Woot, this looks good! I shall make some soon.

KOREAN BARBECUE BURGERS

Ingredients

1/2 cup chopped green onions
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 pounds ground sirloin
Cooking spray
6 (1 1/2-ounce) whole wheat hamburger buns, split
6 red leaf lettuce leaves
6 tablespoons thinly sliced radishes

Preparation
Prepare grill.

Combine first 8 ingredients. Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions, shaping each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty.

Place patties on a grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 6 minutes on each side or until a thermometer registers 160°. Remove from grill; let patties stand 5 minutes.

Place buns, cut sides down, on grill rack; grill 1 minute or until toasted. Place 1 patty on bottom half of each bun; top each serving with 1 lettuce leaf, 1 tablespoon radishes, and top half of bun.

Yield

6 servings (serving size: 1 burger)

Nutritional Information

CALORIES 343(38% from fat); FAT 14.4g (sat 4.7g,mono 5.7g,poly 2.3g); PROTEIN 26.7g; CHOLESTEROL 72mg; CALCIUM 72mg; SODIUM 534mg; FIBER 3.7g; IRON 3.8mg; CARBOHYDRATE 27.4g

Bruce Weinstein , Cooking Light, AUGUST 2007

http://news.google.co.kr/

Yikes, I have a long way to go but it’s my goal to be able to read them.

Thank god for Wikipedia.

Dubeolshik (???) is the most common Hangul keyboard layout in use in South Korea. Pressing the Ha/En(?/?) key once switches between Hangul as shown, and English.

In contrast to Chinese and Japanese, Korean is typed the same way as Western languages. There are two major kinds of keyboard layouts: dubeolsik and sebeolsik. Dubeolsik, based on the QWERTY keyboard, is more commonly used. While Korean consonants and vowels (jamo) are grouped together into syllabic grids when written, the script is essentially alphabetical, and therefore typing in Korean is quite simple for someone who understands the Korean alphabet Hangul. Each jamo is assigned to a single key. As the user types letters, the computer automatically groups them into syllabic characters. Given a sequence of jamo, there is only one unambiguous way letters can be validly grouped into syllables, so this grouping is done seamlessly by the computer, with the result that Korean can be typed in the same way as English or any other alphabetical language.

Great!

Does anyone know a plugin that will allow me to publish Korean characters? I was able to type in Korean but when I published it, it didn’t take in the characters. I’m learning Korean. Thanks in advance.

Perfect! I’ve found a great learning tool to learn Korean characters.

http://www.aeriagloris.com/LearnKorean/

Off I go.

Written sometime in 2002., “Back to the Future” was my fave childhood movie about a young guy who goes back in time with a flying car. The best chilldhood movie ever made.

When the 747 Boeing finally put its wheels on the ground, I made a sigh of relief and stretched out my legs, which hadn’t moved for more than four hours. The plane crawled as it looked for a gate to hug. Gazing through the window silently, I wondered if this was actually where my ticket stub said. It said “Incheon, Korea. Arrival time: 3:37 pm.” If so, I had traveled roughly 7,000 miles from the other half of the world, a 14 hour non-stop flight straight from the United States. The plane paused and I waited to see if it stopped for good. Indeed, it stopped and passengers began getting off the plane. I got up and reached for my North Face backpack in the overhead and stood impatiently as the line slowly made its way out of the plane. My hands began to sweat as I held my backpack and with almost every step, my heart started to beat faster, then into a pounding rhythm. I took a big breath and focused on where I was supposed to be going.

Any doubts of actually being in Korea were put aside when I saw the airport signs in Korean and couldn’t understand any of them. I followed a crowd of passengers as my guide to the baggage claims area and waited for my luggage to emerge. As I looked around the huge void and noticed that the airport wasn’t as crowded as many of the major U.S. airports were. I had expected a full traffic of people but here, only passengers were waiting to pick up their luggage.
(more…)

In Japan, a yen among women for `Seoulmate’

TOKYO — Thin and gorgeous in a slinky black dress and Mikimoto pearls, with a diamond Tiffany pendant, 26-year-old Kazumi Yoshimura already has looks, cash and accessories. There’s only one thing this single Japanese woman says she needs to find eternal bliss–a Korean man.

The Italians of Asia

Entertainment industry leaders in Seoul credit the phenomenon to good marketing coupled with an uncanny response throughout Asia to the expressive nature of the South Koreans–long dubbed the Italians of Asia. A hearty diet and two years of forced military duty, industry leaders and fans insist, have also made young South Korean men among the buffest in Asia. Most important, however, has been the South Korean entertainment industry’s perfection of the strong, silent type on screen–typically rich, kind men with coincidentally striking looks and a tendency to shower women with unconditional love.

Very interesting article!

This forum thread is amusing.

“I want a Korean boyfriend” from D-addicts forum

I’ve always thought that Korean males aren’t very desirable but it appears that I may be wrong.

