Haircut

aka re:Elizabeth

As you all know, Kimchi and I have been working our way through another "adventure," this time an eye infection and ensuing Elizabethan collar. On the plus side, Kimchi has done really well with the 6x daily sets of eye drops, actually jumping up and down getting excited for them (or the treat she knows she gets after). On the not-so-plus side, her eyes are not yet 100% according to the vet who labeled her situation as "medium-good," meaning I have ANOTHER week of playing work slash puppy ping pong. Grumble grumble...

In an effort to help the furball's eyes start feeling better faster, I decided a haircut might be in order...

*Shudder

Due to the language barrier and misunderstandings between the phrases "just take a little off" and "just leave a little on," Kimchi and I don't exactly have the best track record with haircuts. In fact, as anyone who saw Kimchi around the end of February, beginning of March can attest, she looked remarkably like a large rat. Poor thing! I generally tried to avoid taking pictures of her during this period to maintain her dignity, but this fine example somehow made it through...

See? Skinny and creepy. (And proof that we all have our "off" days.)

Determined not to make the same mistake of assuming I could charades my way through a puppy haircutting consultation, I came prepared this time with pictures of good hair (still furry), bad hair (shaved and rat-like) and a Korean note written ever-so-kindly by one of my coworkers stating  "Please don't shave all my hair. I will look scary and feel sad."

After a ten minute consultation I can only assume we both understood, I left Kim with the nice lady at E-mart...

Before: A little frumpy. Kind of like a teddy bear that likes biting your jeans as you are trying to put them on.

After: As my favorite coffee shop lady put it, she's no longer a "mung-mung," she's a 여자.

So much more summer-y! No more panting running around the house! What a happy puppy!

And I'm a happy mama too, I have a puppy with a bow. And no more Elizabethan collar. 아싸!

Cheers!
 - Christine -

Elizabeth

Leave it to me and Kimchi, as soon as we've gotten through one adventure, we waste no time getting ourselves into the next one.

Turns out the little wild one has an eye infection. Whomp whomp...

While we're not entirely sure what caused it, (air pollution, hair, dirt, little items she picks up from the ground, general fidgety craziness of a nine-month old puppy, need I go on?), the treatment is straightforward enough. Twice daily oral syringe medicines, and six-times daily eye drop sets. Yes, six. And sets, as in 3 separate drops each time. For two weeks. Poor puppy (and poor puppy mama)! So much for either of us getting any sleep this month.

Even better, she gets the pleasure of wearing this device the vet called in very broken Konglish an "Elizabethan collar," one of the last phrases I ever expected to ever hear uttered by a middle-aged Korean guy. After all, why would a Korean vet ever need to know a thing about a British monarch who ruled at a time when Koreans were preoccupied with more tangible matters, like, being invaded by the Japanese. It actually made me giggle for a minute...


... but only for a minute. Poor thing :(

Wish us luck!

Cheers!
- Christine -

Deportation

I would like to begin by giving you fair warning - this post is really just me venting about Korea. If you are not interested in reading about the (literally) second qualm I've had with Korea, you should maybe X out of this window now. Furthermore, if you are outright disgusted by the idea of having a video thrust upon you featuring, say, an eight-month old Yorkie puppy I happen to know (yes, a video this time!), then you should really, really consider getting away from this website now. Maybe even closing out your browser, turning off your computer, and running frantically with arms flailing into the nearest bit of nature, as far away from all technological devices as possible, just to be safe.

As I briefly mentioned last time, I'm having some difficulties with Kimchi versus Korea.

Flashback to Monday night. I came home from work to find a poorly translated note on my door from my building administrator. It said,

"Complaints came in on my dogs do not look. If you encounter this problem in the future will be deported."

Poorly translated, like I said. But scary. Deported? I started pacing around my apartment, wondering what exactly the note meant. Was Kimchi making too much noise? Was I being an inadequate Puppy Mama? Was this like the Korean-dog version of child services? And if so, where were they for this guy? I took Kimchi out for a long walk, determined to get her tired enough that she wouldn't start barking. I did so the next morning as well, to the point that she needed me to carry her the last stretch of the way. No barking out of that one, for sure.

