Day 279

I promised it a few months back, and it's finally here.

KOREAN ALCOHOLS: PART 2

If you want to read Part 1, click here.  If you're ready for round two, then let's get started with the worst of the worst.  Keep in mind that everything on this list cost less than $3 USD.

Before you ask what I'm mixing this stuff with, here's your answer: I'm not.  Westerners typically mix their liquors with other (non-alcoholic) drinks.  Many traditional Korean alcohols are actually rice wines.  There are apparently some distilled liquors, but I haven't seen them.  Even soju, which is similar to weak vodka, is usually consumed straight.  Occasionally soju gets thrown into other things (like beer), but for the most part, what's in the bottle is what goes down the gullet.


GOLDEN DRAGON

Looks cool!  Technically it's Chinese but whatever.

Golden Dragon is a Chinese liquor that comes in a cool green bottle with a dragon embossed on the back.  I admit it, the dragon suckered me in.  The contents are clear and smell like paint thinner and regret.

Very cool.

As far as the 'taste' goes, it straight up burns.  It's hell inside your mouth, very bitter and acidic.  Have you ever been violently ill and thrown up so much that you started vomiting up yellow-green bile?  Remember the taste of the bile?  Imagine doing a shot of bile mixed with rubbing alcohol.  That's what Golden Dragon tastes like.

I noticed that you can actually watch it evaporate from the glass and leave residue on the sides.  Upon closer inspection, I discovered that it's 50% alcohol.  If you look very closely at the first photo, you can read "50%(V/V)."  I honestly believe that drinking an entire bottle of this would kill me.    To give you a good comparison: the standard ethanol mixture used to fix organic tissue, like those bottles of brains and pig fetuses you see in science labs, is 70%.  This is pretty darn close to what we use to keep samples from rotting.  (Pro-tip: you're supposed to fix tissues AFTER it's dead.)

A translation of the back of the bottle reveals that this stuff is banned from being sold in restaurants and bars.  Can't imagine why.

Score: -5/10
This is the devil's diarrhea.



SWEET BLOOMING 
(MAESIL / 매실)

Pretty bottle, at least.

I've talked about maesil before.  It's pronounced "may-sheel" and it's a fruit wine made from the ripened Prunus mume fruit.  This fruit is called a Chinese Plum, and a Japanese Apricot, and I call it a Korean Plum. But a plum by any other names tastes just as sweet.  In this case, maybe a little too sweet.

The last maesil I tried was awful.  (Not as awful as Golden Dragon, but bad enough to dump the whole bottle immediately.)  This was a definitely improvement, which was unexpected because this one was cheaper.  The plum wine was a pleasant orangey-yellow, and looked a lot like my favorite tea.  It smells like a mildly alcoholic cherry juice.  Unfortunately, it tastes exactly like cherry cough syrup mixed with cheap vodka, complete with the bad cough syrup aftertaste.  I could enjoy this if it weren't for that horrible aftertaste--just like cold medicine!  This stuff is 14% alcohol.

Score: 3/10
Possibly enjoyable if you had a cold.

LET'S SPARK

(MAESIL / 매실)

Pretty bottle.

This is another maesil (plum wine), but it's slightly carbonated.  It's more yellow (the Sweet Blooming was more orange), and it's also a lower alcohol content than Sweet Blooming, at just 10% alcohol.  The flavor isn't very strong, but there's no bad aftertaste.  It still tastes cherry-ish, but not outstandingly so.  It's not super sweet, which is good.  I could actually drink this and enjoy it.

Score: 5/10

It could have a stronger flavor, but it's actually drinkable.

DEODEOK MAKKOLI (더덕 막걸리)
(Traditional Rice Wine)

Fancy!

Makkoli is a traditional Korean rice wine.  (It's also spelled 'makgeolli.')  This stuff is made from fermented rice and until recently it was basically the moonshine of Korea: cheap, nasty, and usually imbibed by poor farmers.  Lately, though, it's been gaining popularity and there's an abundance of makkolis available.  It usually comes in an opaque white plastic bottle.

