Comments Posted By Kevin Kim
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Short pants and tall grass make for a dangerous combination when it comes to bugs, no? The PI doesn’t have any chiggers or other skin-diggers that make life miserable when you’re fighting your way through tall grass?
Sorry about the shitty trail. Better luck next time!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 16/July/2019 @ 9:15 pm
$8 for the appetizer but $4 for the main? Intellesting. It’s one of those ironies that seafood is so expensive in an island nation—just as it’s ironically expensive in a peninsular nation like South Korea.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 15/July/2019 @ 6:05 pm
Rule #1 of stovetop cooking: NEVER WALK AWAY FROM A POT OR PAN ON THE RANGE.
I was going to suggest using your oven if it has a timer, then I remembered that there was a power outage. If you have kindling around the house, plus some decent cast-iron pots, you can create a “bain marie” (or double boiler) over a fire to slow-cook your meatballs. Or just use your grill instead of a campfire. (Is it a gas or charcoal grill? I forget.)
You might also consider investing in two or three small, portable gas ranges—the kind that use little cans of gas, like the ones I use here in Korea. The ranges are usually cheap; the butane cans are super-cheap, even in Korea.
Frozen, pre-made meatballs can be heated through (medium to med-high heat) on a frying pan in a matter of minutes; heat ’em through that way, or dump in sauce and heat everything through (that takes a bit longer). Just don’t ever walk away.
You can kind-of walk away when you’re boiling water or salted water, but water with pasta in it needs to be stirred every few minutes to keep the pasta from sticking to itself or to the bottom of the pot. Pasta water is also starchy, so another reason not to walk away is that, if starchy water boils over, the spilled water will evaporate, leaving the dried starch to burn on your trivet, or on whichever part of your stove is close to the flame.
Get good with fire by practicing hiking plus cooking on the trail. You can learn a lot of the commonsense stuff by yourself, without reading a book, because Mother Nature will teach you instantaneously should you make a mistake out in the woods. Ingredients for a good fire will be (1) tinder, like cotton balls, newspaper, dead pine needles, or super-thin wood shavings; (2) kindling, like thin twigs; and (3) actual fuel in the form of thick branches, split logs, etc. Creeksides will often have plenty of stones, and maybe some bare ground, on which to build a small fire pit. I did this a lot when I lived in Switzerland, and it’s a skill I’m glad I now possess. One thing you learn quickly is that wind is your enemy when you’re first starting a fire, but moderate wind is your friend once the fire is lit. Light your fires either with a lighter or with some flint and steel. This should be obvious, but don’t try cooking with fire during high winds, especially if there’s a lot of dry deadfall on the ground.
Go practice darts.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 14/July/2019 @ 11:07 pm
Community is where you find it. Glad you’ve got your niche.
Let me say, too, that I loved that picture of Lucky resting on your foot. That is one blissed-out dog. Who took that pic? Maya? Did she also take the shirt-lifting pic and one or two other photos of your drunken self?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 13/July/2019 @ 5:03 pm
Very interesting insights! Maybe one day, the law with catch up with local attitudes. Funny to hear “Catholic” and “conservative” uttered in the same sentence, given how flamingly liberal most American/Western Catholics are.
And I’m definitely stealing that Harry Potter meme.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 12/July/2019 @ 6:09 pm
“We are not cotton candy to get melted”
I had to turn off that video’s audio because the music soundtrack was obnoxiously loud and the voice track was inaudible as a result. But the visuals in the video were nice.
Congrats on winning at darts. Am curious to read your cultural spiel.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 11/July/2019 @ 7:48 pm
I meant kilos of Jell-O gelatin, of course.
Great landscape panoramas, as always, by the way (said he, hoping to deflect to a different topic).
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/July/2019 @ 4:51 pm
“Nothing real exciting, just taking care of some business in San Fernando, Pampanga.”
Why so coy and shady? How many kilos are we talking, here?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 10/July/2019 @ 2:41 pm
Good luck with the Hash!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 08/July/2019 @ 4:36 pm
For #12, I thought India would take first prize. All I’ve ever heard about from Koreans, Americans, and Europeans who’ve been to India is the huge beggar population.
For #14, I’d have thought China would take the cake. Then again, China recently said it would stop accepting trash from certain countries, like the US (if I’m not mistaken).
Where did #11 go?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 07/July/2019 @ 9:57 pm
Any thoughts on buying a machete to hack out a path?
