Emergency Preparedness

For my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), we all get different callings or assignments of things to do.  In Korea, I was Sunday School teacher for the basics class of our church for people just joining our religion.  Back in America, I got called to be an emergency preparedness specialist.  You learn new things with each assignment you get and here are some of the things I have been learning so far and links to different sites for preparedness!

1)  Our church has a website called Provident Living that has a lot of tools for becoming more self-reliant:

http://www.providentliving.org/?lang=eng

Summary:  It emphasizes seeking stable employment, developing a supply of food storage for emergencies (72 hour kit, then 3 month supply), and creating and living within a budget with savings for a rainy day.

Tips:  Here are some interesting things I found while looking around the site that might be of use to a poor college student:

a)  There's a set of financial calculators that might give you a basic idea of things like how long it will take to pay off student loans or get out of credit card debt.

http://providentliving.org/self-reliance/finances/financial-calculator?lang=eng

b) There is a guide to starting food storage (a starter kit of canned food items is about $27).  You can find the items that the church storehouse has on the order form.

https://www.lds.org/topics/food-storage?lang=eng

http://providentliving.org/self-reliance/food-storage/home-storage-center-order-form?lang=eng

c)  There are a lot of resources for job hunting and job development at:

https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/?lang=eng

2)  Here is the government's website

http://www.ready.gov/

Summary:

They suggest having an emergency plan with your family (Where you'll meet up, what you will take for food, having your prescriptions and copies of important documents etc.)  They have a quick checklist for an emergency kit:

http://www.ready.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/checklist_1.pdf

3)  For those with a little bit more cash on hand (and less time to spend) there are websites that will send you freeze dried or packaged long-term foods.  Here are a couple I have heard of:

http://www.thrivelife.com/foodstorage
http://www.wisefoodsupply.com/

Jeju Island Day 3

Day three was volcano day...because there was a volcano involved.  I went to walk a mountain trail around Geomunoreum.  Oreum are lava tubes that go under the and through the entire Jeju island.  The trail was a hike up and around a series of mountains and valleys between the mountains.

From the midway point there was a Korean tour guide who pointed out some things along the trail like caves used by occupational Japanese soldiers and the openings to some of the lava tubes.  The scenery was quite beautiful and verdant, the walk pleasant.  There were a couple of areas that had air vents that let out cold air from the volcano system as well as some lava bombs, or random chunks of lava that ended up all over the mountain from eruptions.

As a side note, almost every time I go hiking in Korea a random stranger offers me a cucumber to give me energy and keep me hydrated.  And rice cakes.  I came out from the trails near a green tea field and had to fumble my way around to find a way back to the place I was supposed to be.  I wouldn't say I was lost, but I certainly didn't know where I was.  I was only one taxi ride away from being found.

After that I met back up with my coworker and we went to an interesting hedge maze, Kimnyoung Maze.  This maze also featured a large number of cats.  Apparently, a Dr Fredric H. Dustin was a professor of hospitality and tourism and he retired to start his own attraction with things he liked (mazes and cats).  There was a specific feeding hour also for the cats, but we just missed it.  They just wandered around the maze or slept in various places (standard cat procedure).  The maze was somewhat confusing (the last twist was easy to miss).  When you got to the end there was a bell that you could ring to brag to your still lost friends or family members.  Rarely do I find someone so specifically living my dream (creating an outdoor paradise for cats).  Mine would have more scratching posts though.

We then explored a nearby lava tube open to the public.  It was much colder than the rest of the island (which was extremely hot and sunny the whole time I visited) which was a welcome relief.  It was about a 1 km long stretch of underground tube formed by flowing lava.  The rock formations were interesting.

Jeju Island Day 2

In the morning I stopped in a botanical garden on Jeju Island in the Jungmun resort district.  It was near the motel/pension I was staying at and the gardens were very pretty.  They had representative gardens for Italian, French, Japanese, Korean, and Jeju Native plants and such.  Below are the Japanese stone garden and Korean water garden.  There was also an indoor greenhouse and a tower to look down on all of the gardens.

I then went to lunch and some of the power grid conference before heading out to wander along the coast.  The coast was beautiful, and I walked several miles towards a temple and some other nearby attractions.

I walked to the Yakcheonsa Temple and it was really interesting.  It was a Buddhist temple that was also host to some anti-Japanese occupation groups or gatherings.  There was also a very dark cave shrine that I went in mostly to cool off...

There was also this section of funny little monk statues including this one with the cat in his hand!

Last, I went to a raw fish restaurant.  It was expensive, but a cool experience.  They bring you out various types of raw and cooked seafood.  The island is known for a seafood delicacy of abalone (which is actually a sea snail).  There were several dishes they brought out (like the slug) that were still alive.  I was not having that and tried and failed to eat the live slug (settling finally on just scooping it out of it's shell, letting it die and then eating it).  

They bring you the raw fish and then make a fresh stew of the rest of the fish parts that they bring you out at the end of the meal.  They also had a kind of special white kimchi which was more like a pickled ginger and really good. It was actually pretty great (aside from the things that were still living!) and I enjoyed the experience.  

Jeju Island Day 1

I got to go to Jeju Island for a work conference.  It's a really pretty tourist destination and used to be one of the main honeymooning spots in all of South Korea.  Now couples seem to go outside of the country more, but it still has a huge "couples" vibe to it.  I went with my coworker Choon and we walked to the conference center through a series of waterfalls and a beautiful bridge.

