Day 39

This past weekend I went to Seoul and was part of a zombie walk!  A zombie walk is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of people dress up as zombies and walk around town scaring the living daylights out of unsuspecting folk.

Here's a few photos I didn't take:

I'm right in the middle in a grey shirt!  (Hint: look for the blonde hair.)  This photo courtesy of Trevla Aban.  

One of the coordinators, dressed to the nines!  (Or equivalent, anyway.)
Photo courtesy of Nuela Rivera Photography.

Another excellent zombie lady!
Photo courtesy of Sean Ian.

And here's a few more photos that I did take:

Well actually, I guess I didn't take this one.  But it's on my camera.

...guess I didn't take this one either.

I owe a big thanks to my new best friend Sarah (in the Jack Daniels shirt) for supplying me with makeup and putting it on for me, because I am terrible at that sort of thing.

The only other blonde person I've met in Korea.

Not sure who she's supposed to be, but she was scary!

Classic.

Zombie ladies!

More zombie ladies!

The woman in the car had a tiny, tiny kitten.  And for some reason, she was kind enough to let the undead hold him!

So cute!!!!

And these aren't zombies, but they are kinda freaky.  I've mentioned matching couples a few times but I feel that I haven't properly conveyed how common this is.  Couples actually buy matching outfits and wear them out.  A lot.  It's cute but also weird.  Mostly weird.

After an excessively long walk, the zombies were literally growling with hunger, so we all got some grub and liquor.  One of the most amazing things in Korea is soju, which costs $1 a bottle, is about 40 proof, and never ever gives me a hangover.  It's beautiful and I am going to miss it greatly when I get back to America.

After a night of dancing, Sarah and I retreated to her flat and promptly passed out.  The next day I went to Yongsan, a shopping area of Seoul--but then again, I don't think there's a non-shopping area in Seoul.  I wanted to return to the shopping center I visited last week with Eric, but I got confused and went to Yongsan instead.

Yongsan's shopping center is perfect... if you are very wealthy and desperately need to buy a new bed, a cello, a computer, a cell phone, and a blender all at once and in one place.

I think the contents of every Sears store in America are crammed into this building.

You must also be prepared to fend off the sellers.  If you enter their 30-foot radius or so much as glance at their goods, you'd better grab a stick.  They're predators and they scare me!

Oh hey, are you a golfer AND an enormous Sesame Street fan?  BINGO.

I don't even want to know what this is advertising.  It makes me uncomfortable.

This place was a maze and I started to get a bit panicked when I couldn't find an exit.  Fortunately I escaped and made it to my real destination: Dongseoul, or "South Seoul."  Exit the Gangbyeon subway station and right across the street is Techno Mart, a fabulous shopping center where hundreds of mini-shops sell everything from printers to purses to food.  Much cheaper and much nicer than Yongsan.

I have never seen so many cell phones in my life.  Each seller has about 30 phones on display, not to mention all the
ones in boxes underneath, and there's easily 100+ sellers... I wager there's about 50 cell phones per square foot here.

So clean!  So many floors!

After a wee bit of shopping I explored the building and found that the roof has a lovely vista of the Han River.

Seoul and the Han River!
Click to make it bigger!

That red dot is where Techno Mart is.

Fun history lesson: the river going through Seoul is the Han River, the fourth largest river in the Korean peninsula.  (That includes North Korea.)  It was once a major navigation and trade route, but because the entrance is located at the border of the two Koreas, civilians are not allowed there anymore.  The Han River has a tributary in North Korean territory called the Bukhan River, and in 1986 the North Korean government began building the Imnam Dam on the Bukhan River.

This caused a bit of a "water panic" in South Korea, due to a fairly legitimate fear that North Korea could use the dam to unleash a flood on South Korea.  Unleashing the dam would flood the Han River and potentially wipe out part of Seoul.  To counter the threat, South Korea began building a dam of their own, the Peace Dam, which is just south of the border and less than 20 miles from Chuncheon.  Construction of the Peace Dam stopped for a while due to the belief that the threat had been greatly exaggerated, but was renewed in 2002 when satellite photos revealed that the Imnam dam had some serious structural faults and everyone realized that a good long rain could compromise the dam.  The Peace Dam was completed in 2005.

So how legitimate was the threat of a flood?  Pretty legit, actually.  In September of 2005, North Korea unexpectedly released a large amount of water from a dam (not the Imnam Dam) and the resulting flood carried away six South Koreans, including an 8-year-old boy.  Maybe that Peace Dam was a good idea after all.