And a happy anniversary to Buddy! At the risk of getting confused about which pet is which, I’d say that Buddy is truly lucky.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 05/July/2019 @ 7:32 pm
Meal looks awesome. If those ribs are any indication, you’re becoming a regular pitmaster. Ever thought about smoking a huge hunk of brisket for 8-14 hours? You probably wouldn’t be able to go walking on that day, but it’d be worth it.
Meantime, good luck finding a trail that works.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 04/July/2019 @ 7:56 pm
Christ, was this Marissa again? Sigh…
All the wisdom you need to know re: women is already contained in this blog, and it’s all written by you. Woo-hoo! You are your own guru.
As for the hike, it looked to be an uncharacteristically sunny day. So which is better—walking on flat ground on a sunny day during the rainy season (which might mean lots of humidity), or walking on flat ground on a rainy day?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/July/2019 @ 11:16 pm
Sounds like a worthy cause. Good luck with this new arrangement. So you’re definitely, officially pulling the plug at the orphanage?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 03/July/2019 @ 1:30 pm
It’s rainy, but I assume it’s a fairly warm rain to walk in. Cold rain, in my experience, is utterly demoralizing. Anyway, happy Hashing!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 02/July/2019 @ 1:28 pm
Stay safe and don’t get swept away!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 01/July/2019 @ 1:58 pm
Maybe pooping inside the house is just your dogs’ way of saying, “Congratulations!”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 30/June/2019 @ 7:26 pm
Into each life some rain must fall
Maybe you just caught them at a bad moment, but those Alaska dancers in that first bar photo do not look happy at all.
As for your commas in the sentence you mentioned…
That sentence was fine, but there were several other sentences that left me thinking it’s high time I wrote a blog post about commas. Heh.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 29/June/2019 @ 9:49 pm
Have you thought about using plant markers in case of rain? They seem to come in all shapes and sizes. Only thing is, you’d have to re-walk the route afterward and pull the markers out to avoid future confusion. But at least the markers would be reusable.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/June/2019 @ 8:25 pm
Even before I scrolled down, I knew you were gonna pick the fried pork belly—because I would have, too. But, hey: that’s perfectly Atkins-friendly! Looks like a good menu, overall. I agree that they were stingy with the meat, but I’m betting they expected you to mix it in the rice to add volume to the meat flavor. That’s a Korean cheat as well: intersperse your meat-eating experience with carbs and greens so that you’re fooled into thinking you’ve eaten more meat than you actually have.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 27/June/2019 @ 4:54 pm
I suspect there’s a certain level of dissatisfaction that comes with whatever choices you happen to make in life. Seems to me that you’re basically happy, and you’ve made the right choices to remain so. Congrats on finding a path that works for you!
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 26/June/2019 @ 3:39 pm
Also meant to observe that the yellow-lined path in the first pic looks like a leaping lamb that’s wearing rocket boots on its hind leg(s). Not very Hare-shaped, but certainly of the ovine persuasion.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/June/2019 @ 7:12 pm
Mantras give you power and focus.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/June/2019 @ 6:12 pm
Sometimes, it’s nice to walk in a driving rain just to re-experience what it means to endure, even if only for a short while.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 25/June/2019 @ 5:05 pm
People are dying to get out of here
Imagine that—a land where Virgin Marys sprout up unbidden.
Congrats on being chosen to Hare again. Good luck laying down markings during the rainy season. July, as you know, is the monsoon season in Korea; we’re just about there.
So what was the name of the other guy who died?
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 24/June/2019 @ 2:06 am
re: that first photo
I can’t be a hater when I too busy running and screaming in terror.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 23/June/2019 @ 3:00 am
I love the honesty of tattoos: they’re a way of saying, “Guys—look at this summary of all my bad life-choices!”
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/June/2019 @ 6:17 pm
You’re also reminding me that I need to go get new contacts and glasses. Maybe I’ll do that tonight or this weekend.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/June/2019 @ 6:15 pm
That one dude is vying for first prize in the Who Looks Most Like White Buddha? contest. He’s got the close-shaved monk’s head to match his pendulous earlobes—a symbol of good luck, even if his ears do look like saggy vaginas (also a symbol of good luck…?).
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 21/June/2019 @ 4:55 pm
«« Back To Stats Page“Vines and roots grabbing at the ankles. Vines wrapping around your waist. Ducking under branches only to have vines tangled around your neck. Sometimes all at once. It was a freakin’ nightmare.”
That’s just Mother Nature saying how much she lurrrrrves you.
» Posted By Kevin Kim On 20/June/2019 @ 3:22 pm