The land of the not-quite-right

[herveus]

This week has had its share of suck and fail, but there has been win as well. Needing to go into work on Saturday qualifies...

I've been going out to dinner with Han and Sonmi. We've been hitting Korean joints of one sort or another. Inexpensive is one of the key words here. Tonight, we stopped at a sushi joint. The kind with the conveyer belt and color coded plates to tell the prices. My compatriots were amused and a bit awed. I had eleven plates (of nigiri -- two pieces each). Nothing bad and mostly pretty good. Were I paying in dollars, I might have gotten change from a twenty. Walking down the street, we were accosted by folks peddling ttok. Han and DP passed, but I examined the wares. I picked up a bag of ttok moons with red bean paste in them. They're not great, but they are OK. Ttok is Korean rice cake -- soft and slightly sticky. In Insadong, there is a ttok shop with a guy out front pounding rice with a muckin' great mallet.

This time, I'm staying at the Novotel hotel in the city center. There is a lot of activity right to hand, and the Seomun market is less than a mile away. I'm hoping to get a chance to go over there to see about some silk shopping.

On a different subject:

I've been watching baseball. One interesting thing is that the Korean announcers use English terms. For example, when giving the count, say, 3 balls and two strikes, they say "two three". "Ball", "strike", "out", "foul", "swing" all appear in the lexicon among the Korean commentary. It's probably AA or AAA equivalent ball that I'm watching.

Then there was watching some billiards. There's an obscure game.

Comments

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

"Ball", "strike", "out", "foul", "swing" all appear in the lexicon among the Korean commentary.

Sounds like watching Dutch commentary on snooker. All the peculiarly British turns of phrase that the Brit commentators use, the Dutch do too, and it's pretty funny.

[nazrynn.livejournal.com]

"two three" sounds like they have the count reversed, if it's 3 balls, 2 strikes.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

They present the count as strikes and balls rather than balls and strikes.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Silk :)

The food sounds good too!

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

How bad can something be that you get to make with a muckin' great mallet? lol!

Wait Wait!!!

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

WAIT WAIT!! Have you seen a game in the shops? It's plastic and involves a vase and some arrows? Some times it's called "tuho" in Korean or "toko" in Japanese.

If you see it would you buy it for me and I'll reimburse you?

I can buy it on line but the site is entirely in Korean and I can't figure out how to place an order or if they would even ship to the US.

Re: Wait Wait!!!

[herveus.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can find that for you. I haven't noticed it, but I haven't been looking for it.

Re: Wait Wait!!!

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

It's a medieval game of skill that I'd like to start to bring to events and until I can get a better vase the plastic set will do. Apparently it's still a popular game today.

Re: Wait Wait!!!

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

Here is the website I have with a photo-

http://www.okmungu.com/shop/ProductView.html?num=18581&Acode=32&Bcode=547&Ccode=&page=1

Re: Wait Wait!!!

[herveus.livejournal.com]

so far, no joy. It occurs to me that you might be able to fashion something from materials at hand. You need a vase-like thing with an opening of something like three or four inches and a handful of straight sticks (such as dowels). A piece of four inch PVC pipe with a base could suffice as a crude approximation. Given the price at that web site, you are looking at somewhere on the far side of $40 for the product.

I'm still keeping my eyes open.

Re: Wait Wait!!!

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That's the cost I estimated with an on line currancy converter.

I saw the period game at the Asian Games exhibit in DC a couple of years back and have wanted one badly ever since. The arrows can be procured elsewear but the pot shape with the side rings is the key part.

Re: Wait Wait!!!

[martelvonc.livejournal.com]

Through much clicking I figured out how to email the company. Hopefully someone at the other end might be able to read english. We'll see.