Disappointing Hike, Amazing Dinner

Thanks to midterms this week, the students get to leave school around 12:30, and yesterday, my school took advantage of that absence to go on a short trip out to the countryside. Attracted by the lure of hiking and a free meal, I signed up happily. Plus, I like seeing my coworkers outside of the work setting. It's easier to talk to people and actually get to know them, and while I don't like to admit it, the more I get people to like me, the safer my job is. In the game of NETs...

So, after lunch, we all piled onto the bus for the ride out to Inje, up in the northeast corner of Gangwondo. It's always pretty funny to see everyone in their hiking clothes. People who you always see in formal or at least business-casual clothes seem so different in baseball caps and athletic pants. I felt woefully underprepared, having just worn jeans and a t-shirt. Some of my coworkers looked reading to go mountain climbing up a sheer rock face!

Our bus dropped us off at the foot of the mountain, where we transferred to a shuttle bus that would take us up to the temple we were slated to visit. Unfortunately I lost at bus roulette and had to stand, as there weren't quite enough seats for all of us. So began quite possibly the most harrowing bus ride of my life to date. As the bus wound it's way up a terrifyingly narrow road, hugging a cliffside, I clung to the nearby seats and prayed to any gods listening to bring me safely to the top. I tried not to look out the window. However, seeing as I'm alive to write this, I must have survived. 

The temple itself was nice. Nothing special, but I always enjoy visiting temples. They do start to all look the same after a while, though. I did enjoy the colorful paper lanterns strung up everywhere, though. It was a unique touch.

Leading the way.

I loved the way they fluttered in the wind. So whimsical!

My favorite temples are always the ones with a spring to drink from, or refill your water bottle, so I was quite satisfied by my visit. However, I think the most striking thing about the area was the mostly-dry riverbed full of stacked stones. The stark monochromes against the lush forest background created a beautiful contrast.

The sweet taste of dragon spit.

Whites and colors.

Sadly, I'm not an earthbender.

Sadly, I never got the hike I was expecting. Instead, we took a walk of interminable slowness along an almost entirely flat trail. I'm not kidding. I didn't know it was possible to walk so slowly. I was barely able to keep pace with the group, and had to keep reminding myself to slow down. However, I saw about 10 chipmunks, so it wasn't a complete waste. 

We also visited a farm and watched a bit of a presentation on all the school trip packages it offers, but as the Korean was way above my level, I mostly zoned out for that part. They did, however, give each of us a kilo (A KILO) of mushrooms for free. So yeah, if you want some mushrooms, call me. I'll hook you up.

Dinner made up for the sad lack of hiking, at least. I was too busy eating to take any pictures, but believe me, it was delicious. Grilled fish, some kind of simple fish soup, and some of the best vegetable side dishes I've ever had. I can't remember what anything was, but it was all so fresh and healthy; I could feel the vitamins making me stronger. We also had some locally made makeolli, which is one of my favorite Spring and Summer drinks. So refreshing!

The best part? When they found out I loved makkeolli, I got a free bottle to take home. Best. Field trip. Ever.

Eating My Way Through Jeonju: Food Tour Part 1

Long time no see! Or not see, exactly, but...well...anyways. Sorry I didn't write for so long. I got my first bad cold of the season, and while it tried to knock me down, I got up again because, to quote Chumbawumba, "you're never gonna keep me down." I've been working on a longer post about my teaching style and serious stuff like that, but it's taking too long, so instead I'll take you on a food tour of Jeonju! Because who doesn't love food?

Jeonju is about 3 hours from Wonju by bus, but since I was traveling with a friend, I met her in Seoul on Friday night so we could leave together on Saturday morning. Her apartment is super tiny but really cute, and it certainly made me feel grateful for all the space I have to live in these days. 

