On the Road to Find Out 在外国生活

Well I left my happy home to see what I could find out
I left my folk and friends with the aim to clear my mind out
Well, I hit the rowdy road and many kinds I met there
Many stories told me of the way to get there
-Cat Stevens

I may have given my readers the wrong impression about how I felt about living in South Korea. True, the first couple weeks in South Korea were a bit jarring. Not being able to speak or read the local language, living in a dimly lit and dinky apartment, the weather being really cold, coupled with travel and social restrictions imposed due to COVID-19 made life slow and sometimes boring. Even so, life in South Korea was pretty good and improving as the weather warmed up. If living in South Korea had been a long-term commitment and the pandemic hadn’t put all my friends and potential friends into lockdown, living there would have been pretty sweet.

Here are some great things about South Korean life:

• Internet and WiFi:

Restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores, malls, outdoor recreation areas and playgrounds,and literally every place had super fast and free WiFi. One playground even had a solar-powered bench with wireless and non-wireless cell phone charging stations. The one exception to our Korean WiFi heaven-- infuriatingly-- was the WiFi in our apartment. Why our devices couldn't get on the WiFi or randomly got kicked off the WiFi remains a mystery.

Wireless charging at the playground plus WiFi

•  The Food:

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Korean food! In fact, when we had decided to leave, I panicked a little that I hadn't sampled every sort of delectable Korean deliciousness. From temperature to spice and flavor, Korean cuisine turns up the notch to full amplification. Hot food is HOT. Cold food is COLD. Spicy food is SPICY. Plain food is PLAIN. Soups and bibimbap (mixed rice) are served sizzling in a scalding hot stone pot. Cold noodles should be called ice noodles because the broth is literally shaved broth ice flakes. Even a simple poached chicken soup satisfies with just a few scallions swimming in the broth. And don't even get me started on the millions of banchan (side dishes) that come with Korean barbecue. Four more sides of kongnamul muchim (spicy bean sprouts) puh-lease.

Of course, nothing can be eaten without kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage or vegetables). Kimchi is an absolute staple in Korean cuisine-- probably more important than rice. Whether having traditional Korean grub, pizza, or beer, invariably pickles or kimchi will be served as a side dish- which was fine by us. Even Dumpling developed a fondness for sweet pickles.

Did I mention how much I love Korean food? In case you didn't get it, I LOVE KOREAN FOOD!

Cold noodles to the nth power

Little dried fish in spicy sweet goop - So yum!

• Coffee 

The vast selection of cold brew coffee, lattes, caffe americanos, and mochas in the refrigerated section of any 7-Eleven and grocery store shows how much Koreans love coffee. A coffee shop-- or two, or three-- literally stood at every street corner. In these quiet refuges Dumpling colored in her first coloring books, smooshed her first play dough, and completed her first puzzle all by herself.

The following are a few of my favorite SK coffee shops:

• A Twosome Place: This coffee shop was literally a five minute walk from the large closet we called home, so we spent many mornings and afternoons enjoying the sunshine gleaming through the floor to ceiling windows. The close proximity to home, chill music set at an appropriate volume, a nice strong Americano, and a decent 6,000 Won (5 USD) breakfast deal for a coffee and a sandwich lured us back again and again.

Me + Dumpling =  A twosome chillin' at a Twosome Place

• Coffeesmith: Dessert waffles (~12,000W) for Dumpling and a pricy caffe americano (~4,300 W) burned a little hole in my pocket, but Coffesmith made my coffee heart sing. Not only were the bathrooms fragrant with floral hand soap and clean as a whistle, the WiFi ridiculously fast, and the ambiance soothing as a ritzy spa, but the staff unfailingly threw in a free hot chocolate (made with real milk) for Dumpling on every visit.

Waffle heaven at Coffeesmith plus hot cocoa

• Starbucks: If you are a coffee aficionado living abroad, Starbucks is a comforting sanctuary in a land of the unfamiliar. Just like Any Starbucks in Any City, Any Country, Starbucks brews up a reliably strong cup of black coffee. 'Nuff said.

