Day 165

One of my hobbies in other countries is to buy foods I've never seen, just to try them out.  Korea has a large variety of snacks and drinks that are new to me, but their variety of alcohols is especially interesting, partly because many of them are delightfully different from anything we have in America.  This is far from a comprehensive list of Korean adult beverages, and I expect to add a few more items to the list in a few months.  So, without further ado, I present...

KOREAN ALCOHOLS: PART 1

We'll start with my personal favorite:

SOJU (소주)

Ah, Soju.  The mainstay alcohol of Korea.  This stuff is potent, very popular with old men, and dangerously cheap.  The alcohol content of soju ranges from 30-80 proof (that's 15-40% alcohol), but I prefer the lower end.  To give you an idea of alcohol content, most vodka is about 80 proof/40% alcohol, and Captain Morgan Original Spiced Rum is 70 proof/35% alcohol.  Drinking soju is basically like drinking straight-up liquor.

Soju is essentially drinkable rubbing alcohol.  Really.  It has a slight sweetness to it, but it tastes like rubbing alcohol.  The crazy thing is that I actually love it!  I think it's delicious.  Soju is cheap, safe for my malt allergy, and ridiculously easy to get--they sell it in every convenience store, including 7/11, for about a dollar.  Some are better than others, and so far my favorite brand is the Chamisool mild, which has a little picture of the sky on the bottle.

Three brands of soju I bought today.  They each cost less than US$1.
My favorite is on the far left.

But how can I truly say that Chamisool is my favorite unless I try others?  Today I bought two 'flavors' of another brand.  One says 'mild' in English; the other is a mystery, though by its red color I'm guessing it's stronger.  In the name of science, I set up a blind taste test with three cups.

Yeah, science!

According to my very reliable two-person study, the red-capped bottle was definitely the worst.  It didn't taste so much like rubbing alcohol, but rather had an odd, harsh bite to it that we didn't enjoy.  Unsurprisingly, it had an alcohol content of 20%, the highest in my 'study.'  There was a tie on the other two flavors.  I prefer the green-cap brand, which has an alcohol content of 19% and a pleasant, slightly sweet smell and taste.  This one tastes the most like rubbing alcohol, but it's sweet-ish.  The blue-cap bottle was Eric's favorite.  It was the mildest but wasn't as sweet as the green-cap bottle, and had the lowest alcohol content at 16%.

(If at this point you're wondering if I only wrote this review as the pretext for getting drunk... well, you're not totally wrong.  But this is a valuable cultural experience!)

But back to business.  Soju comes in a wide range of sizes, from juice boxes to jugs.  The most popular size is a 360ml green glass bottle (above), which can be purchased alone or in a 24-pack.  The largest size I've seen is 10 liters, although the largest size in the photo below is a mere 5L.  So, double that.  I haven't even checked the capacity of the soju jugs at Costco.

Korean old men drink this stuff like water.  It comes in a wide variety of sizes!

The smallest sizes I've seen are the juicebox and plastic flask, which are both 200ml.  These cost less than US$1 each, and they're more convenient than the glass bottles because they're lighter.  When I go out I often bring a flask of soju, just in case we end up in a park or the bar we choose doesn't have anything I can drink.

Imagine if other liquors came in juiceboxes.  Just imagine.

For someone with a malt allergy like me, soju is a lifesaver.  Rum is my drink of choice in America, but it's not popular here.  I can't drink beer or whiskey because they're malted, and most bars here don't list the ingredients of their cocktails in Korean, let alone in English.  This means that I have no idea if something contains a malted liquor, so this is a bit of a danger for me.  Unfortunately, most bars don't sell soju because it's too cheap to be profitable.  My solution?  Smuggle in my own soju.  It ain't classy, but it's cheap and it's saved me from gastrointestinal distress many a night.  I will certainly miss soju when I get back to America!


MAESIL (매실) 

Seoljungmae maesil!