We caught the 8 AM bus out of Central City and napped for the first couple hours, if only to escape from the Most Depressing TV Program Ever. We were close to the front of the bus, which is usually a great location, because you can watch the TV that they always have going in front. I usually entertain myself by trying to guess the plots of random dramas without hearing the dialogue. This time, though, it was a curse, because for the entirety of the 3 hour bus ride they were showing a program about different places where volunteers go to help people in terrible situations. Causes included: starving children in Africa, homeless people in Seoul, and a little girl whose skin was so fragile even just water touching her felt like alcohol on an open wound. So yeah. That was wonderful to watch.

On the way, we stopped at a rest stop for a bit of leg-stretching and snacking. Korean rest stops are amazing, at least compared to what I've experienced in the states. There is real food, freshly cooked, and lots of different snacks to try. We only had 15 minutes, though, so Joon suggested we get some potatoes. Best. Decision. Ever. 

I'm drooling just looking at this picture.

Maybe it was because I hadn't eaten any breakfast and was starving, but these potatoes were amazing. I nearly choked on one because I was eating too fast. It was really embarrassing. What's great about this snack, though,  is its simplicity. It's just roasted potatoes with salt, but on a chilly November day it's perfect, and at only 2,500 won it's a steal. If you're ever at a rest stop in Korea and you need a snack, you should definitely try this.

As you can see, we chose the perfect time of year to visit. The leaves were all shades of red, orange and yellow, the air was cool and crisp even with the sun out, and all that delicious food was waiting for us to enjoy it.

There were long lines in front of just about every restaurant, so we chose based entirely on length of line. Luckily, we chose well.

Dramatic angles make food more delicious.

Tteokgalbi (I had to look this up) is made from short ribs (galbi) and pork. The meat is mixed together, then shaped into a sort of rectangle before being grilled over charcoal. You can either just eat it straight off the grill with a bit of salt, or dip it in some spicy sauce. If you have the patience you can even make a lettuce wrap with rice and kimchi. Much like the potato snack, I really enjoyed how simple this meal was. 

Beautiful presentation.

Since no meal is complete without soup, we finished off with some nengmyeon, delicious cold noodles. I went for the spicy version, which sadly wasn't actually all that spicy. Still great though!

For dessert we planned to go to Manil Manil, a cafe famous for it's patbingsu. Sadly, they were out of red bean topping for the day, so we had to make a new choice. 

The name of this cafe sounds like "choose me", so we did, and we were not disappointed. It's hard to see in the picture, but flavors ranged from the basics like strawberry and mango and chocolate all the way to grapefruit, blueberry yogurt, and wasabi, I panicked when I got to the front of the line and ordered the first thing I saw, which was strawberry. No regrets. There were slices of real strawberry embedded in the sorbet, and the flavor was just right. Not too sweet, very smooth, just...perfect. 

Just because it's winter doesn't mean I can't eat popsicles.

While we enjoyed our dessert we waited in line at PNB, a famous bakery that's been in business since 1951. While they bake all sorts of things, they're most famous for their chocopies. I didn't know chocopies could be fancy, but I guess you learn something new every day. The line stretched a couple blocks down the street, and each person could only buy 5, for a whopping 8,000 won. After trying one, though, I can see why they're famous. 

For one thing, they're pretty big-- bigger than your usual packaged chocopie. Nice rich chocolate, slightly crisp cake, classic marshmallow filling, and a bonus: strawberry cream! I managed to eat only half of one before I was full, but I could easily have shared it with two other people. The line maybe long, but I'd consider this delicious treat to be worth the wait.

Finally, a museum that caters to my interests.

After all that eating we decided we had to walk around a bit before exploding. All this food was located in the middle of a Hanok Village, which meant there were plenty of beautiful buildings and historical things to poke around in and look at. We also stumbled across some kind of performance, elementary school dancers and also some great drumming. 

For dinner, Joon's friend recommended a less well known but delicious beef restaurant. Beef is pretty pricey in Korea, but hey, we were on vacation! What better time to splurge a little?

What dreams are made of.

