Christmas Cakes - A Korean Tradition

Unfortunately, Christmas is not widely celebrated in Korea. Decorations are scarce, and what little decorations there are are mostly limited to shopping malls. Pictures of Santa or nativity scenes are almost nonexistant. To make it worse, Christmas is widely regarded as a couples holiday, so it is yet another day were "solo" Korean girls mope about their lack of boyfriends.

There is one thing, however, that Koreans do to celebrate Christmas, and that is getting a Christmas cake. Almost every family gets one (and couples get their own, of course, which they then take to enjoy at a love motel, but that's a story for another day), and right up to the holidays, almost every coffee/dessert chain or independent store will advertise their selections of cakes. And in the true Asian fashion, the cakes are decorated very cute or prettily.

The best thing about these cakes, though, is that all the stores are competing to sell the millions of cakes that will be bought. Therefore, all the big chains like Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin Robbins, etc. will throw in free beanies with the cake. It's totally worth it because the cakes range from $15 - $25, and if you were to buy a beanie by itself off a street cart or in the store, they'd cost at least $10. Most beanies average around $18. So basically, you're getting a free cake if you just want the beanies. This may seem silly, but the beanies that come free with the cakes are super cute! I myself bought two cakes just because I wanted the beanies, lol.

Hope is on the Way!!!

The time here in Korea has flown by; however, somehow it seemed like this month has crawled by. Maybe cuz I was tired of trying to teach kids who didn't give a crap cuz they were waiting for break, or maybe I was looking forward to break myself, but time went by at a snail's pace. I started the countdown since the first day and Dec. for Christmas to come, and... It's finally here!!!

I'm SO excited!!

Only a few more hours to go until my Christmas present flies in all the way from NY!!! I can't wait to go pick Hope up, and then it's off to Taiwan tomorrow for some awesome Chinese food!

Only a few more hours...

But all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ Christmas dinner in the meantime, I think I can handle that :P

Seoul Lantern Festival

You'd think with it being winter and freezing everywhere that the festivals would stop. But no... Just a coupla weeks ago, there was the Seoul Lantern Festival. The purpose of this festival was to kick off the 50-day countdown til "Visit Korea: 2010", a big push for tourism in Korea.

For this festival, they set up tons of big, bright lanterns right along Cheonggyecheon, the famous tree-lined stream right in the middle of the city. There were a large variety of lanterns, ranging from traditional Korean drummers to Easter Island Statues to famous Cartoon characters, all of which were taller 6 feet. It was really pretty to walk along the river and look at the lights despite the bitter cold.

And of course, like in normal Korean fashion, there was a massive opening ceremony filled with celeb performances, fireworks, and speeches. In pretty much one of the busiest squares in town, hundreds of Korean locals packed into this tiny space just to get a glimpse. You gotta love Seoul...

Grilled Duck and Homemade Kimchi

I really have lucked out with my co-teacher. She's basically become one of my best friends here in Korea. Even though we see each other every day at work, we still hang out lots on the weekends and after work. She's super sweet and we have tons of fun together. And today, I got to meet her family, who are also uber sweet :D

Her family took me out to this really nice grilled duck restaurant. It was my first time trying grilled duck like this, and it was really good. Think regular Korean BBQ but with duck. The restaurant first bakes the duck in their kitchen, debones it, and slices it up. Then, they bring it out, where we briefly grill the slices at our table, before we wrap it with lettuce and other vegetables into nice little roll.

The duck was really yummy, but the company made the night. My co-teacher's family are the nicest people. Even though there was a lot of back-and-forth translating going on, we still talked quite a bit. And when they dropped me back off at my apartment, they even gave me some homemade kimchi and japche to take with me :D I'm so lucky...

Got a 3 day weekend? Why not crash a wedding?

So my school decided to give everyone the day off last Friday. I found out about it a month ago, and I was super excited for the long weekend because it would mean the perfect chance for me to hop on over to China. When I told my co-teacher, though, she said I couldn't leave the country because of swine flu. (The government's enacted a policy were you have to be quarantined away from public schools for a week if you leave the country.) I was super bummed. My co-teacher, seeing how disappointed I was, wanted to make a up to me...

So she invited me to experience a Korean wedding :D One of her friends was getting married, and she got her to sent me an invite, lol. I love weddings in general, but I was super excited to see how this wedding would be different from ones in the States, even though Koreans rarely do traditional weddings anymore.