Maesil ("may-sheel") is a Korean plum wine.  The fruit of the Prunus mume is called a Chinese plum or a Japanese apricot.  It's closer to an apricot, but I'm going to call it a Korean plum.  It is apparently a separate fruit from the loquat, which is also called a Chinese plum, but seeing as how I've never tasted either fruit I can't really say how similar they taste.

Apparently a loquat, but they look identical on a tree.
Photo courtesy of genuineaid.com.

Somewhat riper Japanese apricots.
Photo courtesy of eatpress.com.

Anyway, this tree's flowers are called plum blossoms, and they bloom in late winter/early spring.  They're apparently very symbolic (although I'm not sure what they symbolize) and greatly loved by the Koreans.

Very pretty.  I'm sure I'll get a few shots of my own in the near future, but this photo was taken by Douglas Triggs.

Douglas, dude, I hope my photos turn out half as nice as yours.

Anyway, back to the alcohol.  I bought the cheapest brand of maesil I could find, which cost about $3.  It's called Seoljungmae (설중매) and it comes in a pretty green bottle.  Inside the bottle are three  Korean plums, which all look very fancy.

Oh, so fancy.

The wine itself is yellow and clear.  It smells like exactly like apple cider.  I also took off the cap to taste the plums.

Is that teacup cute or what?

Looks a bit like an olive.

Ahp, there's a pit.

Unfortunately the maesil tastes like one part apple cider mixed with three parts rubbing alcohol.  It's awful and I can't take a single sip without cringing. (And keep in mind, I love soju, which actually does taste like mild rubbing alcohol.)  The plums were not quite as bad but still awful; imagine biting into a very unripe nectarine that tastes like rubbing alcohol.  This stuff is truly bad all the way around.  



SANSACHOON

This is another fruit wine.  The thing about wine in Korea is that it's all rice wine with fruity infusions; the wines aren't actually made from fermented fruit.  Surprisingly, I kinda like it!  The rice wine tends to be less sharp.  (Is that a real wine term?  I don't drink a lot of wine.)  

Anyway, this stuff is pretty good.  It has a pleasant peachy color and a sweet, soft taste.  It's infused with 'sansa and sansuyu fruits,' which as far as I can tell are apples and the fruit of dogwood trees, respectively.  The fruit of a dogwood tree is called a 'cornus fruit,' and it looks like spiky apples.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Not bad, not bad!



BAEKSEJU

This is a fermented rice-based alcohol that claims to be a wine, but tastes a bit yeasty for wine.  The name literally means "one-hundred-years wine," which refers to its 'legendary' life-lengthening abilities.  It claims to have a bunch of herbs and crap that make it healthy.

The story goes like this: A man is walking down the road when he sees a young man, about 20 years old, beating up an 80-year-old man.  The traveler stops and yells at the young man for beating up an old guy, but the young man responds, "This is my son!  I had him when I was eighty years old!  I'm beating him up because he ignored my advice and didn't drink the baekseju, and now he has grown older than me!"

Now, I'm not sure how much of that story is true, but I can tell you this: the stuff ain't bad.  I was expecting a lot worse, but I ended up finishing the bottle.  And if it's healthy?  Sure, sign me up!



CONCLUSIONS

Soju is by far my favorite of the traditional Korean alcohols.  It's tasty, dirt cheap, and can double as a sanitizing agent for cleaning.  The baekseju comes in second, the fruity wine third, and maesil dead last because it's disgusting.

This concludes the first segment of my review of Korean alcohols, but don't worry, I've got another 6 months here and there's so much more to try!  So far I've sent a few juiceboxes of soju back to the States, but nobody has liked them thus far.  Your loss, guys, it's delicious!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 161

Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival

This weekend I went to the fourth largest ice festival in the world, the Sancheoneo (Mountain Trout) Ice Festival in Hwacheon.  The city of Hwacheon is due north of my city, Chuncheon, and is about 20km/12mi from the DMZ--exactly halfway between Chuncheon and the DMZ, actually.  It's a cute little town on the Bukhangang river, and the ice festival receives over 1,00,000 visitors each year.