All this for 35,000 won! NOT BAD, if I do say so myself. A selection of beef to grill, a mountain of side dishes, and some extra vegetable soup that our nice server gave us for free. Speaking of our server, she was the most adorable thing ever. The moment we sat down, this tiny middle-aged woman came over and, upon seeing me, started throwing out random bits of English that she knew. I may have been the first foreigner in the restaurant, based on her reaction. She even mentioned that her daughter studies English in some hagwon. Maybe trying to impress me? I don't know. It was pretty cute.

For dessert we got ice cream macaron sandwiches and then stopped for some bitter and very healthy-tasting tea; the perfect end to a long, delicious day. Stay tuned for day two, which includes famous patbingsu and a series of unfortunate bus events.

Korean Countryside Adventures

Time has been flying by. It feels like just yesterday I was bemoaning the changes in my office, with favorite teachers moving to new offices or even worse, new schools, and scary new teachers moving in and refusing to let us turn the heating on. Imagine that. Wanting to turn the HEATING on. Now I have constant daydreams about air conditioning. They said it would be on this week, but...

Anyways, I bring up the rapid passage of time because recently, we had a bit of an office family reunion. By the end of last semester, especially after spending so much time together during winter break, some of my officemates really started to feel less like coworkers and more like friends or family. Our daily lunch adventures became comfortable; our group narrowed down to the usual suspects. Lee Kyuwon, the taciturn but kind office head, with his amazing knowledge of tiny local restaurants. Hong Mija, the other office head, always trying to communicate with me, even though her knowledge of English is as limited as my knowledge of Korean. Kim Yunju, who feels like a sister and who is the only one who likes spicy food as much as me. And of course Jang Hyeonji, my lovely coteacher. Sitting in the car on the way to our meal, it felt less like 5 coworkers, and more like dad, mom, and three sisters.

Hong-ssn, Hyeonji, Soohyun, Lee Kyuwon-ssn, Yunju, and me.

So, months later, after ages of planning over kakaotalk, we managed to all find a time to meet up and try to put our little family back together. That makes it sound like something catastrophic happened, wow. Nothing so horrible that a little dinner couldn't fix. We all piled into Kyuwon-ssn's car and, as usual, I had no idea where we were going, how long we would be there, what we would be eating, etc etc. All I knew was that we were meeting at 5:30...somewhere in Korea. I assumed.

As it turns out, we ended up in this amazing little restaurant way out in the middle of nowhere. I didn't even realize it was a restaurant until everyone started getting out of the car.

I want one.

Tucked away off a tiny road, hidden among the bushes and trees, I felt as if I'd wandered onto the set of Secret Garden, the bit with the actual magic garden on Jeju Island. There was a rooster on the roof, that we all assumed was fake until it moved. The coolest thing was that instead of sitting in the main building, we got our own tiny private room with a big window facing out on the scenery. To summon the server, we literally had a phone that acted as a sort of walkie talkie between us and the main building. It was brilliant.

The window's a bit dirty, sorry, but LOOK AT THAT VIEW.

Our little room, the side dishes, and peeking through  the door is our crocodile friend.

As you can probably tell, we all sat on the floor around a beautiful low wooden table, munching on side dishes as we waited for the main event. I can't remember all the dishes that were there, but all the vegetables were so fresh and delicious, I would have been happy to eat only those. There were fresh cucumber spears dipped in red pepper sauce, kimchi, sautéed mushrooms, hot peppers, fish cakes, and a few other vegetable selections that I didn't recognize but were nevertheless consumed in great quantities by all.

Do it yourself: restaurant style.

Ah yes. The main event. I love how many dishes in Korea you have to cook yourself. From ramen to BBQ, it gives the meal a fun, hands-on vibe, though it also kinda stresses me out unless I'm with someone who knows what they're doing. Fortunately, in this case it was just a sort of soup, and who doesn't know how to heat up soup?