Some excerpts from the thread:

I live in Korea and I happen to think the reason why Koreans are the most desired Asian males is simply because they tend to be the tallest well-known Asian. I’m not claiming that they are the tallest Asians, period; however, they ARE significantly taller than the majority of people I saw in Japan and Taiwan, and according to official statistics, they are a good deal taller than the average Vietnamese and Thai as well. Given the many different people in China, I’m sure that a few groups of them will be taller than Koreans, but the thing is that they are not well-known among Westernised Asian drama fans.

Korean men, unlike Japanese or South East Asian men (I think.. though admittedly, I don’t know much about South East Asia. Correct me if I’m wrong), also have to complete a mandatory military service lasting for over 2 years. During that time, their bodies achieve a level of fitness that is hard to find in any other Asian country I have visited and many stay fit well after their military service.

I actually met 2 German girls in Seoul who have completed half a year of Chinese language study in Beijing and have travelled extensively through China and Japan. They looked at me starry-eyed and said, “Korea is incredible. The country has Asian men with broad backs and shoulders!!”

I work as the assistant manager of a student housing apartment complex near a major university. We have A LOT of international students and quite a lot of them are Korean. I sit at my desk and get treated to eye candy all day long. I live on site and get a really good discount on my rent. Maybe I should get an I want a korean boyfriend t-shirt and start innocently wearing it at home but outside of work. See what happens? ^_^

It’s true that Korean males tend to have broad shoulders and jaws too. They also become muscular easily after a few weeks of weightlifting. Cool, I’m proud of my country but I’m still very much American inside. :-)

I hope I counted the week number right. Anyway, my parents came to visit me last weekend and had a wonderful time. My dad’s fallen in love with korean buffets but I worry about him ‘cuz his stomach is as big as it can be. Good thing my hometown doesn’t have a korean buffet. My mom’s wish got fullfilled. She got to see the pandas and the baby panda at the Washington National Zoo. My digital camera battery got dead so I rushed to get a disposable camera for my mom. My mom must have stared at the pandas for an hour, then turned around and gave me the look. “When are you gonna have a kid?” Then told my dad he shares the same roundness of a stomach with pandas. Haha. My parents.

The next highlight was the visit up the Washington Monument. Shit, it was blowing and raining hard out there and my dad had to buy a $10 dollars umbrella from a homeless black guy. The good thing about the rainy weather was that there weren’t many people lined up so we got into the monument fairly easy. It was our first time except for mom. The last time she visited, she used the stairs. Now it has an elevator. Guess what? there’s even a small store inside the top of the monument. Bet you didn’t know that. And it was an eerie feeling seeing my birthday etched all over the walls. “Feburary 22″ and I stood face to face with George Washington. “Hey, you and I share the same birthday. Think I can ever become the first Deaf president? Then he said, well sorry, you’re not qualified because you weren’t born in the land of United States.” Great, I can’t become the President.

Another big event was overlapping. It was the weekend of Rockfest where Gallaudet Univ. hosts competition between RIT students and Gally students. For more info on the Rockfest, I direct you to Denazzie’s xanga.. So, several friends were staying at our place and met my parents. I’m grateful to have deaf parents that can socialize with my deaf friends.

I got a new used car. Bought the car from my roommate, Andy. It’s a 1993 BMW 324i. Pretty nice ride. Needs some fixing—no power in the windows or sunroof. A/C belt is missing, which got worn out. Muffler needs to be replaced. I hope to get them fixed asap.

The visit of my parents went fast. If I listened to the statistics, that the average life expectancy is 77 years old, that means I’ve got only 20 years left with my parents. My mom’s over sixty years old now. My dad is at high risk of having heart attacks. He’s overweight and my grandfather had had two heart bypass surgeries and he wasn’t that overweight. Yet my dad is not doing anything about it; he’s a taurus—being stubborn. So that made me rethink about things and what’s important in life.

Our next trip: go on a cruise from Alaska to Hawaii in 2007. That’s gonna be fun. :-)

Looks like Barbie is going international as she begins to sport a Korean garb.

This is the first time in Barbie’s 45-year career that she will be getting the Korean treatment. Korean Barbie will be on exhibition in Seoul from Dec. 10 - Jan. 28 at the Seoul Arts Center to mark her 45th birthday. —kineda.com

First one is the earliest pic I have although my family has more earlier pictures like baek-il, which is a celebration for babies that turn 100 days old, but they wish to keep it. I’ll need to fly back and scan more pictures.

Second one was when I arrived in America and ofc, as any proud happy parent, took me to my first photography session.

Third and fourth were the day I officially became a U.S. citizen. Now, I heard there is a new law signed by ex-President Clinton that all children who got adopted automatically became US citizens, as if they were born in the US. No need to wait for seven years to become one. The man in black gown I stood behind, I believe, was Governer Thompson of Illinois.

Last pic - my high school graduation.

