Some Like it Hot

Here is an adventure we took in August, and I have never been able to publish until now…Oops actually this happened in October…Sorry.

Jo, from Truly Thankful, wanted to go the Jelly Belly Factory, and the chocolate factory, and to Travis AFB to see the Air Museum, and the static displays of the airplanes for a very long time. I have had so many things pop up, that I had to keep pushing back on the date. Finally the day had arrived and we whisked off to the great blue yonder.

The first stop in our merry adventure was the Jelly Belly Factory.

For obvious reasons I did not have many photos of the place. The tour was fun, and about a half an hour long. That day they were making the strawberry daiquiri flavour. You could eat the air! The end of the tour produced the sampling bar, where you could try a lot of their flavoured jellybeans.

The jalapeño jelly bellies were excellent and I even got Jo to eat it and enjoy it…Ok maybe that was a stretch, but she did eat it with no complaints. The pink grapefruit, wild blackberry, and roasted garlic eaten with buttered toast were my favourites of the tasting bar. Well before we left we had to pick up some poundage of jelly flops. The sad little Jelly Bellies who were not perfect in size or shape to go into the jelly belly kingdom. Yum they are so good! Oh yeah if you try some of the Bertie Botts jelly beans try not to eat the spaghetti jelly beans, unless you really like gross flavours.

Our next stop was the Thompson Organic Chocolate factory. It was a self-tour, but the machines were quiet today, and therefore the Boys (Jo’s little Imps) Robby and Tommy were not interested. They rushed to the gift shop wanting chocolates; by this time I was counting my beans, and went with the cheap route and bought the chocolates that did not make it into packaging. They were quite good bargins for buy 2 and get one free, or some such, Jo was confusing me to no end. I was hungry, but food had to take a back burner to the airplanes at the Travis Air museum.

Travis air force base has an air museum that is open to the public, but you must get a visitors badge at the main gate to visit. It is located at the far end of the base with and indoor museum, and many static displays. We made it into the air museum, and there were many things to see and especially read. You can see where this is going can’t you. Robby, and Tommy where everywhere! I took pictures at some of the displays where they could actually climb into and play.

So they are taking off into the great blue yonder! Whats wrong Tommy Don’t you want to fly?

I think they wre a little nervous sitting near the bomb.

Let me tell you it was quite hard to pry their little hands and bodies out of the static displays.

Mission control are you there? “Hey! How do you control this thing? The buttons don’t work! maybe I should strap myself into the seat…”

They weren’t interested in the air history because they were too young to appreciate it, but at least Jo and I learned a little before we were whisked outside to take pictures.

I have a small digital camera, and the boys were hams! Gee Jo I wonder where or who they get it from?
“Auntie Milgwimper, take my picture by this airplane”

“Auntie Milgwimper take my picture now”

“Whatcha doing Tommy? Fixing the airplane or trying to find a really hard place for Auntie Milgwimper to take a photo?”

“I want to see the picture…”

Those were the only sentences I heard during the whole time near the static air displays. I even tried to get photos of the airplanes without Robby and Tommy and they found a way to slip in there. I tried my hardest even to the point of not quite getting the shot I wanted but I was thwarted. Ahhh well I was the photographer of the day and there wasn’t anyways I was going to get away from them. Jo and I had a laugh and shaking our heads. Check out Jo’s post more on this phenomena.

I have to say that I was disappointed in not seeing the big airplanes lift off and take off from Travis, but we did get to see some jets. They were getting ready for the air show this weekend. I love air shows, but alas I can’t make it to this air show. Sorry no pictures of the jets, but maybe next time.

We had to get some food NOW! By this time I was starving. I had a skimpy sweet breakfast of donuts and I wanted something GOOD to eat. Because I had some ATM issues I decided not to eat bowling alley food (which is very good here) but go for Korean food.

The restaurant is family owned, and a little on the expensive side, but the service and food is excellent. You walk into the restaurant and through a moon shaped door, and into other rooms with booths on both sides of the room and with tables and chairs in the middle. A TV plays Korean T.V. and which can also do Karaoke. We were given a choice where we wanted to sit, because we were late for lunch but early for dinner.

We chose a booth, and perused the menu.

Jo had a dilemma. She really liked mandu, but she really wanted to try the duk mandu kuk. She wanted to eat something spicy, but she really wanted the mandu soup. She looked blankly at me wondering what she should choose. I wasn’t much help mainly because she kept saying that she wanted more mandu. The waitress came to the rescue.
“If you want mandu then you should go with mandu, and have the mandu soup” Jo agreed, and ordered mandu kuk (dumpling soup) and ordered Gun Mandu (fried dumplings) for the boys. I ordered dwaegi pulgogi extra spicy. Our panchan (side dishes arrived) and we were given seven and evenly spiced.

We had mu (white radish) muchim, which was slightly spicy, sweet and tangy, cabbage marinated in sesame oil, mung bean sprouts, and bean sprouts. We also had baek kimchi, kakktuggi, and mu sanchae only in sugar and left to ferment, very refreshing.

The entrees arrived, and the meal was superb. The Dwaegi pulgogi was sweet and spicy.

I could have stood for it being much more spicier, but the flavour was excellent. Jo’s mandu kuk looked and smelled excellent.

She enjoyed the flavour of the mandu. The gun mandu was perfectly fried and the sauce was a nice foil. Jo and I ate so much, we had to go for a walk at the grocery store…No pictures sorry!