This looks much cooler at night.

This was the last weekend of the festival, so we had to go!  It's only a short $4 bus ride away, so there was no excuse not to.  There was so much to do and see--in fact, I'd say the number and variety of activities available was downright ridiculous.  

So what can you do at the Sancheoneo Ice Festival?  They have a website in English which lists some helpful descriptions for some activities.  First, you can do the popular thing and go ice fishing.

"To mention about ice fishing, you need to catch at least one Sancheoneo. It is an elegant fish underneath ice out of comparison to the other fishes due to moderate size and beautiful shape. Sancheoneo is hard to catch as it is rare but everyone can catch one or two Sancheoneo at Hwacheon with somewhat good luck and knack." --Official Website

There are 11,000 ice fishing holes, and apparently 3 tons of Sancheoneo trout are brought in each day.  The water is only about 2 meters deep, so you are virtually guaranteed to catch a fish.  The holes are spaced out over several hundred meters of the Bukhangang river, sharing the ice with several other activities.  There is a special foreigners-only section with 1,000 holes, which I strongly suspect is located on the thinnest ice.  Then again, maybe on the thickest--there was a definite push for foreigners to come, judging by all the commercials and posters featuring happy Westerners.

There were a lot of people out there!

Didn't bring any fishing gear?  No biggie.  Buy plastic rods and lures at one of these convenient stalls!

Everything is plastic.

Found this guy and had to get a picture with him, but I had to cover up the basketball on his shirt.  I'm not sure if there's a Red Wings basketball team or if they were just confused, but I got the photo anyway.  Gotta represent my hometown, after all.

This picture is only 30% awkward.

The rods were plastic sticks with twisted plastic grates, to which fishing line was attached.  They worked surprisingly well.  Mostly it was families and couples, but there were a few solo middle-aged gentlemen out there.

Double-fisting!  A serious fisherman with serious fishing gear.

Now, I'm not exactly an ice-fishing expert--after all, I despise winter and cold weather--but I'm pretty sure that in Michigan, where ice fishing is popular, they do it a little differently.  The required equipment for ice fishing in Michigan includes a warm hut, a chair, and copious amounts of alcohol, and it's often a winter hobby for men trying to escape their wives and get toasted for a few hours. Here ice fishing seems to be more of a novelty for families and young couples, although I did catch one guy with alcohol.

 The green bottle is full of soju, which is like watered-down vodka.

But ice fishing is far from the only thing to do!  The other activities are... well, a little more bizarre.  You can admire some snow sculptures of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves:

Snow White!  She's got some MANLY shoulders.

Dwarves, sitting on houses?

Ice castle!  There's a gift shop inside that leads into...

Ice tunnel!  This is a legitimate igloo tunnel, it was awesome.

Daaaaang.  This thing was well-built.

Look at the icy architecture!  Brilliant!

You can also slide down a very short ice luge:

And you must scream the entire way down.

You can go ziplining over the river for $10 a person, starting from this ice-fishing bear:

Kinda scary.

There's also a rail park here, which I'm sure is gorgeous in the summer.  (If you don't remember what 'rail bike' is, refresh yourself here.)  Fortunately they covered the bikes.

Cute!  Maybe if they were heated I'd try one.

Oh hey, what's that in the background?  It's a ferry between two sides of the river.  It looks like a police boat surrounded by plastic jugs that are shrink-wrapped together...

Oh.  That's exactly what it is.  Ho hum.

Then there's "Ice Sledding," which is described as "Let's run with iron sticks in hands!  Please enjoy your memories in child in the country."

Looks fun, but exhausting.

Lots of space to do your ice sled thing!

These appear to be Home Depot carts with the wheels removed.

This requires a parent/boyfriend to push.

Honestly.  What is that.

You can play a game of "Ice Soccer," which is exactly like soccer except that the turf is ice and your cleats are just normal shoes.  That's right, normal shoes.  The only redeeming quality of this apparent death trap is that you must wear a helmet.