• Eating out

My American friends were surprised at my Instagram posts showing us eating at restaurants and playing at the park. You can go out to eat? Our part of South Korea never went full throttle into lockdown, which meant we freely ate out at restaurants. South Korea has been highly praised for early and aggressive intervention to limit virus spread [1]. Restaurants, parks, and the like, all remained open for business. The only visible sign of a pandemic was that everyone wore masks and the unmasked faced stern scolding from strangers.

 

Pandemic? What pandemic? Let's go out to eat!

•  Cleanliness

I can’t help but draw comparisons between China and Korea. Renting an apartment is one stark example of the differences between the two neighboring countries. You can pretty much assume that when you move into a new place in China, you will spend anywhere from a month to year scrubbing caked dust off the floors, accumulated oil droplets from the stove vent, or waiting for that cigarette smell to slowly dissipate. I still have nightmares about the state of the toilet when we first moved into our last Beijing apartment.

In contrast, our SK apartment rental was squeaky clean and faintly smelled of bleach. No pre-cleaning required, no accumulated mold behind the toilet, and no dust balls anywhere. In fact, our rental contract stipulated that renters must prevent mold from growing. The apartment manager repeatedly reminded us not to wear shoes inside, even demonstrating shoe removal and placing them in the shoe closet before entering.

Public bathrooms-- from hole-in-the-wall fried chicken joints to the airport-- sailed high above and beyond sanitary expectations. To reduce virus spread, hand sanitizer was as available as ice (Koreans love ice!). Bottles of hand sanitizer affixed above push-to-walk buttons on traffic light poles eased a pedestrian's virus fears. Coffee shops laid out a variety of hand sanitizers, sprays, and wipes like a buffet. Meanwhile, US supermarkets suffered from a shortage of sanitizer (and toilet paper, diapers, flour).

Forgot your hand sanitizer? No worries! South Korea has your back.

You could eat off this floor

• Seoul

Seoul gets a special mention as one of the coolest cities I have ever visited. We only spent a few weekends exploring its plethora of restaurants, neatly laid out pedestrian friendly alleys, family friendly parks and gardens, and the murals that donned the sides of multi-story buildings. Seoul was where we ate legit Italian thin-crust pizza (served with spicy pickles), tandoori chicken, and found a grocery store stocked with sharp cheddar cheese and lentils.

Seoul stole my heart. She is an elegant lady who I would love to get to know better.

 

So that’s that in a nutshell. Hopefully, someday in the not-too-distant future we can visit South Korea again and do the things we didn’t get to do. For instance, visit our good friends G&C who went into strict lockdown not long after we arrived. They live in the Korean BIG HOUSE and we want to meet all their amazing family. Aaaaannnd....I wouldn’t mind getting a few bowls of cold noodles.

Chinese Idiom of the Blog: 在外国生活 (Zài wàiguó shēnghuó）
English Translation: to live abroad

[1] Emerging COVID-19 success story: South Korea learned the lessons of MERS

Beer + Pizza + Pickles = Happy Tummy

Domino's pizza never forgets the pickles

Can you tell that this is the entire cast of Frozen?

Trippy art in Seoul

Dumpling takes art seriously

Sometimes A Twosome Place is A Nap Place

Wild Thing 浣熊

Wild thing, you make my heart sing

You make everything groovy, wild thing

Wild thing, I think I love you

--The Troggs

There's all kinds of crazy things to see and do in Seoul. You can sip a latte from a toilet shaped mug or chow on a doo-doo shaped chocolate scone at the Poop Cafe (yes, really). You can grow a mermaid tail or sit inside Van Gogh's Starry Night at the Trick Eye Museum. You can make like Sherlock Holmes and solve your way out of a locked room at the Escape Room Experience. Or you can eat freshly killed and still writhing octopus at the Noryangjin Fish Market.

These things all sound like a blast for me, but neither birdMAN nor Dumpling would agree. So while my crazy ideas got nixed, birdMAN and I  did agree on craft beer, cheeseburgers, and pizza during our Seoul weekend. But what about Dumpling? Isn't there a fun place for an active three year old in super hip, super fun, and super trendy Seoul?

Brews and a snooze is a win-win

We are definitely in Seoul: beer comes with a side of dried fish and hot sauce

The answer is yes, and that fun place involved coffee and raccoons.

