Guam Village Cultural Tour

On Saturday we went on a free Korean cultural tour sponsored by the city of Daegu. We went to the southern part of the city up in the gorgeous mountains to a little traditional Korean farming village. Brian couldn't make it because he was on-call at his clinic, but several of his friends from work were there and we got to hang out with them. Above you can see Captain Dorema who the kids have adopted as their Haitian uncle. He's great. He comes over for dinner at least once a week and we introduced him to the thrills of UNO.

The kids first were introduced to cutting down rice in a rice patty. Here they are trying to get the grains of rice out of the stems--way harder than doing the same thing with wheat.

Next we went to pick apples in an apple orchard where they tie their trees up on wires very similarly to growing vines. The apples were phenomenal. We each got four apples to take home with us which was fantastic because then I didn't have to feed the kids for two days! (I wish!)

We then made traditional Korean rice patty cakes. The rice is ground into a fine flour and then mixed with water into a thick paste. You take the paste and make it into a circle, fill the circle with ground sesame seeds and sugar and then seal them closed like a pastry. Let me just say, they were far more fun to make than to eat. They steam them into a tasteless, slimy white patty that slides to the back of your throat triggering your gag reflex everytime you take a bite.

For lunch we had our first traditional Korean meal complete with sitting on mats, using chopsticks and dry heaving at the sight of petrified sardines with their eyeballs still in their heads. As you can see, they set out several dishes of several types of food including kimchi, pickled vegetables, honey coated peanuts, dried sardines, bean paste, garlic and jalepeno slices and a fish omelette. Then in the center of the tables are propane heated woks that cook in front of you with all kinds of strange mushrooms and beef. This is called bulgogi. It was actually really good. It is customary to take all of the different foods and wrap them in a lettuce leave and eat them like a lettuce wrap--only here they also use leaves from sesame seed bushes. Now that was a weird flavor!

Only Giselle wouldn't eat anything, the rest of us tried everything (okay, I refused to eat the dried fish). Sophia, who is my pickiest eater, had no intention of trying any of it until some Korean man sat down next to her and informed her that it was rude not to try everything. He then proceed to force feed her with his own chopsticks. She kept looking down the table at me with imploring, puppy dog eyes, "Please save me, Mommy!" But I couldn't for fear of insulting people. But she survived and I was really proud that she ate everything and didn't throw a fit at all. In fact, she decided she even liked a good share of the food afterall.

Our last project was to make homeade natural soap. The kids enjoyed this even though it was a little anticlimactic since all the kids did was mix melted soap with marigold leaves and dump it in a mold.

At the end of the day we were treated to an traditional Korean drum presentation. It was very cool and VERY loud. Every time they banged the gong, I could feel my brain reverberating inside my skull.

Diamond got up and danced. Since he didn't know traditional Korean dancing, he just broke into some sweet Michael Jackson moves and everyone started cheering and clapping. It was adorable and he was so proud of himself.

Finally, they had a traditional Korean wedding. I couldn't really understand most of what was going on, but I noticed there was a lot of bowing involved. Also, the bride keeps her face veiled the entire time until they are pronounced husband and wife. That stems from the tradition of arranged marriages where the bride and groom did not meet until their wedding day. I guess that they had too many men back out when an ugly bride walked out, so they decided to keep her veiled until it was too late and the man was stuck with her.