A few things about Turkey…

For those of you still reading, I am back to traveling after a 3-week break in Madison for some intense physical therapy. The PT went very well and they were able to deduce that my back and neck problems are due to two things: 1) Thorasic Syndrome, which means that my muscles and blood vessles are a little too close to each other, so when my muscles get too tight and inflamed, they cut off my circulation, and 2) I broke my collarbone in softball in 8th grade and it apparently healed a little off, so now, 10 years later, my pec muscles get overly strained at times and cause the chest pains that I sometimes experience. I am not totally back to normal, it will take months of PT to be healed once and for all, but I am reassured that I do not need surgery and there is hope for eventual recovery. So for now…Turkey.

 

Karl and I were only ın Turkey for about 10 days, but I thınk there are a few notable thıngs that we have learned along the way about thıs country:

1. They have more letters than anyone else (or so ıt seems when tryıng to use a keyboard). Many decades ago ıt was decıded that the Turkısh alphabet should be ‘modernızed’ and so they scrapped the old alphabet and ınstead, ıt seems, grabbed every letter from every other language that they could fınd. Thıs not only ıncludes the varıous ‘extra’ letters ın German, but also S’s and C’s wıth lıttle taıls and i’s wıth dots and i’s wıthout dots (whıch are at the normal place on the keyboard and therefore all that I use).

2. The people, ıncludıng the men, are very very nıce. Before comıng here I heard that Turkısh men, raısed ın a very patrıarchıcal socıety, can be quıte obnoxıous to Western women. Perhaps ıt ıs because Karl ıs almost constantly at my sıde, but nonetheless I have experıenced quıte the opposıte. Wıth the exceptıon of men who are tryıng to convınce tourısts to eat ın theır restaurant, ın whıch case they are obnoxıous to men and women alıke, almost every Turkısh man that I have encountered has been nothıng but very respectful, helpful, and nıce. Furthermore, ın reactıon to Karl and I as tourısts, once we left Istanbul we were treated lıke royalty. In Cappadocıa we stayed at a hostel where we were not only pıcked up from the bus statıon, but also drıven back, even though we had not asked or paıd for thıs servıce, by a man who kept repeatıng ‘Hostel feels lıke home! Hostel feels lıke home!’. In Pamukkale the man who owned our hostel fıgured out all of our transportatıon to the next town, free of charge, assurıng us that we were on our holıday and so we shouldn’t have to worry about these thıngs, we should ınstead swım ın the pool (whıch we dıd).

3. The country, at least the western portıon, ıs provıng to be kınd of lıke a mınıture Unıted States (though we haven’t found Wısconsın quıte yet). In Cappadocıa we toured a landscape covered wıth gıant sandstone rock formatıons that early Chrıstıans used to carve entıre cıtıes out of durıng persecutıon…ıt sounded so old and hıstorıc, yet looked very much lıke the Badlands of South Dakota. Sımılarıly, ın Pamukkale we spent the day wanderıng around ‘travertınes’, stunnıng whıte calcıum terraces fılled wıth sparklıng blue water that surrounded a portıon of the town, and felt as though we could possıbly be near the hot sprıngs of Colorado. And fınally, for the past two days, we have been ın Selcuk, whıch ıs where many Kıwıs and Australıans have made theır home over the past decade, and ıs a very modern, hıp town wıth constant beautıful weather- kınd of lıke a Muslım Calıfornıa, we have decıded. Except, of course, for the ruıns of Ephasus that lıe on the outskırts of town, whıch brıngs me to my fınal poınt for now….

4. Turkey ıs OLD. We have spent most of our tıme here wanderıng around ın the hot sun lookıng at rocks. I lıke rocks more than the average person, hence the Geography major, but stıll, after a whıle ıt can get monotonous, especıally when you are constantly battlıng tour buses full of pushy elderly people or Japanese women who don’t realıze that just because they move theır bodıes to get past you, theır umbrella does not follow and you end up gettıng poked ın the eye by multıple umbrellas each day. The thıng that seems to always pull me back ınto beıng awestruck and thrılled wıth where I am was remındıng myself that the ruıns that we are seeıng, the cave room that we are sleepıng ın, the entıre cıty of Ephesus that we are walkıng through, were all created hundreds of years before anythıng that we wıll fınd ın the Unıted States.