At work, the next day, one of my Korean co-teachers pulled me aside to discuss the situation. Not only had my building administrator left the poorly-translated note on my door, but also called my supervisor to let him know that my dog was being obnoxious. I asked her what details she knew, since I had none, and she told me that Kimchi was apparently behaving really badly. The complaints stated that it sounded like not one, but many dogs along with giant parties coming from the apartment. She looked at me gravely, and warned me that I needed to be careful.

Many dogs? Giant parties? Really, me?

I had some doubts. Unlike many of the other Korean dog-owners I've met, I have put in quite a bit of effort to (gasp!) train my dog. If I say, "SIT," Kimchi sits. If I stop walking, Kimchi stops walking. I know it seems almost unfathomable here, but yes, I decided to train my $500+ puppy, and that has included teaching her not to bark.

In addition to taking her on twice-daily walks, I began checking on her multiple times during the day (no barking). I stopped leaving her alone at home if I could help it; if I was heading out to sit at a cafe with a mocha and learn Korean, then Kimchi sat too. If I was going out to get galbi with my coworkers, then Kimchi got galbi too. Even sitting on an open-air patio amidst loud music and drunk people staggering by our table, Kimchi didn't bark once. Despite my growing doubts that she was really the one causing all this ruckus, I started feeling paranoid making any kinds of noise in my apartment, for fear that they would complain again and deport her right then and there. For goodness sakes, I turned off Animal House halfway through because I was afraid someone would hear a "giant party" coming from my apartment. It has not been a fun week at all.

But here's the kicker. Friday night, I left my apartment to take Kimchi on our second long walk of the day, only to hear a party coming from the other end of the hall. Like door wide open, 6-8 loud Korean voices emanating from within, party. Awesome, Korea. If you want to complain about noisy neighbors that sound like they're having a party, maybe complain about the ones actually throwing a party. In a language I don't speak. That would be great.

Furthermore, Korea's not exactly a quiet place to live in to begin with. I live nine floors away from an elementary school that often has these "announcements" which are about as far from quiet as possible. I'm not exaggerating that they're really just a man screaming into a microphone for hours at a time. Sometimes it sounds quite militant, like he's rounding up the students to go march on the North, and other times it just sounds like jibberish. Even more jibberish than Korean already sounds to me. In short, they're super annoying and should really make anyone think twice before complaining about any other noise violation they could possibly have.

So here it is. Dear Korea, My puppy is not the obnoxious one.



At this point, I am almost that certain Kimchi's not to blame for these complaints, but at the risk of deportation, I may try to switch apartments in the next couple weeks to assuage the situation. Even though deportation would mean I save money on shipping her back to the US (kidding, kidding) this Puppy Mama's not about to let that happen. Wish me luck!

Cheers!
- Christine -

SSB (Part 2)

Happy Easter from the ROK!

As you know, today was Day 2 of my Surprise Spring Break adventure. I accomplished many things and went many places on Day 1, but ohmygosh was I exhausted! For Day 2, I decided to keep it simple and just take Kimchi for a walk in Seonyudo Park, in the Southwestern part of Seoul.

Seonyudo Park spans an entire island in the Han river. What's cool is that this island used to be a water treatment facility, and in a perfect example of urban renewal, the existing facilities have been transformed into a beautifully serene park in the middle of busy Seoul. The open water basins have been turned into water gardens. The walls and water towers are now carpeted with ivy. The main treatment building has been converted into an art gallery. And even a set of poles once used underwater are now beautifully teeming with foliage. Seonyudo Park is definitely a little bit inconvenient for those of us relying completely on public transportation, but it was just gorgeous! I would go back in a heartbeat!


The Furball, looking much furrier now :)






Before trying to jump into the water gardens...








A little bit chilly, but so lovely!

After Seonyudo Park, we headed over to the Yeoido area and had dinner with Zooms per our usual Sunday tradition. We went to a restaurant called "Chicken and Beer" and had, you guessed it, chicken and beer. Delicious. Perfect Easter dinner.