Just as a quick aside so that it's apparent that I did something work-related on this trip.  Here's a picture of a circuit recloser. These help reset faults on the power lines.  ...Now back to fun...

We went to another set of cliff sides formed by volcanic cooling I think?  The whole island was a volcano and was distinctly beautiful.  Most things that are so deadly are also beautiful (at least in spy movies).

Towards the night time, I went to the beach.  It was extremely cold water, but tolerable.  The sand had an interesting texture and color that were completely foreign to me.  The overcast day ensured that I didn't get burnt and it didn't rain the whole time I was at Jeju Island.

I finished the night off with some food (black pork belly). It was pretty good.

Pleased to Meat You, Hope You Guess My Name...

I neglected to mention food in a previous post and thought I would rectify that.  I went to see a high school friend (also in Seoul) in one of the Seoul suburbs and eat at a local meat bar.  It's the same style of grilling up your own meat in the center of the table, but you have a buffet of raw meat to select from.  It's more expensive, but they had pork, beef, and I think I even saw duck.  Meat and I are good friends after I long ago accepted a dare to be a vegetarian for six weeks.  I managed and even enjoyed a no meat diet, but eating meat again after that break felt like coming home...or something like that.

All I got left is my bones...

Well, summer is in Seoul, and that means that a number of my coworkers and friends are leaving for home or different things.  I went home for two weeks to see family and friends and take a break where I hadn't had that opportunity since around Thanksgiving of last year.  A lot of really great things happened while I was home!  It makes me regret signing a six month contract at Yonsei in Korean (harder to negotiate when you don't understand the exact terms of said contract).

My office mates and I went out to eat pork bone stew, gamjatang ( 감자탕) because one of our coworkers, Yizhuo from China was leaving.  My French/Moroccan  office mate, Erwan, left for home while I was gone. My fellow USC student, Patrick, will leave next week!  Koreans refer to gamjatang more as "drinking food" or what you eat when you're getting tipsy.  It's a pretty hardy stew and had a lot of pork bones (spine, rib, neck, etc), sesame or perrilla leaves, onions, pepper and spices, and rice cakes in a heavy broth.  I imagine it soothes hangovers quite well.  They cook the stew on your table.

You just kind of nibble on the bones and pick meat off with chop sticks and spoons.  Then you eat the stew and some ramen-type noodles you can cook in with it.

After that, even though we were mostly full, we went to get ice flakes or patbingsu (milk that is the consistency of snow with sweet red beans and rice cakes mixed in).  They're pretty delicious.  They have a lot of different variations on the dessert across Asia. 

Cats!

I got to go to a cat cafe my last weekend in Seoul!  It was in the big student district, Hongdae, between 3-10 colleges.  Many of you know that I enjoy cats.  They seem to enjoy me or at least enjoy the prospect of food which I might facilitate.  You really can never tell with cats, but I have always liked that even their best intentions seem to have a slightly evil tinge to them.  I went with a couple of friends (mostly cat appreciators).

You go to the cafe and pay a fee to get in and then get a "free" drink to help spend your time with the cats.  Some places also provide you with some food to give the cats to attract them to you.  I have enough cat magnetism (also known as loneliness) to attract them without such.  The tables had indented cupholders to keep cats from knocking over any liquids to the floor, as they are prone to do.  One cat did manage to forcefully tip a drink while I was there, so the system isn't exactly perfect.  I barely managed to sit down before getting a friendly (or evil) hop-on in my lap region.

They had cute little munchkin cats with tiny legs and all sorts of variety.  The workers would go around tormenting some of the cats with play toys, but most of the cats seemed very calm.  I made one friend in particular who repeatedly sought me out.

The set-up of the cafe was really a cat's paradise and had places to climb and high vantage points from which to pounce.  One cat was a particular climber and liked jumping from the shelves to a more human vantage point from which to survey his feline enemies.

This one got my vote for cutest due to its munchkin legs, but the one cat won the friendliest superlative for continually seeking me out wherever I did move.

It was a fun excursion and definitely worth a visit.

Ansan Mountain Trails (Backyard Hiking)

I ended up with no real plans for the Buddha's Birthday holiday, so I decided to go back to the nice park I found near my apartment.  I wanted to explore it more thoroughly and found out that it was a lot more extensive than I had previously thought.  It had hillside gardens and then led to several mountain trails.

The top of the trail had a smoke tower used to convey message throughout all of Seoul in the old days.  I could also see a good bit of the Seoul skyline from the highest point and even the Seodaemun-gu Prison I had been too previously in my stay.

This is where I would probably go in the event of a real zombie uprising.  Makeshift helicopter landing zone? Yes please.  I got lost coming back down and took a random trail down figuring I would just hop on a bus wherever I ended up to get home.  Actually, I ended up coming out right by my apartment.  It was great.

 Later, I met up with some friends to eat Korean-style fried chicken and then ice flakes (patbingsu, 팥빙수).  It's a really good summertime treat.  They give you a bowl of flaky shaved ice for a base and then put fruit, ice cream, sweet red beans, and other interesting toppings on.  You mix the bowl around and then eat.  Every restaurant seems to have a version of it (even places like McDonald's and random coffee shops), and it's delicious.