Summer in SoKo

My last weekend in Korea, like every other one I've spent here, was filled with trying new and delicious foods. Let's get right to it!

Before...

It had rice cakes, noodles, hard boiled eggs, fish cake, ramen, cabbage, carrots, rice filled dumplings, green onions, and spicy seasonings. Also a little sugar, to be sweet and spicy.

After...mmmm...so good...

Another day, I went with some friends, Delilah from Mexico and Veronique, to their favorite dessert place nearby.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Pancakes with Nutella and bananas...oh gosh...

And now for the piece de resistance...may I present Oreo Bingsoo:

Yes, it really is as big as it looks! It's shaved ice on the bottom, then ice cream mixed with Oreo cream in the middle, then a tower of chocolate shaved ice/ice cream covered with crushed Oreos. Apparently there's a method to eating it correctly so the tower doesn't collapse (which we saw twice in neighboring tables). We were instructed to eat dorm the top, then mix all the bottom stuff together. I can't describe...I can't even...give me a moment...

On the walk back, we saw another restaurant that was used in the filming of the drama "Beautiful Legacy", which had one of my favorite actors, Lee Seung Gi, in it, so I took a minute to fangirl it up a little. It doesn't take much for me to be happy...

One thing Alejandra wanted to do was try on hanbok, or traditional Korean dresses. We knew there were "hanbok cafes" where you could rent one to wear, but it was  expensive, and we didn't want to have a tea party wearing them, like apparently you do at those kind of places. We found at the tourism center in Myungdong, you could sign up to try one on for free for 15 minutes, which is all we wanted anyways. So last Saturday, we got there right when it opened (because time slots fill up fast) and picked out a hanbok:

Alejandra in her hanbok

It's me, with too broad of shoulders to look right in a hanbok, but still having fun!

The best picture of the day

After that, we wandered Myungdong a little, got taro bubble slushies and some brown sugar candy/cookie things that I'd seen on a Korean show I like:

The grandmas who make it press a shape into it as it hardens in about 5 seconds, and the trick is to break off the outside without breaking the shape.

I totally won, by the way. Alejandra broke hers right away. Yep, I'm pretty proud of this.

The saddest Mario in the world...

Often they'll have people in big masks to advertise some place, like a guy in a Garfield mask for a "cat cafe" (that's a real thing, by the way, along with "dog cafes"). Seems like a pretty awful job to me in the summer heat, which is maybe why he's so depressed.

Since I have very limited time left in Korea, the bulk of which will be taken up with final exams, interviews, presentations, and graduation, I don't know how many more posts, if any, I can get up here before I leave, so the rest might have to wait until I'm back in the States. Sorry guys.

Here's a little miracle in a bowl: chijeu bap, or cheese rice. Sounds kind of boring and greasy, right? Oh, friends, we were so wrong. For less than 4 dollars, you get a piece of heaven, and it comes out sizzling. Here's what it looks like up close:

Still weird, right? That's because you stir it like craaaazy, and it turns into this:

You can pick different kinds, like tuna, sweet potato (which is delicious actually), but the one I got above is kimchi galbi (korean short ribs). The ones with kimchi are spicy, while the goguma (sweet potato) was pretty mild and kind of sweet, actually. I've already been back Monday for lunch.

This is another treat we accidentally discovered while in the subway station in Myungdong. Not sure if the little corn shaped pastry is called a manjoo, like in the store's name, but they are goooood. They squirt batter into little corn-shaped molds, and then they rotate until they are cooked and automatically pop out of the molds. They taste like yummy, slightly chewy pancakes filled with warm custard. Mmm. Not sure why they're shaped like corn though.

This is the empty subway station exit where I go to get to church here. I know the subways in general are pretty quiet here on Sunday mornings, but hardly anybody but a stray grandma uses my exit, every single week. Kind of creepy...

Speaking of subways, when Alejandra and I went to Insadong, we got brown sugar syrup-filled pancakes from a street cart right before we had to go home, and decided to not eat them on the subway (kind of messy), and there wasn't a bench in sight. What are 2 foreign girls to do? Find an almost empty stairway up an exit behind a 7 Eleven sign to sit and eat your hoddeok. So many stares from the few people going up or down, but there wasn't really a choice, not really. We HAD to.

Part of Gyeongbokgung Palace

Our culture class went to the Palace Museum last week. I was wondering where all the furnishings had gone since all the palaces I've been to are pretty empty, except for a replica of a throne or something. It was right next to Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is the biggest palace in Korea.

The king's casual wear. Comfortable, no? Hmm...maybe not.

Maybe when compared to this crazy get-up. Question: did the beads on the hat ever hit him in the face?

A present to the Korean king from the United States - now it's one of like 3 of its kind in the world.

Record of every day of a king's reign - apparently you can look up individual days chronicles on some online database today.

After the fieldtrip, I wanted to check out a traditional market nearby, and ended up passing by part of 

Cheonggyecheon in the daytime:

Also passed by an area that specializes in lighting and light fixtures. Both sides of the whole block looked like this:

Bet it looks awesome at night.

Gwangjang market was totally legit. Just a bunch of ajummas and ajusshis selling all kinds of stuff in little stores and stalls for a whole city block, I think. It's also the oldest market in Seoul, and it's famous for their mung bean pancakes - way better than it sounds. 

