Saturday, March 10, 2012

 This week Roland and I went to the other side of Andong with our friend Sam.  
We went to see the longest wooden walking bridge in Korea, the Moonlight Bridge.
Here's some information about where the name came from and why it's significant.
 It was a wonderful day! The sun was warm and the air was cool and clean.
 Roland and I were so excited to be out and about.

  The pavilion  in the center, was huge and looked so old, even though it's not.
 Roland standing at the top to the stairs.  They were kind of a big step for me though.
I liked this picture, and I will perhaps take it again when it's less hazy. The pavilion arches frame the river, and downtown Andong is in the distance.
 It might be in another language, but graffiti around the world is pretty much the same.
 We were amazingly lucky to run into the architect of the bridge and his wife while we were visiting. She was so proud of her husband's work it was the first thing she told Sam.
 One of the traditional buildings used for period K dramas. We drove through the sets, but didn't stop because we had to get to work in the afternoon.
This is a map of the valley of Andong.
 These are the mascots, you see these two all over Andong, in paintings and statues and these where on light posts.
 This a stage house for KBS studios in Korea.
 This is the marina for traditional style boats for TV shows here.
Sam posing for a cellphone picture.
This is the lake that used to be the Moon Valley and Moon Shade village.
It was a really great day for both work and play.
 Friday we went out to lunch for Shabu Shabu. This one is Vietnamese style.
This broth is a beef bone broth, that we add our very thin cuts of beef to it, and some green vegetables. When the meat is cooked you take it out and place it into a rice paper wrap.
 Roland is showing you the rice paper after it has been dipped into a warm pink water bath to soften.
These bright colored vegetables were so great!

Roland shows you how to make your own shabu shabu wrap.
 Here's mine up close.
The Vietnamese style shabu shabu comes with 3 sauces and pineapple. One sauce is sweet one is hot and one is like a Vietnamese salsa.
 This is the soup with just the veggies in it. After all the meat has been eaten, you add noodles.
  
 These noodles are called Pho, and they take about 30 seconds to cook. It was super yummy!
After you eat all the noodles you add rice and other veggies and dried seaweed to the broth. I think we had a little too much broth, but it was still very tasty.
This is the destruction that we left in our wake.
 In other news. We went and saw another market in Andong with our friend Hanna. I would have loved to have had some pictures, but my camera battery died right as I was taking my first shot.
 I have been looking for some herb plants, since they are out in stores right now, but  I wasn't able to find any. At the market a man with a wonderful selection of plants had mint, and gave be a bargain of buy 2 for 5000 Kwn, which is close to about 5 bucks.
The little plant I bought finally couldn't fit in its little pot anymore so we also got some new garden things.  The covered thing is a homemade seed incubator. Inside are 2 different basil plants, rosemary and dill. I can't wait till they get roots and green parts! You can smell spring in the air, and I even got my first sunburn of the year. It was a really nice time.   
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