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.

The Rest of the Gwangju Trip

Although the love motel incident was the most outrageous incident of our weekend trip to Gwangju, it was by no means the only part worth mentioning. Here's everything else that happened on the trip...

The main reason we decided to go to Gwangju in the first place was because it was the site of the Kimchi Festival. I had heard good things about it, and I really wanted to check it out. Unfortunately though, we arrived in Gwangju pretty late in the date and at the end of the festival, so it was kinda a dud. Almost all of the cool events, like the kimchi-making contest and the make-your-own-kimchi area, were already closed. We did, however, get to see some really pretty-looking kimchi on display and some interesting kimchi art...

The next morning, my co-teacher brought me to Soswaewon Garden. It's a traditional garden where sitting pavilions are constructed in a way that's "in harmony with nature". Basically, it's positioned well and hidden within lots of beautiful trees and by a nice stream. We were really lucky because we caught it right at the nice part of fall, so all the fall leaves painted gorgeous colors of red, orange, and yellow all around us. It was really beautiful.

After that we bussed on over to Damyang, a city right new to Gwangju. It's home to one of the most famous roads in Korea: Metasequoia Road (담양 메타세쿼이아 길). Metasequoia Road is a beautiful tree-lined road made famous by dramas and movies because it's a wide pedestrian path flanked by towering trees. It also runs along the main river of the region. It's a main tourist attraction among Korean locals. It was very pretty because of the fall leaves, but unfortunately, it was a bit crowded. The best part, however, was that we got to rent bikes and go biking all around the area. It was so nice biking with such a gorgeous backdrop that this was definitely the highlight of the weekend. I forgot how much I missed biking...

After Metasequoia Road, we had a nice lunch where we tried Damyang's specialty: bamboo rice. Then, it was back to Seoul. The 3-hour train ride was a bit exhausting, but it was definitely worth it for a great weekend. :D

My Night at a Love Motel with My Female Co-teacher

Several weeks ago, I read about a Kimchi Festival that was going on in the southern Jeolla province of Korea, and it sounded really interesting. I mean, come on, a whole festival devoted to kimchi? How could it not be interesting, not to mention the prospects of eating all that kimchi, lol. Anyways, I mentioned it to my coteacher, and she was nice enough to arrange the trip for us. And so, last week we took a 3-hour long train ride all the way down to the southern tip of the peninsula to Gwangju.

When we got there, we decided that neither of us really wanted to spent the money for a decent hotel room. Neither of us are particular when it comes to living, so we decided to ask tourist information for a recommendation. That was not a good idea.

Apparently in Gwangju, the only motels that are available are love motels, and the one that tourist information recommended was this UBER cheesy one called Motel Opera. Think of the worst, most stereotypical love motel from Asian soap operas that you can imagine; that's what Motel Opera was like. No joke. The moment you walk in, you can hear really cheesy jazz music being played in the background. There's tacky vases with fake flowers all through the narrow hallway. The hallway leads to a small glass window with a super sketch guy behind the counter, and right beside the counter is a poster with pictures of three different types of rooms, all of which boast of a big queen size bed with red velvet covers.

My Female co-teacher and I were speechless. We didn't really know what to make of it, but it was cheap: 30,000 ($25) for the night, a third of the price of any hotel. We considered it, and we figured that neither of us really cared all that much; we just need a place to crash. So we payed. As we got to the elevator, though, we saw this couple come out, and that did it for us. The reality of the sketchiness of Motel Opera sank it, and we couldn't get in the elevator. We quickly asked for a refund and bolted out.

Later on in the taxi, she told the cab driver about our experience, and he just laughed. He said it was common knowledge that that was the way motels are in Gwangju. He told us we were better off getting a hotel in this one part of the city, but we still weren't ready to pay for an expensive hotel. We decided to check out the motels around the area that the cab driver mentioned because we heard that there would be better quality motels there.

Finally, we ended up in this dinky little love motel in the downtown area. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as Motel Opera though. The only thing cheesy about this place was the pink hallway lights. It was an older building, so there didn't seem to be other guests there (which in this case was a great thing). Later, my co-teacher told me she was okay with this place because the manager was a woman, lol. Unfortunately, the room was older so it was kinda gross but still tolerable. At least though it turned out to be even cheaper than Motel Opera.

