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See a country on the other side of the world. Live in a country off the beaten tourist track. Taste the vibrant culture. Hike an endless supply of mountains. Chant with monks in hidden mountain temples. Swim at secluded island beaches. Picnic along bright green rice paddies. |
Make a difference in a child’s life. Or a teen’s. Or an adult’s. Save money to pay off debt, start a savings account, or spend like crazy while traveling around Asia. With a monthly salary of 2 million won and no rent, it’s easy to save between $500 and $1,000 per month. |
Make the most of your adventure. Meet new like-minded friends. Speak with the locals. Taste the kimchi. Travel every weekend. Live it up. Come on! We dare you! |
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Damyang Marathon
11/08/2011 06:28 PM
I love running in Korea. I love training in the mountains and taking part in the weekend races. I have yet to find a community in Korea where Koreans so fully embrace foreigners as I have found in the running community. They are warm, encouraging and just downright fun and welcoming.
Here is a little video from our weekend run in Damyang. Last year, Lindsay did the 5K while pregnant with Finn. This year she carried him across the finish line after finishing a brutal half-marathon. It was incredible.
Good Luck Awesome Truck!!!
11/01/2011 07:38 PM
I wrote this for Lindsay's Say Kimchi Newsletter, but I also wanted to share it here. These are 3 good guys that make a mean taco. If you are ever in Gwangju find them. I also highly recommend trying out a food truck nearby you, wherever that might be.
While I was home this summer I discovered the joys of the food truck. These days in the United States, chefs are taking their gourmet skills to the streets in renovated FedEx and bread trucks. You are to check Twitter or Facebook for their location. One can find curry, burgers, crepes, ice cream among other more exotic cuisine on these trucks.
Just months after I got back to Korea, I happily discovered the Awesome Truck on Facebook serving the food truck holy grail: the Korean taco! A Korean taco uses chicken, pork, beef and/or tofu marinated in those wonderful Korean marinades. Imagine the taste of galbi, chicken galbi or bulgolgi mixed with cilantro, cabbage (sometimes kimchi), red onions and cucumber in a tortilla! It is a culinary delight.
For a while their locations were too far away for me. Sangmu, Gwangju Women’s Hospital, Chonnam. My whereabouts never seemed to match up with theirs. But as I sat in a local ex-pat bar one Saturday night, word that the Awesome Truck was just blocks away swept through like wildfire. I quickly made my way toward their location in front of Grand Hotel.
Run by friends Hanul Cho, Kwang-Ho Jang and Jun Hyuk Yang, the Awesome Truck runs like a well-oiled machine. Kwang-Ho usually stands out front spreading the word and taking orders while Hanul and Jun Hyuk work tirelessly within the truck making their delicious tacos and quesadillas. Hanul spent a while in Guatemala learning Spanish and trying the local cuisine. About a year and a half ago a friend of his got him thinking about opening a Korean taco truck in Gwangju. “We wanted to provide Korea with a different cuisine than what they’re used to,” Hanul said about starting the Awesome Truck, “by providing them with authentic cuisine from Latin American countries with a little flair.”
Hanul went to work obtaining a truck and his equipment while honing his skills working at Outback Steakhouse. About a month ago, the three got the griddle fired up, the engine running and the tweets tweeting.
Within 10 minutes my friends and I were eating our tacos. The Awesome Truck offers chicken galbi or bulgolgi beef. The meat has a subtle taste but goes well with the cheese, cabbage and pink Korean salsa that gives their tacos a nice kick. The quesadillas consist of cheese and your choice of meat topped with the Korean salsa. They do justice to the Latin-America-meets-Korea cuisine.
Follow Awesome Truck on Twitter and Facebook and expect to find them between 12 to 2pm for lunch and 5 to 11pm for dinner. Be on the lookout for their new menu items: a burrito, burritos bowl, the awesome hotdog and chicken tomato soup. Awesome Truck does not disappoint.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/awesometruck
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/289197304425011/
Running the trails of Korea
10/27/2011 08:19 AM
I thought running in South Korea would be terrible. I envisioned crowded sidewalks and lots of pollution. I even thought I'd have to give up my passion to live here. I was so wrong. South Korea is full of great places to run. Through rice fields, gravel paths around reservoirs and the trails. Oh, the trails. Up and down and around every mountain in the country, trails are ubiquitous. Sometimes they are full of geared-out hikers, but if you catch them at the right time (say before 6AM) and in the right season(winter keeps most Koreans inside) you can have the trails all to yourself. From about March to December you can run a well-organized race every weekend. Korea is somewhat of a running country. You might even take up the sport if you move here. Here's a brief running video of my last outing. A 5 hour run up and down Mudeung Mountain in Gwangju. Enjoy!
Finn, the Foreign Baby
09/22/2011 07:34 PM
Our son Finn is one of the most unique citizens of Gwangju. A blonde hair, blue eyed, 9-month old baby isn't unlike seeing a unicorn trotting down your town's Main Street. He gets treated like a celebrity by the women in our neighborhood and he is much more Sean Penn about it than, say, Charlie Sheen. He'll stare at the beaming face of the old woman talking to him in Korean and lean more toward crying and less toward smiling. I love showing him off, but he is definitely a reluctant celebrity.
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