Here are some pics of my Korean family when I visited in 2001. Cool fact: my sister is deaf.

http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/06/02/korean_bloggers.html

What�s with us, the koreans, that are drawn to blogging? The article says there�s over 5 million korean blogs and one of the commenters think Xanga blog is at least 40% asians. Dammit, I am not fluent enough to be able to read korean blogs. Wonder what do they usually rave/rant on about? Also, this article said Korea has the highest penetration to the high-speed internet with more than 12 million subscribers out of 16 million population or 24.9 people out of every 100 have a broadband connection. That is a LOT.

I remember watching a korean movie about the teacher/student rival (the title name is �Lonely Rivals�). In that movie, one 5th grader brought her cellphone which has a camera inside and her teacher got into a bad mood and hand-slapped one classmate (common sight if you watch a lot of korean movies/dramas). You guess it, ofc, the teacher got videotaped by the cameraphone and that 5th grader went home and released it over the internet. Then, the movie got really interesting. So, that part showed me how tech-saavy their culture is and how young they are doing it. When I was in 5th grade, the only thing I carried was my batman lunch box and internet connection didn�t even exist. Boy, am I sounding like my dad, his I-didn�t-have-what-you-have-now lectures.

I don’t recall Korea being a tech powerhouse a while ago so it’s amazing to me to see how fast Korea is gaining in this trend and is starting to become more competitive with other nations like Japan. I wonder how long before people will stop associating Korea with cheap products like Kia or Hyundai and become into a brand quality like Sony or Honda.

It seems as if my mind has gotten out of hibernation and is itching to do something. A couple of days ago, I found myself joining the gym membership and worked out on two days. My body is sore especially my triceps but my stomach needs a lot of work, so I’m aiming to pull some good hard cardio workouts this week and try to lose a pound (from 166 lbs) and stay away from rice or carb foods. Now, I look at my own site and well, it’s getting a bit boring and stale, design-wise, so I find myself itching to redesign my website. I look at professional web designers’ sites and their designs are definitely kicking ass in quality. So that got my creativity juices going and I’ve got an idea of what I want my redesign to be. I remember the first goal I have before was just to get this website up and running because it was simply taking forever to be up cuz of my damn obsession with perfectionism. Now, I’ve taken myself well into the blog world and get an idea of how “information” is distributed, and how to make it more useful and presentable. So that’s where the focus will be on the next redesign—with the information more concise, purposeful and yet pleasing.

I tried something new today—I went to a Deaf Korean church in Wheaton, MD—-and I think that’s my first time attending church in 2005. I didn’t even know they have one around here till one girl told me about it. It was interesting to see some “FOBs” who knows only KSL, not ASL. I think there were about twenty people who were in attendance and the best part was the korean dinner that followed. Pork Gulogi, rice, curry vegetables, and no korean dishes can be completed without kimchi. Also, what’s impressive was that they had a full outdoor court basketball with two backboards that are made of fiberglass, not some cheap-ass plastic you would see on driveways. I didn’t even know Koreans are into basketball. We had a little pick-up game and one girl named Min-Hye definitely can play some basketball and she’s only 15 years old, never played on a school team. I told her she should. I had fun today and that’s what happens when you do something new. :-)

Oh yeah, my new sk2 has been finally shipped and I should get it soon this week. Can’t wait! (another reason for redesigning my website)

When the year turned 2005, someone asked me what’s my new year resolution. I thought about it and I realized that it’s nearly the same as every last year—get into a better shape, read more books, eat healthier foods, stay in touch with my parents more often, don’t go to bed too late, don’t oversleep, and so on. I realize they were not exactly very inspirational so I looked around other people’ blogs to see what they say about theirs. One actually read a book every week and blogged about it. Someone actually ran at least a mile everyday. Someone else wants to watch Oprah and Dr. Phil shows everyday. There were many good ideas but I’m not that ambitious or have no desire to do that kind of thing. Fast-forward to April 6th, 2005, I found my new year resolution and that’s to learn Korean language, Hangul. My textbook arrived yesterday, so I begin my self-education now.

After flipping through the textbook, I realize something. There is no way am I gonna learn this all by my own. To keep my motivation high, I need to find someone or a group to share it with, someone who can help guide me and recognize my mistakes. It is fruitless to learn a new language if you don’t have someone to chat. It’s like learning a new magic trick and you don’t have anyone to show to. Again, I go to the web and to my surprise, I found some good websites. korea.banoffeepie.com. Actually, their tagline is “Korean-related weblogs written in English.” Simple. This website is like a webring that contains the list of blogs that relate to Korea. I just submitted my blog there but it has to be approved first before it goes into the list. Next one I found was the meetup here in DC. I joined the group and hope to meet some of them!

Like being a teacher, I have to make a lesson plan. First week - memorize the 21 vowels and 19 consonants. Make index cards as flash cards. I feel so like a kid in elementary school!