So there you have it, only two months in Korea and I end up in a Korean love motel with my co-teacher. The things you'll do to save a couple bucks... ~sigh~

Trick-or-Treating in My Office

Here in Korea, all the kids know of or have heard of Halloween, but no one really celebrates it. I think their English academies do some activity or another to tell them about Halloween, but that's it. So I decided to let my kids experience trick-or-treating. For the entire week leading up to Halloween, I told all my classes about the history of Halloween, how kids celebrate it in America nowadays, and I told them that if they came to my office afterschool on the 30th and said "Trick or treat", I would give them candy. I didn't really know how many would actually remember or show up, but tt turned out to be the cutest thing...

Minutes before I even finished my last class on Friday, I could already here clamoring in the hallway, and the moment I opened to door, they all shouted trick or treat in unison. It was adorable. All my third graders, who are the cutest things, were there with the biggest smiles.

So basically almost all my kids came. One kid even drew some makeup on his face to look scary, lol. And even the ones who I swear NEVER pay attention to me in class came and who they hate English and never say a word in class unless forced, all managed to remember trick or treat.

It was really funny because I have this one sixth-grader who thinks he's super cool. He always dresses really grown up and tries to act all cool and mature. Well, he came too which suprised both me and my co-teacher. And then two minutes later, he came again and tried to cover his face with his arm as if we wouldn't recognize him, lol. It was good to see the childish side of even the "coolest" kid in school.

But the one kid who by far takes the card for being the funniest was this one weird kid. I don't really understand him cuz he acts a bit odd and he never responds to you but he's an interesting fella. Well, he came with his skeleton hoodie (In Korea, they have these awesome hoodies where they zip all the way up to your forehead and they come in Mario or skeleton prints on them, very cute). Anyways, he came in his skeleton hoodie, but he came with it zipped all the way to his forehead. He stuck out his arms for candy, and I couldn't help but laugh. The really funny part though was that when he turned to leave, he didn't unzip his hoodie, so he actually ran into the wall and fell on the ground. It was the funniest thing...

Buddhist Temple Stay at Hwagyesa Temple

A few weeks ago, a bunch of other English teachers and I decided to experience a temple stay where you live the life of a Buddhist monk for a weekend. We found a nice temple right here in Seoul that accepted foreigners, and we went. It was an interesting experience, which I myself enjoyed, but unfortunately, most of my other friends did not share my sentiment.

We got there Sat. afternoon, and first thing on our agenda was lunch. What better way to start an experience, right? Well, it turned out not to be entirely true because lunch was basically boiled vegetables with rice. Now, I've had some really great vegetarian dishes before, but this was not the case. This meal was completely bland, and it turned out, we would get the same meal 3 times a day for the duration of our trip. I was a bit disappointed by the food, but food is food, and under the right circumstances, I can basically eat anything, so it wasn't a big deal for me. For some of my other friends, however, they couldn't bear it, so they ended up sneaking out of the temple grounds to by food from a local bakery. It was really amusing because we all made a joke about the "contraband goods" that they brought back, but that kinda set the tone for the weekend.

After lunch, we met the head monk. He was an interesting fellow, to say the least. He had spent years in the States, so his English was really good. That also meant, however, that he was comfortable saying basically to us, and he had a really weird sense of humor. He tried hard to be cool, but his references to 70's and 80's pop culture left us all confused, lol.

During our session with the head monk, he taught us the proper way to bow (which we would be doing a lot of), how to meditate, and gave us our homework for the weekend: a question about the meaning of error that we should think about during our meditation.

For the rest of the day, we did several meditation sessions, which proved to be quite difficult (Sitting still Indian-style for an hour at a time is not that comfortable). We also went to a general chanting session. That was really interested because we got to here the monks sing the chants, but that was also tiring because it was the beginning of many, many bows.

The day ended at 8:00. Lights out was at 9:00, and we were all in bed by then. That may seem early, but we needed to wake up at 3:00 in the morning so...

The next morning, we started the day with another meditation session (which for most of us meant extra naptime, lol). Then we had to do the ceremonial 108 bows. For this, you were given an hour and you have to bow continuously in that hour. They stressed no breaks allowed, and the number of bows you did reflected your devoutness and sincerity. Thankfully though, this was done at our own pace, so I think we each averaged around 40 bows.

After the bowing, we went to another chanting session (which unfortunately meant even more bowing), and finally, we did the morning chores. These people have got it down! I don't know how they managed to come up with such a sweet setup, but they basically get foreigners and tourists to pay to sweep their parking lot for them!! But needless to say, we had a bit of fun and goofed around with our brooms, lol.

Anyways, all this was done before breakfast at 5:00. Can you believe that??? I still don't know how we managed to do so much. But anyways, after breakfast we did one more meditation session, and then came the really fun part. They took us on a mini-hike up the nearby mountain and we got to "meditate" and chill up there. It was such a great view. It was nice and warm and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. You could see all the fall leaves. Oh, it was by far the best part of the trip.