As you can see from the picture, we were rocking some seriously healthy dinner plans. Lots of leafy greens, those tiny mushrooms that look like noodles, and under all that was a whole chicken (in pieces), rice, and some spices and onions and stuff. The chicken was, I assume, already cooked, but once we got the burner going, the whole thing quickly got up to a nice boil, slowly cooking the greens and mushrooms as we stirred from time to time.

Enter the chicken.

It was such a simple, delicious dish. Also, you've never really lived until you've tried to eat chicken off the bone with only chopsticks and a spoon. I can't say that my method was...graceful, but the chicken got from my plate to my mouth with minimal accidents, so I call it a win. While I feel like this soup would be wonderful on a cold winter day, the simplicity of the ingredients also rendered it surprisingly refreshing on a hot, muggy day.

Then, as if we didn't already have enough food to feed a small, healthy army, we ordered a squid and vegetable fried...sort of pancake...it's hard to explain, but trust me, it was fantastic. I've had a lot of these, at various restaurants, but this may have been the best. It was really thick, stuffed to the gills with fresh veggies and squid, and even though I had already eaten a ridiculous amount of chicken, I couldn't resist it's fried, tentacly charms. Is tentacly a word? NOW IT IS.



Ignore the chicken carnage, look at the delicious alcohol!



The final element to our meal was a bowl of dongdongju, which is a sort of sweet, traditional rice wine. It came in an earthenware pot with a ladle, and we drank it out of small bowl-like cups. As I relaxed, nibbling at side dishes and sipping my wine, I slipped into that perfect feeling of belonging somewhere, of being comfortable enough with a group of people to just sit and listen to the conversation wash over you. What I mean is, I felt like I was at a family dinner, where my family just happened to all be speaking in Korean. I faded in and out of the talk, understanding for a while and then losing the flow again, but I didn't mind. The air was warm, and after my second cup of wine, I was feeling pleasantly fuzzy around the edges.

It's evenings like this that keep the homesickness at bay, finding pockets of home even in the most foreign of settings, shaping what is unfamiliar into something comforting, something safe. Because when you're this far from home, what else can you do but make a new home?

Chinese Food in Korea

America has it's own special brand of Chinese food (who the hell is General Tso, that's what I want to know), Mexican food (Chipotle I'm looking at you), and basically every other interesting ethnic food. Korea is pretty similar, with it's own versions of things such as pizza and hamburgers, but what I want to talk about today is, as the title probably warned you, Chinese food in Korea.



We ate everything. All...two of us.

Now, I'm no expert on Chinese food, but I've heard from a few of my Chinese friends that most American "Chinese" food can't be found in China, and the same goes for the staple dishes of the average Chinese restaurant in Korea. Now, I've had some pretty legit Chinese food, and it's amazing, but that will never change my love for the bastardized versions you can find in both America and Korea. Interesting side note: apparently, in Italy, they always serve fried gelato at Chinese restaurants, to the point where many Italians think it's an actual Chinese dessert. The world is crazy, right?

So, what I've found so far in most (if not all) Chinese restaurants in Korea is the same four staple dishes, which can all be seen in the above photo. Starting on the left and moving clockwise they are: 만두 (mandu), 짬뽕 (jjampong), 탕수육 (tangsuyuk), and 자장면 (jajangmyeon). So, what are these delightful dishes?

1. Mandu (pronounced mahndoo)

Look at that. Just look at it. Drooling yet?

These are probably the most familiar part of the meal, what you may know as a potsticker. The shape and filling varies from store to store, but they're pretty much always delicious and a great appetizer. They're fried, so the crispy outer shell gives way to a hot, savory inside, usually make up of finely chopped meat, tofu, or sometimes glass noodles and veggies. If I didn't care about healthy eating and maintaining my girlish figure, I could probably eat these every day. There are actually quite a few different types of mandu you can find in Korea, but these are proooobably my favorite. Maybe I'll do a post entirely about mandu in the future, which is totally not just an excuse to eat more mandu. I swear.

2. Jjampong, champong, champpong, spelling Korean words is exciting. (pronounced jahmpohng)

I can feel the spiciness through the picture.