And that makes thıs trıp well worth ıt.

 

-Luthien

Cooking Classes with Krid

Every restaurant in Chiang Mai advertises a Thai cooking class- it’s the biggest craze here, along with massage classes and “non-tourist” treks. What these places don’t advertise, though, is that if you take a cooking class from them, you will be stuck in a kitchen in the middle of the Hot Season, too miserable and sweating to actually learn anything.We decided to find an alternative.Through another set of random connections, we found out about a Thai cooking class that was held on an organic farm about an hour outside of Chiang Mai (www.yousabai.com) and it was just as wonderful as the person described…

We met the owners of the farm, Krid and Yao, at Wat Suan Dok, a temple on the outskirts of Chiang Mai, where they pick up anyone who is interested in the cooking class or just staying on the farm. The sungthaw filled up quickly with a couple from Canada (Alicia and Xaaq), a girl from LA (Noelle), a girl from Sydney (Christina), and the three of us.

When we arrived at the farm, we quickly realized that the farm was not just for cooking classes- if anything that was just something that ended up happening because Yao and Krid were such good cooks. In fact, the farm was a large plot of land that hosted internship programs, many families, and random people who wanted a place to relax and use their hands, whether it was to help build the huts that people lived in or work on the farm.

Our first morning of cooking classes began with making soy milk and tofu- processes that are more simple than I ever thought possible. For the soy milk, we merely ground soy beans, added some water, separated the pieces from the milk, and then boiled the liquid…and suddenly the healthiest soy milk I’d ever tasted (perhaps a little too healthy) was ready to drink. Because they’d already made soy milk that morning, however, we turned our soy milk into tofu- by just adding vinegar to the boiling soy milk, it quickly curdled into a solid enough mixture that we could put it into a cheesecloth bag and squish it with a giant piece of wood and after 15 minutes Poof! It was tofu, just like, if not better, than any tofu I had ever bought from the store.

The remainder of our three days at the farm were pretty similiar- around lunch and dinner time we would go to the “kitchen”, which was basically a long table overlooking the rice paddies and mountains with three stoves set up in a row, and take the peel off of at least 30 cloves of garlic, chop up vegetables that we didn’t even know existed, and then watch Krid cook some interesting Thai dish. The bottom line of this cooking class was that it was SO MUCH FOOD. Krid would demonstrate how to make a dish, we would eat his creation between the three of us, and then we would make our own version of it and also eat that. This would be repeated three or four times for each meal, leaving us stuffed with vegetables and garlic for pretty much the entire day. When we weren’t cooking, we were swimming in a nearby stream or lying around reading, as really those are the only things to do in the afternoon during the Hot season…all in all, a pretty fantastic environment.

Our creations are all exhibited on the Flickr website, as we were careful to document everything that we made by taking pictures because they were all so colorful and as delicious as they looked. By the end, our full menu included:

1) Pad Thai
2) Green Papaya Salad
3) Ginger Mushrooms
4) Fat Rice Noodles with Thick Gravy and Kale
5) Green Curry (with Thai eggplant and long beans)
6) Fried Bananas
7) Red Curry
8 ) Panang Curry
9) Masamann Curry
10) Pumpkin with Coconut Milk

However, really what we learned is that Thai food must include a few key things, and from there you can make anything: soy sauce (to make it salty), palm sugar (to make it sweet), tamarind juice (to make it sour), and garlic (to always have a little spicy).