As far as alcoholic drinks go, makkoli is pretty healthy.  It's got fiber, vitamins, lactic acid, and it's usually less than 8% alcohol.  You can drink it for a while and only get pleasantly buzzed!  There are makkoli holes-in-the-wall, usually with wooden picnic-style tables and gravel floors, that serve the stuff in bowls and big copper kettles.  Makkoli is often eaten with a Korean-style seafood pancake (pajeon).   It tastes kinda like beer, and it can vary from sweet to bitter to tangy, depending on the brand.  Appearance-wise, it's an opaque liquid the color of pancake batter.  As far as Korean alcohols go, makkoli is pretty good.

See the stuff on the bottom?  Makkoli is an unfiltered drink, so make
sure you shake it before drinking it.

This particular bottle is made from 95% rice, 5% root of the Codonopsis lanceolata plant, which is a local variety of bonnet bellflower called "deodeok."  The plant's root is popular in Korean cooking and apparently has some medicinal qualities.  This deodeok makkoli tastes healthy, for lack of a better word.  Not bad, but it'd be better with pajeon!  

Score: 7/10
It tastes healthy.  I can't decide if that's good or bad.  Makkoli is significantly more enjoyable when imbibed with friends at a makkoli hole-in-the-wall.



Korean Rice Wine

Sometimes I visit the local mart instead of going to the big department store.  I have a few reasons.  First, the mart sells cheap ice cream and chocolate bars.  Second, the night guy is a real peach who thinks my name is pronounced "Action."  Third, all the big stores are closed every other Wednesday due to some law that's supposed to help mom-and-pop shops.  But mainly I go for the ice cream and chocolate.

Anyway, the point is that this mart usually has a small and always-changing selection of cheap alcohol.  Many of my taste-tested alcohols come from this shop.  I usually pick up a new bottle and ask the sajangnim (Korean for "boss") if it's delicious.  "Mashisoyo?"  He usually laughs and nods and says, "Mashiso," which means "It's delicious."  Then I buy it, along with copious amounts of ice cream.

This particular bottle contains a whole liter (that's 1/4 a gallon) of rice wine and it cost just $3.  It's foul.  Honestly, I didn't expect it to be good.  But I think it's too bad to even cook with.  (Makes me miss Australia, where I could get a decent bottle of wine for $4.)

Score: 1/10
Bad.  Just bad.


And last but not least...

Premium Distilled Soju (소주)

Ooooh, fancy.

Soju is the cheapest thing to drink in Korea.  A cheap bottle usually costs around a dollar and most types are about 20% alcohol.  It's dangerous.  And I love it.  It tastes like spicy water!  (Or slightly-sweet rubbing alcohol, take your pick.)

Like the majority of old Korean men, I normally buy the cheap stuff.  I prefer Chamisool brand, but there are a few other popular ones.  They're sold everywhere, even in convenience stores and restaurants.  You can buy big 10-liter jugs at the grocery stores.  But just once, I thought I'd buy a fancy bottle and see if it tasted different.

And did it?  Yeah, but not in a good way.  This fancy soju had all  the tongue-numbing power of cheap soju, but without the slightly-sweet fire-water taste I love.  I strongly suspect that this is better for my liver (and the environment in general) but it's not sweet at all.

Score: 4/10
It's okay, but I much prefer cheap soju!  This tastes like regular old rubbing alcohol.

CONCLUSIONS

Soju is still my favorite of the Korean traditional alcohols.  Soju is better with dinner, while makkoli is great when enjoyed with friends over some hot snacks (like seafood pancakes!)  The Let's Spark maesil was pretty decent, but I'm not sure I'd buy it again.

If I'm being honest, I like rum a lot better than any of the Korean alcohols.  There's a decent selection of Western alcohols at Costco, and the duty-free guys at the airport don't really care if you're over the limit so long as the stuff is cheap.  But for a cheap night of drinking and dining with friends, soju is hard to beat!  

I'll be keeping my eye out for more Korean alcohols to try, and you can also expect another list of strange foods in the near future.  I've only got a few months left, so I have to make the most of it!

Cheers,

Ashton

Day 272

MARKET DAY

Just a few steps away from Namchuncheon Station is what foreigners call the 2-7 Market.  The market gets its name from its operating schedule; it's open on days that end in 2 or 7, meaning that it's open once every five days.  Yesterday was the 17th, and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and cheap produce.  (The market is also closer to my apartment than the grocery store is, so no excuses.)

So, what does the 2-7 Market have to offer?

