Food

A lot of things in Korea revolve around food, including for me, this past weekend. As an amateur foodie, I love to cook and try new foods. While I haven't posted much about food on here (except for the ode to the hamburger), I have been indulging in some delicious Korean food. During the week, I generally cook lunch/dinner for myself to save money and eat healthier (plus, cooking is relaxing and a bit like therapy for me). Barely a day goes by when I am not gifted with some delicious morsel of food from a student, be it kul (clementines), dakk (rice cakes), or yogurt. However, galbi (barbecued meat), bimbimbap (rice with mixed vegetables and gochujang-red pepper paste), mandu (dumplings), and soondubu jjiage (soft tofu soup) are generally in my weekend rotation.

Soondubu jjigae, my favorite Korean food.

I was finally able to get to the monthly Seoul Vegan Potluck this weekend with Allie. After having a decidedly un-vegan breakfast, I got to making a fiesta quinoa salad full of fresh veggies. While it was missing avocados (which are ridiculously expensive here) and the beans might not have been cooked at all (I don't eat them...), the flavours were really nice and everyone ate it! I also sampled some truly amazing vegan food. I love meat, and will never go vegetarian or vegan, but good food is good food. I had a delicious veggie burger with homemade bread and onion jam, vegan queso, tofu buffalo wings, and cookies!

My fiesta quinoa salad at the potluck.

After the potluck, my friend Jacque and I headed to High Street Market, where you can get foreign food. I splurged on a bag of Lay's Salt & Vinegar Chips. At 7,000 won for 5 servings, you best believe I am slowly making my way through them. We rounded out the food marathon with bubble tea and ginormous freshly baked cookies (yummmmm). I headed home to fall into a food induced coma (or maybe it was staying out until 5:00 AM at the noraebong....who knows...).

Yup, $7 for chips. They are my favorite though...

The food adventures continued the next day with a Korean lunch of tofu soup and haemul pajeon (seafood pizza/pancake type thing), tacos for dinner, and FROYO (in my best valley girl accent) for dessert. Oh froyo, how I have missed you. Lets just say I'm really glad I joined a gym and can work off some of the gluttony of the weekend. But as the lovely Ms. Shepherd would say, "Marie and I ate our way through Korea". I'm only now understanding how true that statement can be.

xo Julie

Skiing and Other Adventures

With its abundance of snow and mountains, South Korea is the perfect place to take a ski trip! I learned to ski when I was pretty young, and went regularly until high school and all my back problems started. However, I really wanted to get back out there and see how it would go. After some research, I found a place about an hour from Seoul (with a free bus shuttle!) where I could spend the day skiing for a reasonable price. So I found myself sleepily trudging to the bus at 6:00 AM on a Saturday with the lovely Allie to hit the slopes.

We went to Vivaldi ski park, and since it is so close to Seoul, it was absolutely packed. Luckily, we were doing both the morning and afternoon sessions so we were able to enjoy fairly uncrowded slopes for the first hour or so. The skiing was very similar to VA skiing, although slightly icier. I did pretty well (except for one disastrous run where I crashed into a kid, the safety gate, a bush, and got hit by a rouge flying snowboard) and felt satisfyingly sore the next day. I'm really happy I got a chance to ski this season and will possibly try to go once more before it warms up!

At the top.

Ski partners!

The day was hazy, but still beautiful!

Slightly terrified on the lift to Techno, hoping there is a non-expert level way down.

Sunday was another new adventure: getting my hair cut in another country! I've heard horror stories of hair butchery due to lack of communication, and having had many a bad hair cut in the states, (curly hair is really difficult to cut correctly) I was a little nervous. I did some research and found a salon (Hair and Joy) in Hongdae that has stylists trained in cutting foreign (and specifically curly) hair and who speak English. I made my way there Sunday afternoon and was so happy with the results! The staff was really friendly and knowledgeable and cut my hair exactly the way I wanted. I got a wash with a scalp massage, cut, and style for 27,000 won (~27 dollars)! 