One of the main entrees to choose from, jjampong is a very spicy seafood and noodle soup, a close relative of the Japanese ちゃんぽん (champon or chanpon), another soup inspired way back in the day by a Chinese dish. Unfortunately, due to a shellfish allergy, I've only been able to take small tastes of this one, but I can tell you just from that that it's delicious.

Depending on where you go, the ingredients will vary. I've seen clams, mussels, octopus, shrimp, pork, and all manner of vegetable piled in with a spicy broth and long noodles. If you like spicy food, this is a good choice, but if you're worried, I'd pass. I come from a family of hot sauce lovers, and even I've felt a serious burn from taking sips of this broth. Be warned!

 

3. Jajangmyeon, jjajangmyeon, more exciting Korean spelling. (pronounced jaw-jawng-myuhn)

 

Could anything be more perfect?

Jajangmyeon, or black bean sauce noodles, is probably my favorite of the lot. It's cheap, it's filling, and also pretty easy on the stomach, unlike the raging spiciness of jjampong. There are two main ingredients in this simple dish: jajang, the black bean sauce, and myeon, the noodles. Hence the name. Pretty slick right?

The literal meaning of jajang is "fried sauce", and that's exactly how this dish is made. Black soybean paste, onions, and either beef, pork or chopped seafood is fried together in a pan, then poured hot over the same long noodles you can find in jjampong. Often the dish is garnished with thinly sliced cucumbers, giving a nice crispy counterpoint to the slightly sweet flavor and soft texture of the sauce and noodles. This is one dish I can't recall ever seeing in America, which is really surprising to me, as it seems like it wouldn't be too foreign to a more Western palate. Anyone want to open a restaurant? I'll be your spokesperson.

 

4. Tangsuyuk (pronounced tahng-soo-yook)

I'm too hungry to look at this picture right now.

 

Tangsuyuk is probably the least healthy thing I've talked about so far, but it's just so delicious I can't bring myself to care. This is probably why I will never be skinny. Tangsuyuk is pretty similar to the American Chinese sweet and sour chicken, though here it can be made with either pork or chicken, or sometimes shrimp, though I think it goes by a different name in that case. Most often, though, it's pork, crispy fried and covered in a sweet sauce. What I especially like is how they don't completely coat the meat in sauce most of the time, so the sweetness and stickiness is not as overwhelming.

If you're an American like me and find yourself missing the familiar taste of cheap American Chinese food, tangsuyuk is a good bet. Just order up a big plate, close your eyes, and pretend you're home.

5. Bonus Round: 반찬 (banchan) or side dishes: pickled radish, raw onions, and black bean paste.

We didn't eat the scissors.

Yes, it's another picture of jajangmyeon. With three peas! This is probably the prettiest jajangmyeon I've ever eaten. However, what I want to focus on in this picture is the small dish in the center. Yeah, that one with the yellow things. So, what are the yellow things? Delicious. That's what.

A Korean meal is never complete without side dishes, and Chinese food over here is no exception. What's interesting in this case, though, is the consistency of said side dishes from shop to shop. It's always the same three things: pickled radish, raw onions, and black bean paste to dip the onions in. I've never been able to handle raw onions, but the black bean flavor is pretty great on the end of a chopstick. Radishes, though, those are my jam. The texture is not unlike a pickle, with a sweet and sharp taste that really cleanses the palate. I also feel like they can help cool your mouth after the spicy soup, but that might just be my imagination.


 As my final point, an interesting note. Since Chinese food here is really cheap, and all the shops deliver, it's more often eaten at home than in restaurants, putting it in the same category as pizza. And when I say cheap, I mean CHEAP. For example, the entire meal that I outlined here, which could easy have fed 3-4 people, cost less than $20, and this was a chain store that was a bit more expensive than the average Chinese place.


To sum it all up, Chinese food in Korea is great. Go eat some.

Coming up next: A seasonal treat- patbingsu!