North Americans may share my view: raccoons are just giant rats in cute, furry coats. As many campers have experienced, raccoons seem to have a personal vendetta against humans to spoil their camping trips. They break into ice chests and scatter hot cocoa powder everywhere, and viciously snarl when shooed away. Lock up the hens, lest a raccoon emerge from the storm drain thirsting blood. In the dead of the night, raccoons smite innocent chickens, leaving their owners (or in our case, a houseguest which happened to be my sister) to clean up the aftermath under the brutal summer sun.

So you see, raccoons don't get any love from me. But Dumpling, on the other hand, has never encountered a wild raccoon. She thinks they are as they appear: cute, furry animals. The Raccoon Cafe attracts coffee lovers that share Dumpling's view. I suppose the vast majority of Seoul dwellers have never encountered a wild raccoon (raccoons are native to North America) [1].

For 10,000 won ($8), patrons can fawn over, awe over, pet, and of course, take an ussie with a very plump and docile raccoon. Throw in an americano or latte for an extra 2,000 won. But there are rules. Latte drinking and raccoon cuddling may not be done at the same time. The cafe area is separated from the animal area by a glass wall and a gated door. Wild raccoons and coffee shop dwelling raccoons have this in common: they will attack for snacks.

Besides the raccoons, the cafe also has some meerkats and the tamest dogs I've ever encountered. An aggressive child could probably play tug-of-war with the dogs’ ears without even getting a (deserved) doggy nip.

For about two hours, Dumpling was over the moon with delight, the only kind of delight that a three year old can exude. She danced around in glee, alternating between petting the raccoons and playing catch with an exceptionally talented dog that caught balls midair. And I have to admit, even though the room smelled like a petting zoo and my clothes were covered in animal hair, the time spent at Raccoon Cafe was time well spent.

You might wonder, besides curious tourists scratching an itch for the outre, who else goes to the Raccoon Cafe? My guess is people who live in cities and have little exposure to wildlife. While raccoons living in a fourth floor coffee shop smack in the middle of a bustling city is far from natural, humans have a natural urge to be at one with the furry kind; and that urge may be satisfied even in the most absurd settings. 

There are, however, some unanswered questions I have about the Raccoon Cafe. Do the dogs ever go outside?  Do the raccoons ever go outside? Where do these raccoons come from? Was that blonde raccoon bred to be blonde? Surely, a blonde raccoon couldn't survive in the wild. Are the raccoons happy? Is it ethical to house nocturnal animals in a coffee shop where they are bothered all day to take pictures and get petted?

Truthfully, these raccoons reminded me of domesticated cats. When they weren't snoozing, they were snacking. When they weren't snacking, they were relieving themselves somewhere in the room (the raccoon keeper was quick to clean up any messes). Otherwise, they were snuggling up to some fawning animal lover, who had forked over a load of money to be at one with the raccoons.

I admit, my prejudice against raccoons was squished flat. Raccoons aren't all giant rats in cute, furry coats. Some of them are cuddly and cute. Just don't leave any hot cocoa around for them to steal. That just might unleash the wild within.

Chinese word of the blog: 浣熊 huànxióng

English translation: raccoon 

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon

Half the World Away 冠状病毒

I would like to leave this city
This old town don't smell too pretty and
I can feel the warning signs running around my mind
-Oasis

Photo Source: Sight Magazine

On January 31, from the confines of her Beijing university campus apartment, fellow expat, Xialian, wrote me, “I would suggest you stay in the USA.”

Yes, it has come to this: Stay out of China.

The timing was incredible. On January 15, just as the Chinese New Year holiday commenced, we landed in sunny California. Literally the next day, the news dominated the headlines: a deadly novel virus was spreading throughout China. Although this new flu was discovered in December, China was just beginning to go into disease control mode.

So under university orders, Xialian and her new husband were confined to campus grounds. With no appointments to keep, no work, and nowhere to go, they went into vacation mode. They lazed about in their pajamas, ate breakfast at 10 am, and watched Chinese movies.

As Beijing went into lockdown, people got scared. They flooded the supermarkets and bought up all the vegetables, fruit, and instant noodles. Face masks went flying off the (both literal and online) shelves for exorbitant prices until there were no more. People stayed at home watching their phones for updates. A few thousand infected. The next day a thousand more. Each day the number of infected climbed.

Jan 28 From a friend in Beijing: the vegetables all bought up

Jan 29 From a friend in southern China: no ramen for you!

