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...
Random happenings from the past week...part 1
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...
Anyhow, this type of mask is really popular here, and neither of us have tried it before, so we decided to give it a shot in the name of science. Science, I tell you!
Disclaimer: the following picture may scare small children. And probably adults. So everyone beware.
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
So there's more to come, but I have to go finish my laundry. Until next time...
Korean comfort food...mmm...
I went with my friend Michelle for 삼계탕 (samgyetang, or chicken ginseng soup) again the other day after our quiz in class, and it did not disappoint here's my bowl, which you can't tell from the picture, but it comes out in a rolling boil:
Yes, that is a whole little chicken (like a cornish game hen) all up in my soup! It's stuffed with Korean sticky rice, what I think are jujubes, and that stick coming out is the ginseng, all of which is so tender and you just eat it all. You have another small bowl for taking out pieces of the chicken and rice and taking out the bones - I can debone that sucker with my chopsticks like a pro now, but it helps that the meat just falls off the bone. I'm already planning when I'll eat this again before I have to leave next week.
Another delight was this abalone rice porridge, which sounds kind of crazy, I know, but porridges here are savory and flavorful. This one was only about $5 at a small shop we stopped at on our lunch break near Sogang University:
Well, I've been lucking out pretty well in the food arena lately, so I was bound to come across a couple disasters eventually. The first was at this chain restaurant called Paris Baguette, which is EVERYWHERE, as in you can't walk 3 blocks without passing another one. Their stuff is trying to be European, but it definitely has the whole "east meets west" kind of thing going on, and not on purpose. I've never seen most of the stuff there in Europe or the States. My mistake there was getting something that was called "pizza bread", as I needed just a snack, not a full meal. With that name, you have a few expectations, like tomato sauce, cheese, maybe some toppings. Well, it had some sort of tomato sauce - closer to ketchup, to be honest - and a couple chunks of pineapple and black olives, and some weird-looking cheese. However, upon first bite, it tasted so weird. The cheese melted in my mouth and had a gross flavor. When I inspected it, I discovered the deceit: the "cheese" was actually mayonnaise baked onto it to look like cheese. There is little in this world I abhor more than mayonnaise, and mayonnaise in disguise is just plain rude.
This was another mistake:
This is a sweet rice drink called shikhye, which they've served to us in the cafeteria and I really liked. It's kind of like horchata, but not so milky. The canned version: 2 unenthusiastic thumbs waaay down. I guess canned anything will be a million times worse than the real stuff. I was bound to be burned by something sooner or later.
What's behind door number 2?
I've noticed this in enough bathrooms (including on campus in the building where my classes are) to post about this:
What's the difference between these two stalls, you ask? Well, I'm sure you can guess from the picture on the left door what would be behind it, but what's that picture on the right door? Lemme help you:
Yup, it's a squatter. More hygienic, some would tell you, and it makes sense as to why. Your skin doesn't make contact with anything on there. I've even used some before in rural Italy, but after 29 years of the other facility, I think I would have a hard time getting used to this.
야구 (yagu, baseball) + 노래방 (noraebang, or karaoke rooms) = Friday Night Fun
Oh people, let me tell you - Seoul was made for fun times Friday night. We didn't have culture class again today due to our fieldtrip in the evening, so Michelle and I found a place to get some samgyetang, or chicken ginseng soup. I think it's one Korean dish everyone would enjoy. It feels like comfort food, but it's waaaaay better than just chicken noodle. They cook a whole chicken stuffed with sticky rice and ginseng in a yummy chicken broth that's unlike anything I've ever had before. And because it has ginseng in it, it's supposedly gives you energy, especially in the summertime. Since we each got individual servings, rather than one huge pot for several people to share, we got our own little tiny chicken in our bubbling clay pots. I was going to take a picture, but we were the only foreigners in the place, and I didn't want any more attention drawn to me. Next time, though...
