While I'm on the topic of growing things, here's a little community garden right near my apartment. I'm not sure whose it is, but I mostly see ajumas working there.

As noted yesterday, Koreans like to take care of their trees, especially if they're in a city. Here's another method they use: tree IVs. A fair amount of the trees on campus have these bottles in them, feeding them tasty tree food. You can also buy little bottles to put into house plants, etc. I guess you can buy "plant food" in America, but I've never seen a tree hooked up to an IV.
--If you look closely at the previous picture, you can see some of these bottles.

One of the first things I noticed when I came to Korea were the trees. But this wasn't due to the different varieties or any other typical botanical observations. No, it had to do more with the fact that most of the trees I saw in Busan were propped up, even adult ones. Recently I was told that in the traditional beliefs, the trees were seen as givers of life or something, so you had to take care of them. Apparently the practice of supporting them with bamboo or wood is a remnant of that belief.

This post is in honor of my dad. Last night a bunch of the foreign profs got together for dinner. We grilled a bunch of lamb chops using a Weber charcoal grill. We got plenty of stares from the neighbors. The lamb was 맛있다 (delicious).

In Korea they do dessert differently from America. For instance fruit is a common dessert, and you often won't eat more than a small amount of something sugary. Part of it is just differences in portion sizes, but it seems like there's just a different taste when it comes to sweet things (especially chocolate). Many times I think that Koreans don't have much of a sweet tooth, but then you encounter foods like "bbopgi" which is essentially caramelized sugar, coated with more sugar. I've heard it called "Grandfather candy" although I think that means it's traditional rather than putting it on the same level as Werthers. They mix baking soda and sugar together and heat it until it melts together. Once that's done, they flatten it and press shapes into the candy. You're supposed to try to break out the shape. If you do this on the street, apparently the vendor will give you another one, but it's pretty hard to do. These are two of my students (Evelyn and Naomi) cooking some up for an event the other day. For the record I broke out my shape perfectly.

Here's a typical (seriously, it's like they don't sell any other type) truck with eggs to sell. There are a few restaurants right by my apartment (one being directly underneath my room), so sometimes I see trucks selling vegetables or other things stopping nearby. They drive around the neighborhoods and apartment complexes, loudspeakers blaring what they have to offer. Right after I snapped this one, another truck passed with onions, garlic and various greens. The loudspeakers are great in principle when you have apartment buildings, but I'm not a fan when they wake me up early in the morning.

Woke up to this scene recently.