-Luthien

National Pot Day in Nepal

Nepal has been, as everyone told me, one of the greatest places I’ve ever been. The people, both foreigners and Nepali people alike, are incredibly nice, everything bustles along in an amazing flurry of car honking, bright colors, and open-air shops that line the road and all sell the same things, and it’s difficult to walk anywhere without coming across a Buddhist or Hindu temple hidden among the chaos. Given that I am traveling alone for this week due to some back problems in Denmark that held me up for just long enough to miss the departure date for the trek that Julie and Anne are on, my days in Nepal have kind of fallen into my lap due to the help of some very nice, albeit random, people…

When I arrived at the Kathmandu airport, I realized it was 8:15pm and I didn’t know a single person in the country. A guy was standing near me at the baggage claim so I started talking to him about Lonely Planet books or something and then suddenly we were sharing a cab, making plans to meet for a drink, and then drinking a beer in downtown Kathmandu (in the Thamel area) in a bar called Rum Doodle. The bar was quiet except for myself, Graeme (my Scottish airport friend), and three men who were sitting at the bar- a boistrous 6′4″ tall, 35-year-old gay man from Boston who does the interior decorating for the Clinton family, his 5′ tall Sherpa friend who didn’t talk much, and a Welsh man who perked up when I asked what hashwas exactly.

The bar closed soon after we got there, however, because it was a national holiday and the streets were more crowded, and therefore dangerous, than usual. The holiday was in celebration of the wedding of Shiva, the Hindu god. Because Shiva was known for smoking a lot of pot (or so the story goes), smoking pot is legal on this one day and the Nepali government gives it out for free to the people of Nepal. The main celebration of the holiday is at a large temple on the outskirts of town, where thousands of people travel to each day to pray and be blessed. At this particular time of year, however, thousands of Indians make the pilgramage from India to this temple for a week of celebration, culminating on this final day, the day that I arrived in Nepal.

Since it was only about 10:30pm, our odd group decided to head to the temple to see the excitement. When we got there, it was overwhelming (especially since I’d been in the country for less than 3 hours so far)- thousands and thousands of people, marijuana everywhere, many temples that filled an entire park area….we basically just wandered around in a tight group with our mouths hanging open in complete awe of the chaos.

One of the more odd things that happened that night was that every now and then our group would stop and sit down to take everything in. Before long, a few men would stop and start silently staring at us. Then more men would gather, until finally at least 15-20 men would be crowded around us, all blatantly staring, a silence falling over us. It wasn’t until we’d been at the temple for at least an hour before we realized what was going on- out of the thousands of people there, I was, from everything we could see, the only woman there and they were stunned to see me.

Another thing that was happening at the temple besides rampant pot smoking was cremations. The temple is on a river that connects to the Ganges River, the holy river in Hinduism, and so whenever someone in Kathmandu dies, they are brought to this river with 12 hours of the death, covered in cloth, wood, and straw, and cremated. When the cremation is complete, the ashes are swept into the river and the pedestal is cleared away for the next person. It all revolves around the Hindu belief that humans are made up of 5 elements (earth, air, fire, water, and….I forget the other one) and so this form of cremation returns each part of the human back to where it came from. The fires burning along the river were a cool addition to the chaos of the temple.

 That random night was to be the beginning of an exciting, and just as random, week by myself wandering around the Kathmandu Valley…

-Luthien

Quaint vs. Historic

FINALLY- I’m 23 years old and I’ve been to Europe.After some last-minute changes, I split up with Julie and Anne and made the 48-hour trip from New Zealand to Copenhagen, Denmark. Upon arriving here, I realized what all of the hype is about- Europe, or at least Denmark, truly is a fantastic, bustling, exciting place.

I immediately described the city as “quaint”, with the windmills in the ocean as we were flying in, the brightly-painted apartments lining the cobblestone streets, and the narrow roads filled only with small cars. However, due to my limited knowledge of Europe, I was unable to determine if the quaintness came from my familiarity with countries like Thailand or an actual quality that Europe, in general, possessed. Luckily, Karl and I took a trip to Berlin and I was able to sort it all out.

My conclusion: Copenhagen= quaint; Berlin= historic.

While it may sound like either these two things are basically the same or they don’t have anything to do with each other at all and can’t be used as contrasting adjectives, describing the two cities in this way has let me wrap my mind around how Western Europe as a whole is so different than Southeast Asia (where the majority of my exotic traveling perspective has come from so far).

Copenhagen and Berlin are both filled with beautiful, old buildings that are used for everything from museums to apartments to grocery stores. However, where Berlin proudly displays all of the flags of the city, region, country, and a few other things outside of these buildings to exhibit a nationalism that can only be explained by decades of history, Denmark plops only the Danish flag everywhere it can find an empty space merely because Danes like the novelty of the decoration.