Oh, funny unrelated side-note: I don't know how it began, but one of my Korean teachers and I started talking about our celebrity crushes during one of our breaks yesterday morning, and I inadvertently dissed her crush, an actor named Hyun Bin. He's good-looking, but I said he was too skinny, even by Korean standards. Oops. There was no recovering from that. I made her feel better by confessing my love for Sung Shi Kyung, so I think she was appeased that her crush is more conventionally handsome. Phew.
The reason we didn't have afternoon class is that the program was taking us all to a Korean pro baseball game in the evening, between the Doosan Bears (who we were rooting for), and the LG Twins. It was unlike any American baseball experience I've ever had, and it was soooo much better!
Arriving at our seats in the stadium
First pitch!
The stadium was so packed!
So one of the main reasons this was so different than American games was that the crowd was so passionate. They had all these songs and chants (some even for a few individual players!), complete with beats and choreography with the thundersticks, and EVERYBODY knew all the words and movements. It was like being in a giant musical, or the biggest karaoke room in the world. I'll have to post some video clips when I get back to the States, because it's kind of unbelievable without seeing it.
I got to explain the game of baseball to my friend Michelle from Hong Kong, which was actually pretty fun. We were all yelling and cheering, and it felt like "Foreigner Day" at the baseball field around our section, since we were all from the Korean Immersion Program.
The stadium was packed!
There was so much good food at the game, and you could bring whatever food and drink you wanted to from outside into the stadium - can you do that in the States? Some Korean families even brought coolers. Here I am eating ddukbokki, or spicy rice cakes, I got from a stand outside the stadium:
You can't see in this picture, but this was a much older lady carrying a crazy ton of snacks for sale on her head - ouch!
We had to leave the game before it ended due to our charter bus' schedule, so I don't know won, but that can be googled later.
We got back after 10pm, and I don't know if it was the adrenaline from the game or the ginseng from the soup earlier, but I was too hyped up to call it a night. So Alejandra, Michelle and I decided to go for an essential part of Korean nightlife: noraebang, or karaoke! So in America, we do karaoke by singing in front of a room of semi-sketchy strangers because we lost a bet, but here, you go to a noraebang and pay some money to rent a room for an hour or two to have your own karaoke party with your friends. See why it's so much better? No public embarrassment to mar our butchering of Korean pop songs.
Once we got the machine figured out, we just picked all our favorite Kpop bands and songs and tried to keep up. Turns out none of us are super-good at reading hangeul (Korean words) fast enough to keep up with most songs, so a lot of the song verses ended up more like "Nananananana ja! Dadadadada bwa!" - we could usually get the first and/or last syllable, unless we really knew the song well...which was almost never.
We didn't get back until 1am - it was close to the school, don't worry Mom - and between the baseball game cheering and noraebang-ing, my throat is a little worse for the wear. So worth it.
Food-crawling through Seoul!
After mostly staying nearby Sogang University on Monday and Tuesday night due to quizzes and cleaning checks at the dorm, I was raring to get outta this place by Wednesday. We had taken our quizzes in class, so we didn't have any new material to learn, therefore the night was all mine.
I went with Michelle, a girl in my class from Hong Kong, but she goes to college in the States. We decided we needed grilled meat, and I had heard of this great place called the Outdoor Factory in Hongdae from the Canadian blogger couple, and we actually found it!
It is basically a Korean BBQ restaurant with the theme of outdoors/camping, so a lot of the tables are on a patio under an awning, you sit in camping chairs around a grill with real coals. The side dishes, lettuce, etc. comes on a metal tray, you drink out of camping cups, so it's just so fun.
Michelle waiting for our meat!
The waiters didn't speak much English, so they started speaking Korean to Michelle, we think because she's Asian. She is one of the best students in our class, but we're all beginners, and I think she gets flustered to use Korean in real situations, because she looked at them, and said, "Wait, what?" in English. The waiter then got nervous and started to run away, but by then I got the gist of what they were telling us (that the banchan, or side dishes, were self-serve, and where it was located), so I called out to him and said I understood in Korean. The look on his face was priceless, as he heard more Korean from the Western girl than from the Asian girl. What can I say, I just really know my food terminology. After that, they spoke to me.
