Pine needle tea

After a rainy but beautiful walk in the grounds of a Buddhist Temple
in the woods we stopped in for a traditional tea service.

The tea they chose for us, we told them to pick, was pine needle tea.
Now before you think, "Ewwww gross!", hear me out.

The take the pine needles from saplings, baby trees, and soak them in
local honey for six months. The pine needles infuse the honey with a
pine scent an taste. It was deleicious. It would be perfect for a cold
winter day near Christmas.

The coffee house was on the grounds of re Buddhist temple and was all
natural wood. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Out!!!

Homestay families and eel!

On the road again this morning. Our stay on Gochjang was one night. It
was brief but very enjoyable.

We had a dinner of grilled (at our table) eel. You take a price of eel
place it on a big piece of lettuce. You the. Add a slice of raw Gaelic
dipped in spicey Korean sauce, some Ginger, and finally some mountain
herbs an then you shove th whole thing in your mouth. Honestly, it
tastes pretty good.

After dinner I hung out around the living room with my homestay
family. They had three kids, a boy who was 14, a girl who was 12, and
the youngest boy who was 9. They were great. The oldest did home work
most of the time except when he has to translate for us. The youngest
boy was hilarious, he crawled all over me like I was a Jungle Gym. He
woke me up this morning by jumping on me in the bed like some sort of
professional wrestler.

I'm sad the visit wasn't longer. We dropped the kids off at their
respective schools this morning.

Great day!!!!

Turtles and Dragons

We visited a montain shrine the other day. Near the temple was a
cemetery. The photo represents a typical marker in Korea. The bast of
the marker is. Turtle which represents longevity and the top is a
dragon which represents kingly power or leadership.

Gamma rays and radiation technology

Intersting day today/yesterday. We visited a radiation technology
research and product development company.

They do all kinds of interesting things with radiation and gamma rays.
Shockingly after that description I must remind everyone that I am not
a science teacher.

They research develops everything fro
space food to cancer cures. We saw inside a beam accelerator. They had
Geiger counters and lead walls. It was safe, ok I'm pretty sure it was
safe

The picture is of Cobalt-60 been beamed. That's the bulk of my science
knowledge, sorry Mr. Clancy.

Later!

Crazy and awesome day.

This post goes with yesterday's the previous post's photos.

Today has been one of the best days we have had so far. We started the day at the Jeonju Provincial Police Headquarters (think state police). While here we saw the Jeonju CSI lab and met with some of their investigators. They displayed their profiling and computer sketch abilities. They even hooked one of us up to lie detector machine, not me for once. I then shot a gun in their shooting range. Ok, it was a gun that shot electronic bullets and after getting a feel for the target on my second round scored rather well.

A visit to Woosuk University was next and there we toured the campus and met with a professor who is doing research in Kim Chi, the fermented and spicy cabbage that Koreans are famous for. Kim Chi is commonly thought of as one of the world’s healthiest foods. See article link here (LINK). He is basically looking at replicated and improving upon the amino acids that Kin Chi has. It’s basically better for you than yogurt, less fat!

We were also treated to an impromptu Tae Kwan Do performance. It was spectacular. Their performance told the story of the Donghak peasant revolution in late 19th century Korea. Think River Dance meets the Karate Kid, with really athletic and violent ballet. Now that’s a mental picture. Woosuk University is famous for their Tae Kwan Do program, it’s a major and required study by every Korean soldier. SO it was like walking up to tour Duke and then getting to watch them scrimmage before the NCAA tournament.

We visited a museum and then went to a great noodle restaurant. Afterward the families took us out to a little whole in the wall dive for food. It’s like a meat and three in Memphis, except they have fish, Kim Chi, and …, live cut up octopus. I ate some…, of course. From there we hit the town for the typical Karaoke performance. I revisited my performance of Elvis’, Suspicious Lies to a thunderous crowd.

After getting “home” I slept for about 4 or five hours and then had a Skype class with the 8th and 5th graders of Hutchison. They asked great questions and it was good to see everyone.

I’m out!!

The most awesome and ridculous day in Korea yet

Is Pete in trouble?!?!?

How connected is Rotary International in Korea? Well we had a police escort everywhere we went while driving around the Mt. Muju Ski Resort.

The photo below is me having some fun, well my version of fun. I may have the maturity level of a nine year old. Oh well, it's good for a few laughs.

This is a obviously a joke.

Below is a video of funeral conducted by the Buddhist Monks in the Muju Mountains

Random videos and photos from Korea

Here are some random videos and photos from the trip.

http://johnstephany.blogspot.com/2010/04/catching-up-photos-and-some-video.html


Video of our bus trip

Korean Health Care

Link to blogpost about Korean Health Care

http://johnstephany.blogspot.com/2010/04/health-care-in-korea.html