They have huge grinders that grind the beans into a paste onsite, then make the batter in these huge vats and fry them in oil. The whole place smells so good.

They sell many traditional things, like these pretty hanboks. I love the one in back with coral and light yellow! You can get them made to order, but from the prices listed on the sign, they're about $200-350, give or take. While they are beautiful, I'd have to get one custom made for my broad western shoulders, etc., for it to look ok on me. How do I know? That'll have to wait for the next post...

P.S. I totally wrote the last post in Korean entirely by myself. Not bad for just a month of study, right? If anybody reading this speaks Korean, please don't look too closely...eep.

한곡 문화 수업이 정말 재미있었어요! 사실을 배웠어요. 그리고 장수도 갔어요.

너무 커요!

탈춤하고 서예를 배웠어요. 미국에 탈춤을 없어요. 그래서 춤이 정말 재미있었어요.

슀어요...

또 서예도 재미있었어요.

이 부채를 씄어요! 어려웠어요...

지난 주에 고궁 박물관에 갔어요. 역사기록을 배우러 갔어요. 미국에 왕이 없어요, 그래서 박물관을 좋아했어요. 박물관이 경복궁 옆에 있어요.

경복궁...너무 아름다워요!

왕 옷을 좋아해요.

궁 도서관이 참 멋있어요!

저는 한국 음식을 너무 좋아해요, 그래서 요리를 좋아했어요. 김밥하고 잡채하고 불고기를 요리했어요.

맬린다 씨, 미셸 씨, 챠키 씨 - 멋있어요!

음식이 너무 맛있어요.

요리 수업하고 김선생님 - 예뻐요!

두 주 전에, 버스로 야구 관람에 갔어요. 미국이 야구를 있어요, 하지만, 한국 여구 게임을 너무 즐거웠어요!

정말 재미있었어요! 야구 봤어요. 그리고 노래도 했어요. 그리고 떡볶이도 먹었어요.

줄리아 씨하고 크라우디아 씨하고 저 있어요!

떡볶이...먹고 싶어요...

1A 906 수업! 화이팅!

I'm using this blog as part of my final presentation in my Korean culture class, so do not be alarmed if you see a blog post in (very simple) Korean in he next day or two...

So Alejandra and I visited some cosmetics shops while we were in Myungdong last weekend - there are seriously so many, even of the same brand. You can't go 2 blocks without seeing another Etude House, Missha, Nature Republic, and my personal favorite, "It's Skin". Don't get me wrong, these places all have great quality make-up for not as much money as it would be in the States, but most of them use male actors and singers as their spokesmodels - weird. However, they also give you a boatload of free samples. Among our haul this time, we got some moisturizing and whitening paper face masks. Because if there's one thing I need, it's to be paler...oh wait...

You can barely see our eyebrows, and once you put it on, you can't really move your face or it might start coming off. Hence the creepy stares.

On Monday, I met with my language exchange partner Sunmi again, this time for Korean shabu shabu. You dip vegetables and thinly sliced beef into this flavorful boiling broth to cook it, then dip it in a choice of sauces. Then they gave us some ddeok (rice cake) filled with sweet potato, and fat mandu (dumplings) to cook in the remaining broth. THEN you cook some fresh knife-cut noodles in the broth, and finally, with the little bit of intense broth, a worker comes and stirs rice and other magical stuff to make a jook (rice porridge) that blows your mind. I didn't take pictures again because we were so busy eating it, and I can't stress how good it was!

Afterwards, we stopped at a cafe and I finally snuck in a picture of Sunmi:

She's so beautiful! But she's also shy, so she doesn't like pictures. Neither do I, but I had to get one before I left. I got an iced herbal tea, which doesn't sound tasty in retrospect, and was even less delicious that what you're imagining. Oh well.

I was coming home from that when I ran into some friends from the dorm, Anjani, Francis, and Rachel, who twisted my arm (I was pretty easy to persuade) to come hang out with them for a little bit before I went back to study. Here's where we ended up:

Here's the inside:

Pretty much all of the desserts looked something like this:

I got a cookie frappe, which is just a fancy name for a cookies 'n cream milkshake, but cuter:

On Monday in culture class, we went to a Taekwondo studio. I didn't get pictures because that's just embarrassing, but we wore uniforms and I broke a board with my hand, whatever. I also realized that nothing about me in any way is made to do Taekwondo.

On Wednesday in culture class, we went to a cooking school and learned how to make 3 Korean dishes: bulgogi (marinated, thinly sliced beef), japchae (glass noodles with beef and vegetables), and kimbap (rice rolls with meat, vegetables, etc., wrapped in seaweed). Then we got to eat it all! I'd made kimbap and japchae before, so I was excited to make the bulgogi, which was way easier than I thought. Yes, don't worry, I have the recipes!

Melinda, Michelle, and Chackie

Some girl I just met, and Veronique, who I met on the fieldtrip a few weeks ago

The food!

My class! (and a couple extra people behind me on the left) My culture class sunsaengnim (teacher) is crouching in the middle - isn't she so cute!?!

So there's more to come, but I have to go finish my laundry. Until next time...