Some of our friends had their plane tickets to leave China suddenly cancelled and they were unable to rebook a flight originating from China. Others had traveled to their hometowns and couldn't return to their Beijing homes. Beijing had closed its borders. Others were like us. They had left before the lockdown and wouldn't go back to China anytime soon. Everyone's lives became suspended and limited.

Meanwhile, we took sanctuary at Moomoo's house and the coronavirus threat was half a world away. We soaked up the California sunshine and feasted on delicious oranges plucked fresh from my parent's prolific trees. We met up with our friends for brews and food. Despite their busy schedules, my sister and her husband squeezed in a brief trip from Georgia to California at the same time as us. Dumpling played and played with her cousins, and revelled in one-on-one Moomoo and Yaya time. Not to be forgotten was all the ice cream she ate. birdMAN and Kyle hit the trails with their mountain bikes. My California workout partner, Gabie, and I took 6 am barre classes and rewarded ourselves with Peet's coffee. California was good to us.

Just hanging out in California

But as February 7, the date of our return to Beijing, drew closer, the coronavirus began to hit closer to home. Fellow expats living in Beijing reiterated for us to stay away. The city was getting stricter and everyone was self quarantining at home. The city was quiet. Even the Chinese New Year's fireworks had been silenced. The subways were empty and temperature checks were everywhere.

The main concern was birdMAN's job. birdMAN was obligated to return to his job as a math teacher at an international high school. Since China's schools would delay the start of the semester, however, there was no reason for an immediate return. Furthermore, anyone entering Beijing must first undergo two weeks of self quarantine before returning to work. Communication with the school later revealed that it was developing a plan that did not require birdMAN in Beijing.

Truthfully, I wasn't too keen on going back to China. Quarantining in a dinky apartment with an active three year old would not be a walk in the park. Staying at Moomoo's was a much more appealing way to spend the next couple of months.

The number of infected continued to increase. The coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, dominated the headlines. I received messages from concerned friends. You aren't going back to China, are you?

Much to our mothers' relief, we extended our California stay by another week. That bonus week gave us more time to enjoy the onset of California spring and eat as much cheese as humanly possible. Meanwhile, birdMAN-- who had initially speculated that the virus craze would abate quickly and we would be back to Beijing in no time-- was beginning to wonder how this would play out. Perhaps the time to call China quits had finally come. We could just take up semi-permanent residence with Moomoo. This coronavirus business was not going away anytime soon.

The immediate future was hazy. Where would we end up?

We soon got our answer. birdMAN received the news via WeChat: The semester will resume in South Korea. You have been selected as one of the teachers to move to South Korea.

So... that's how we have become temporary residents of South Korea. A month ago we had no clue that we would have to start all over in a new country with a foreign language. But we rolled with it. That's life. Time to learn some basic Korean.

As of today, more than 92,000 have been infected worldwide and the disease continues to spread. Outside of China, South Korea is currently one of the worst affected countries, tallying more than 5,700 infected with COVID-19 and 35 deaths [1]. In response to the virus, schools in South Korea are closed for another three weeks. Everyone here wears face masks and nobody talks to each other.

Meanwhile, back in China, restrictions continue to be enforced. People are slowly trickling back to Beijing and subsequently doing two weeks of quarantine. Six weeks into lockdown, Xialian is learning to make home-made noodles and undoubtedly improving her Chinese with all those crazy Chinese movies she's watching. Our Beijing apartment is gathering dust and John Dough, my sourdough starter, is being woefully neglected. That block of cheese in the fridge awaiting our return, despite its vacuum pack, has probably turned green with mold.

Interesting times we live in, is it not?

Chinese Word of the blog: 冠状病毒 （guānzhuàng bìngdú, literally crown-shaped virus)
English translation: coronavirus (Now officially named COVID-19)

[1] BBC News: Coronavirus : California declares a state of emergency after death

Maybe extra Vitamin C will give our immune system a boost

So many cousins to play with!

Track 7 Brewing is clear both of Corona beer and Corona virus

Moomoo time

Moomoo pancakes are the antidote to virus fears

Yaya takes Dumpling to the zoo

Just me and the babies getting over jetlag

If we stay in CA, we could eat at Burger Lounge all the time...

What? We're not leaving all of THIS? Are we?