Okay, history/politics lesson is over!  Back to pretty pictures!

You can't see them in this pictures, but there are about three other people (all Koreans) taking selfies next to me.

I want to write on here!

Time to go home.  I love this station because it's so easy to get a bus home to Chuncheon.  The subway is about $2 and the bus is $6, but on the bus I get my own comfy seat and a nice view.  I get neither of those on the subway.  So bus it is.

Lots of snacks are sold in the bus station.  Here we've got fresh squid cooking directly on charcoal.
Don't worry, the seller assured me that it's "mashissoyo!"  (Delicious!)

A nice view of  the Gangdong bridge.  Couldn't have got this shot from the subway!

Pretty area on the outskirts of Seoul.  I love all the mountains and water here!

More mountains!  Excellent topography, right there.  

That's right.  You heard me.  I'm a refined and classy lady who appreciates good topography.

This upcoming weekend is Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving!  I'm going to Gyeongju, a supposedly lovely Korean town full of history!  I love history.  I'll be there for 5 days with my fellow foreign teachers, and I'm really looking forward to a few days of education, hiking, history, photo-taking, and of course, food.  Because I don't get any good food here, you know, I'm practically starving.  (Riiiiiight.)

Until next time!
-애쉬톤 (Ashton)

Day 29

I spent a wonderful and exhausting weekend in Seoul!  I hiked at Namsan park and saw great vistas of the city, shopped at the famous Myeongdong, and went to an excellent club in Gangnam.  (Yes, the same Gangnam as the infamous Oppa Gangnam Style.)  Sadly I didn't get many pictures because my camera died, but I'm planning to go back soon and explore more.  The highlight of the weekend, however, was photobombing and scaring the living bejeezus out of a group of Koreans taking a selfie.  (For older folks, that's colloquial for "self-taken photograph to be uploaded to a social networking site.")

Here's a few photos from this weekend.  These are from Namsan, the mountain/park in Seoul:

Seoul is enormous.

The boys overlooking Seoul from Namsan.

Is it creepy to take photos of random Korean children?

They're just so darn cute!

Also cute: cat in a ball.  Gotta get one of these for my Benny-bear!

From Myeongdong, the famous shopping district:

Fried silkworm pupae.  One of the worst smells I have ever encountered.

What the heck is this advertising?

Umbrellas!  So cute!

I simply MUST find this Stitch phone case for my phone.  I LOVE IT.

Sadly, I have no Gangnam photos because it was dark and even my fancy new phone doesn't take good nighttime pictures.  My grandmother is insisting that I return to Costco and get a selfie to prove I was there, so that's the next order of business for me.  There happens to be a Costco semi-near Gangnam, so I'll kill two birds with one stone.  Soonish.

In other news, I have now been in Korea for four weeks!  I feel like I've settled in nicely.  I've got a bank card, a library card, and point cards at all the places I shop.  I know the bus routes, subway routes, and how to make the taxi driver go where I want.  I have a favorite convenience store and a favorite restaurant where the owner/chef makes the jjampong (spicy seafood soup) a little less spicy for me without me needing to ask.

I also have a favorite food, which I've mentioned before: dakgalbi.  After about two weeks of eating dakgalbi almost every night, I think I've finally got my recipe down.  Some recipes call for half a million ingredients, but this is the simplified budget-friendly easy version.  This stuff is seriously tasty, so I highly recommend you try making it.  It's surprisingly easy and nearly impossible to screw up.

TRADITIONAL KOREAN DAKGALBI RECIPE

What you'll need:
- chicken breasts
- 1-2 onions
- 1 carrot
- 2-4 cloves of garlic
- 1/4 - 1/2 cabbage
- white wine
- ginger sauce (or powder)
- curry powder
- oil
- a wok
- gochujang (fermented spicy red pepper paste)
- tteok (Korean rice cakes, pronounced "Touke" with a hard T sound, sounds like a cross between "tuck" and "toke.")

Most of this stuff is probably already in your house.  There is no excuse for not owning a wok and a garlic press, because you can get a wok for $7 at Ikea and a garlic press for a few bucks at any grocery store.  The only 'problem items' are the last two, gochujang and tteok.  Let me be clear: you CANNOT make dakgalbi without these items.  So where are you gonna get them?

