Operation Chocolate Cake

In my six months living in Korea I’ve figured out how to take care of the basics: grocery shopping, dry cleaning, finding a gym, getting from one part of the city to the other. Other seemingly simple endeavors can become extremely complex, particularly if I’m anticipating that they'll be simple. A case in point is my pursuit of a home-baked chocolate cake, complete with chocolate icing. Jessica’s only birthday request this year was a big piece of fluffy, chocolate cake. You can find “chocolate cake” in Korea, but it never tastes the way you expect it to. Your mouth waters as you gaze at the slices just beyond a bakery's glass case, but once you fork over the exorbitant price and take the first bite, you realize it’s either too airy, not sweet enough, or possesses some other quality that leaves you thinking, “I just ate 200 calories for nothing.” So, the first task of my mission was to get my hands on a cake mix from the States. Thankfully, this hurricane was borne of an even stronger and more determined force: Paula Rhodes (a.k.a. Mom). Empathetic to the sweet tooth of strangers far and wide, Mom immediately jumped to the task and located a light-weight cake mix and corresponding icing mix and mailed them to Korea weeks ahead of Jessica's big day. That’s when I had to step up and see this plan through to completion, which meant finding a cake pan and candles (I figured out where to find eggs and butter sometime during week two in Korea). Who knew a cake pan would be so hard to come by? In fact, who knew no one in the wider Gwangmyeong City area even sells a standard 9x13 pan (or however that converts to centimeters). I started to wonder if the slices of cake I’ve seen sold in local bakeries and coffee houses were actually baked slice by slice.

My pursuit of a cake pan took the bulk of an evening and meant I didn’t have time to hit the gym. Of course, that didn’t really matter after I traversed Seoul and Gwangmyeong for hours looking for a pan that would suffice, my enthusiasm for the cake effort quickly diminishing. As I ambled up and down aisle after aisle, I realized that this effort taking me an entire evening in Korea would have been completed in a 20-minute trip to Wal-Mart in the States—and that’s only if I didn’t already have a plethora of pans waiting for me in my kitchen cupboard at home (which I would). Just when I was ready to kick of my high heels and continue the search in stocking feet, I finally found a little square pan, but it was only 20cm x 20cm. “Okay, Abby, roll with the punches. You can make two cakes with a smaller pan!” As I walked home, feeling equal parts defeated and relieved, I realized my lacking conversion skills, not to mention non-existent math prowess, would plague this entire effort. The cake mix from the States called for measurements in tablespoons and cups and my kitchen (far from Suzie Homemaker’s utopia) is devoid of any kind of measuring apparatus, let alone those of the American variety. The butter I found at my local grocery store (which cost me nearly $10) came in a huge block, not four convenient sticks like this lazy American is used to. Thankfully, the eggs came in typical form, otherwise I would have thrown up my arms in utter vexation. Saturday morning I approached my oven, ready to put an end to this fiasco and get this thing baked. The box says 350 degrees, but the dial on my oven only goes to 300 . . . oh yeah, Celcius. After booting up my computer and consulting a handy Internet converter, I was able to overcome obstacle number 5,000 in this mission. So I mixed up the batter, throwing arbitrary amounts of water and butter into the fray, baked the cake at a temperature somewhere between 100 and 250 degrees Celcius, and ended up with two decent-looking 20cm x 20cm squares of chocolately goodness. The 200 . . . or 500 . . . calories this cake will add to my hips will not be regretted!

Abby Off-air

By popular demand (heh heh) I've created a blog specifically for KBS "fans". My bosses at KBS World have been suggesting for months that our Internet team place a link to "Hurricane Abby Hits Seoul" on the KBS website. Since I consider this space a place to write candidly about all my experiences, positive or otherwise, I elected instead to create an additional blog for KBS purproses. Check out the updated KBS World website! (Hint: look to the right)

http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/

Saengil Chukhahaeyo, Jessica!

That's, "Happy birthday, Jessica!" We went out for BBQ last night to celebrate. That's a big pile of Korea's most famous side dish, kimchi, on the far left. I prefer it cooked on a grill like this as opposed to cold, the way it's usually served. Kimchi, which is fermented cabbage spiced with red pepper, is served with nearly every meal. It has taken Jessica six months to finally hand over the tongs and shears to yours truly.

Wilmie, Jessica, and me before our BBQ feast.

Happy Easter!

Mr. Chae and Sophia had no idea what they were getting into when they decided to hire me.

When I entered KBS on Friday morning, a group of employees holding huge Easter baskets were handing out these hard-boiled eggs and little packets of salt and saying, "Hoppy East-ah!"

Just life

Next week will mark my six month "anniversary" in Korea. At times I can't believe it's already been half a year, but then I think back to my perceptions of the country when I first arrived, how much I didn't know, all the things I've learned in six months and it seems like an eternity since I stepped off the plane at Incheon International Airport. For the first several months every day brought a new adventure, an interesting discovery, or an awkward moment. While I'm sure I'll never cease to experience awkward moments in a place where I don't speak the official language and am still working to grasp the intricacies of the culture, I continue to consider such episodes the highlights of my week. Loyal readers will remember my befuddling moment in a taxi a few weeks ago when I realized the driver was relieving himself in the front seat. That story has served me well over cups of coffee and glasses of wine with many a friend and I actually feel privileged to have the tale in my personal repertoire. After I described the incident to my friend and co-worker, Matt, who is currently writing a book about his experiences in Korea, he said, "I need that stuff for my book! Why is your life perfect?!"

