Daeboreum
daeboreum is a national korean holiday. it is the first full moon of the year for the chinese lunar calendar. we celebrate it by doing some events like having a special breakfast and greeting people by saying some special words. we also eat some nuts which have a hard skin.. like walnut or chestnut.
later in the evening i went out with my nephews. they played with some cans with fire inside and then later we went for ice skating where i fell really hard and hurt my back a little. doh
Valentine’s Day 2006
Valentine's Day in Korea is a bit different than the North American tradition. on february 14th, women are supposed to give chocolate to the men. then on march 14th the men are supposed to return the favour and that day is called White Day. then on april 14th, the men who did not get anything on february 14th get together and eat jajangmyun and this day is called Black Day.
sikander sent me lots of stuff.. lucky me ^_^. take a look. maple syrup, trident gum, twisted straws, kinder bueno, ferrero roche, a very nice card, and a very nice teddy bear sitting in water which i have to hide from my niece otherwise she would steal it. there is a small wheel under the teddy bear heart water ball and if you turn it, it looks like this. best of all, i got Chicken Little sunglasses which i will definitely wear to work everyday.
thanks thanks for an early valentine's day gift. now sikander, according to korean tradition you have to send me something on march 14th. and guess what, you'll have to find a restaurant in canada that has jajangmyun. start looking ok? :):)
Die Hard Trilogy
as i mentioned earlier, last night dooh and i met at shekhar's house in barrhaven. we watched Underworld:Evolution (mainly because of kate beckinsale in a black skin tight leather suit... and vampires.. everyone like vampires!.. and also because there was nothing else worth watching) at the new Barrhaven theatre (small theatre but close for all the people living in barhaven). the movie was a sequel to Underworld and i had forgotten most of the first movie so couldn't really follow what was going on in this one. in any case, the vampire and werewolf fights were pretty fun to watch.
later we ordered pizza and went to the basement and started watching the Die Hard movies; Die Hard [1988], Die Hard 2 [1990], and Die Hard: With a vengeance [1995]. my personal favourite one is the second one. shekhar was really sleepy so we had to stop after watching the first two and decided to watch the third the next day... today. good times.
after finishing all three movies, we dropped dooh at home, and then i went to the bus station to take a Greyhound bus back home to mississauga. it was a fun weekend and hopefully i'll get to repeat it again. there are so many excellent movies that neither shekhar nor dooh have seen. i have much work to do to get these two up to date.
btw, here is dooh's writeup about the weekend.
Swiss embassy
all day today i spent chatting up on yahoo! and msn. in the afternoon i went for some grocery shopping at the nearby loblaws and took some more pictures of the apartment. i really like the old style elevator floor display. watch it turn! it reminds me of Nero Wolfe.
the swiss embassy is behind The Strathcona apartments. i wanted to go there and tell them "your country is beautiful!" but they would probably just escort me off the premises. the mountains in switzerland are so beautiful. toronto and ottawa are so flat. hull has some sort of mountains that we can see from ottawa but this part of canada has no majestic mountains at all :( i miss switzerland...
later today dooh and i are going to shekhar's house to watch a movie and do a Die Hard 1, 2, and 3 marathon. apparently shekhar hasn't watched all of them.. *shock and horror*
fire chicken
while sikander was having fun in ottawa with his ottawa number 1,2,3,4,5...., i went out with my friend sunny to have fire chicken at a restaurant. it is a very very spicy chicken dish. its name in korean is booldak but we call it fire chicken. the restaurant serves it with fish cakes so we can calm our tongue when eating the spicy chicken. it was delicious but oh my god, so very spicy. i had tears in my eyes and my face was all red. i don't think i will be having it again anytime soon. this person had the same experience when eating fire chicken. here is some more information but it is all in korean: 1 and 2
also, on the way to the restaurant, we saw a sign for a "Modern Toilet" and we went inside to see what a modern toilet is like. it wasn't so impressive at all. in fact, it was even a bit disappointing.