I've noticed that a lot, especially when I'm with Asian people, no matter their ethnicity, people will automatically talk to them in Korean on the off-chance they're Korean, and talk to me in English. However, I always try to respond in Korean if I can. After all, what else am I here for?
Before
We got samgyupsal and moksal, both pork, both delicious. Those white stick-looking things are mushroom slices, and we also grilled some garlic. When the meat is starting to get done, you cut it with scissors into smaller pieces and move it away from the center. When it's done, you get a piece, dip it in seasoned soybean paste sauce, put it in a leaf of lettuce with garlic, mushrooms, kimchi, etc., wrap it up, shove it all in your mouth, and enter meat paradise. It was sooo yummy!
Then we walked around the alleyways in Hongdae, which are filled with cute cafes, vintage shops, and cool buildings like this one:
We were craving some good patbingsoo, or red bean shaved ice/ice cream dessert. We found the most perfect one.
Patbingsoo is made to share!
There's a layer of shaved ice, sweet red bean sauce, ice cream, chocolate drizzle, ddeok (chewy rice cake) with more red bean, and frosted flakes (we think) to top it all off. Lest you think the cereal was weird, let me tell you, it was delicious. It had a good crunch when we stirred it all up, and I might be adding it to all my ice cream from now on. And this ddeok was absolutely wonderful, which is what Alejandra and I were looking for when we got the ddeok from the devil the other night.
Here's the cafe we got it in:
Once we had that good ddeok, we wanted more, so we googled a good ddeok shop in Seoul. Let me reiterate not to trust internet directions for places in Seoul, because it led us on a wild goose chase around Insadong, which was not fun. We found a place with some ddeok, but settled for whatever was left by the time we got there:
Cute chocolate steamed bun with apricot filling
Ok, I think I'm about as caught up as I can be at the moment. Hope you guys are having a great summer! Happy Pioneers Day!
Mom, this one's for you!
I met up with my Korean language exchange partner, Sunmi, again on Sunday afternoon. She took me to a different palace, called 덕수궁, or Duksoogoong. I think it was the last palace inhabited by a Korean king before the Japanese occupation of Korea. It's a bit smaller, but it was still beautiful.
We got to see the changing of the guard ceremony before we went in, and it was so cool:
You can barely see it on the right-hand side, but there was this huge drum the guy in green played sometimes, and you could feel it in your gut when he hit it.
Coffee was introduced to Korea around the turn of the century, and the last king liked it so much, he had this pavilion built exclusively for him to drink coffee. We got to go in, take our shoes off, and sit at his table. It's good to be the king.
Throne room and courtyard
Back of throne room
Here's where it started looking familiar - Mom, brace yourself, you might want to be sitting down. Sunmi told me this is where the Korean TV show "Goong" (Palace) was filmed, which was the first ever Korean show I watched, and Mom watched and loved it too. Marce, I think we watched the first episode of it. Needless to say, I was dying. In the good way, of course. Sunmi was surprised when I knew the drama, and I only hope I was able to contain my excitement so she couldn't tell I was going nuts inside.
This building (which is being reconstructed, hence the stuff at the bottom), was the only western style building in a palace in Korea, and now houses an art museum. We went inside to get tickets, when an ajusshi (older man) shoved a bunch of tickets in our hands and told us to go see the exhibit. Seemed pretty sketchy to us, but the ladies taking our tickets told us that he was actually really famous in the world of traditional Korean art, Hwang Pyung Woo. I've still got to google him to find out more.
Oh gosh, I still feel behind. I'll try to update on the rest of the week soon, but I've had quizzes yesterday and a baseball game tomorrow night - so little time! Love you guys.
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