And of course, because it was Easter I HAD to decorate eggs. I didn't have dye at my disposal, however, so I had to get creative... Thank you Crayola!


Cheers!
- Christine -

Russian

This morning, I took Kimchi out for a walk before work per usual. Having accidentally pushed the snooze button one too many times, we were constrained for time and forced to take a brisk twenty-minute jaunt around the block rather than strolling and lollygagging around the park for hours, playing with every puppy we meet, like we usually do in this beautiful spring weather.

As we walked past a bus stop at around the halfway point of our walk, an oldish Korean guy saw Kimchi and bent down to pet her, still per usual. He started jabbering at me in Korean, to which I shrugged and muttered in my broken Konglish “Aniyo… ugh, Englishi?” (Translation: “No… ugh, try English?”). As in I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. This didn’t seem to deter him, however, and he kept right on yakking. Then he leaned in uncomfortably close, pointed at my face excitedly, and exclaimed “Ooooh Russian!”

Ooooh aniyo!

Big deal, you may be thinking. Some Korean guy thinks you’re Russian, that all white people look the same. (Which is ironic considering white people think all Asian people look the same, right?) Take it as a complement and get over it….

But here’s the thing about Russian women in Korea. Kind of like all Americans in Korea are either teachers or military, all Russian women are prostitutes. Obviously. (Or so says rampant stereotyping.) So in essence, by “Ooooh Russian!,” what this creepy Korean guy really meant was “Ooooh prostitute!”

Awesome. Thank you for that.

Trying to politely mediate the situation, I replied “Aniyo, Miguk.” (Translation: "No, American.”) As in your last comment was rude and this conversation is quickly becoming sketchy.

Apparently not one for taking a hint, however, he continued blabbering at me. “Ooooh face Russian! Good Russian style!”

Maybe this is just me, but if I were to describe my wardrobe of GAP cardigans and jeans in 3 words, prostitute would not be one of my top choices. Also not death metal, biker gang, or grunge. Just, no.

After suffering maybe 20 seconds of increasingly uncomfortable semi-conversing with the Korean guy, I snatched Kimchi away, bid him “Annyeong” and booked it out of there. This was certainly not my first encounter with an awkward Korean guy, nor was it my first time being accused of being Russian, but for whatever reason this particular conversation left me especially offended. Being mistaken for a prostitute just puts a little damper in your day, doesn’t it? Kind of makes me want to grab a vodka and a babushka.

Cheers!
- Christine -

Wrong

This past Saturday, like most other Saturdays, Kimchi and I spent a couple hours playing with other puppies in Jung Dong Park. Every Saturday around 2pm, this otherwise empty park turns into a veritable puppy cafe (minus the cafe part), with dogs, their owners, and whoever else happens to be in the park running crazy all over the place. It's great, and much easier than dragging Lil' Kim all the way into Seoul to socialize with other dogs.

Now dogs in Korea are, dare I say, quirky, for a couple of reasons. For one, most dogs in Korea are tiny. As I've explained before, most people in Korea live in apartments and don't have such things as space or yards for big dogs to run around in. Makes perfect sense. Solid reasons for sticking to Yorkies, Poodles, and Schnauzers.

Sometimes, however, Lil' Kim and I encounter a big dog and it's kind of awesome. After doing a double take to make sure I'm not imagining said big dog (I swear, they're really rare!!!), I'm one of the few people who will go up and play with them. Brave little Kimchi too. In contrast, a lot of people who have been living in the ROK for a while are used to just the 5 pound puppies and don't know how to react to the bigger guys and just back away...



Just look at this big guy. He was super sweet and friendly! Except that he drooled on me, which is not particularly friendly at all. (Taemu, the little guy under my feet liked him too)

So most dogs in Korea are small, check. Now for my second reason why dogs in Korea are quirky. Their owners think they are people. Not so much in how they treat them (although that certainly happens too), but more so in the clothes and makeup they wear. You read me right, makeup.



Look at the little white guy in the middle. Yes, the one wearing matching shoes AND blush. Only in Korea...

So wrong!

