Aquarium, Hot Pot

Before my brother took off to head back to SF, we hit the Georgia Aquarium.

Horseshoe crab. Apparently these guys have a large number of eyes, both underneath and on top of the shell!

Me and the giant tortoise.

That evening, Sue and I made use of our new hot pot which we purchased while we were in Toronto over Christmas break.

NHL All-Star Game

NHL All-Star Game: the main event.

Warm-ups.

Me and Sue.

Me and my brother paying careful attention.

Sucky band that failed to get the crowd hyped up.

Singing of the national anthems.

Action down at our end. We had a good view right along the goal line and got to see several goals scored by both sides.

Honoring Willie O'Ree (first black ice hockey player in the NHL, 50th anniversary of his breaking the color barrier).

Sucky intermission show. No-name R&B/hip-hop dude Ne-Yo performed for which I'm sure that 96% of the crowd could care less about. I actually like hip-hop, but this was still pretty sucky.

Sue playing her Lemonade Tycoon game during the intermission. Probably a lot better than Ne-Yo.

Final post-game hand shake line.

Overall, still a fun event and I'm glad we got to go!

NHL All-Star Skillz Competition

Brunch at Pho Bac...

Pearl-Milk Tea.

Pho and Bahn Mi.

That evening it was off to the Skills competition part of the All-Star weekend.

Skaters warming up.

Zambonis resurfacing the ice; all of the teams' logos.

My brother mocking my Thrashers jersey.

Me and Sue.

Grand entrace of players.

Ovechkin taking a slap shot.

Left over dessert later that night (picked up at a Vietnamese market). Basil seed, coconut meat, and some unknown flavoring. It was ok, but not good enough to get again.

Clay Roasted Fun

My brother came to visit Atlanta for the NHL All-Star Game. Friday night we went to a Korean restaurant called Budnamu, that specializes in clay-roasted items which we had to call ahead to have them prepare.

Banchan.

Carcass of the clay-roasted duck; filled with purple rice, chestnuts, and some other stuff (I seem to recall red dates).

Some of the duck meat.

A piece of the roasted pumpkin. The stuffing is pretty much the same as the duck.

Fox Bros. BBQ

Sue and I checked out this BBQ place in town that purported to be a Texas BBQ joint.

The "Tominator" (actually, this is the half portion). It's a heaping plate of tater tots, drenched in Brunswick Stew, and then coated with a thick layer of melted cheese. This was honestly enough food for the two of us, but it was only the appetizer...

Meat plate. I ordered chicken and brisket. Sides: green beans and mac & cheese.

This was a good sign that the people who run this place had at least been to a Texas BBQ place before: banana pudding served in styrofoam containers.

Snow in Atlanta?

This is our fourth year living in Atlanta now. We saw an ice storm the first year, and we've seen the occasional flurries, but none of the snow had ever actually managed to land on the ground without melting. This year, we surprisingly actually had a tiny bit of accumulation!

View out of our front door.

View out of our dining room.

Squeaky Soup!

We decided to make a vegetable soup with a bunch of more or less random veggies. We used eggplant, which ended up being fairly squeaky in texture.

Weekend Skiing in Vermont

French onion soup!

Steak... ended up being kinda chewy.

Ski lift shot.

On the way back to the airport, we stopped off at a Friendly's for lunch/dinner. I hadn't been to one of these in years. Food was good, and the nostalgia was nice, too.

Clam chowder.

BBQ chicken sandwich.

And then what Friendly's is really all about... the ice cream. Sue got the peanut butter cup sundae; I got a scoop of their butter crunch ice cream, which I have not seen anywhere else.

62 Hours in Seoul

So I ended up spending about 62 hours in Korea just after New Year's. I'm teaching for the Korea program again this year, but via video. They wanted us to go spend a little time there to meet the new students and give a lecture or two.

It was funny being reminded of this again: the 24-hour go channel.

Kimbap. Can't seem to find good kimbap in Atlanta.

Random banchan.

Sundubu jiggae. Yum.

We went to some tofu-specialty restaurant for lunch.

Much larger banchan selection.

My tofu soup. It was a fresh form of tofu that was almost kind of curdled in texture.

Dunkin donuts, but Korean varieties that you can't get in the US. Peanut something or other and the green tea "chewisty".

Kishore got pizza for the Korean students on saturday afternoon. This was a funny variety: "seafood island".

Tteok gook. (Rice cake soup)

Some kind of beef soup (at the airport).