Food

After our detour home and to Germany, we arrived back in Asia on Thursday, October 9th, landing in Korea, where our friend April Cardinal is teaching kids English in Seoul.

”Augh, my students were so naughty today!”

Hiking in the mountains over Seoul

I have to confess that we originally scheduled this stop primarily as a chance to visit April rather than out of an actual desire to see Seoul. Fair or not, Korea didn’t hold much interest for me; from my limited (read: from watching M*A*S*H) knowledge, it struck me as a limbo between Japan and China -- neither as dynamic as Tokyo nor as historic as Beijing.

Well, after visiting, I have to say that my opinion is somewhat altered; Seoul is quite a pleasant place. We had a terrific time with April, and it was fun to learn about a culture that we really had not put a lot of time into learning about. We did take a bit of time to see some of the historic sights, including the Gyeongbukgong palace, Korea’s version of the Forbidden City, where they do an elaborate changing-of-the-guards ceremony accompanied by incredibly discordant music -- I didn’t know it was possible to produce such screeches from a trumpet.

”Hmm, I hope none of the tourists notice that my beard is fake...”

Speaking of screeches, we also indulged in a night of karaoke. We were joined by Jane and Ami, two of April’s fellow expat teachers.

Butchering Switchfoot’s “Meant To Live” together

Jane and Ami are doing much better with their duet

By far the most interesting sight was the tour we took to the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjeom.

The UN’s JSA (Joint Security Area) -- that bombastic white building is North Korea

Under the watchful eyes of soldiers of the South...

”I love how badass these glasses make me look!”

...and the North...

”Running dog capitalist pig tourists, I will not even bother to watch you with my binoculars...”

...you are ushered into the conference room where negotiations are held, and allowed to step ever-so-briefly into one of the world’s most reclusive nations.

The most moving part of the trip is the stop at the Freedom Bridge, where prisoners of war were exchanged after the cease-fire. There is a wall of memorials that has become something of a place of pilgrimage for those who fought, and families separated by politics.

Remembering

What was unexpectedly fascinating, though, was learning about Korean cuisine. I came knowing very little about the food here, so the whole weekend turned into a bit of a culinary odyssey. We started with dinner at a Korean barbeque with Jane. Everyone sits around a grill and cooks their own yummy little strips of marinated beef or pork.

What’s Webber got that we ain’t got?

Contrary to what you’d think, vegetarian food can be tough to find in Asia. One that’s practically a national dish in Korea is bibimbop, a mixture of bean sprouts, pickled veggies, and a fried egg. And, as a bonus, it’s really fun to say -- try it... “BEE-beem-bop.” Bonus points if you can say it three times, fast.

”I don’t care how you say it, I’m just glad it doesn’t contain squid!”

Of course, you can’t discuss food in Korea without talking about the national culinary obsession: kimchi. The “cabbage that they ravage with the chili paste taste.”

”Kimchi, kimchi, it is good for you and me!”

Those quotes are from the English Village Boyz’ “Kickin’ It In Geumchon,” a hilarious hip-hop ode to being an expat in Seoul. Go watch it:

http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBfy_HVoSM

As they say, kimchi is cabbage that has been mixed with chilis and dried shrimp and other stuff, and left to ferment for up to a year, buried underground in big jars like these...

55 gallons of kimchi goodness

Hardly a meal goes by that Koreans don’t eat kimchi. After mealtimes, the subway has a distinctly spicy, vinegary smell -- and I swear I am not making that up. Koreans claim that the reason they never got SARS is the medicinal value of their kimchi. I can believe it -- if I was a germ, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere near the stuff either. In fact, I am not a germ and I still don't want to. It really smells bad.

Street food is big here, too -- especially food on a stick.

Various animal parts and balls of stuff

That, believe it or not, is a hot dog rolled in ketchup and french fries, all on a convenient stick

Of course, there is also plenty of western-style food in Korea as well...

Hey, I don’t write ‘em, I just take the pictures

They actually do not sell any cheese here

April’s favorite: sweet potato pizza with honey mustard sauce... much better than it sounds!

Without question, though, our biggest foodie adventure was our quest to go eat boshintang...

Dog stew.

No, it is not a myth, they do in fact eat dog in Korea -- specially bred food dogs that look like big huskies, not pet dogs kidnapped off the street. I guess it’s not as common as it used to be, because we had to hunt down a small basement restaurant in a very off-the-beaten-path neighborhood, and there we sat down and tucked into a big ole' steamin’ bowl of spicy Fido soup.

Don’t think about what you’re about to put in your mouth!

Mmmmm... Boshintang!

And the verdict? Well, it was...

Umm...

Actually, pretty gross.

Neither of us could finish more than half our bowl. The meat didn’t taste too bad; it was kind of gamey and really fatty, sort of like mutton. The broth was so hot that it kind of killed the taste, really. But it was hard to get past the smell; it had a distinct scent of, well, wet dog. Which it was.

