Korean Traditional Food Festival at Namsan Hanok Village

Saturday I made my way to Namsan Hanok Village near Chungmuro for a Korean Traditional Food and Drink Festival. Our first stop was a display of foods from all over the peninsula. Women, dressed in Hanbok (traditional Korean dress), presented foods that they had hand made themselves. It was especially interesting because my friend's mom was with us and had a much more fresh and excited outlook on the displays. Once you've been here for a while things like this don't seem so exciting, but to someone fresh off the boat (or plane as the case may be) even the simplest things are quite exciting, and forces us weather-worn folks to take a second look at things. The food, when examined closely, was quite intricately prepared and displayed, down to the smallest detail.

We wandered around some tents set up outside with various displays and finally came across a makkoli making event. They were giving out samples of a grape flavored makkoli and a pumpkin flavored makkoli. I much preferred the grape one! We considered making some makkoli (we've tried twice before with a bad track record) but in the end we didn't want to wait and we wound up wandering away from the makkoli making tent.

Woman in hanbok working with the pumpkin makkoli

We wandered around a bit to some other tents and saw a rice mill and some soju distilling.

We wandered a little more and found a make-your-own-ddeok table. We were given gloves, a ball of ddeok (rice cake thingy) and some red bean globs. We mushed the rice ball around in our hands, hollowed it out, put the red bean inside, rolled it back together, and the stamped it with a pretty design... then ate it :-)


We wandered past a stage with various performers as well... but it was hot and only mildly interesting to us...

From there, we made our way into the actual "village". It's been more than 2 years since I last went there, but I distinctly recall enjoying the traditional Korean games. This game above is called 팽이 (pengi). It's basically a top which you try to keep spinning by whipping it. My boyfriend could kind of do it, but that kid behind him was a champ.

As we were leaving, we found these lying around and decided to give them a try...

And, of course, the ubiquitous face cut-outs.

Nori's First Night, Dakhanmari 닭한마리 and Cheon-eo sashimi 전어회

A friend of mine from college came and visited Korea from Japan on Thursday. He stayed at my house and we tried our best to take him around and make sure he ate lots of good Korean food before he had to leave on Sunday. Our first night we made our first stop at one of my favorites... 닭한마리 (One Chicken Soup) I've written in length about 닭한마리 here, so I'll let you read that rather than doing it again.

I was quite full, but it was still very early (I got out of work early to meet him) so we decided to pick up some Cheon-eo sashimi 전어회 to go and ate it in front of our favorite convenience store with a lovely deck and tables outside.

Here are the 전어 swimming (mostly), not realizing their soon-to-be-fate.

Nori outside the seafood place.

전어 with all the accompaniments

A close up of the 전어회

How did it taste? Not bad, but something I'll never get used to about Korean style sashimi is the fact that there's still bones in it. Sure, they're small, but I don't like that spiky, hard crunch while eating raw fish. I much prefer the Japanese style that is always guaranteed to be bone free.

Gochujang now available in American supermarkets!

In this article I happened to spot on the sidebar while I was checking my email introduces Annie Chun's Gochujang. It's an interesting concept, but who knows how it will taste... can someone stateside test it for me and let me know?

Another "Best Class" and another pizza

This month I had another "best class", my first in two months. They were pretty psyched for it.


This is a typical Korean pizza. If you're not in Korea, this could look rather strange to you. Koreans like to add strange sauces and vegetables that we wouldn't normally associate with pizza (like corn), but stragenly I've come to quite enjoy pizza in this Asian version...


And clearly, the kids to too...

CouchSurfing

As I mentioned before, this week was my first experience couchsurfing. It rather unfortunately coinsided with a visit from my university friend from Japan who also stayed at my house, and so the two guests back to back made for a rather exhausting week. But, that being said, it was definetely the most interesting week I've had in a long time. As I mentioned in my blog last week I was feeling as though I just had nothing to talk about here. But, all these international guests got us doing some more interesting things this week! Basically, every night was staying up late, drinking and eating and chatting about all sorts of things.

Our Couchsurfing guests were a couple from France. I was so inspired by their story. They traveled to New Zealand, where they cycled and did WWOOFing for 5 months. Then they flew to Bangkok where they continued to bike from Bangkok to Laos to Vietnam. Then they continued to travel for another month, sans bike, and from there made their way to Korea where they will be staying until the end of November, then traveling around Europe a little before heading back to France.

It was great hosting, though, now that I've had someone comment (and after updating my profile as suggested by our surfers) I've already gotten two more couch requests. They were both for the week of Chuseok, so I had to decline since I will be in Jeju. I think couch surfing is fun, but I don't think I want to do it all the time. One surfer per two months might be fun for a change of pace, but doing it several times a month I think would be quite stressful.

I highly recommend using couchsurfing while you're home, or while you're traveling. To learn more, check out www.couchsurfing.org.

Have you tried couchsurfing? How was your experience?

too much inspiration!

I was complaining last week that I had nothing exciting to write about, but now I've got so much to write about and no time to write! I hope I find some time before I leave to Jejudo on Wednesday to write some more!

Busy week

This week is a busy one at our home. My friend from Japan had planned to come and stay at our house while he's in Korea for 4 days. Then on Saturday I received a CouchSurfing request from a French couple who are doing some world travel. Of course we couldn't have guests overlapping, so I told them they could stay until the day my friend arrives. So, the couchsurfers arrived Monday night and they will go to my friend's home on Thursday morning. Then Thursday evening I'll meet my friend and bring him home until Sunday afternoon.

The one good thing about all these guests is that it makes us be much cleaner people! We scoured our house top to bottom before they arrived, and now that they are here, we wash our dishes after meals and pick up trash and laundry around the house rather than leaving it til later. If only we could be like this when we don't have guests!

ps. if you're wondering what CouchSurfing is, it's only the coolest idea ever. Check it out now!