World Cup: North Korea blunder gives it a built-in excuse for failure

I'll never understand North Korea.....

World Cup: North Korea blunder gives it a built-in excuse for failure

Two Movie Reviews: 하녀 (Hanyo) and 앤티크 (Antique Bakery)

하녀 (Hanyeo or Hanyo)

*Warning! Spoiler Alert!*

This movie was based on the 1960 movie called The Housemaid. Basically it's the story of a woman who picks up a job working in a house as a nanny and maid for an extremely wealthy family. Totally unexpectedly (note sarcasm) she starts to have an affair with the husband and the movie mostly pertains to the results of this affair, and what happened when the wife and the wife's mother found out. In the end, to get her revenge on the family for putting her through hell, she kills herself in a very graphic way in front of the children.

I was told great things about this movie from some Korean girlfriends of mine, though no one told me what it was about. I went in expecting some sort of chick flick comedy and instead I got this gruesome upstairs/downstairs story. I was not impressed at all with the story. The movie was quite predictable and I was quite disgusted by the fact that suicide is considered a good way to get revenge in the end. The characters all felt very flat and one dimensional. I'm no movie critic, but when I watch a movie, I like to be able to connect or at least like one of the characters. But here, I felt no empathy for anyone involved and I really hated every single character.

This movie is another example of Korean movies that have been made (somewhat) accessible to the English speaking ex-pat community in Korea. This year, Cinus is no longer running the subtitled movies, but there are still subtitled movies in the CGV in Yongsan and Myongdong. It still seems as though movie information in English is difficult to access for non-Korean speakers. I did find a section on CGV's website that allows you to sign up for regular updates by entering your ARC and name into their system, but for some reason it didn't recognize my number and or name. If anyone else figures out this, let me know what the secret is.


앤티크 or Antique Bakery

After doing some research on this film, I discovered that it was based on a Japanese manga of the same name. This movie is about four men running a bakery together. There's the owner with a strange past which makes him throw up if he eats cake, the gay master chef who hates women, the ex-boxing champion apprentice and the slightly off bodyguard/adopted brother who makes a mess of everything in the shop. It's a slightly odd situation which makes much more sense now that I know it was based on a manga. The movie is mostly light hearted and fun to watch. There is a mystery that needs to be solved as well which makes it more than just your average comedy. It's also one of the first major movies to portray a gay character in Korea, although I can think of some others that have come out in the past few years as well.

As Korean TV and film are still in the early days of portraying homosexual characters I think they still have some problems with stereotyping and strange assumptions about gay culture, but hopefully these movies are a step in the right direction towards bringing homosexuality into the light for average Koreans who still honestly believe that there are no gay Koreans. I'm sorry to break the news to them, but I've met quite a few homosexual people in this country and they really are real Koreans, not some strange foreign import.

This movie is definitely worth watching, and you can find it very well subtitled on mysoju.com.

The Domino's Ripoff

You know, I'd never been to a Domino's in Korea until last weekend. I always assumed it'd be a little more expencive than home, but not much, because they look about the same. No tables, just delivery or takeout only. They drive around on little motorbikes and deliver pizza just like every other delivery place in Korea. No one would dream of driving a car to deliver food. Too slow and too much gas I guess.

So, for some reason last weekend my house smelled like pizza... maybe my neighbors got delivery or something and it put me in a pizza eating mood. So, on my way to Korean class, we stopped by Domino's because it's just next door to the class to get a quick bite to eat.

Now, at home in the US, Domino's is pretty cheap, right? I'm looking at their website now. I guess it's a little more expencive than when I was in high school and I actually ate Domino's, but nowadays it looks like you can get two medium sized pizzas for $5.99 each, and buying a large size cheese pizza is about 10.99 depending on what kind of crust etc. So, I was guessing maybe 8-9,000 won for a medium sized pizza.... Pizza School starts at 5,000 won for their standard size pizza and it tastes pretty nice.

I was shocked when I looked at the menu and found that a medium size, regular crust, cheese pizza was about 18,000 won. I was ready to walk out of the shop, but the boyfriend didn't seem shocked at all by the price and just paid for it. When we got the pizza, it was just bigger than a small size at home (well, everything is smaller here, that's not necessarily a bad thing), and it didn't taste like anything special. The only redeeming factor of the whole pizza, actually, was the free garlic sauce which gave it some extra flavor it desperately needed.

So, the moral of the story here, folks, is if you want cheap pizza, go to Pizza School, and if you want gourmet pizza, go to Pizza Hut (or the best restaurant in the city) but, if you go to Domino's, expect high prices and low quality. How does this place stay in buisness???

Drinking our Makkoli

Three of us met up on Sunday to drink the makkoli we made the previous Friday. We were able to drink it at a little hidden travel cafe in Jongno where you're allowed to bring in whatever food or drink you like. Our makkoli turned out ok, but very thick. We diluted it with wine which tasted pretty good, but was super strong.