The mother and daughter who ran the place were really sweet. They wanted their picture with us; apparently not too many Westerners come through their doors.

I'm smiling on the outside, but I'm thinking, ”I have a doggy hair stuck in my teeth...”

A drawing we did for their wall

As our weekend together drew to a close, we sat in a cafe on Sunday morning, savoring a good cup of coffee. Savored it so long, we actually missed our flight to Beijing. Good food and good friends -- it can really be addictive.

All except the boshintang. That made me want to arf.

It's October in Germany, and that can mean only one thing: the miracle that comes from combining water, malt, yeast and vine flower cones...

Bier hier, Bier hier, or else I will collapse

After a week and a half of mostly staying around Lynn’s sister Gail’s place or the military bases getting practical matters taken care of, on Saturday night we finally got outselves out of the house. One of Mark’s former coworkers, Dave, invited us to join him and his wife Arlene for the evening at the Canstatter Volksfest, Stuttgart’s answer to Munich’s Oktoberfest. I haven't properly fact-checked this (hey, it’s election season so who’s checking facts), but apparently this is the second largest fall festival (read: huge beer-focused event) in Germany.

Knowing that finding a parking place in the city would be even more fiendishly difficult than usual, we took the S-Bahn (commuter train) into the city. Immediately upon arriving at the festival grounds stop, we were surrounded by already-tipsy Germans wearing red and white scarves -- the VfB Stuttgart football team had apparently just wrapped up a 4-1 trouncing of Bremen... and the whole stadium came next door to the Volksfest to celebrate. Beer and soccer hooligans, one of the classic recipes for fun, fun, fun!

"We're Nummer Eins! We're Nummer Eins!"

Not being much for ferris wheels and other carnival rides (and it was only about 45º), we had a walk around the grounds, and then found a nice beerhall to grab some dinner.

Yes, that girl in the Dirndl is wearing light-up bunny ears

The tents were all completely packed, and very loud with music and drunk people. Not the oom-pah bands you'd expect, though; the first one we walked through had a rock band playing "The Time Warp" from Rocky Horror Picture Show. A thousand Germans screaming, "It's just a jump to ze left..." was as surreal as it sounds. We grabbed a seat outside in the cold and ordered up some nice, light Schwäbisch (southwestern German) grub: personally, I murdered a couple of smoked pork steaks with sauerkraut and rye bread.

Lynn is having a love affair with those spätzl, and Dave seems surprised at how good his roast chicken is

Now, normally, you have to understand that German society is very polite and reserved, and order is the guiding principle of life. At festivals like this, however, the concept of "restraint" is utterly absent -- as exemplified by the mugs of beer, which only come in one size: a maß (as in "massive"), which is about a liter.

Gail is a "limonade"-drinking lightweight

Interestingly, Germans generally have a much more healthy attitude toward alcohol than Americans. Kids are allowed to start drinking beer when they are teenagers, and as a rule they are very responsible drinkers. Most of the people at the fest were out having a great time and behaving themselves.

Nice lederhosen, dude!

Then suddenly, as we were eating, there was a crash from within the tent, and a bunch of beer-besotted ruffians came tumbling out in a melée of fists and spurting blood. Within seconds, there were security guards and Polizei officers everywhere, and sirens as paddywagons pulled up.

Yes, that's a guy with blood all over his shirt, five feet away from us

"Bad jungen, bad jungen, was machst du ven zey komm für you?"

We spent the rest of the evening finishing our drinks and watching the entertainment as the German cops chased down, clubbed, and arrested the instigators. There's an old parable I love about the nations of Europe...

Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and the whole thing is organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the police are German, the lovers are Swiss, and the whole thing is organized by the Italians.

How true.

From Kuching, it was a short flight across the South China Sea to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city. We only spent one night there before heading south to Melaka, because frankly KL is a big city and not real long on must-see sights -- not unlike Jakarta, but a little nicer.

The Kuala Lumpur skyline, dominated by the Petronas Towers

There’s the Petronas Towers, which were the tallest building in the world for a few years before the Taiwanese decided to outdo them, a few strangely Indian-looking colonial buildings left over from the days of British rule (guess the Brits figured if it was part of their colonial Empire in Asia, it deserved to look Indian...), and a fantastic museum of Islamic art. But beyond that, we didn’t find it too thrilling.

What was a thrill, however, was meeting Meng Kiat “Alan” Tiong and Ping Yi “Daphne” Tan, a Chinese couple that hosted us for the night we stayed. Alan is an executive at a company that builds gasoline storage tanks, travels all over Asia, and speaks about a dozen languages (I am not exaggerating). Daphne is an executive assistant in Johnson & Johnson’s contact lens division. We really hit it off and had a great evening with them, despited being delayed getting home by a downpour of Biblical proportions -- when it rains in Asia, it can really rain. Alan is a worship leader at their church, and we had a great time playing guitar together and singing old worship songs from the early ‘90s.