The hike was the official end of our trip. The head monk invited us to stay for lunch, dinner, and more sessions for free, but as you can imagine, we were all ready to leave as fast as possible to get some real food.

So that was our Buddhist temple stay experience. It was definitely an interesting one, but it was pretty exhausting. So much, that afterwards, a few of us definitely to reward ourselves by chilling out with some wine in the park. :D

Where did my Cali sunshine go???

After two months of being in Korea and loving it, I had my first breakdown earlier this week. How it happened: For the past two months, I've been a bit sleep deprived. Ever since I started taking my Korean language classes, I've been at school basically from 9 in the morning to 9 at night so that I don't get back to my apartment til 10:30. Needless to say being so busy during the week, I make sure I make the most out of my free time during the weekends. I've been running around anywhere and everywhere these past few weeks, so exhausting was sneaking up on me.

On top of that, the weather suddenly decided to drop 20 degrees overnight. It was mid-50s on day, and when I woke up the next, it was low-30s. And although I've been trying to prepare for the cold (spent a good chunk of my paycheck paying a whole new winter wardrobe), I have found that I'm not cut out for the cold. I'm the most bundled out of anyone on the streets, and yet I feel I'm still the coldest and I hate it.

As if being cold when going around outside and being sleep-deprived weren't enough, my apartment's heater has failed to work adaquately. So that night it dropped 20 degrees, even though I turned up heater up to its max, my apartment still felt like an ice box. I was so cold in my apartment that I couldn't get a wink of sleep.

The next day, I show up to work utterly miserable. Naturally, I tell my co-teacher there's something wrong with my heater, and we get the afternoon off from work to try and fix it. When we get to my apartment, my co-teacher explains that since I technically live in an Officetel and not a normal residential building, my heater is not going to be as warm. I don't know why, but this news and the thought of freezing in my apartment all winter long made me super upset. Consequently, I was a bit short with my co-teacher even though she was trying to help me as best she can translating for me to the maintanence guy.

Later on in the car on the way to our night classes (I take Korean and she takes graduate classes), my co-teacher confronts me on my attitude back at the apartment. She was completely right, but the next thing I know, I'm crying my eyes out and I can't stop. I don't know if it was the lack of sleep or the shock of being so cold for the first time in years, but for the first time, I realized just how much I missed LA and my nice warm, sunny weather that I couldn't help myself.

My co-teacher felt so bad. Poor thing. Even though I was completely wrong and out-of-line for being rude, she ended up apologizing to me for not considering my much the cold would affect me. She felt so bad that dropped by later that night after our classes to bring me a thick blanket from her house!

It's kinda sad I'm such a pansy to the cold. Both my co-teacher and I don't know how I'm going to survive the winter, but hopefully, I'll be able to toughen up a bit. We'll see...

Going to Hair Salons

Hair salons here are so much nicer and cheaper than in the US. Even if you go to a normal salon chain, the indoor decorations are lovely. The moment you step in, you're ushered onto nice, plush couches and greeted with biscuits and a choice of coffee or tea.

Also, the hairdressers are all super skilled. Apparently, they have to first apprentice for a year or so, during which they can only wash and blow dry hair, before they can even their own scissors. That shows dedication! My hairdresser was lightning fast and super pro. It was cool cuz at one point, I had the apprentice blow-drying my hair on one side and the hairdresser speeding away on the other.

You'd think with that kind of service and niceness, it'd cost an arm and a leg, but actually, my haircut turned out to only be 12,000 won ($10). Thank you co-teacher for referral! (If you go with a regular, you automatically get 30% off).

A word of caution though: if you don't want a fobby Korean or Japanese haircut, make sure you bring your own picture. It took 30 minutes and my Korean co-teacher's constant translations for me to get the style I wanted without a picture.

Kayaking in Gangwon-do

Two weekends ago was Chuseok holiday (the Korean version of Thanksgiving or Mid-Autumn Festival), and my school gave us 5 days off. What do you do with such a rare break? Road trip, of course! A bunch of other native teachers and I decided to take a trip to Gangwon-do because one of them found that it's apparently THE place to do whitewater rafting in Korea. All eager to get away from the city for a bit, we hopped on a bus for three hours and made it out to Inje in Gangwon-do.