Haircut! Plus, taking selfies in the coffee shop is super Korean- look who is adapting well!

Sunday was also the day I indulged in my guilty pleasure food: hamburgers. I love a really, really great hamburger (no MacDonald's or Burger King for this girl), but try to only have them every few months. I was craving a burger for about 2 weeks before a friend and I stumbled upon a place that look pretty decent. Honestly, this was the best hamburger I have ever had. I could write love poems to this burger. It had truffle aioli and caramelized onions and Gruyere and came with a shot of vanilla milkshake. It was pure heaven.

Yes to everything on this plate.

I've been trying to get back into my routine after my vacation, which is always difficult. I also joined a fitness center and started my classes there! The center offers a variety of yoga, pilates, strength, and cardio class. I can go to any 3 classes a week for 3 months for 90,000 won. I've been relying on my Jillian Michaels DVDs for workouts, but they just weren't cutting it anymore. I really need a group atmosphere to motivate me in my workouts, plus the center is located on the way to/from work, so I can work it into my schedule really easily. Everything is in Korean, but it has been pretty easy to figure what to do, and I have picked up some unique Korean vocab words!

xo Julie

New Years and Palawan

Happy 2013! I rung in the New Year in Seoul dancing with some friends at this great LP bar in Hongdae, where I proceeded to slip twice on the ice and ruin my white pants. I had planned to stay out all night and then catch a cab to the airport for my 7:30 flight. Of course, the night slipped away from me and I had to rush to the airport, only to fall asleep on the bench waiting to check in and woke up with 30 minutes to check in, go through immigration and security, and sprint to my gate. Lets just say that flight was one of my most miserable and I will not be choosing itineraries like that in the future. After a couple of hours of delays due to ice/snow, I made it to Manila and on to Puerto Princessa, the capital of Palawan. From there, it was a two hour trek through the jungle until I arrived at the resort. I was thoroughly wiped and crashed early. I woke up to a beautiful night sky so I could head into the city for my first excursion.

I visited the Underground River, which was really cool. Picture Lurray Caverns, but you're on a boat the whole time. The formations were massive and it was really fun trying to decide what shapes you could pick out (like watching the clouds). I had great weather that day and so the water was beautiful. After, our group had lunch on the beach where I sampled tamilok, a Palawan delicacy that is called "wood worm" in English. Its really similar to oysters, just bigger, and was pretty good!

Entrance to the Underground River

Heading into the cave on the boat, hard hats and life vests included.

Tamilok! It looks a lot worse than it tastes!

The next day, I awoke to a lovely tropical storm that lingered for the rest of my vacation. The landscape was still beautiful and I took some rainy walks on the beach, but I mostly curled up in my cabana reading. So much for a winter tan!

Still beautiful despite the storm

Because my resort was so remote, transportation to and from was very difficult. Add in a lot of rain and you end up with roads washed out and river banks overflowing. So in order to get to the airport, I ended up as the third person on a back of a moped speeding down and very rocky dirt path for about two hours. I'd never ridden a motor bike before, and the lack of helmets (and space) was a little scary, but after a few kilometers I started to relax and enjoy the scenery. I wound through beautiful jungles and mountains, passed small villages, and even rode along the beach for a while. There are worse things I could be doing then zipping along the ocean on a sunny day in the Philippines. After the bone-shaking, butt-numbing ride was over. I hopped in a motorized tricycle for the last leg of the journey to the airport. After breezing through security (no taking off shoes/belts, all liquids allowed... just like the old days) I head back to Seoul, where temperatures had been about 3º Fahrenheit and my washing machine froze my clothes into a giant slushie.

I rode down this for two hours...

...on the back of this. With three people!

I was actually really excited to return to Korea. It became really obvious to me how much I feel comfortable here and how much this place feels like home. Funnily enough, the first song that came up on my shuffle on the bus ride to Beomgye was "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros Seemed like an appropriate welcome back to Korea.

xo Julie