Animals!  For the first time, I saw live animals for sale at the market.  Kittens, puppies, chicks, and ducklings.  So cute!

Awwww.

Double awwwww!

You can buy clothes!  The textile industry helped launch South Korea into economic prosperity, and it's still a very popular industry today.  Cheap clothes, socks, scarves, etc. are available just about everywhere in Korea.  There is high-end stuff too, of course, but for people like me (that it, uber-cheap people) it's a shopping haven.  The only problem is that absolutely none of the Korean clothes fit me.  Korean clothes for women are made to create hips, and I've already got hips, so I end up looking like a bloated whale in anything I try on.

Jackets and pants for cheap!  Koreans, especially middle-aged and older Koreans, love to wear hiking gear.  All the time.

There's a big market for used clothing.  At least, I'm pretty sure all this stuff is pre-loved.  Either that, or these ajummas (old Korean women) are skilled at picking completely random stuff to sell.

The sign "5000" means "5000 won," which is about five dollars.

Koreans also love hats, to keep the sun off their faces.  Being tan is basically a sin here.  Many people wear long sleeves, pants, reflective visors, and scarves up to their eyes.  It's like being in a country full of bank robbers.

You can also buy freshly-fried snacks like donuts, mandu (Korean-style dumplings), hotteok (a cinnamon-sugar filled pancake), and assorted other goodies.

I'm pretty sure these are mandu.

Hotteok!  I love hotteok.  They're sweet and cinnamony and hot!

I don't even know what this is.  I try not to eat deep-fried food (except for donuts, of course).

I don't know what's in these smoothies but it looks pretty toxic.

Cooked silkworm larvae, "bondaegi," is popular in Korea, but I was happy that the bondaegi lady wasn't around today because the smell makes me nauseous.  I did see cooked snails though!

Thankfully, much less smelly than bondaegi.

You can also buy acorn jelly and tofu.  Many elderly Koreans support themselves by collecting the naturally-growing produce and selling it.  All the mushrooms, acorn jelly, ginko, and many of the herbs and greens are collected from the forest or just along the roads.  It's very common to see older men and women searching for mushrooms while hiking, and I usually see women snipping greens from the side of the road while I'm running.  Many Koreans also have small farms, and sell the produce at markets or in subway stations.

The brown stuff is acorn jelly.  The white stuff is tofu, but they call it "dubu" here.  "Doo-boo."

A woman with her hand-picked greens.

Lots of salad stuff!

That is an awful lot of garlic.  In the front we've got tubers of some kind (ginger?) and hazelnuts are on the left.

More tubers.

There's fresh seafood!  You can buy a variety of fish, shrimp, squid, and octopus at the market.

Fresh fish on the sides, fresh squid in the middle.  It's all on ice.

Dried fish is really popular here too.

I'm not a big fan of dried fish.  Or fish in general.

Dried tiny fish!  These are used more for seasoning than snacks.

You can get big sheets of dried seaweed.  I think these big thick ones are for soup, but you can also buy the super-thin ones that Koreans use for kimbap.  Kimbap looks a lot like sushi, but they're actually pretty different.  Kimbap uses regular dried seaweed, plain rice, and often contains pickled radish.  Sushi uses roasted dried seaweed, rice seasoned with vinegar and sugar, and usually contains raw fish and veggies.  I really hate kimbap, it tastes fishy.  It's super cheap though, and I wish I liked it because I could have a lot cheaper meals!

Seaweed!

A closer look.

There's also spicy raw crab, called "ganjang gejang" in Korean.  "Ganjang" means "soy sauce" and "ge" means crab.  There's also a spicy version ("mae-oon gejang") and a seasoned version ("yang nyeom gejang").  I haven't personally tried it yet, but it all looks delicious and very messy.  I'll try it soon!

Lots of varieties of crab!

This is the spicy version.  The water bottle is full of ice, to keep the crabs cool in the hot weather.

This is the soy sauce version.

This is a version with lots of itty-bitty baby crabs.  Yum!

This vendor also sold a variety of kimchis.  Kimchi is basically any fermented vegetable.  Most varieties are spicy, but some are not.  The most well-known kind is made from cabbage, or "baechu" in Korean.

Lots of kimchi.  LOTS.  Koreans love this stuff.  (And so do many foreigners!)

Some different varieties of kimchi.  You could live here for years and never taste every kind!

