lao-ocean-girl

An Engineer’s Guide to Cats

lao-ocean-girl — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:25:57 +0000

I watched this video again with Ras, Bart, and Joel last night. I’m not a cat person, but found it pretty funny. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4

Chakhangogi Restaurant

lao-ocean-girl — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:20:20 +0000

Yesterday, Bart drove Ras and I to have an early dinner at a relatively famous restaurant in Gunpo called “Chakhangogi.” It’s located off a main road, but is deep in the country. It was originally a cattle farm, eventually opening up a butchery on site, and soon was providing seats for people to grill their newly purchased beef. It’s not even really a restaurant, but a covered outdoor area with low tables and plastic stools. Hey, as long as the food’s good, I’m not picky.

Once you get there and order your meat, the butcher cuts it up and will bring it to your table ten minutes later. It cost 28,000 won for 600g (of some cut I can’t remember). Of course, the price reflects that it’s “hanwoo” beef and very fresh. In the meantime, we had to go to another area to get the lettuce, “saamjaang,” garlic, salt and kimchi. Once the meat is bought, everything else is sold separately. Our lunch tray of goodies cost 4500 won each.

This place is simple, delicious, and with no frills. Since the restaurant doesn’t serve rice or side dishes, customers can bring their own rice if they want. For that matter, they can bring anything else they want: extra vegetable for grilling, chigae, or their own alcohol. You don’t really have to bring the latter, since beers were 2000 won a bottle (but not very cold).

Bart and Ras were loving their rare pieces of beef. The meat was delicious and we’re definitely coming back.

(Left: The cows near the parking lot. Right: The view from the parking lot.)

More pictures can be seen here.

Rain gets mistaken for Karl Yune

lao-ocean-girl — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:42:00 +0000

Koreans are not going to be happy about this:

Big Screws are Refreshing

lao-ocean-girl — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:11:08 +0000

Yesterday, I was walking home from the swimming pool and decided to get an ice cream for the walk home. I spotted one of my favorites at the corner store and went to pay without thinking about it. Once outside, I opened the package and started to enjoy the apple and strawberry popsicle. For the first time EVER, I read the package. I was enjoying a Big Screw! Yup, that’s the name of the popsicle. Well, at least it wasn’t a Small Screw.

From now on, I’ll have to take notice of what my other favorite ice creams are called!

Homemade Carrot Cake

lao-ocean-girl — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:04:12 +0000

This afternoon, I tested out a carrot cake recipe for a batch I’m going to make on Wednesday. I used this recipe from Epricurious.com and it turned out to be quite excellent. Taking advice from other reviewers, I decided to use only 1 cup of oil, cut the sugar to 1 cup, add 3/4 more carrots, and use walnuts instead of raisins. The end product was moist and not too sweet. The addition of orange juice and orange zest were also a nice touch. I opted not to make the cream cheese frosting since I already had a container of pecan/coconut frosting. It was so good hot.

If you have an oven, I’d definitely recommend making a batch.

Seoul Friendship Fair 2008

lao-ocean-girl — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:50:30 +0000

Yesterday was the Seoul Friendship Fair near city hall. This was my third or fourth Friendship Fair, and I must say, it was the best one so far. In previous years, the event was a little chaotic and the international food selection wasn’t so international. This year, the food booths were down the entire street next to city hall, and extended to the Cheoggye Stream. There were at least 40 countries selling delicious traditional dishes. I was also impressed by the many garbage bags, covered seating, and volunteers helping out. This was one of the few times in Seoul where I looked around and really felt the sense of internationalism that Seoul wants to portray. The weather, food, and location were great. It was a perfect day. Mark your calendars for next year. If it was anything like this year’s it’ll be another great time.

I didn’t take too many pictures because it was one of those events where you either spend too much time photographing and not eating, or eating and not photographing. I chose to eat!

Check out the entire album on Flickr.

I ate two of those mango cups, and surprisingly, they were sold at the Columbian booth! Paraguay had some great carne empanadas!

The left picture are Lao textiles for sale, and to the right were popular Turkish kebabs.

a quickr pickr post

The Poster Child

lao-ocean-girl — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:44:41 +0000

Just saw this on Facebook. Someone had too much fun.

Celebrating Two People

lao-ocean-girl — Sun, 11 May 2008 03:02:53 +0000

My brother’s birthday just passed on May 8th and today is Mother’s Day. I got off the phone with her an hour ago, and as she usually does, she made me “speak” to our black lab McKenzie over the intercom. She said McKenzie’s tail was wagging upon hearing my voice, but there’s no way to confirm that. At least Ras wasn’t there to laugh at me, like he usually does.

Happy Birthday “little” brother, and Happy Mother’s Day Mom!

This picture was taken at The Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC. (I love my brother’s haircut and glasses!)

Slip of the Tongue

lao-ocean-girl — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:57:01 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV7H_Q9mTko

G.I. Joe Cast

lao-ocean-girl — Sun, 11 May 2008 01:27:07 +0000

For those that don’t know, there’s going to be a G.I. Joe movie, set to be released in August 2009. If you grew up in the 80’s and watched these cartoons, you knew too well the famous phrase PSA: Knowing is half the battle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AjcDW7zIY8

New pictures from the movie were leaked about a month ago, but I just got a chance to look at them today. Many fans say the casting is good, but the costumes look cheezy. You be the judge. (In true cartoon fashion, why couldn’t they make Duke blonde?)

General Hawk

Duke

Baroness

Breaker

Destro

Ripcord

Storm Shadow

Scarlett

(Personally, I think she looks too young for this role.)

Heavyduty

Covergirl

As a side note, Korean actor, Lee Byung-hun plays Storm Shadow, whose face will be covered most of the time. Ray Park plays Snake Eyes, who I initially though was a Korean-American actor. In fact, he’s from Glasgow and played the characters Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, and Toad in X-Men.

Storm Shadow also has a leisure suit. Look at those shoes! He’s rockin’ the 2001 Korean men’s shoe fashion.