About three weeks ago I realized I was at a turning point in my Korean adventure. A noticeable side effect of this developing change is the lower frequency of posts to this blog. I experienced my epiphany as I was heading home from work after what had been a busy day in radio world. I was half way home on the same bus I take every evening around 6:00. I was flipping through a Time Magazine, catching up on the latest in the charade of American politics, but my mind was wandering to my plan to workout when I got home, maybe cook some chicken breasts after that, and the fact that I should soon mail my next car payment to the U.S. I wasn't paying attention to the bus radio blaring the boisterous ramblings of Korean DJs. I wasn't staring wide-eyed at all the bright lights and signboards with their humorous Konglish creations. Even the funky smell on the bus--the origin of which could be anything ranging from kimchi breath, to body odor, to an unidentifiable city stench--was flying under the radar of my normally overactive olfactory function. It was at this moment that I realized this isn't really an adventure anymore. It's just my life. It's not a strange place where simple jaunts to the grocery store are exhausting cultural exchanges that transcend language barriers. At KBS, I take initiative and do my job just like I would in the States; just another colleague, no longer a novelty with blue eyes and a journalism degree. When the work day is over, I socialize with friends or go home to exercise, cook, clean, or watch movies.

So, as the bus PA system announced the next stop in Korean, I didn't wait to hear the English translation chime in afterwards. These days, of all the things that occur to me in every 24-hour period, more of them seem "normal" than seem different, weird, or confusing. So, maybe Seoul hasn't quite recovered from the onslaught of Hurricane Abby--maybe it never will--but I've certainly adapted well to my home away from home.

A Yellow Spring

Surgical masks seem to be a mainstay of Korean fashion, a trend I noticed immediately upon arriving in Seoul. The accessory transcends seasons as well as generations, with Koreans young and old sporting masks as they go about a myriad of daily activities. Okay, perhaps the pursuit of fashion doesn't really enter the equation, but regardless of their mission, many Koreans strap on white masks whenever they step outdoors. I expected to see an exodus of masks after cold season had subsided, but on the contrary, I've been seeing more of them in recent weeks. And not only has the sheer number of sightings increased, but so has the variety of colors, fabrics, and styles. The other noticeable change around Seoul these days is the air; it's become hazier, and some days it's so thick you consider chewing before taking it into your lungs. The culprit is yellow dust (a.k.a. Asian dust) which journeys from the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia and Kazakhstan to eastern Asia every spring via surface winds. Seoul has been spared the three significant sand storms so far this year, but is likely to see a powdering of the yellow stuff before spring fades into summer.

The shot above comes from the Grace Travel webiste; a warning to tourists . . . spring might not be the best time to visit Korea. It looks ominous, and it should. Increasing industrial pollutants (thanks, China) have turned the merely irritating meteorological phenomenon into a very dangerous health concern, hence the surgical masks.

I stole this satellite image from the KBS website. You can clearly see the yellow dust making its way across eastern Asia. In extreme cases, air quality on the west coat of the United States can be affected by yellow dust.

It's good to be a Korean kid

As Sophia and I were going over the day's shows this morning, a woman I didn't recognize approached and laid two brightly-wrapped, rectangular boxes on our desk. She said something to Sophia in Korean, Sophia smiled and replied, then the woman continued to pass out more boxes around the office. My typical modus operandi when someone hands me a gift and/or money is to take it, no questions asked, but as with most things in Korea, I figured there was probably an interesting story behind this apple-green box on my desk. Sophia explained that the woman (who, apparently, I should have recognized) was distributing gifts of tteok (Korean rice cakes) in celebration of the 100th day of her son's life.


The son was nowhere to be found, but as I glanced down the length of our office, I spotted at least ten people either pulling apart pieces of sticky tteok or shoving it in by the mouthful. We're talking a lot of brightly-colored boxes, all in honor of someone who can't even roll over on his own. Now, for me to criticize this ritual would be somewhat akin to the pot calling the kettle black. Once I was old enough to realize that my birthday was, in fact, a day to honor me, I quickly moved the party venue from the dining room table of my home to a more spacious location where I could sit atop a pool table to open my presents while all my adoring fans watched from a decidedly lower level. (All of a sudden it's becoming clear to me why the audience for my birthday parties slowly dwindled over the years.) Later in the day I was researching for a show when I realized maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about demanding such undivided attention on my special day. I found the picture below on www.korea.net with the caption: The lucky baby boy delights in his first birthday party, known as "Dol" in Korea, at the Seoul Plaza Hotel, Sunday (Mar. 9).


During the Dol janchi ritual, the baby is urged to pick up one of the items on the table. Whichever item he or she chooses supposedly determines his or her fate. I'm still battling my decision to dive into my first year birthday cake with reckless abandon. I'm forever doomed to a propensity for overeating and utter disregard for the remains of my last meal on my cheek (the latter, however, is at least in part genetic--thanks, Grampa John).