If you have a Korean or Asian grocery store near you, try there first.  If you're like my family and don't live in an area with a sizable Asian population, fear not!  Hmart is here to solve your problems.  For $11 you can get a kilo (2.2lbs) of gochujang, and for less than $6 you can get a kilo of tteok (rice cakes).  Shipping costs $9 regardless of weight, so you might want to stock up--this stuff is awesome.

Click here to view gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) at Hmart.com.

And click here to view tteok (rice cakes) at Hmart.com.

Okay, now that you've got your gochujang and tteok, let's get cooking!

Let's start with the tteok.  I really, really like tteok so I add a ton of it.  I recommend you do the same.  I generally add ~20 pieces when I cook a single serving for myself.  In Korea you can buy fresh tteok, but this isn't fresh and we need to prepare it. Relax, it's easy: throw them in cold water.  Honestly, that's all you do.  Get a pot of cold water and toss them in for 20 minutes.  Leave them to soak while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

In addition to the boring round tteok, I've also got cute shapes!  Hearts and stars and... dumbbells, maybe?

Next, chop the cabbage into long, 3/4-inch wide strips.  Did you cut them wider or thinner?  No worries, it'll taste the same.  Oil the wok (a tablespoon or two should do) and then toss in your cabbage.

I realized after I soaked my tteok that I was out of cabbage and had to go out in the rain to buy some.  :(

Cabbage in the wok, tteok soaking in the pot.  (That's almost a poem, right there.)

Next, chop up your onions.  I just make 1/4-inch wide slices and cut them in quarters, nothing fancy.  Also cut the carrot into thin strips and toss 'em on.

My carrots and onions are in big slices because I am lazy and very hungry.

Sauce time!  Start with these guys:

Curry, ginger sauce, white wine, and gochujang.  Not pictured: garlic and onion.

Spoon about 3-4 tablespoons of gochujang into a bowl.  Grate or finely chop some onion.  (Mine's not that finely chopped because as previously mentioned, I am hungry and lazy.)  Add 1-2 teaspoons of white wine and ginger sauce--I never measure, just pour a little in.  Don't forget to throw in a clove or two of pressed garlic.  

Don't measure.  Follow your heart.

Stir that hot mess up.  Mm-mm.

Cut up that chicken into bite-sized pieces and throw it in.  I used half a chicken breast because I am working on portion control.  Chicken and tteok are the only real substance in this meal, so if you're trying to fill people up, use more of those.  The veggies, while healthy, are not filling at all.

Delicious raw chicken.

Drain the tteok and throw it into the wok.  No need to rinse or dry, just toss 'em in.  Mix the chicken into the sauce so scoop the whole mixture on top of the veggies and tteok.

Most everything in here is white before the sauce goes on.

Now turn up the heat to medium and let's get cooking!  Pretty soon it will look like this:

Stir it every few minutes.  Don't worry if some pieces burn, they taste great.  You will immediately think, "Oh no, I need more sauce!"  But fear not, intrepid chef.  The cabbage will cook down and there will be plenty of sauce.

Your dakgalbi is done when the chicken is fully cooked (use a wooden spoon to check) and when the veggies are cooked the way you like.  I like my veggies a bit snappy, so I don't cook it as long as others might.

Yummmmmmy.

See?  I told you it'd be plenty of sauce.

So how does this recipe differ from other dakgalbi recipes?  There's a few notable differences.

1. Traditionally dakgalbi is made on a gas burner at your table, right in front of you.  This is great because the chicken and tteok cook faster than the veggies, so you can eat things as they cook.  Your food never gets cold and you can throw rice onto your leftovers and make another tasty dish.  I make it in a wok and throw it in a bowl, so it does get cold--or it would, if I ever ate it that slowly.

2.  Many dakgalbi recipes call for more ingredients.  Other recipes I've seen have included things like brown sugar, refined rice wine (whereas I use normal white wine), soy sauce, potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken stock, red pepper flakes, mozzarella cheese (less traditional but tasty), sesame oil, etc.  The list goes on and on.  I am a chef of the cheap-simple-easy persuasion and if it tastes great, I'm happy.

You might be wondering, Is this really traditional?  The answer is yes.  Why?  Because anything Korean is automatically 'traditional.'  Honest to goodness, it's a thing here.  The hip new thing to do with dakgalbi is to use the leftovers to make a pizza-shaped rice patty, then melt mozzarella on top, but it's still 'traditional.'  Even foreign foods have been hijacked into 'traditional' Korean foods.  My favorite soup, jjamppong, is called a Chinese soup, although you'd never find it in China, and it's traditional Korean food.  So don't sweat the terminology.  It's authentic(-ish).