out of Korea

After more than 2 years, we just left Korea last Saturday. Leaving was a little bit with mixed feelings as we left friends over there. But overall we were happy to leave. We will be facing some new experiences and challenges as we are about to move to Dallas Texas…

I still need to post the stories from our departure from Korea (so many). I will have to complete that on another time.

In the meantime, we start gathering many stories on the move to Dallas. We will be flying to Israel for about 4 weeks before we move out to Dallas, so enough time to see family and friends.

 

More to come soon… J

Oz.

My favourite chicken (Dak) restaurant in Korea

I like chicken. That is an indisputable fact. One of my favorite korean dishes is called Dakgabi. It is in fact a marinated pieces of chicken breast meat that are put on a low and wide frying pan. Usually comes with cabbage, onion and a few pieces of potato. You can add Ramyon (noodles), dogbaegi (small pieces of rice cakes), mushroom, etc. All is goes very good. Dakgabli is known to originate from ChunCheon town, therefore most Koreans will recommend you to go there and try the original receipes.
However, there is also a chain of restaurants called Chun Cheon Dagkalbi. There is one near Gangnam station that is open till very late.

Here's a picture of a common Dakgalbi dish:



Anyway, this is only one way to eat your chicken in Seoul. Another place we loved to go to is a grilled stuffed chicken. It is one of the best chickens I have ever had. They are using wood to fire the grill and the taste is so good, I can not stop eating.
They also have a Yang Nyom version which is extremely spicey - yammy :)

Here are the pictures of some good chicken places in Korea: (out of many!):
Grilled stuffed chicken - in Hannam Dong not far from Hannam station. The best!


Chun Cheon Dakgalbi restaurant - one in a chain. This specific one is found in Gumi not far from Samsung mobile factory and the Outback restaurant:


Oz.

Korenglish gems - continued ...

For those who started reading about Korenglish just now, you'd better start from the first post on the subject right here.

Here are a couple of more pictures I took here and there while hanging out in Seoul.

The first one was taken in the Lotte Mart (Seoul Station). If you look closer at the sign, you can learn there is a "beautyful store" on the first floor. Hmm, I wonder how this place looks like. I bet it looks nice...

The second picture is from a Kalbbi restaurant I just visited a few days ago as part of my farewell dinners with many friends and colleagues here in Korea. The place is very nice and with good food. These guys are very proud of the quality of their beef. You can see this from the picture. Naturally, I call this picture: "Cow of our pride..." :)

Less than 2 weeks left for us in Korea. I'll try to get more as such pictures are scattered around us every day...

Three weeks left exactly

Today we went to the best duck restaurant in Seoul (that I know so far). The restaurant is called "Mao" (after the famous Chinese leader). The place is very Chinese authentic style and is full with pictures of Mao himself. It is located in Apgujeong area on the south side of the river in Seoul (Kangnam). I had to reserve a table in advance since this place is mostly full with people. You can see by the cars that park outside that the people in this area are from higher classes. Anyway, don't worry about parking – there is valet parking service just outside the restaurant that costs only 2,000KRW.

 

The famous dish of this place is the Peking Duck. You can order 1 full duck or 1/2 duck. The duck itself comes crispy and well done. It comes with like tortilla pieces that you roll with a few vegetables…and voila – a very tasty dish.

 

After that we continued to our favorite ice cream place called "Cold Stone" – this is an American chain where you pick your flavor and add-ons. They take everything together and mix it up in front of you on a frozer stone, so the ice cream does not lose its texture. Overall, it has some very good tastes. The ice cream itself is very creamy and elastic. And overall, it is fun to see the Korean workers that prepare it signing to everyone that comes inside the store or in specific occasions (like when you have a free cone, etc).

 

Tomorrow's experience – we go to buy Korean furniture. Isn't that about time? It took us only 2 years to do that :-) …

More updates on tomorrow will come … tomorrow.

 

Oz.

The time has come

August-11^th – we have a booked flight tickets and we are leaving Korea for good.

We had some great moments but also very difficult ones. It has definitely been one of the most learning experience in our lives for both of us.

We came 2, we are leaving 2.5 – this is in itself something great.

 

Still, we have so many things that need to be arranged as part of the move, but the bottom line, we are moving to Dallas and expect to be there in September…

 

Shira & Oz.

Korenglish Gems

In the far east, it seems like there are many mistakes made in English due to poor translation of the local language to English or just funny mistakes that no one bothers to correct. Here is a first collection of pictures that I took myself using my (poor quality) camera on my mobile phone. This is just a small collection of the items one can see on a day-to-day basis. I'll post more in the future.

"Mobil Phoning Area" - this picture is on the fast KTX train in Korea. It is used to indicate that this you can talk on the phone in this area, between the train cars.


"Do not lean" - can also be found on the KTX to tell people not to lean over the door. This picture has additional meaning to me...


"You make sure clear..." - can be found in the COEX mall in the central food court. There is a local small Hamburger stand and this is their request that you clear your tray at the end of your lunch. Interesting way to express themselves, don't you think?


"Seefood" - just another gem among many that can be found on restaurants menus.


"The top of pride" - isn't that a nice slogan? :)

A fact about Koreans and their culture

It is a fact that Koreans find it quite rude to wipe your nose loudly. They often laugh about foreigners doing so, especially during the launch time (while eating some spicy food).

However, burping loudly or even farting is considered a natural thing and one can notice people on the streets and on subways doing this without notice….

We have pictures!

So here's a quick look at where we are - The first picture was taken on week #12. We could see both arms with fingers and both legs. That's already a good sign, isn't it? The 2 other pictures are from week 12. We could already see the fetus kicking and boxing. Apparently it is too small for Shira to feel anything for the moment.

This 3D technology is amazing...plus it is working in real-time!


Can you notice the face in the picture below? Can you tell if he/she looks like Shira or Oz??


Here's a healthy heart beat...phew...

Here we go...

Hey there!
Finally I got this blog up and running, with a new look and a new domain.
So I went into Google Apps and registered krakowskis.com. I found myself spending a long night over the weekend on setting up the website, email accounts, domain name, etc.

But now I find it quite nice and it is about time to post something on my new blog. I have a feeling it will worth it in the future... :-)

So, in case you were ( still) wondering...yes...we are pregnant! You (and us) will be able to follow up on the progress using this very nice ticker I found at baby-gaga.com. That's a really cool thing...
In any case, things are getting to normal so far. Shira, closer to the end of the 15th week, starts to feel better, so things look brighter now.

We set the goal to leave Korea in September and time is running quite fast.
Believe it or not, but there are still a few things yet left to do here before we leave behind our lives in Korea and move forward to a new destination.

We'll keep you posted...