Stretch
There’s a particular joy in overcoming In fighting to find calm In working to appreciate. Tadasana Arms raise up Then collapse at the heel There’s a joy in difficult circumstances In breathing through the fear In feelings so strong your stomach hurts. Notice how discomfort is different from pain. A foot lands softly on a rubber mat Strong and stable There’s joy. Maeve Wall is a 2015-2016 ETA at Sadaebucho Elementary School in Daegu.
Dala Chocolate Cafe
Review by Monica Heilman, ETA 2014-2016 City: Busan Restaurant Name: Dala Food Served: All things chocolate (desserts) Restaurant Address: 부산광역시 부산진구 전포대로209번길 18 View Map Directions: The dessert cafe is located near Seomyeon, in the Jeonpo cafe street. From Seomyeon station, take exit 8 and walk straight. When you see NC mall (to the left), cross the intersection to get there. Walk past the entrance to the mall and past the arts and crafts market (sometimes closed during off-hours). At the end of the market, there will be a sign on the corner that says Jeonpo Cafe Street. Turn left at this sign, passing a school on your left. After this block, the cafe street will be straight ahead. Dala will be on the left. From Jeonpo station, leave out of exit 7 and go straight for two blocks. Turn left – the street has a slight downward slope, and the cafe will be on your right. The cafe is bright pink. Price: 12,000 for their famous binsu; drinks range from 4,000-7,000 Three words. Dinosaur Egg Bingsu. [slideshow_deploy id=’4645′] In case this isn’t enough convince you, I’ll expound upon the reasons for this dessert’s rapid ascent to fame. Dala has recently become popular for a specialized bingsu that reminds you that adults can like dinosaurs too. The Dinosaur Egg Bingsu has all the staples of a chocolate bingsu – ice, milk, chocolate shavings, some sort of chocolatey cereal confection, and chocolate syrup. Yet what tops it all (haha) is a huge, hollow, white chocolate shell: the dinosaur egg. Customers are provided with a meat tenderizer with which to smash their speckled egg into bite-sized pieces, but be careful! Inside the egg is a perfect chocolate dinosaur, eagerly awaiting your admiration and camera flash. I’m pleased to report though, that this dessert is not only photogenic, but thoroughly delicious. Any chocolate bingsu lover will be pleased. Once you’ve prepared yourself to visit Dala, there are a few things to know about the space. First, it’s beautiful. Second, with its bright pink exterior it’s easy to find. Third – the thing you actually need to know – is that it’s small. The cafe sits no more than 18 people – unless you’re squeezing together in a booth or there are some extra chairs I didn’t notice. Because the cafe is small, the owners request that you buy one item per person – bingsu counts as a 2-person item, so if you’re a party of 3 going for the bingsu, be prepared to consume another chocolatey drink or dessert on the side. My group opted for a hot chocolate, which came with a delightful chocolate spoon. If you’re looking to take your Korean cafe experience to the next level, Dala is the place for you.