- Christine -

Puppy Cafe

In case you're feeling all gloomy about the situation in Japan, let me take just a few minutes to cheer you up.

Last weekend, Kimchi and I (and Mary and Zooms) went to the Puppy Cafe in Hongdae. This was our second time visiting, our first being a rather traumatic experience of meeting new people, new puppies, and dogs the size of small bears. For most of that first visit, my then-furry puppy hid behind me, afraid to venture out and meet anyone new (human or dog). This time, however, she did much better. And here are the pictures to prove it...


Dogs pretty much own the place. This guy was just sprawled out napping on the windowsill as happy as could be.


Oh yeah, this guy too.


Mary with her new puppy friend...


And I made friends with the "giraffe dog"... apparently a greyhound?


We named him Bubba. He really was just as crazy as this picture makes him look...


Kimchi made new friends too, mostly with this adorable little girl (Yes the hairless little thing in the middle is Kimchi...)


The cute couple at the next table made friends with lil Kim too :)


But I finally got her back


Zooms and her chocolate poodle, take 1


And take 2


And by the end, somehow Mary ended up with not one, but TWO puppies! Lucky...

In summary, puppy cafes are awesome. Now go hug a dog and feel better about your life.

Cheers!
-Christine -

Pet blogging

When I started this blog seven-ish months ago, I vowed I would try to never be one of those annoying bloggers who updates you on the little mundanities of life that would be interesting to literally no one. In particular, I promised myself that I would never be a pet blogger, polluting the internet to update you (aka. my readers who stumbled upon this little blog of mine accidentally by googling “Is Yeonpyeong south of the parallel?”) daily all about the darling little things my pet (along with every other pet in the world) does every day...

And then I got a ridiculously cute little puppy. Please forgive me this one time.



For starters, Kimchi is getting huge. I understand huge is a relative term here, seeing as she’s never going to weigh more than, say, five pounds (ever). But I promise you, she’s so much bigger than she was when I first got her almost two months ago. Don’t believe me?




See? Massive. I told you so.

Kimchi has become almost infamous in my classes. (I guess it makes sense, I did name my puppy after the national food of Korea… How many American puppies do you know named “Cheeseburger”?) And as such, my kids love to taunt me to no end, “Teacher, I like to eat Kimchi with kimchi,” every class thinking they’re more original than the last. Some have drawn me pictures of themselves eating my dog, used her as an essay topic (“If I were the most powerful person in the world, I would destroy Kim Jong Il, make there be no more school, and eat Christine Teacher’s dog Kimchi”) and found every excuse to talk about Teacher’s dog instead of, say, the topic we’re supposed to be covering that day. So this weekend, instead of letting my kids eat “Kimchi with kimchi,” I let Kimchi eat kimchi. Oh snap.

She loved it. I gave her just a tiny piece and she gobbled it up. Pretty damn adorable, really. (My kids loved it too!)

In addition, Kimchi is now the proud new owner of a puppy quilt! My mother, an avid quilter, completely surprised me by sending it (along with some much needed real chocolate). It’s literally one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen! The bone-shaped pattern combined with the bright puppy-like colors and the bone-shaped quilting in the black blocks is just perfect! In short, Kimchi is completely spoiled and has the most awesome puppy grandma ever!




Taste testing, her specialty…


And she loves it! I let her play on it for a while, and although her usual favorite place in the world is my lap, she really wanted nothing more than to roll around and mutilate tennis balls on her new puppy quilt. Freaking adorable.

In summary, my puppy is awesome and hilarious... And I’m starting to twitch from so much love and blatant pet blogging… Please forgive me!

Cheers!
- Christine -

Say aww

If you've had a rough day, THIS is the post for you.

This weekend I had the chance to spend lots of quality time with Kimchi. She got to meet lots of new people and play all weekend long. She loved it, and it broke my heart to leave her to go to work today...



















Gah I adore her! How can you look at her and not wiggle in your chair and smile!