Alan Tiong and Daphne Tan

Incidentally, we learned a few interesting tidbits about Chinese culture from them. When Alan and Daphne married, they became “the Tiongs” and you might call Daphne “Mrs. Tiong,” but when referring to her individually, she is still “Daphne Tan.” Also, I did not realize that the Western names many Chinese use are given by their parents along with their Chinese names.

But the most fun we had with Alan and Daphne was learning about Asian produce. Daphne picked up a bunch of interesting fruit for us to try, and Alan took us out to pick up the king of Southeast Asian fruit, which I’ve been dying to try: the durian (previously mentioned in the post about Jakarta). Here’s a few of the highlights:

This is a pulasan. It looks like a purple sea urchin, and you twist it apart to reveal a white rubbery fruit that looks sort of like a peeled grape with a big pit.

This is a mangosteen, which you crack open between your palms to reveal wedges of fruit.

And this is a duku langsat (which I can’t help thinking sounds like a villain in Star Wars), which looks like a nut and cracks open to reveal a little white fruit.

What do all of these taste like? Well... umm... grapes, kind of. Hard to describe.

And then there is the durian. This thing looks like a little spiky green cantaloupe. It only grows in Southeast Asia, and it doesn’t travel well, so you can’t get it anywhere else. In fact, I seem to recall that Queen Victoria offered a huge reward to anyone who could get one back to London. The first thing that you notice when you’re around one is... the stench. They honestly are about the worst-smelling thing that has ever crossed my nostrils. Some people describe it as smelling like rotting flesh. I don’t know, I think it smells more like an old towel left in a high school locker room in the heat of August. Let’s just say it’s really stinky.

And yet, someone chose to crack one open, taste it, and declare it a delicacy. Some Asians are addicted to them, others can’t stand them -- and Daphne is one of the latter. But she kindly acquiesced, and so our mission to taste durian was fulfilled. Inside the spiky rind are little sacks of creamy yellowish pulp, kind of like slightly stringy custard.

Durian, in a to-go box

And so, we had a durian-eating party on the balcony of their apartment overlooking the city...

Lynn, going for it. Hold your nose and swallow!

Alan is a fan. Daphne -- not so much!

C’mon Daphne, open wide!

I can eat anything with a view like this!

And the verdict? We didn’t care for it much. The taste wasn’t bad, sort of vanilla-ish yet fruity, kind of like over-ripe banana, but the stench keeps rising up your throat even after you swallow it and into the back of your nose, which in case you weren’t aware works just as well in reverse. We’re glad we tried it, but once was enough.

The next day we took the bus a couple hours south to Melaka, a smaller colonial city on the west coast of the Malaysian penninsula.

Melaka’s colonial Town Square

Melaka has quite an illustrious history. Founded by a Sultan, conquered by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally handed over to the British, it was the trading center for the spice market for centuries. It’s full of beautiful old colonial buildings, most of them painted a beautiful red.

Foogie and Amelia, our new friends in Melaka

We stayed with Foo Guan “Jacob” Sim, aka Foogie, and his girlfriend Qiu Xuan “Amelia” Li, who are both computer security students at Multimedia University in Melaka. Amelia just moved into an apartment of her own but was still paying rent at a dorm apartment, so we were able to sleep in her old room.

We did a lot of walking around the city at night, and it’s quite spectacular: many of the buildings are lit up red, reflecting the look of the day time.

Melaka by night, reflected in the canal through the city

Jacob and Amelia introduced us to a lot of great food, some of it Baba-Nyonya, or Straits Chinese: cuisine that developed independently among the Chinese living in Melaka through the centuries. One meal that is particularly memorable was at a little family-run outdoor cafe on a back street, where they served plates of steaming seafood -- snails, cockles, clams, squid, you name it -- all for about a buck a pop. Really good.

If you cook it, they will come...

Lynn’s looking awfully happy considering her spinach came piled with squid on top!

We made one final quick stop on the Malaysian penninsula: Singapore, just for an afternoon. I didn’t plan more because my impression of Singapore is that it’s a big, sterile modern city that’s great if you like expensive shopping.

Singapore, Southeast Asia’s Manhattan

Well, that was a mistake -- Singapore is actually quite fascinating. The downtown riverfront is beautiful...

Kind of reminds me of Chicago...

...and there is a lot of history from the British days, when Sir Stamford Raffles watched over the colonial city. This guy governed Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, plus established the London Zoo before dying at 34. Makes me feel like a slacker. He now has a famous hotel named after him, where they invented the Singapore Sling.

”Stammy”?

The Asian Civilizations Museum is one of the best in the world -- we had only two hours, but could have spent two days. But we had a flight to Tokyo to catch, so we had to leave Singapore’s ultra-clean streets behind.

Anyway, it’s a little fascist for my tastes -- they ban durians from the subway.