Getting to Inje was an experience because we had to take a regional bus that's kinda different from cities buses. We went to a major bus terminal, and this being Chuseok (a time when almost every single Korean visits their hometime) the terminal was absolutely packed. It was a madhouse just getting the tickets, and afterwards, there were so many buses that we weren't really sure where to go. Of course, not a single one of us spoke Korean, so we were handicapped in asking. Fortunately since the majority of our group were obvious foreigners (they were white), one bus driver parted the sea of Koreans for us and led us to the right bus. To top it off, the other bus drivers all started clapping and yelling, "Welcome to Korea!" What a great way to kick off the weekend.

Anyways, when we finally get to Inje, our rafting guide picked us up and brought us to our cabin (which btw turned out to be gorgeous and quite spacious). But the surprise was, when we got there the river was about 2 feet deep!! Apparently, we went right at the end of the rafting season and near the beginning of the dry season... So we were told the river was too low for rafting (obviously) but that we were going to go kayaking instead. Bummer, right?

But kayaking actually turned out to be way fun! Before we headed out, they suited us up with lifevests and helmets. We all laughed because we were all thinking, "Are we looking at the same river? Is all this equipment really necessary??" But actually it turned out to be quite handy. Since the river was so low, it was actually a bit tough at some parts because our kayaks would get stuck on the rocks if you didnt' follow the exact course (which of course happened to me and my partner quite a bit) and some people in our group would accidently knock someone else's head with their oar, lol!

It was my partner and my first real time kayaking through rapids, so it was quite an adventure. We eventually got the hang of it and was able to navigate through the end of the course, but that took quite a while to get down. The beginning and middle, however, was tough. It seemed like we were getting stuck or going backwards every two seconds, and at one point, we got so hopelessly stuck at one of the bigger rapids that we had to get out and haul our kayak.

Moving the kayak from the rocks was okay, but me being me, I actually fell into the river while trying. :( It was then that I realized that the seemingly tame river had quite a strong current. I tried to swim back to my kayak, but it was hopeless. I tried to get a foothold or handhold on the rocks as I passed by them, but that too turned out to be futile because they were too smooth and slippery. Finally, I was so tired I just let myself drift down the current. After I finally grabbed hold of a rock, one of our guides had to come and basically drag me back to my kayak. (I grabbed a handhold on the back of his kayak while he rowed.) I felt so bad for him!!!

Overall, the trip was a blast! Kayaking was much more fun and exciting than we first thought when we arrived, and it was really nice just chilling with everyone in our cabin later that night. Also, it was a really good deal!! 50,0 00 won per person for the kayaking tour and overnight at the cabin. Where could you possibly get such a good deal in the States??

It was so much fun that we're already planning to go back for a true rafting trip after the rainy season in April. Can't wait...

Discovering New Street Food: Okonomiyaki

Just when I thought I had tried all the different kinds of street food there are in Korea, I find a new little surprise by the Ehwa Subway Station. I was walking around the area trying to decide what to eat for dinner, when I passed by a Japanese Takoyaki (Octopus Ball) cart. All the other Japanese carts I had seen only sell Takoyaki, but this particular one had something new called Okonomiyaki. Curious, I had to try it. It turned out to be mixture of octopus, shrimp, egg, and vegetables made into something resembling a crab cake, and to top it off, were pan-friend udon noodles. Talk about YUM!!! For street food, it was kinda expensive (4,000 won), but it was totally worth it. So glad I found this cart :D

Gift from the Pear Farms

Yet another reason why my co-teacher is the sweetest person ever. Korean teachers here have to work a lot because they only get two Saturdays off a month. With that said, my co-teacher spent one of her free Saturdays off leaving pears for me at my apartment. We were talking earlier in the week, and I just happened to mention that I couldn't believe how big the pears were here and that they were really good. Next thing I know, I get a text from her on Saturday telling me to pick up the pears she dropped off for me from my building's security guard. Apparently, she went to the pear farms nearby to get me some :D

Coffee Houses and Shaved Ice

No trip to Korea is complete without a trip to a nice coffee house, so Ning's visit ended with a trip to a coffee house for some nice drinks and of course, shaved ice. There's this really pretty coffee house that's just two blocks from my apartment. I pass by it almost every day on my way back from the city, so again, I've been waiting for the chance to try it out. When we went, it was much better than expected. The place was nicely furnished with a cozy feel but not way too girly-over-the-top like some other coffee houses can be. The best thing about it though was that a slice of cake, cheesecake, or tirimisu comes with your drink order! Talk about major sweets indulgence when you also get shaved ice on top of it (which of course we had to, lol). The cakes were really yummy, but the star of the evening was definitely the shaved ice. It's so much better than the ones in the states. For one thing, there's a ton of red bean in it, a good amount of mochi and fruit, and it's topped off with a scoop of vanilla-caramel ice cream. YUM! Definitely no better way to leave Korea. :D

Ice Cream Fondue!