There's also many varieties of grains and beans available.  Rice is really popular here, but it's not the only grain!  They're sold in bags out of large buckets.

Beans and grains!

More grain buckets!

A closer view of the grain.  Not sure what the bottom left bucket is full of.

You can buy plants and grow everything yourself, too.

Flowers, cacti, and veggies.  Get 'em all here!

You can buy wood too.  I think the wood is used to impart flavor in certain recipes, but honestly, I don't know.

Wood, wood, wood.

Even more wood.

Oh, right, there's also fruits and veggies.  Nothing too exotic, I'm afraid.  For veggies, they usually sell onions, zucchini, green squash, bell peppers, chili peppers, broccoli (but never cauliflower), and lettuce/greens.  For fruits, you can find apples, grapes, strawberries, small yellow melons (not sure what these are yet, must investigate), bananas (very expensive, like buck each), watermelons (SO EXPENSIVE HERE, I paid 10 bucks for one and thought that was an amazing deal, I've seen them for up to $25) and sometimes pineapples and Korean pears (which are a lot bigger and tastier than Western pears).  If you want exotic fruits (like coconuts, avocados, mangos, and pineapples) it's a safer bet to go to the grocery store or foreign food market.

Peppers,  Everybody loves peppers here, they're super cheap.

There's enormous bags of dried red chili peppers.  These are used to make gochujang,
a popular paste made from fermented peppers.

I didn't actually take any photos of the fruits, but here's some veggies.

That brown thing?  I have no idea what it is.

This is a repeat photo, but you can see a fruit seller in the background.  See how all the fruit is in bowls?

You can also buy a variety of cheap kitchen items from China.

Seriously, everything you need to fill a kitchen.

There's even live entertainment!

These ladies were singing beautifully.  There were also some guys singing later.
I think they were singing traditional Korean folk music.

That about sums up the market experience!  Thankfully I don't need much Korean to get what I want.  Most of the items have signs with prices, and if not, I can just point and ask "Eol-mayo?"  Easy-peasy.

There was just one item that I wanted that I couldn't find at the 2-7 Market: cilantro.  I've been craving some pico de gallo, and you can't make it without cilantro!  Fortunately, there's an itty-bitty foreign food mart in Chuncheon that has it: World Mart!

The Korean on the sign says "World Mart."

This is a tiny, tiny shop really close to M Department Store in Myeongdong.  (Chuncheon Myeongdong, not the big one in Seoul.)  To find it, just follow the delicious scent of curry.

World Mart is at the intersection between M Department Store and the big Myeongdong Indoor Market.

World Mart doesn't have a great selection.  It's got cilantro, lemons, and a ton of curry stuff.  It's mostly Indian and Thai items.  I found an amazing dried-sweetened-coconut snack there once, but it wasn't there last time I went.

That sums up the Chuncheon market experience!  It's crowded, hot, and reeks of fish, but it's also a good place to practice speaking Korean.  The vendors are generally pretty helpful if they're not busy.  Now that it's warm, the market should be around every five days!  More fresh fruit and veggies for me!  :)

Cheers,
Ashton

Day 264

HIKING IN KOREA: SAMAKSAN

The first of May is Labor Day in Korea!  That means no work, right?  Kinda.  Unlike the American Labor Day, which is typically spent grilling with one's family and neighbors, the Korean holiday is a day for a 'team-building' experience with your coworkers.  So at 8:30am we all met in the parking lot, loaded up into the van, and drove to our destination: Samaksan Mountain.

Samaksan is 2,146 feet tall (654m) and is one of the most popular mountains in Chuncheon.  Because it's just two hours from the capital city and has lots of outdoorsy activities, Chuncheon is a popular day-trip spot for Seoul-dwellers.  If you are in Korea and interested in hiking Samaksan, public transport directions are at the bottom of this post.  It takes about 3-4 hours to hike up and down, assuming you like to stop for snacks and photos.

But enough background information.  Let's see those photos!

First waterfall of the hike!

Large, very well-built... rock pile?

These flowers are everywhere!  Chuncheon is beautiful.

They also come in hot pink and white.  So pretty!

Obligatory moss-and-water photo.

My hiking buddies, Rachel (left) and Kristine (right) on the Staircase of Lies.
The sign said 333 steps till the top.  We thought that meant the top of the mountain.
Nope, just the top of the stairs, halfway up the mountain.

