice before consuming.

I've Lost My "Real Man" Status

Last night my wife made quiche. And it was delicious. And I'm taking leftovers for lunch today. I guess I've lost my "real man" status. But it was delicious.

Latest Gastronomical Delight - Garlicbread Men

Frugal Bastard's latest gastronomical delight. The Boy wanted to make gingerbread men with me yesterday. We got all of the ingredients out of the cupboard, well, I made him retrieve them, and we set to work. When it came time to add the ginger I realised that we didn't have any. I knew that there was some garlic in the freezer so we substituted it for the ginger. Wise move, eh? Garlic, ginger, what's the difference. I made sure that slightly more golden syrup was used to combat the taste of the garlic however.

Recipe
One egg yolk
1/2 tsp Bicarb soda
60g of butter
50g of brown sugar
1 1/2 cups of plain flour
1 tsp of crushed garlic
100g of golden syrup

Beat the egg yolk, butter and brown sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer. Then add sifted flour, bicarb soda and golden syrup and mix. At this stage it should be ready for kneading into a flat shape but will look much like toffee. There's no way that you can make shapes with consistency so throw away the cookie cutters. Place mixture on a greased tray in any shape that you like and put into a pre-heated oven (180 degrees) for approximately 10 mins or until brown. Make sure that the thickness is consistent or else the cooking will be variable. Within two minutes the whole mixture will melt and cover the pan anyway so don't be too imaginative with your shapes.

The mess will take longer to clean up than the preparation did. It was only after the cooking was finished that the missus pointed out that the ginger was stored in a different cupboard. Bugger.

Watch out for the garlic smell and, surprisingly, mild garlic taste. The Boy loves 'em. I don't think that they are too bad either. I might even enter Master Chef with this new food.

Food Thoughts

Q. What's my favourite part regarding sashimi?
A. The cooking time.

Nasi Goreng - According to Bigpond Nasi Goreng was the Chinese emperor at the time of the building of the Great Wall but it sounds suspiciously like a dish name in honour of a World War II Nazi by the name of Hermann Göring. I think it might be a German dish.

I'm on a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it.

Meal Time - Self Service

When I was growing up and you wanted more food at meal time it was self service. You had to go and get the food yourself. Fair enough. It appears that our rabbit is of the same mindset. The other day he helped himself to a pear. Yesterday he tried to help himself to some chinese cabbage that was being prepared for kim chee. Then he grabbed a stick of celery. He's only interested in the celery leaves and not the stem.

At least he isn't treating us like servants and believes in "help yourself".