In other Kimchi news, I took her to the vet yesterday for her first round of immunizations. Turns out Kimchi is only 2 1/2 months old! I'd guessed she was at least six months based on dental information I found online (how shocking that it was wrong, I suppose). In addition, the vet told me that it looked like Lil Kim has a case of the flu, so she couldn't give her her immunization shots. Instead, she put her in a glass box for fifteen minutes, pumping some kind of gas into the box... although there were air holes in the box, so I probably inhaled whatever it is they were giving her. Then she gave her a shot (which Kim did NOT like at all) and handed me a syringe and six packets of medicine and wished me luck.

Awesome. Not only am I still a fairly new pet mama, but now i'm trying to force a syringe of terrible tasting medicine (from Kim's reaction anyways) into my 2 1/2 month old puppy's mouth twice a day for the next three days. It's been so traumatic for both of us, her not wanting to take her medicine, and me not wanting to break my (literally) 1 1/2 pound dog. At this point we're three down, three to go, so wish us luck!

- Christine -

Eel, etc

I survived my first two days of being a puppy momma! Kimchi is getting used to my apartment, and I am getting used to having a baby puppy in my apartment. I have never felt so loved in my life, the way she waits for me at my front door, just wiggling on the floor in excitement to see me (because she’s too excited to even stand up, the little darling). It’s adorable, really. She likes to sit on my feet when I’m making dinner, she needs to play for AT LEAST a solid hour when I get home, and she likes to fall asleep snuggled up on my lap. What a little sweetheart!



But on to gushing about something besides my baby puppy, Korean food! (Although I suppose the two are kind of related… As my coworker Dave so keenly pointed out, “You know they eat Kimchi in Korea, right?”… thanks Dave…)

This past weekend provided a number of opportunities for sampling new and quintessentially Korean foods, which was fantastic! I would have to say Korean food is one of the most unique (and delicious!) cuisines I’ve ever tried. Flavors in Korean cooking are developed from the seemingly strangest places and are inherently meant to be strong. There’s no such thing as a bland dish in Korea - - How could there be when the basis of their culinary perspective comes from the combining of fermented foods, hot pepper paste, and seafood? Everything about Korean food is so foreign, but ohmygoodness, it is soooooo good!

Friday night, Alex convinced me to try one of his favorite Korean foods, eel. You read that right, I’m talking about eel like the slimy-looking electric thing, but without the electric part… truly one of those animals I never imagined myself eating (kind of like kangaroo, camel, and dingo, I guess…) until it was sitting in front of me (although not on a plate per se, since the concept of each person having their own separate plate is definitely not the Korean way, rather you share the communal excess of side dishes with everyone at your table, reaching your chopsticks across the table to get to the kimchi and bean paste for your galbi, with no individual plate to speak of).

But Korean side dishes are a post for another day. I’m talking about eel, and it was just delicious! It was surprisingly succulent and moist (sorry almasicr…), especially when paired with the eel sauce, red bean paste, and yellow radish (another Korean staple) laid out on the table. The eel was actually a little sweet, and definitely unlike any seafood I’ve ever tried before. The restaurant itself was cool too, it looked exactly like every other family-owned Korean restaurant, where the interior atmosphere matters nothing and your eating experience is based solely around the people sitting at your table and the food. What a shockingly foreign, yet brilliant idea! We could tell Westerners were a rarity in this particular restaurant, the servers going to lengths to explain exactly how to pair side dishes and even having the nerve to sneak forks (!?!?) onto out table unbeknownst to us. They were so friendly, though, and I can’t wait to go back there in the future!

Moral of the story, if you live in Korea, give me a call and let’s go get some eel! If you live elsewhere, fly to Korea immediately, and do the same.

Enough about eel. On to Sunday’s 참치 찌개(Chamchi Jjigae). Chamchi just means tuna, and Jjigae means boiling hot soup, literally put on the table boiling vigorously. It’s served with a bowl of 밥 (bap, rice) to eat with the soup to make it cool enough to eat, but a lot of Koreans eat it straight from its boiling hot state. (I, on the other hand, took literally a half hour to get through the bowl.) It was delicious, though. I’m pretty sure the flavoring in the soup comes straight from the kimchi in it… it’s a simple enough soup, basically just kimchi, water, and canned tuna, but somehow the Koreans know how to make it taste wonderful!