Copenhagen is a small “big city”, where Metro rides take only a few minutes and each neighborhood looks more or less like the surrounding neighborhoods. Berlin, on the other hand, has a vast Metro system that will take you from the wealthy business districts to the alternative neighborhoods and back again over the course of 20 minutes, while only actually traversing less than half of the city.

The closest you’ll find to a park in Copenhagen, because it is a fairly small, condensed city, is an ice skating rink right in the middle of a busy intersection. Nevertheless, with Christmas lights filling the trees and the glow from the streetlights illuminating the skaters, you feel like you’re in a Hallmark Christmas special. Meanwhile, Berlin is filled with vast parks, with war memorials scattered around the area (don’t miss Treptower Park if you ever get to Berlin).

The big clincher of this theory, however, is this: Denmark has hearts, of all things, all over its coin money. Berlin is almost entirely covered in graffiti that is, if not encouraged, at least clearly accepted in the city. A better contrast, for a first-time Europe visitor, could not be found.

-Luthien

City Mouse Goes to the Country

Realistically, the majority of the time at the farm was spent either swimming in the river (at least 3 times per day, often more) and picking piles of green beans from the garden to eat for all meals. However, every now and then, work with the animals would come up and Harry would patiently explain to me, who has never fed a chicken in my life, that you add small rocks to the chicken food to make the egg shells thicker (who knew?). Then I would skip down the hill shaking the plastic bucket of chicken feed and the chickens would run after me in a single-file line until we got to the chicken coop, where I would dump the food in the trough and shut them in for the night. It’s the simple pleasures in life, “they” say, but, really, the hilarious sight of a chicken running (”waddling” is probably a better word) as fast as she can down a hill may very well be enough to keep me on a farm for a very long time.Another notable task was herding a bull from one paddock to another farm across the road. After Jeanette, Anne, and I finally found the bull in the woods, we cornered him against the fence and then chased him down the hill, from one paddock to the next. By “chased”, I really mean that we chased him. In my Old Navy Jeans and Chacos, waving a rod sort of like a ski pole, we ran this giant bull down the hill, onto the road, across a bridge, and then eventually to the other farm…”adrenaline” doesn’t even begin to describe how great it felt.On one of the last days at the farm, when Anne and I were officially in charge because Harry had hurt his leg badly and was in the hospital and Jeanette had political stuff to deal with, Jeanette called us and told us to herd all of the sheep from the top paddock (about 50 sheep) to the “house paddock”. Given the size of the farm and the paddocks, this sounded like an incredible task, but we grabbed our herding rods and hiked up the hill to the paddock. The great thing about sheep, we soon realized, is that they really do run in packs and stay together no matter what, so after Anne had gathered all of the stray sheep out of the gorse patches (very awful, dense spiney plants) and I’d more or less pushed a few very old sheep towards the others, it was just a matter of convincing the sheep that their only option for running away was towards the open paddock gate by, again, running after them and waving our rods threatening.

The tasks that I did on the farm were pretty menial, but nonetheless very exciting for someone who hadn’t actually ever seen a sheep in real life. In addition, as I was running around the countryside chasing farm animals, there was a split second where I thought about the fact that on my trip around the world, on the other side of the world, I was chasing a bull down a hill- who would’ve guessed?

-Luthien

Finding My Dreams in New Zealand

After a two week road trip around the circumference of the South island of New Zealand, we took the ferry to the North Island and drove straight through in four days (stopping in Mordor and Mount Doom in National Park Village, a very small town in the middle of the North island), where Julie dropped Anne and I off at a farm in the Cormandel Peninsula and the drove to Auckland to catch her flight to Cairns, Australia. While Julie scuba-dived in the Great Barrier Reef, Anne and I lived on the farm of Harry and Jeanette, about 7km from the nearest town (Thames) but seemingly hundreds of miles from anything.