It turned out to be really nice. We when to this really gorgeous wedding hall in Gangnam (the rich, nice part of the city), and it was absolutely beautiful. The theme of the hall was kinda a winter wonderland decor, so there were white trees at every table, snowflakes and crystals hanging from the ceilings, and beautiful flower arrangements. I was very impressed.

The wedding was very Western, but there were some interesting parts.

Instead of a church, the wedding ceremony took place in this wedding hall. They set up a runway and a main stage for where the ceremony would take place, but instead of guest seats lined up in neat little rows, the seats were arranged around dinner takes. AND we actually ate during the ceremony! Right when they were saying their vows, the waiters came and brought us our own set places. I felt kinda awkward eating during the ceremony, but everyone else was just eating and chattering away like it was any normal restuarant.

The most random thing, though, happened after the vows. The couple were at the front of the stage watching the chorus sing a song, and then all of a sudden, the Shreks run up the stage and started dancing for the couple. They made dance motions to fit the song. It was really random but kinda cute. You could tell it was a surprise from their friends though cuz of the look on the couple's faces. But hey, they enjoyed it and that's all that matters.

After that, the doors opened, and my heart lept. It led to gorgeous buffet. Even the food was beautifully made to fit the occasion. There were 7 different rows of all types of different foods: cold sides, sushi and sashimi, soups, meat and seafood, and of course, desserts. Some of the food was so pretty that I didn't want to eat it, but of course, I did, lol. The food was excellent.

Oh, and another really interesting thing... You know how we have a prime rib/ham station in US buffets where the chef stands there to carve it up for you? Well, instead of that, they have a live octopus station. The chef stands next to a tank of like 50 or so small live octopuses and serves it right then and there for the wedding party. (Live octopus is a popular dish here, but I was just surprised to see it at a buffet).

I can't wait to go crash another wedding ;D

Peppero Day: a.k.a. National Love for Pocky Day

While Canada and some other Western countries have designated Nov. 11th to be Rememberance Day, Nov. 11th takes on a completely different meaning in Korea. It's called Peppero Day, which pretty much translates to a national love for Pocky (the pretzel stick snacks that are usually dipped in chocolate) day. Basically, it's a giant marketing scheme for people to buy Pocky, and it's worked...

The premise of this day is based on nothing more the amusing fact that Nov. 11th is numerically written as 11/11, which looks like a bunch of sticks. And since Pocky also looks like a stick and serves as a nice chocolatey snack, it somehow turned into a Valentine's Day-esque buy-Pocky-for-others-day.

Of course, the Pocky people have prepared "special" Pocky packages to celebrate. Everywhere you go, you'll see boxes of giant Pocky the size of your arm, Pocky boxes wrapped in baskets with stuffed teddy bears inside, and individually wrapped Pocky sticks with hearts printed on them. It's everything would you expect from Valentine's except instead of all different kinds of chocolate, it's pretty much only Pocky.

It's pretty interesting seeing a sort of Valentine's in Feb., but hey, I'm not complaining... I got some nice goodies from my kids :D

Bamboo Rice - A Damyang Specialty

Damyang is a city near the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula not far from Gwangju. They're known for their bamboo and strawberries, literally their city mascot is a Bambooman and a Strawberry man. They're also home to one of the most famous roads in Korea: Metasequoia Road (담양 메타세쿼이아 길), a beautiful tree-lined road made famous by dramas and movies. We decided to make a visit to Damyang because of Metasequoia Road, but anyways, this blurb is about the food.

So when we got to Damyang, we were told that dish that the area is most known for is their bamboo rice. It's basically rice that's been cooked in a container made from the stalk bamboo shoot with dates and beans inside. Apparently, it's very nutritious because the rice absorbs all the nutrients from the bamboo. It was delicious. The dates and nuts sweetened the rice, and the bamboo gave the rice a special aroma that was very good.

Now you may think that this rice is not much of a meal, but in the Korean fashion, it was served with a large arrray of side dishes, 16 different ones in our case. They were all very good, but the highlight of the sides was definitely the spiced bamboo shoots. I'm not normally a fan of bamboo shoots, but there was something about how they prepared it that made it taste very fresh. It was awesome.