The piece de resistance was Jo, using the chopsticks!!!! YAY!!!!!

Give a cheer! I kept telling her that she could do it, but before she used to give up, and now WHOOO HOOO!!! CONGRATS JO! YOU’VE COME A LONG WAY BABY!!!

Well our adventures continued for a bit longer. Just wanted to say that we had a blast and we left the house at 10:30am and did not get home till 10pm. I was beat, but it was an excellent trip.

Hey everyone,

I have been really sick with Bronchitis and so far I am still sick. I do not have the braincells to really write post, not to mention I am trying to send in my application for school. I am alittle behind in stuff, but I will try to post something up sometime soon. I have just been sleeping a lot. I really hope everyone stays healthy this year, and have a wonderful holiday season. Hopefully I will be back to posting on a semi regular time, very soon.

Your loveable flakey blog writer and sickie

Milgwimper

Well onto part two…

Our intrepid explorers of the Korean sauna were being tortured, er enjoying their sojourn into and out of the steam sauna and the cold freeze yer buns off bath. The Bath Nazi caught us, the intrepid explorers, off guard. Well okay calling her the Bath Nazi is way over the top but how about the bath police? Although I think she should have had one of those small red-flashing lights on top of her head, but then the adjummas might think there is a disco going on at the health spa. Well back to the story…

A woman lazily swimming in the Freeze yer buns off bath with her towel turban wrapped tightly on her head scowled at us, as we came closer to the bath. We were going to step into the bath when she yells and gesticulates wildly pointing at a sign.

“You can’t come in here! Look at sign.” I look to where she is pointing wildly and see that after the sauna you must rinse off before stepping into the pool. Yes I know this and start to grab the bucket near by to rinse off, but the Bath police looked at us glowered. So Jo and I head over to the showers and rinse off. Notice that it was only Jo and I that went to the showers…

The bath police had singled only the white looking women to explain this too, and did not bat an eye when the Asian women jumped merrily into the pool from the sauna. Now we had a running bet as to whether the lady would get out of the pool if Jo entered it, and surprise she did. So, Jo slowly got out of the cold and freeze yer buns off pool, and the Bath Police went back into the pool. When the bath policewoman’s back was turned Jo went back into the water and the woman left. Jo and I found it mildly interesting, but it did leave a bad feeling in my chest, but I marched on, it wasn’t something I wanted to get me down. I was having fun wasn’t I?

Oh NO! Not the steam sauna again…. My hands scrabbled for purchase on the hard tile floor as I was mercilessly dragged into the steam sauna for the millionth time. In no time flat I extricated myself from the steamy underworld, and resurfaced rinsed off and jumped into the pool that could have been a little hotter. By this time we had been here what seemed like ages.

“What time is it?” My mother searched the walls looking for a clock.
“Oh it is only 5:00pm” Jo replies finding the clock above the showerheads.
“Umm…you mean we have only been here for an hour?” I ask my voice quivering. You see normally Mom and I stay in the baths for 3 hours minimum. Which means that we had another two hours to go. Luckily I talked my Mother into going to the dry sauna, which was more bearable than melting in the steam sauna. After what seems like molasses filling a gallon jar, we stumble out of the dry sauna rinse, jump into the freezing pool and then I somehow decide I would love to look like a lobster.

So there I am cautiously and painfully entering the boiling water, and sympathizing with many of the lobsters that were boiled to death. Somehow I had talked myself into thinking the water was just right, and stayed and played in the water. By the time I had jumped out I was on the verge of getting what looked like sunburn, but it quickly went away.

Fast forward some time here, and Jo, Mom and I were ready to get cleaned up and have some dinner. We headed to the sit down faucets and each took turns in scrubbing off so much dead skin from each other that it looked like eraser shavings. It was quite relaxing, then washing our hair, and brushing our teeth. The Korean bath provides toothbrushes and toothpaste. Unfortunately my first choice in toothpaste tasted like bengay smelled and I had to re brush teeth with aqua fresh. Bleh…

By the time we escaped the Korean Bath house I had what looked like mild sunburn across the tops of my cheeks and the bridge of my nose. I looked like the cartoon character that had too much to drink. It was a nice relaxing time at the bathhouse, but now it was time to eat.

So since we were so relaxed, (Ok read it LAZY) we decided to eat at the Han Kook Grocery store. In the back there is a small deli that serves Korean snacks like deep fried squid (batter fried squid), Kimbap(Korean sushi roll), ttokbokki(spicy rice cake), mool nengmyun(cold buckwheat noodle soup), udon(Japanese style noodle soup), Bibimbap and some other things I can’t remember.

Jo ordered the Udon soup, which I think it pretty darn tasty here, and Mom and I ordered bibimbap. We were given a small dish of pickled radish non spicy, and for Mom and I we received a bowl of udon soup minus noodles. The bibimbap was excellent. It might have been the fact it was nice and cool and it tasted so good compared to the heat shocked body of mine. Jo, to her credit used the chopsticks all through the meal! YAY! I meant to comment on that but I was hungry! LOL Mom went overboard and ordered deep fried squid which we all demolished they were fresh from the deep fryer and were crunchy and light and not very greasy. Yum. We had to be rolled out of the restaurant and everyone made it safe to their homes…

It took me 3 days for my bones to reknit and become solid again. It was definitely fun, and I can’t wait to do it again before Jo leaves for N.C. for good.