Harry and Jeanette quickly made us feel at home. With 30+ WWOOFers staying on their farm every year, plus a multitude of other people living in their house, barn, and sleep-out on any given day, they were accustomed to people inhabiting their space and making them feel like they were not imposing in the least. Harry is a 67-year-old retired sheep sheerer (used to be one of the top sheep sheerers in the region until an accident involving a sheep falling on him ended his professional career) who seemed soft-spoken for most of the day as he gave us instructions for the work day. Yet as we sat around the dinner table at night, conversation always escalated and suddenly we were learning everything there is to know about the New Zealand political system and environmental issues. Realistically, despite his proclaimed profession of farmer, Harry was the man to learn about New Zealand politics from. He is on the committee who interviews, chooses, and ranks Green Party candidates for the national elections that are held about every 3 years, which generally includes 100+ potential candidates that are narrowed down to about 50 candidates for the final ballot. Because NZ assigns Parliament members proportional to the number of votes the party receives, having more candidates on the ballot will increase the number of votes for the party in general, even though only about 6 of the candidates will likely sit in Parliament.

If that wasn’t exciting and educational enough, his wife, Jeanette, was only around for about half of the time that we stayed there because otherwise she was at Parliament, as the co-leader of the New Zealand Green Party (the Green Party requires a female leader and a male leader). Not only was she the first woman in Parliament when she was elected 12 years ago, her position in Parliament marked the first time that the Green Party was represented in the New Zealand Parliament. Today the Green Party holds 5% of the seats in Parliament, but the upcoming election in November is causing some concern, since a party cannot hold seats if it does not receive at least 5% of the vote and the percentage of votes for the Green Party in the last election came dangerously close to missing this mark. In addition to these credentials, Jeanette is cited as THE expert on climate change in New Zealand, so dinners with her also provoked some very interesting discussions.

The most impressive thing about staying on the farm was that Harry and Jeanette, despite her prestigious-ish place in the government, lived as simply as two people could possibly live. By using energy-efficient light bulbs and only using electricity when absolutely necessary, they were able to cut their energy usage to less than 10% of the average house of four. The farm is not registered “organic” because there is one strain of disease that can hit sheep and kill them within 3-4 days that can only be stopped by a chemical. However, while most farmers spray this chemical on all of their sheep every two weeks no matter what, Harry and Jeanette instead do weekly examinations of the sheep and only spray a sheep if it displays symptoms of the disease. At night we would have giant dinners of green beans with garlic and butter, red potatoes with rosemary, lettuce salad with olives, tomatoes, and other vegetables, and delicious fish with lemon…and the only item on the entire table that was not grown on the farm was the fish, which was purchased from a local farmer at the market.

All in all, when it comes to WWOOFing, I can’t imagine a more educational and inspiring set-up than we had in New Zealand.

-Luthien

Mom & Dad: I pick up hitchhikers

New Zealand is, apparently, the only safe country left to hitchhike in and pick up hitchhikers. While I haven’t done the former (and don’t plan to given our great rental car), the latter has become one of my favorite things over the past few days. So far, we’ve had 7 hitchhikers in our smokin’ Toyota Corrolla:

1) Miguel: from Spain, has been traveling for 19 years. Julie met him at a vegetarian restaurant in Christchurch and we agreed to let him ride with us until we got to Dunedin, where my aunt and uncle live. When we got there, my aunt and uncle invited him to stay at their house, so we didn’t leave him until 2 days later, when we left him on the side of a road heading south.

Julie and Anne saw him on the top of a mountain during their 3-day trek about one week later. What a small world….

2) Emily: from New York, but her dad lives in Madison. I met her in the Te Anau Visitor’s Center bathroom when she asked me about shuttle buses to a trek she was doing. Knowing that the shuttles had all left by that time, I offered to drive her, as it was only about 10 minutes down the road.

Unfortunately, she left her Nalgene bottle in the car but, since Anne lost her Nalgene on the first airplane we boarded on the trip, it is being put to good use.

