[travel] Downtown Daegu

Co-worker and I took a cab to downtown after work. It was BUSY. Lots of people out and lots of sellers- selling mostly underwear, shoes and fake Louis Vuitton bags. The narrow alleys were fun to walk through.



We bought a walnut creamcicle and walked around. I saw an advertisement for the new Indiana Jones movie.



There was no place to cross the street so we walked down to the subway station to cross to the other side. Only, the subway station was a mall. A MALL.



This mall (selling mostly underwear, shoes and fake Louis Vuitton bags) was 20 feet below the busy road above. It was clean, air conditioned and RIGHT BELOW the city above.

We made our way up and out on the other side of the street at a park:





Lots of young girls were waiting outside of a building- waiting for a celebrity to arrive I think.



Spidey, caught in an invisible awning, gets ready to web someone:



People are everywhere:



At supper, I tested out my camera's color-swap capabilities for a couple of the shots.

Just green:



Just kimchi red:



The complete meal:



When we left the restaurant it was night. We actually stayed up late enough to see night.



Now that I'm getting adjusted to the time change here, I don't look forward to having to do it all over again at home.

One last comment about the cab ride back to the hotel- It was amazing. Amazing in the same way that Russian Roulette is exhilarating when you don't lose. This young male cabbie had his ride pimped out with flashing lights and neon colors. He drove like EVERYBODY was in his way- honking, going around cars, between cars when I was sure there wasn't enough room. Co-worker was trying to look up the Korean word for "exciting" as I sat next to him saying, "Stop! You're missing it! He's making a u-turn in the middle of the road and cutting off the bus! You have to be seeing this!"

[travel] New experiences

After work, co-worker and I walked some of the side streets near our hotel:



We found a place that served beer and weird little snacks:



Then we found a small little place and I ordered bibimbap:



Some of these smaller eateries appear to be attached to where the people running the place live. As we were waiting at one of the four tables, a door next to the kitchen slid open and a sleepy girl came out and slipped on shoes to help her mother.

I pointed to "Where is the toilet?" written in Korean from my travel guide and the girl pointed through a side door and down a hallway. I wish I could have taken a picture of the toilet because it was unlike anything I have experienced. It was a porcelain oblong hole in the tile floor. It took a little finagling to figure out how to squat without peeing all over myself but I worked it out. I tugged the chain and it flushed. Easy.

I came back out and told my co-worker he had to check it out but he travels a lot all over the pacific and said he and already experienced peeing into a hole in the floor. He asked me, "Were you pointing the right way?" and I said, "Yeah, I could tell mid-way through that there is a definite right and wrong way to be pointing, but I was okay. I was doing it right." Whew.

[travel] Korea- Not for Vegetarians.

Some pictures from the bus ride back to the hotel after work:







There are lots of gardens along the river banks:



My co-worker and I went out to supper. The poor guy is a vegetarian and Korea is not a place for vegetarians. Every place we go, we hold out our tour books and point to "I am a vegetarian" written in Korean and every woman that runs the restaurant shakes her head and says, "No." Still, he's a good sport and we stay because there's always rice and all the vegetable side dishes. And I get all the meat.

This one place only served pork and only served it in two ways at that. I pointed at the picture that looked like bacon strips rather than the one that looked like suspicous kinds of spam. Here's what we got:



After it cooked for a while and she came to cut it up into bite-sized pieces with scissors:



And all the delicious sides:





I tell you what- this is the way to eat. It's cheap, it's tasty, it's good for you (well, maybe not the fatty bacon but all the garlic and veggies are).

[travel] Daegu, Korea

Ugh, I made it. After leaving Anchorage Thursday evening, I finally made it to Daegu, Korea Saturday evening. Now it's Sunday morning and I'm wondering where Friday and Saturday went.

My co-worker and I went for a walk through the city and down by the river. I snapped a few pictures:



There were lots of different kinds of birds in and around the river:







Here's lunch. I have no idea what I ordered, I just pointed at one of the three pictures posted on the wall.





One of the side dishes was whole cloves of garlic. I had four or five while eating and I'm regretting it hours later. I don't know if you can o.d. on garlic but I think I'm close. Who eats whole cloves of raw garlic anyway? When my co-worker and I left the restaurant, we passed a market and saw this:



Bunches of garlic for 6000 won (about six dollars) that would probably last me six months. It probably lasts someone here two weeks. Or less.