Baskin Robbins is kinda a big deal here in Korea. You can find a store every other block or so, and some big hangout spots even have a posh Baskin Robbins Cafe. So in order to live to their high-profile rep, the Baskin Robbins here have many specialties not found in the US, one of which is their ice cream fondue. Basically, it's a wonderful plate of various bits of frozen ice cream, cakes, and even tomatoes set around a nice warm bowl of melted chocolate fondue.

After hearing about it for several weeks, I decided to take advantage of Ning's visit as a good excuse to try it out. The first attempt was a complete fail because I couldn't understand the staff's response after ordering it in my broken Korean, so we ended up settling for a regular cone. The second time, however, I brought my Korean co-teacher with us, and... Success!! It's was bit expensive even for Korean cafe standards (12,000 won for a set), but it's a delicious dessert nonetheless and well worth the experience. So if you're craving something sweet, pick a nicely decorated Baskin Robbins Cafe and chill out with their ice cream fondue.

A Snack at the Local Markets

One of my favorite things to do here in Korea is just walk around various subway stops until I find a local market. I absolutely love walking around the local markets, because they have all sorts of yummy looking foods, and almost every time I've gone, I've discovered at least one new food item. :D

A couple weeks ago when I was wondering around the downtown area, I stumbled onto this great market just off of the Jongno-5-ga station. It's a really large market where one half is devoted to clothing, bedding, and textiles and the other half is devoted entirely to food. There were a lot of great food stands, but unfortunately, I was way to full at the time to try anything.

Therefore when Ning came to visit, I decided I had to take him to this Jongno-5-ga area market because 1. it's one of the biggest local markets that I've found so far and 2. one of the things that stood out when I found this place was there were lots of pacheon-type foods (yummy Korean pancakes) stands and I knew Ning's a big fan of pacheon.

So after a whole day of walking and eating many meals from various street food vendors, we headed over to the Jongno-5-ga area market, and we ordered a huge pacheon. It had to be our 6th or 7th meal of the day, but it was delicious that we devoured the entire thing even though it was absolutely enormous. There's gotta be no better feeling than getting a great pacheon from the local market...

Our wonderfully delightful pacheon-like pancake

Seoul Drum Festival

One thing I absolutely love about Seoul is all the random festivals that they have. So far since I've been here, there's been at least two or three festivals going on for each weekend. The main event for last week was: the Seoul Drum Festival.

Drumming is big here in Korea. It's a big part of traditional culture and performance, and there's many, many modern re-interpretations of the traditional instruments. So needless to say, when I found out that there was going to be a Drum Festival in Seoul, I knew it would be good, and it didn't disappoint.

The Drum Festival is an annual event that highlights the different drum styles of Korea and abroad. It took over Seoul Forest by setting up a huge stage in the middle of the lawn, and jsut going in was kinda interesting. Because of the whole swine-flu precautions, everyone that enters the festival first has to walk through thermal sensors to see if you have a fever. Then, there's at least 3 staff people standing by the entrance to give you hand sanitizers. It was quite high-tech for a random lawn festival.

Upon entering, there were lots of booths set up for free promo stuff and drums for you to play with. There were all the different types of Korean drums, and it was really cute watching the little kids play with the drums. Some were actually really good and knew what they were doing.

After messing with the drums for a bit, the show finally starts. Again, there were two M.C.s, and they kinda made a big deal out of the opening ceremony (apparently, they made the world's largest drum for this festival and so of course they needed a lot of pomp and circumstance when the major or whoever he was made the first strike). They tried to make it sound so dramatic that it was quite comical, and for a bit I was a little skeptical as to the quality of the performances.

The rest of the show after the opening ceremony, however, was really great. There were 8 or so different groups that performed, a couple of which were international groups. There was one group from Mexico, and another really flashy group from Brazil. The Brazil group was the only one to not play the drums. They just did different Samba and Salsa numbers to a beat, but they costumes and performance was so out there, that it didn't really matter they didn't play the drums themselves.

The other 6 or so groups were Korean. They all featured different kinds of drums and all had their own unique styles, so every performance was unique and did a great job. There was one group that used metal fans to hit the drums, and there was one performance with the traditional drum dance with the ribbon hats.

Overall, Ning and I were both pleasantly surprised by the quality of each of the performances. The only downside to the entire experience was that since it was for 3 hours outdoors, it started to get quite chilly outside. And of course, me being the pansy that I am to the cold, I actually got sick by the end of the night, so poor Ning, he had a sick host for most of his visit. : /