The owner of the travel cafe was kind enough to run out to a market and get us some snacks (aka lunch). He got us this lovely little plate of sundae (noodle filled intestine lining... not so gross when you think that sausage is meat filled sausage lining though), liver, pig ear and something else I can't remember and not visible in the photo. I ate a little of the sundae, but I couldn't bring myself to eat the other stuff.


This nice jeon was a much nicer snack.

Making Calamari

The boyfriend finally did what he's been trying to do since I met him, and that is to cook up some squid at home (or is it cuttlefish? I'm never clear on the distinction). Now, it's not that I hate squid, but I'm just picky about how it's prepared. Sometimes it tastes great, and sometimes its rubbery and gross. So, generally, I just avoid it. But, I have tried 어징어튀김 (fried squid) that we might call calamari, and that's quite good, so I finally relented when the boyfriend decided to make calamari. Since I've never seen squid prepared before, I took photos of the process.


You can buy 오징어 (squid) at emart for about 1,000 won a piece, aka super cheap.


First step is taking out the center part of squid. It's full of some nasty brown stuff.


When you take out the center part, it looks like this. Don't eat this. Throw it away!


The boyfriend had some fun playing with the eyes. But, be careful. They will explode and squirt purple liquid. Remove the eyes until you're left with just the tentacles.


Cut off each tentacle and throw away the black mouth part. You should be left with the body and the tentacles to eat. Cut them into strips for frying.


Next, you'll need to prepare your 튀김가루 which is a kind of flour used for deep frying. You can find it at emart in the flour section. According to the directions, first cover it in plain flour, then dip it into the batter, then put it into your pan full of hot oil.


here's the squid getting covered with flour.


Here's dipping the squid into the batter, and putting it into the pan with hot oil.


Deep frying the squid (sorry, this is the best photo I could get). Be careful of spitting hot oil!


Once it's fried, remove it and when it cools down, it's ready to eat! It turned out quite tasty for the first time. Now we have two more squids in the freezer that have to be eaten!

Super easy, huh?

Language notes:
튀김(twikim)- battered and deep fried things
오징어튀김 (ojingaw twikim) deep fried squid (calamari)

튀김가루 (twikimkaru) - flour used for deep frying
밀가루 (milkaru)- Flour
고주가루 (gochukaru) - hot pepper powder
if you add 가루 to the end of something, it generally means it's some sort of powder.

Election Season

June 2nd is election day and the candidates have been reving up thier campaigning these past two weeks. Although, the only thing that I can figure that these guys are campaining for is to be the most annoying candidate possible. Evidently, in Korea, it's normal to campaign mainly by trying to pass out the most buisness cards that people will then throw on the street, or to shout the loudest from bongo trucks that cruise the streets with megaphones or loudspeakers. Now, I usually try to be sensitive to cultural differences, but this one is really getting to me. Why? Well, it's not that the trucks wake me up at 9 am with their blaring music, and it's not the fact that I can't walk for 5 minutes without seeing about 5 trucks pass me blaring music. It's the fact that these trucks pass by our school several times an hour blaring their music and my kids can't hear me over the din. Or, they are distracted by the music and start giggling or talking about it. Their campaigning is keeping me from doing my job as well as I could.


Now, personally, if I could understand and recognize these guys, and if I could vote, I would personally choose the least annoying of the candidates. I've asked several Koreans opinions on the matter, but they are just used to this sort of campaigning and don't think anything of it. They don't even find it that annoying. I wish I could have this attitude too. But when your hagwon is at an intersection of two main roads, it's hard to ignore their blaring sounds.

That's my two cents. I wish I could tell you more about election things, but this is all I've figured out about elections. The only other thing to add is that June 2nd is a national holiday and most companies and schools will have the day off. Not mine, but we do get an extra day at Chuseok as compensation, which for me is much better. But... I don't have to vote...

Culinary diary from my Beppu/ Kitakyushu, Japan trip

I totally forgot I planned to make this post, just like I did from my trip to Tokyo. Some foods I'm not sure of the name, so if you know, any help would be appreciated.

Japanese food is amazing. It's so completely different from Korean food. While Korean food tends to be very spicy, Japanese food uses more subtle flavors to tantalize the taste buds. Our trip to Tokyo became one giant food eating spree, and we decided that our trip to Beppu and Kitakyushu wouldn't be right if we didn't try the same. We basically ate small snacks every few hours so that we were always comfortably full.

Tempura and udon noodles

Tempura

Steaming food over the hot steam rising from the earth in Beppu.

An egg cooked from the steam

(unknown- help?)

(unknown... help?) fried things on sticks

Yakisoba- fried soba noodles

Bento Box Shop

Koroke- kind of like mashed potatoes which were battered and fried... mmm, purchased from the Bento Box Shop

Japanese curry purchased from the Bento Box Shop

(unknown... help?)

Snack on the train- beer, natto, rice cakes and tempura

(unknown- help?) something yummy topped with a fried egg

Yakicurry- fried curry rice

Green Tea shake

Making Yakiudon- fried udon noodles

Yakiudon

Any help to identify the food I ate would be appreciated. I'm no expert in Japanese cuisine....