What a fantastic weekend for new Korean food, (even if it is bizarre and obnoxiously hot)! I'm going to miss it dearly back in the States!

- Christine -

Kimchi

As you all know, tensions are high between the two Koreas. The North claims the South provoked them by continuing military exercises, the South claims the North are a bunch of insane and unpredictable crazies. Meanwhile, the U.S. is currently sending an aircraft carrier to the region, and China is continuing to sit on it's ass doing nothing.

But on this particular day, I could care less about the situation going on between the two Koreas. I bought a puppy!



Meet Kimchi!

Admittedly, buying Kimchi was one of the more spontaneous decisions of my life (aside from, say, moving to Korea). I had no idea when I woke up yesterday morning that I would be a puppy momma by the end of the day, but I have no regrets about the new addition to my life.

Let me provide some background. Dogs in Korea are tiny. Really, really small. I suppose it only makes sense, given that the majority of the population lives in fairly small apartments, so why wouldn't they sell pets sized appropriately for the living situations, right? I can't tell you the number of dogs I've seen in purses, with little outfits, and my personal favorite, dyed fur (Poor things! Can you imagine a poodle with a purple tail? How humiliating!). While I'd had my phase in high school of thinking I wanted a tiny ankle-biter of a dog, maybe a Pappillon or Poodle, I later realized that I wanted a bigger dog, more along the lines of a Collie or Sheepdog. Thus, I spent the past four months glancing past the tiny Korean puppies I met, knowing that I would wait and rescue one from a shelter in the States like any responsible, sensitive, patient person would do...

And then I met Kimchi. I was walking through Emart with Alex just looking for a bottle of wine. As we walked past the pet store in the front of the store, we couldn't help but notice a particularly cute little baby puppy in the window, tearing apart a toy stuffed Pooh. Having time to kill and nothing better to do, we walked into the store and started playing with her. She was so excited to see us, jumping up and down in her cage wanting us to hold her. We even made a little game out of it, jumping together. She was just so unreasonably adorable! She looked like a Kimchi.

We made our rounds in the store, looking at all the calmer puppies and imagining them in my life, but we kept coming back to the feisty baby Kimchi in the window. I contemplated buying her right then and there, and then we translated the price tag, and I decided to pass. I liked her a lot, but maybe not that much. As she watched us start to talk quieter and edge towards the door, she got offended and quiet and walked to the furthest corner of her cage and started ripping apart a flower pillow twice the size of her. We walked out empty handed.

We continued downstairs to the wine department. As we roamed around the store, debating between the Syrah and Pinot Noir, we kept thinking about the baby Kimchi upstairs and the ridiculousness of me getting a puppy in Korea. What would I do when I was at work? How would I train her? How would I get her back to the States? So many questions! We decided on a Syrah and headed back to my apartment.

But when I walked in my front door, my whole apartment seemed so empty. I haven't decorated it much, and have assumed for the past four months that that emptiness came from my lack of posters and Christmas lights. But I realized then that it was empty because of my lack of Kimchi. A little puppy trying to jump up my stairs, waddling around under my coffee table. The thought was just too irresistible. Kimchi and I were meant to be. I went straight back to the pet store and bought her.

She's a sweetheart, still in the exploratory phase of her new life in my apartment. She can't get up my stairs, she can't get up on my coffee table, she can't even jump on my mattress lying on the floor in my upstairs loft. It was the easiest apartment puppy-proofing process in the world, I swiffered the floor and made sure the internet cable was propped up 10 inches off the floor (She's definitely a chewer, and I would rather she not accidentally electrocute herself in my absence). She's so excited to have space and someone to play with for the first time in her life. Kimchi is feisty and hilariously tiny, but perfect for me.

So there you go. I am now the proud mama of a baby Yorkie, who I guess you could call my first real Korean souvenir. Who knows, next week I might start buying couple's outfits and wearing a visor. We'll see... I'm pretty overwhelmed with this one part of Korean culture for now, so I might wait a while for the rest...

- Christine -

ps. Puppy advice would be GREATLY appreciated :)