3) Felix: from Germany, works in New Zealand for a cruise boat that tours Milford Sound ($80 for 2 1/2 hours). I was driving home from a hike up to a beautiful lake on the top of a mountain when I saw him on the side of the road with the customary thumb out. On a whim, I stopped and picked him up, giving him a ride back to the town where we were staying. When I asked him for cheap ways to see Milford Sound, which we were planning to tour the next day anyway, but didn’t know if we wanted to spend $80 for a boat ride, he told us that he could get us on the boat for free if we met him at the park the next morning at 9:30am. Before I dropped him off we introduced ourselves, with promises to see each other the next day…and sure enough, early the next morning he gave us passes onto the boat for free.

The free tour included a 2 1/2 hour boat ride with funny commentary telling us about all of the geological features, dolphins swimming within feet of the boat, and free coffee and tea.

4) Yoni, Gil, and 2 others: from Israel, all 4 of them with their 4 giant backpacks stuffed into our tiny car (and me). I was driving back to Te Anau to find petrol and lodging while Anne and Julie explored a little more when I found them on the side of the road, looking defeated. They had just done a 3-day trek and had been waiting on the side of the road for a ride for an hour, when I came along in my little car and told them that if they could fit, they could ride with me (but the trunk was full of our own packs). They agreed and stuffed themselves into the car, where they proceeded to talk really fast in Hebrew and then pop out a question to me in English every now and then. The best one:
Gil: What is your name?
Me: Lu-thee-in
Gil: What?!
Me: (sigh) Lu-theeee-in
Gil: As in Luthien from the Silmarillion??
Me: <complete shock>

I tell heaps of Americans my name and its origins every year, yet this Israeli hitchhiker picked it up right away. Awesome.

-Luthien

Attn: Internet Very Expensive

We’re safe and sound in Lorne, Australia right now. The main street of town is about 5 blocks long and contains only 2 Gelato shops, about 6 Fish and Chips shops, a Middle-eastern restaurant called “Arab”, and 2 pubs. More importantly, however, is that on one side of the street is the ocean and an miles and miles of beach and on the other side are forests of giant gum trees containing waterfalls and Koalas.

 We’re spending our days “WWOOFing” by working in a cafe that is housed in an art gallery (www.qdosarts.com) and our afternoons and evenings swimming and walking through the forests….

Unfortunately, Internet is $2 for 10 minutes, so that’s as long as this update can be for now.

 -Luthien

Mushies on the Barbie

We arrived in Sydney four days ago and immediately everything felt perfect- no more language barrier, no more hats and mittens, and it stays light here until at least 9pm!After exploring the city for 3 days, we took the night train to Melbourne (on the south-eastern coast of Australia) to stay with the family of one of Anne’s friends for Christmas Eve through New Years Day. They welcomed us with open arms, feeding us kangaroo meat on the grill (or “barbie”), “heaps” of wine, and vegemite (very salty spread that is used like we use peanut butter- smells awful). The most surprising thing that I have found about Australia (besides the idea of spending the day after Christmas at the beach) is that a language barrier, or at least language picket fence, does exist between the States and Australia. Someone will say “Does anyone want any snags on the barbie?” and Anne, Julie, and I will look at them blankly, not having any idea that the question translates to “Does anyone want any sausages on the grill?”.

Christmas Eve was also very different that anything that we have ever experienced. Ten of us piled into a few cars to go to a nearby Catholic Church for the 6pm mass, dressed in short-sleeved shirts and sunglasses, as the sun would not set for a few more hours (not even close to the attire that we wear in Wisconsin on Christmas Eve). When we entered the church, it was immediately evident that we wouldn’t be able to find a place to sit- hundreds of people filled the church, including the extra chairs set up behind the altar and people standing in the aisles and spilling out into the sunny evening air from the side doors that had been opened, but could no longer close due to all of the people in the church.

The church service started and all of a sudden we were overwhelmed by the number of children in the building. Children were running across the front stage of the church, perched on their fathers’ shoulders, and crawling through the aisles- the constant crying and talking was incredible, but also very energizing. The priest, clearly a seasoned family-Christmas-service priest, just smiled and went on with his readings, as little girls with angel halos bounced around in front of him and little boys carrying toy trucks ran up and down in front of the altar. However, despite the chaos, the readings went on, the singing continued, and in the church lit brightly with the outside sun and the laughing of the children, I think it was impossible for people to feel anything but joy for life, friends, and family.

