On the way to Gangjin

August 6, 2010

Prince Motel

Gangjin, Korea

Dear Hanna,

Its 9PM and is still very hot and uncomfortably humid plus its been raining on and off all day. My stomach has not been about me today at all, matter of fact, by mid-day the amount of cabbage, onion, garlic and salt I have ingested has left me wanting to hurl big time. It was a very long bus ride down here, with the driver almost falling asleep at the wheel several times. We stopped at a few rest areas along the way beside the Pepsi and jelly beans, I ate some corn-cakes filled with a custard and drank a CHARCOAL brewed coffee. Yes, it tasted like really good ice coffee filtered through charcoal, not terrible, just terribly weird tasting. The corn cakes reminded me of the egg cakes you get in Mott Street in NYC.

Lunch consisted of rice, some type of hot pot (really bland) and a bunch of different fishes. My favorite, and surprisingly my stomach’s favorite too, was those little ones your mom always serves, you know the sweet, salty, crunchy sesame dried and fried anchovies with the shredded nori?

After lunch we headed to Mokpo, which is a seaside port town, We went to see the celadon exhibit at the maritime museum. The pots in the exhibit were ones unearthed from a ship wreck in Waldo. These were incredible works that have been restored to their original condition. Kim, my roommate from the first night, made a comment that I will take back to my students. “These are well made pots”. They say under the sea for 800 years, were recovered with barnacles all over them and restored to gallery quality. I found the working port interesting. There was a huge tidal plane. The building itself had a few fish ponds set up behind it, where the fisherman would take advantage of these tides and harvest fish when the tide was out. We arrived there just as the fisherman were calling it a day.

We then traveled about an hour to Gangjin where we met up with the exhibition people, checked into our motel, delivered our work, and headed out for dinner. I had this cold noodle dish called naeng- myeon and some shoju, which tasted like vodka with a touch of maple syrup added. My legs are not used to all this sitting on the floor. I am so tired that I could not muster up an appetite. We shopped for some fresh fruit after dinner. After returning to the motel I showered to get rid of the heat and grime from the day. I am hoping that I can sleep tonight so that I feel better tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. Our exhibit will be installed while we are off sight seeing. I think we are having abalone stew for breakfast and then headed to one of the last true open air markets in Korea.

Until then! Love you! xoxo