Why would anyone want to do this?  Looks like a great way to break a leg.

There are go-carts available... on the ice.  It seems like the Koreans are just taking every fun thing they can think of and sticking it on the ice.

This was actually kind of amusing, because half the time the drivers were backwards or careening sideways.
They had zero control over the go-carts.  I cannot understand why this exists.

This snow bicycle actually makes sense:

Although check out the baby in the back... about to fall out?  Asleep?

My personal favorite, and in keeping with Korea's love of ATV's.  They move at a pace of roughly three feet per second.  At least this ice ATV makes more sense than riding them at 10mph on a road.

When they named it the "all-terrain vehicle" I don't think they meant ice.

Awww, ajumma besties.

There's also an activity called "Masou Fishing."  You are given a uniform of shorts and a tee-shirt, then you hop into a freezing-cold tub of water and try to catch a fish with your bare hands.  As far as I can tell, this is mainly an attraction for Koreans to watch masochistic Westerners eager for a 'traditional Korean experience.'   So obviously, we were all planning to do it.

Alas, empty!

Sadly, this wasn't happening today, so these photos are from the website (here, but it's in Korean; the English site doesn't have pictures.)

Notice how all these people are foreigners?

I cannot imagine a fate more miserable than this.

Still all foreigners.  Nobody seems to have a fish.

Apparently afterwards you get to soak your feet in a hot tub, but these people still looks miserable.  And seeing as how there's no photos of foreigners here, I'm guessing that everyone conveniently 'forgot' to tell them about this perk.  Poor, poor waygukin.

Can you believe they make children do this?!  

Disappointed by the lack of half-naked bare-handed fishing, we decided to do some ice fishing.  Fortunately the designated 'foreigner ice' wasn't hard to find.

"Fishing Area for Foreigners Only"

We came around 4pm and it ended at 6pm, plus it was colder than a polar bear's butt, so mostly everyone was gone.  In fact, only one other group was on the ice.  A few people on their way out kindly gave us their 'poles.'

"What the heck are these?" --Everyone

Go, oppa, go!

Excellent form.

We only had three poles between five people, so we let the boys go first.  You know, to let them catch dinner and feel manly and all that.

Patience is a virtue, boys.

Soon, victory!  The first fish was hooked.

This photo is not artistically tilted, I just dropped the camera.  :(

Awwww yeah, look at that delicious feisty fish!

It's really hard to unhook a fish when you can't feel your cold, wet fingers.

One in the bag!

Between the five of us, we caught seven fish, although one was too small and we threw it back.  Not bad for a seriously overstocked pond.  Not to brag, but I caught the biggest fish.  (Thanks to Eric-oppa for the photos of me!)

Dressed for the occasion.  I've got footwarmers and handwarmers, and I loveloveLOVE my parka!

Victory!

I tried doing a kiss-the-fish photo but it turned out pretty weird looking.  This was better.

Awww yeah biggest fish, that's mine!

And the best part of ice fishing?  Devouring our delicious catch!  This was some of the most delicious fish I have ever eaten.  They prepare it for you with some kind of sauce that definitely contained salt and curry.  All they do is take the scales off, put on the spices, and wrap it in tinfoil.   [UPDATE: I found this article that confirmed my theory about the salt-and-curry mix: “Just for the foreign visitors, we add some salt mixed with our secret ingredient - curry powder - and then slather the fish with butter before wrapping it in aluminum foil and grilling it,” a fishmonger at the barbecue stand said.]

SO DELICIOUS.  WOW.

When I said 'devour,' I meant it.

Finally, we went to Baskin Robbins to warm up.  Yes, really.  It was that cold.  They name some of the flavors after movies here, like "Puss in Boots 2," "My Mom Is An Alien," and my personal favorite, "Dark Choco Knight."  We walked around a bit, took a bus back to Chuncheon, and went out for dinner!  And that sums up our day at the Sancheoneo Ice Festival in Hwacheon!

Cheers,
Ashton