Quarter century...

Are people really like vintage wine? And, if so, is a quarter century a good year? Time shall tell. Birthdays overseas are weird. My kids in one class made me a booklet/card for my bday (prompted by my Korean partner teacher of course) and gave me a bar of soap (Korean parents give us beauty supplies for every occasion). The teachers on the fourth floor got me a cake which was nice. But still, it hasn't really felt like my bday. And the overwhelming feeling that I've gotten for the past 4, 5 years at least is that birthdays suck.

I did go for a small, impromptu dinner with some people that I work with. We went for Shabu Shabu which is my favourite meal in Korea. They bring a pot of boiling broth to your table and put it on a burner. Then you cook mushrooms and greens in the broth and add paper thin beef. You eat all this goodness and then put udon noodles into the broth. Then when that is done they dump the contents of the pot into a bowl for you to continue to eat and take the pot into the kitchen and fry rice (bokum bap as it is known here) in a ladle full of the broth. It's delic. They also give you various pastes and soy and wasabi for dipping. It's brilliant and only costs about $10 (which is expensive for Korea but still relatively inexpensive). If you can find Shabu Shabu I recommend you try it. Rather, I demand that you try it ASAP. I'll post some more pics once I get them offa my camera which is broken aGaIn). Thanks for the bday wishes. Maybe I'll be in Canada for it next year...