Category: Korean

The Best Seat in the House

If you were to come over to Casa de Nearest Future for dinner, and if you were to stay afterward to chat and hang out, there might come a moment when–inhibitions lowered by shared laughter and the glow of friendship–I might say, “Come with me, I have something to show you.”

Up two flights of shag-carpeted stairs, though a door and around a corner you would find this:

–A Japanese bidet toilet seat, complete with wireless controls!

And depending on how much time you’ve spent in Asia/around Asians your reaction would probably be one of the following:

1) Confusion/mild embarrassment
2) Jealousy
3) Nonchalance (i.e. my sister Jan who already has one)

I myself was THRILLED back at Christmas to to unwrap a Toto Washlet. And yes, I know the fact that N gave me a toilet seat for Christmas and that I was super excited to receive it says some odd things about us, but hear me out.

Back in October when we visited my in-laws in Korea the guestroom we stayed in had a bidet toilet seat. And after two weeks of using it I was sad at the prospect of going home and no longer being able to enjoy always sitting down on a warm toilet seat and being washed clean by gentle jets of warm water while being serenaded by burbling bird song (kidding about the bird song). These electronic bidet seats are all over the place in Korea and parts of Asia: homes, department stores, airports, etc… It’s a nice luxury and it’s funny how quickly I got used to using them.

So I was thrilled to get a bidet seat for our house. It’s made by Toto which is a great brand and (very importantly!) the buttons and instructions were in English unlike the Korean model my sister has at her house. The one time I tried to use the bidet seat at her house I couldn’t figure out the buttons and uh, hijinks ensued.

The control panel

Our Washlet connected into the existing water hook-up but we had to have a GFCI-grounded outlet installed next to the toilet (which the next owners of our house will probably be mystified by since I am definitely taking the seat with us when we move).

N’s timing was great; it was nice to have it installed before I had Mimi and embarked on the awesome carnival ride that is postpartum recovery. All in all, it was one of the most thoughtful presents I’ve ever received.

And if you ask nicely, I’ll let you use it the next time you’re over. Like it or hate it, your life will never be quite the same again.

Sundance Film Fest 2011: Part One

The past few years N and I have bought locals’ ticket packages for Sundance. It’s always been a lot of fun: after the craziness of the holidays and in the middle of the January doldrums it’s great to play hooky from real life and go see some great movies. We usually go see about six movies but with the baby coming so soon this year we just bought tickets to three. It was really nice to go out on a last few dates before she arrives.

On Friday night we ate some delicious Middle Eastern food at Maza and then walked over to the Tower Theater and watched the Korean revenge thriller I Saw the Devil by Kim Ji-woon.

(Yum…tasty, tasty revenge)

I’ve seen several Korean thrillers: Kim Ji-Woon’s A Tale of Two Sisters, Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Old Boy, Lady Vengeance), Memories of Murder, The Host, Mother, etc… and I think that I Saw The Devil is one of the most disturbing. I actually found myself covering my eyes at times which I normally don’t do. It’s very violent and definitely not for everyone (or probably even most) but I thought it was pretty good.

The director Kim Ji-woon and one of the film’s stars, the very cute Byung-Hun Lee, attended the screening and introduced the film but unfortunately didn’t stick around for a Q&A. You can read N’s more detailed review here.

More Fish Market Photos

I thought I’d be finished posting photos from our trip this week but I still have a few more that I’ll post here and there over the next few weeks. But this is the last photo-intensive post. These are from our second trip to the Jagalchi fish market. The first time we went my camera was acting up and I didn’t get any photos so when we were in the neighborhood again we made another quick visit.

These fish mongers were super nice to E and pulled a live crab and octopus out so he could touch them.

This older gentleman bargained with this vendor for quite a while.

A storekeeper makes a joking pass at kidnapping E. E was somewhat unsure about the situation.

We have a lot of stuff going on this weekend. I need to make a batch of cupcakes and wrap presents so we can celebrate E’s 3rd birthday tonight. The three of us usually hang out together on Saturdays but this weekend we’re dividing and conquering: N is attending the BYU-UNLV football game with people from his office and E and I are going to make the trek out to the Overstock.com warehouse store with my mom who’s in town visiting my sister.

Hopefully BYU wins and I find an awesome bargain!

Fun with cousins

I have an aunt and cousins who live in Pusan and luckily we were able to spend some time with them while we were there. We had a lot fun hanging out with my cousin Young-shin, her husband Ji-soo, and their super cute little girl Kon-young. E was besotted with Kon-young and doggedly followed her around everywhere.

Kon-young and E

My cousin Young-shin and her daughter Kon-young

Ji-soo working the grill at a awesome bulgogi restaurant they took us to.

Ji-soo snaps a picture of Kon-Young and E at a buddhist temple.

Young-shin and Ji-soo are thinking about moving to the states, specifically Utah. I hope they’ll be able to make it work out–we’d love to have them close by!

More Temple Photos

I still have quite a few photos from our trip to Korea that I wanted to post so I hope everyone’s not sick of them yet. I’ll be posting some more this week and then wrapping it up.

Like I mentioned before, we visited several Buddhist temples while we were there. These are pictures from our trip to Bulguksa.

The trees were just starting to turn when we were there. I bet they’re stunning right now.

E pretending to be a monster–Rawr!

E is nuts about drums and likes turtles so this was easily his favorite part of the temple.

People stacking rocks for blessings/good luck. E really wanted to get right in there but we were horrified at the idea of him knocking down someone else’s stack so we set him up off to the side with a few rocks of his own.

Looking at these photos is funny because our trip already seems so far away even though it was just a few weeks ago. Coming home to being sick, a messy house, and a lot of work to do for my job jolted me back to reality none too gently. But even still there’s something comforting about getting back to the daily grind.

Korean Stuff Giveaway!

I mentioned last week that I was going to have a small giveaway and here it is! I wanted to find a way to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who stuck out my blogging absence during our trip. It’s nothing spectacular, just a few random cute things I picked up in Korea.

Cute overload: (clockwise from the left): pencils, decorative tape, coin purse, ID-I’m different! gum, and a cellphone dongle/keychain (which is actually Japanese but oh well).

AND, this good-sized plastic tote. These were everywhere in Korea and I thought they seemed pretty handy for shopping or storing projects. This one has a zipper and a side pocket (I stuck the pencils in there so you can see the scale).

Well, that’s it. To enter, leave a comment on this post by midnight next Thursday and I’ll pick a winner at random.

Thanks again for reading!

Yangdong Folk Village

While we were driving around the Korean countryside we stopped by Yangdong Folk Village. Over five hundred years old, it’s a functioning traditional village and the seat of two prominent Korean families. It’s also where N and I first got to know each other; we both lived there for a summer as part of a university study abroad trip way back when.

It was great to be back to the village. It was over ten years ago that we were there and it was even more better than I remembered it. Living there for a summer was a pretty amazing experience–we lived in an traditional compound with three houses (one for the girls, one for the boys, and one for our professor and his family), held our classes outside on the traditional wooden porch, washed our laundry by hand, taught classes at the local elementary school, and bathed outside using camping showers (except for when we could hitch into the next town to go to the bathhouse).

E outside the compound where we lived during our study abroad trip.

Us back where it all began.

The houses we lived in were at the top of a steep hill. I remember the walk being a bit of a pain but the view was/is spectacular.

I love the traditional houses.

The fields were golden with rice almost ready to harvest. When we lived in the village N and some of the boys helped plant rice (and had some leeches stick to their legs).

It was great to stroll around the village and down memory lane. The summer I spent in the village really cemented Korea’s place in my heart (and introduced me to my wonderful husband-to-be!)