After the service, we came home for a quick dinner on the barbie (including mushrooms, hence “mushies on the barbie”) and then, in true Australia fashion, went to a pub for the rest of the night. Again, very different from the United States, Christmas Eve is a night to go to the pub with friends, before spending all of Christmas Day with your family…
I do miss the magical feeling that comes with seeing snow on Christmas morning and opening presents under the tree next to a cozy fire in the fireplace with family, but if I had to choose a different way to celebrate Christmas, I think the Australians have come up with a pretty good alternative.

Merry Christmas!

-Luthien

food food FOOD

During the past week, I have learned a very important thing about Korea that no one tells you: the food is incredible (and endless).

 Top meals of the country (which includes almost every meal that we didn’t get from 7-11):

1) First night: The co-teacher of our friend, Kate, who we are staying with, took us to a vegetarian restaurant. It was here that we first learned how Koreans eat- 10-20+ little dishes are put anywhere on the table where there is room and everyone at the table uses their chopsticks to grab whatever they want out of the dishes. Additionally, between tofu that was made earlier that day in the restaurant and a soy-based product that had the exact texture, taste, and look of marinated beef, it was clear that Koreans have mastered a variety of vegetarian foods.

2) Second day: We went to visit the school where another one of our Madison friends teaches English and her co-teacher and school principal insisted on taking us out to lunch. Again, our table was loaded with over 20 different dishes, this time including warm pumpkin soup, a grilled fish for each of us, and Bulgolgi, which is a traditional Korean dish with broth, very tender beef, and vegetables.

3) Third night: One of Kate’s adult students owns a restaurant and invited us for a meal cooked especially for us. The meal included a giant salad topped with red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, Korean-style chicken soup that has an entire small stuffed chicken in each individual bowl, and raspberry wine.

4) Fifth night: We took a bus out of Seoul to the south-eastern coast of the country, for a weekend break from the city. A friend took us to a Shabu Shabu restaurant, which was originally a Japanese dish, but migrated to Korea years ago. This was easily the best meal that I have eaten on the trip and I do not expect it to lose this ranking any time soon. Basically, you sit down at a table that has heated bowls built in to the table. Everyone orders a type of meat (typically chicken, beef, or pork) and then the bowls are filled with broth that is brought to a boil. Each person then receives a plate of meat shaved as thinly as possible, along with a giant plate of uncooked mushrooms, cabbage, noodles, and other ingredients. First, you add the vegetables to the boiling broth and they slowly cook. Then, with chopsticks, you dip a slice of meat into the boiling broth and it cooks immediately- tender, delicious, and flavorful.

5) Sixth night (yesterday): The day before Julie’s birthday, and finally on our own to find food, we wandered the streets trying to figure out what we wanted to eat. Suddenly, a neon sign caught our attention and we knew exactly what we wanted- greasy pizza from Pizza Hut. Alas, even the best food in the world needs a little variety sometimes…

After this week of delicious food, we decided to venture out on our own this afternoon, certain that with this kind of track record, we couldn’t go wrong. After biking around the city for a while, we found ourselves at a restaurant with nice pictures of food outside, so we decided to go in. Unlike most of the other restaurants that we’d been in so far (alone, at least), not a single thing on the menu was in English and the owners did not speak any English. Ready for an adventure, we pointed to the first 3 items on the menu, completely randomly, and hoped for the best. The man taking our order tried to express his disapproval with our choices but the language barrier was too much and we didn’t know what to do except insist on our choices, not sure how we would ever make a more educated decision. Within minutes, the man brought out the usual 10 bowls of food, including a plate of raw meat that we were to cook ourselves on the giant heated skillet at the table. We quickly set to cooking, satisfied with our choices of beef, dumplings, and….some round pieces of mystery meat. Luckily Anne, our courageous eater, volunteered to try the first one and, unfortunately, identified the pile of round meat pieces as intestines. Clearly, the man had known we were Westerners who were not accostomed to eating intestines and tried to warn us, but we were just a little too stubborn.

 -Luthien