The Midnight Gimbap Ajumma

Last week we went post-bar to U & Me Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. I'd been there before for daytime dim sum, but never at 3am. U & Me is a restaurant that has been dinged with numerous healthy violations over the years but still manages to stay in business. And business was good Saturday night-- the place was full of loud people warding off a Sunday morning hangover with fried noodles and ginger beef. A middle-aged Chinese lady was our server. At first I thought that this nice woman shouldn't be putting up with hungry louts when she could be sleeping. Then I thought of the money the restaurant was raking in and didn't feel bad. Drunk people order enthusiastically and tip well.

This lady put me in mind of another I encountered in Korea. English teachers sated their 3-am hunger at a place called Gimbap Chon-guk, a 24-hour "snack" restaurant near the foreigner bar in downtown Gwangju. You could get spicy kimchi soups and tuna gimbap and rice bowls here for cheap. I believe every after-hours foray I made into this place was attended by the presence of the famous Midnight Gimbap Ajumma. She was a short haired lady, around forty, heavy white face make-up, and a mean countenance. This ajumma took no shit from the drunken waygooks who interrupted her work shift. She'd verbal abuse the men in Korean; however, its possible that this abuse was her way of flirting. She was quite taken with our friend Mike, his blond hair and big blue eyes. She kept coming over to look at him and comment under her breath. After time she might accord to her regulars some grudging respect, especially to those who could speak some Korean.

Snowshoeing

Yesterday I went snowshoeing for the first time. We did an easy 4.5 km route, the Penstock Trail in Peter Lougheed Park, Kananaskis. The tall pines and the snow and the glimpses of mountain peak made the forest path a glittery fairy trail. And then we stepped from the trees into an open area and all went "Ah..." as the entire mountain came into view.

My idea of shoeshoeing from childhood was of giant wooden shoes atop atop deep untouched drifts of snow. The reality was compact aluminum-frame shoes on well-trodden trails. Walking in them was almost the same as walking in boots, so I didn't have to learn any new technique like I would for skiing.

Any new outdoor pursuit makes me apprehensive, as I am naturally wimpy (as I had to endure too many forced excursions in my junior high Outdoor Ed days). Now that I'm an adult now, and it's my choice, it's nice to finally enjoy working up a sweat. Actually I didn't find it very taxing; my quad muscles must be built up from trekking up Cemetery Hill every day to work.

It was a bright warm day, and the snow was all white and shiny. I guess I got my vitamin D.