And a view of the street we were on.

[travel] Palmer, Alaska

After work on Tuesday, I drive 50 miles up to Palmer to visit the Musk Ox Farm. On the way up, I snapped a picture:



I stopped at one scenic point just before the farm. It was WINDY and there was a 500 foot drop down to the river flats. I didn't stay long because sand was blowing into my face.



At the farm, there is a museum to learn more about musk ox and the Oomingmak co-operative.



Here is a skeleton. The musk ox are surprisingly stocky. Full grown males only reach about 5-feet at their highest point.



The ox at the farm have the pointed tips of their horns clipped- for the safety of the farm workers and the other ox.



Feel the fibers. Swatches of qiviut, camel, yak, angora, wool, etc. Qiviut is by far the softest.



Outside, the tour began. I was the only one in the tour group so it was a nice one-on-one tour of the farm and the animals.



We went to see the females who had given birth this year and their babies. It was so cute to see the babies running around. Of course, I only got pictures of the babies hiding. They're the little brown lumps.



A nursing mother only gives 4 ounces of milk per day. FOUR OUNCES. And the babies gain something like a pound a day from it. Talk about rich and nutritious.



The males are kept in separate areas:







The ox get lots of toys to play with. I asked what the pole with tires are for. They are for the ox to head butt and ram into. Whee!



Here are adolescents with a pig in the background. That gigantic red ball is a PIG: Pipeline Inspection Gauge. I was told that it's used to clean the Alaskan pipeline. Whee!



All and all, it was a good learning experience. In the spring, the ox start to shed their soft, insulating lining (qiviut). The people at the farm herd the ox into a pen and comb the qiviut out. The guard hairs need to be removed from the fiber. It's cleaned and carded and sent to a cashmere mill in Connecticut to be spun into lace weight yarn. Then the yarn is portioned out and sent to the co-operatives women across Alaska to knit into goods. There are only two places running a domesticated Musk Ox operation- here at Palmer and at the Large Animal Research program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

[travel] Give a hoot about kiv-ee-oot

I walked from my hotel up to visit Oomingmak, a musk ox producers' co-operative, in downtown Anchorage last night. I bought the book Arctic Lace before my trip and I recommend it to learn nearly everything about qiviut (kiv-ee-oot), musk ox fiber, and the co-operative.

It was an interesting/informative visit to the shop. Everyone was super friendly and helpful but I couldn't afford to buy any of the headbands, hats or scarves (we're talking hundreds of dollars). I did buy raffle tickets to win a qiviut blanket (worth something like $10,000 dollars).









On the wall there were cute little animals made out of their own fiber:

[travel] Anchorage

A few pictures from my hotel room:







The weather has been decent so far. A little rainy in the morning, but clearing to partly cloudy. It's a little windy and cold, but not bad at all.

[knitting] Travel Knitting

Before leaving home for this trip, I had to decide what knitting projects to bring. After gathering everything together, I realized that it would take me six months to do it all. I wanted to bring small-ish projects and finally ended up with:



I started this Turkish Patterned Cap (From Charlene Schurch's Hat's On) a couple weeks ago and stopped at this point. The yarn is Northampton from Valley yarn (really nice!). I need to finish the color-work and knit a black liner. This hat will be WARM.

I cast on for three toe-up socks at home:



This purpley yarn is Plymouth Happy Feet. I am using a 4-stitch pattern from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks for the top of the foot and around the leg.



This green yarn is OnLine Supersocke 100. Not sure what kind of pattern I will do for the foot and leg.

Started the following at home and made it this far knitting on a bus to Boston, waiting at the airport, on a plane to Denver, waiting at the airport and on a plane to Anchorage.



The color changes kept the simple stockinette stitching interesting but I'm not sure I dig the colors. Anyway, this is my first toe-up, short-row heel sock. The heel needs a little tweaking for the next pairs I make but I tried it on and it fits.

And I started a lace scarf using the pattern from the Kimono Shawl in Folk Shawls. To make it scarf-sized, I am doing seven pattern repeats instead of ten. The yarn is Alpaca With a Twist Fino.



I hope I can finish it all (Bah HAHHAhh HHAH hAHHHA!) by the time I return home.