The End of Hell, er, Summer

Well now, I must apologise for yet again not having posted anything in many weeks. It is not, I assure you, due to my untimely death or lack of activity (well, some lack of activity, but nothing abnormal.)

Summer is finally over and the temperature is now a comfortable 20 celsius every day. I'm told that fall lasts only one month, which makes it about the same length as our summer (and about the same temperature.) Summer was a living hell most of the time, it was just too damned hot, it was pretty much like a Toronto summer from what I gather. Hot, sticky and hot. Looking forward to a bunch of coolish weather between now and November when it gets cold.

This past week was the Chuseok (choo-suk) holiday. It's the Korean harvest festival (Thanksgiving.) Most people go to their hometown and elder sons must present an offering of food to their ancestors. This apparently is a hellish time to be a housewife in Korea because the wife must cook, clean and do everything not just for her husband but also for the rest of his family. Anyway, I just had a five day weekend, which was nice, but I also had a really horrible head-cold, which was not-so-nice. The kids I teach walking biological weapons but I imagine it's the same for anyone anywhere who works with children. So I spent 4 days lying around and drinking soup (and sometimes OJ, sometimes with a little vodka in it ;) ) so it wasn't a totally bad holiday. If I'd had to work in the state I was in I'd have felt ten times worse.

I havent been out of my neighbourhood in a few weeks and the whole cooped-up-with-a-cold thing made me stir crazy. So I sent a text message to my buddy Keith and his new girlfriend and dropped up to his neighbourhood for roast chicken. I also ordered a pot of dakdoritang (chicken pot stew.) Brilliant!! It's a chicken hacked into pieces and cooked in a big pot with hunks of root veggies and onion, like, well, stew, except that instead of gravy they use about 31 litres of Korean hot pepper sauce. I haven't been eating quite as much spicy food lately so this dish was an absolute scorcher but, as with most spicy dishes (almost all of them) in Korea, they manage to make it delicious enough to make you not care that your teeth are melting.

Anyway, I'll post again later. Time to teach my telephone students.