One Way Ticket
I didn’t recognize my host father’s contact by name when it was added to my Kakao messenger friends list. Instead of Hangul characters, the name “one way ticket” accompanied a cropped candid shot of the smiling adult with an overgrown teenage haircut I chalked it up to a gag he had neglected to right. Months later, however, his self-label – and the depth of our relationship – remained unchanged. Uncomfortably huddled around the kitchen table on the first night at my homestay, my host mother introduced her husband as someone who doesn’t talk a lot unless he drinks a lot. He understood enough English to grin at the description, taking the introduction as a cue to offer me beer and see how I held my alcohol. The man unwound, the spirits washing away the intercultural barriers and stiff demeanor he had thus far shown his wife, his children, and me. He grabbed his two boys in broad bear hugs and smiles to match; to his wife, he dusted off his English with saccharine love stories from their past. Still in my suit and drinking at a steady pace half as fast as the man I would have called a stranger hours before, the two held pleasant conversation while treating the beer cans like checkers. She’d tactfully moved them further from his reach, and he’d finish a story with a theatrical gesture, outstretching his long arms to recapture and then drain his drink in protest. At one point he spilled, and my host mother and I caught eyes – she flashed a labored smile as she beat him to upright the can. The conversation in between each can wasn’t unpleasant, or even that awkward; though the imbalance in sobriety was just too great to ignore. Politely declining another glass or gratefully accepting one felt like a test, a test which would determine the parental faction I would befriend. Eventually, he crawled into a full-sized camping tent erected indoors. Settled, he began to play and sing along to all the English songs he knew. By now, he was on his own – his wife crushing cans and tending to the children, doing chores unaccompanied. I had been briefed on the gendered drinking dynamics where men would flex the number of soju bottles they could down, but felt unprepared and unsure as the antics continued. Literally bowing out once he began to chant a solo-chorus of “Puff the Magic Dragon” in his tent, I let the juxtaposition of the man’s warmth and his wife’s warranted hesitation trickle in and begin to color my impressions. Every morning after sported a similar tone of caution. His wife would hastily apologize; now sober, he would remain somber if he wasn’t audibly vomiting one room over. To cover the sound, she’d blow dry her hair even though she hadn’t washed it. Those mornings, the two host brothers and I would stare at the table and eat breakfast quickly. Too young to let out a long enduring sigh but too old to ignore that their father was hungover, they nervously switched from silently playing with one toy to the next. His drinking progression was linear, reaching a pit stop of flushed character before the final destination of paralyzing, colorless sobriety. The words the man shared between midnight and noon could be counted on one hand. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Despite his daytime gruffness, my host father was fond of music and had impressively diverse taste. Downloading all of his songs from YouTube and playing them from a USB in his car, the playlist would playfully meander from obscure 80’s Korean rock ballads to modern singles like 아메리카노 (“Americano”) before returning to ajeossi [1. Middle-aged man] hiking yodels. During the winter months when it was too cold to bike, he’d drive me to school, sitting taciturn aside from the occasional guttural throat clearing. One morning after de-icing the windshield with a once coveted “DOOM” floppy disk, he turned on the radio and unceremoniously announced, “This one, I like – Disco, but sad.” An ethereal voice preceded an upbeat electric organ tap before giving way to the sudden chorus jolt – “ONE WAY TICKET…ONE WAY TICKET TO THE BLUES.” I processed intently, both pleased that his mystery name had been discovered and wondering why, of all banal disco hits – of all music in human history – had this one aligned with the man enough to adopt it as his digital name and identity. The Jamaican/Ghanaian/Curaçaoian collective Eruption etched their mark in history with the 1978 one-hit-wonder: “One Way Ticket”. The track is repetitive (albeit dreadfully catchy) with a cringe-worthy bridge – “Gonna take a trip to lonesome town, Gonna stay at Heartbreak Hotel”. Despite it’s dull melody and content, the tune roused my hungover host father to hum-sing at 7 AM. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I hardly saw my host father during the fall. As a third grade high school math teacher, he would often eat breakfast quickly and leave, throwing us a monosyllabic acknowledgement our way if we were lucky. He’d return home long after I’d fallen asleep. The occasional out of place shot glass or beer can cast an arms length from the bedding on the floor suggested he still had time for a “night cap.” I thought that we’d have more time to share at home together after the Suneung [2. A college-entrance exam taken in the third year of high school, equivalent to the SAT] exam and final grades passed, but was naïve to expect contact sans-liquor. Even if he came home early on the monthly school half-day called “family day,” I’d find him strewn on the floor, gambling on his smartphone as his kids galloped in circles around him. It’s not that they didn’t care; they just seemed no better able to acknowledge their father as their father could his children. His wife, too, often took to simply ignoring the man, referring to him in the third person even though he lay outstretched drinking beside us. Direct