The trails are really well-kept and nicely made.  Apparently they make all the poor army guys make the trails!
(Contrary to what most Americans think, there's not much in the way of war excitement here.)

Lots of beautiful rocks and beautiful people!

Rachel brought the perfect hiking snack: cucumbers.  Cool and crisp, just like the mountain air.

View from the Staircase of Lies.

There's not much foliage to be seen yet.  It's only May 1st!

Finally, after about two hours, we made it to the top.  There's a nice commemorative marker that you apparently need to touch.

We did it!

The view was spectacular!  You could see all of Chuncheon from up there.  Click on the photos to make them bigger--they're worth it.  (Also: if you're not a fan of reading, you can click on any photo to go into slideshow mode.)

Click to make me bigger!  Chuncheon city is on the very far right.

Breathtaking!

I'm a really big fan of panoramas.

 We got some group shots, of course.  I think we're missing a few people, but then again, not everybody made it up.

We did it!  With beautiful Chuncheon in the background.

It was a hard hike, but we did a good job.  On the way down we stopped at the Buddhist temple we'd failed to notice on the way up.

A temple!  But seriously, once you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Still pretty though!

Big stone pagoda, and the monks' house is on the right.

La casa de monks!  It looks an awful lot like the CIEE student house in Bonaire!

I love dragons.

Monk!  He was chanting into a microphone, so everyone could hear him.  More temples should do that!

After the temple, Chad (who, unlike me, is a legitimate photographer) and I took a bunch of pictures and ended up making the rest of the group wait for 20 minutes.  Sorry, guys!

My photo-buddy.

And what were we taking pictures of?  Wildlife!  It's pretty rare to see animals in Korea.  I see some birds once in a while, but that's it.  I've seen nary a cockroach (except in my kitchen last week, but don't worry, I killed that little cretin before it could kill me).  I saw a squirrel one time, and I've been here for almost nine months.  And Chuncheon is an 'outdoorsy' area.  It's pretty weird for someone who's used to seeing deer, foxes, coyotes, groundhogs, rabbits, etc. in their own backyard.

A butterfly!

If you've been on this blog before, you know to expect spider photos.

Not a super special spider.

Sorry buddy, but you don't impress me much.  Where are your yellow orb-weaver buddies?

Spider?  The shadows of the legs made it hard to tell if it was an ant or a spider.

Welp, it's a spider.

 But it's shaped more like an ant, and it didn't seem to use the two front legs much for walking.

About twenty minutes from the end of the trail we spotted a nest of squirrels!  They look a lot like the American variety, but there are two noticeable differences.

1) The tail is less fluffy.
2) They have hairy ears.

The hairy ears are kinda cute.  It makes the squirrels look like crotchety old men.

Go ahead, try and tell me this doesn't look like an angry old guy.

The ears are so hairy!

They have kinda freaky monkey-like feet.

Look how big the feet are!

They built a nest in a little alcove in the rock wall.  So cute!

The nest!

This photo screams "MEME!" to me.

Here's a little bird.

And now a few more photos taken by my coworkers:

Hiking is hard work!

I look way too cheerful for this amount of walking uphill.

One of many snack times.

Snack time again.  

I love this one!

Going down the Staircase of Lies was actually harder than going up because all our legs were shaking.

I temporarily solved that problem by sliding down the railing a few hundred feet.

At the temple!

Chuncheon has a lot of hiking, so hopefully I'll get to do a little bit more now that it's getting warmer.  Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Ashton






How to get to Samaksan from Namchuncheon Station: 
Exit Namchuncheon Station and don't cross the street.  The bus stop is near the escalators.  Take the number 3, 5, or 55 bus until you reach Samaksan station.  It's 9.2km and should take about 30 minutes.

If you live in Chuncheon, you can take number 3, 5, 50, 50-1, 51, 53-1, 55, 56, or 86 bus routes.  The bus stops are #1850 and #1851 (삼악산).  

If you're not familiar with the bus system, the Daum maps app on your phone will show you where the bus stops are if you zoom in close.  Click on the bus stops for where you are and where you want to go, and it'll show you which bus to take to get there.  To get the approximate time before the next bus comes, use an app called Bomnaebus/Korea Bus RealTime (ChunCheon).