Singapore Food + Byeori's Birthday

Celebrated Byeori's birthday today. By right, her birthday's 2 days earlier, but we (Stephenie, Saebyeok, Valerie and I) figured that she would probably be celebrating with her close friends instead, so we decided to meet up today instead.

Today's meal was a surprise to her, cause she had no idea that we whipped up a special Singapore lunch for her. The day before we bought ingredients for local dishes at Itaewon's foreign goods market, and made roti prata, spring rolls, chicken curry for lunch! And because Byeori loves fruits, we even got for her mangoes (unfortunately in a can) and durian!!

Look at the huge feast here! I made the chicken curry all by myself! Looks just like the real thing right! But I added too much coconut milk, and the curry got super diluted. Tasted more like spicy coconut milk instead. Luckily I had backup sambal chilli, so it somehow tasted more curryish in the end. Well, at least no one complained!

Here's me, Stephenie, Byeori and Valerie. Unfortunately Saebyeok was taking the photo, so she can't be in the picture. And we din bother to get someone else to take a picture for her too. Look at the durian on the left. Costed us $8! And it was kept frozen in the fridge when we got it. The shopkeeper told us that it was imported one month ago, but we were really skeptical about it. And because it was frozen, we couldn't really smell the durian even though it was this close.

Me trying to think of a strategy to open the durian. It's my very first time trying to open a durian on my own. I had to wear my winter gloves so that I wun get stabbed by the thorns! And Byeori was so surprised by the sight of it. She had never seen a durian before in her life, and she was so amazed that she kept taking photos of it using her handphone.

Of course, in the end I managed to get the fruits out. Byeori thought that the fruit would be sour due to the smell, and so was surprised that it actually tasted sweet. And the creamy texture reminded her of ice cream. She said the fruit tasted like caramel, which is a rather wierd term to describe a durian.

And of course, us Singaporeans were so glad to have had a Singaporean meal after 1 month here. Damn high after that!

First CCA in Korea: LECA

At the school's CCA fair, I signed up for 3 CCAs: Traditional Music Society, Symphonic Band and LECA (Living English Conversation Association). And today, I attended my first CCA meeting for LECA!

I was late for the meeting, of course, together with Sybil and Valerie. When we first got outside the meeting room, we were actually hesitating whether to enter or not, especially when there were clapping sounds inside. When we got in, there were around 20 people inside, all Koreans except for me, Sybil, Shan Ming, Yong Hui, Stephenie, who are Singaporeans, and Valerie, who is Canadian.

The CCA meeting was really slack. Basically we were given an article on the personalities on different blood types and we had to comment on the article with the person beside us. My 'buddy', whom I already forgotten the name at time of writing, was a girl who majored in dental science. And she is damn young! If I am not wrong, she was born in 1990! In fact, the Koreans there are all younger than us; they are born on average 1989 to 1991 and are mostly freshmen.

Of course I was damn relaxed, since I could speak English. But my buddy looked damn nervous, cause she wasn't too good in speaking in English. She actually told me that it was the first time that she was holding a proper conversation with a foreigner and that she was really nervous about it!

Yonghui's buddy was rather funny. All the girls thought he was hot, but his personality was rather wierd. He told Yonghui that he loves white skin, so he uses an obscene amount of sun block each day before going out. And he told her to call him by his English name - Khan! Like in Genghis Khan (as quoted by him)! Damn wierd guy. If I get to talk to him next week, I will tell him to call me by my new English name - Kimchi. Kimchi Khoo.

One girl stood out from the meeting for her course major: Home Economics Education. Wah damn wierd lah! I looked through the course requirements and they actually study modules like Food Preservation Techniques and Sewing classes. And that is not the wierdest one. I was looking at a women's university website, and the school has modelling as a major! Even models need university education!

Night out at Hyehwa

Went over to Hyehwa with Stephenie (Singapore), Valerie (Canada), Chie (Japan) and Naza (Kazakhstan) after school. Hyehwa is just around 15 minutes away from school, but it looks amazingly different from Anam area. In fact, with all the flashing neon lights and quirky unique small shops, it resembles more like a mini Myeongdong.

There are a lot of dessert places here, which were tempting us to enter, although we were super full from our dinner. Look at the wide assortment of waffles below! The variety alone makes me wanna go there to enjoy them!

And look at the French style bakery. Actually this is part of another chain in Korea, and there are lots more similar looking bakeries around. And their breads and pastries look super tasty all the time! It's super unlike the ones seen in Breadtalk. The pastries are all nicely glazed, and look so fresh like it's just out of the oven.

Many of the food places here are part of Japanese chains. This is probably the street that has the greatest number of Japanese food stores I have ever seen in Korea, yet. Mister Donut is an example. Mister Donut is special as it created many cartoon characters out of the numerous donuts the chain sells. Here, the 2 characters, Pon De Lion and French Wooler, are part of the chain's creations. They are actually wearing the donuts that the store sells! And their advertisements are super cute! Just look at the Youtube links I found.

Subway Gantry

This is a typical subway gentry. Notice the difference between this and the ones found in Singapore? This one doesn't have the flaps that prevent people from crossing if they don't pay! Hahah, actually it does, but it is hidden on the sides. Chee Keong tried to cross one time without paying (only because he was frustrated that the reader did not read his T-money card) and the flaps closed on him! Apparently, the flaps work the opposite way as the Singapore system.

Kim Bap in CJ House

Back at CJ House again. I am supposed to be studying for my test for tomorrow's 2 exams, but of course, no mood to do so at all, especially when there is class after this! Watching Youtube now on Steve Job's keynote address of Iphone. I know I abit slow, but watching it makes me appreciate my Iphone even more!

Here's wad I am having currently: Kim bap and yoghurt drink! Kim bap is Korean sushi, and this one, Tuna Kim bap is my favourite of all. It costs $2.30 and it is super huge! It's almost the same size as my handphone (it's a Korean Motorola phone that I got secondhand for $50)! And the yoghurt drink, which tastes exactly like Yakult, costs $1 for 15 bottles! It's damn worth the price!

Frozen in the cold

Here's a random shot of the Seoul city scenery from my hostel. Looks really nice huh! Today is probably the coldest day I have experienced since I came to South Korea (and probably the coldest day of my life). It's around -2 degrees but the real terror was the strong winds that kept blowing towards me. Woah, I was totally frozen today. And to think I actually wore a light sweater out cause I thought the weather was turning warmer.

Ziyi said that it was actually snowing just now, but unfortunately for me, I didn't get to catch it, cause I was still at Suwon, which is further south. The snow was really light though, all Ziyi caught was some snowflakes. Hopefully it will snow tomorrow again!

Hwaseong Fortress

Went with Valerie to Hwaseong Fortress today. This also marks my first trip out of Seoul since I got here 3 weeks ago. Hwaseong Fortress is located in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, which is just outside of Seoul. It took almost 2 hours to get there from Anam station via the subway. At first, we didn't get a very good impression of Suwon, cause the subway was passing by all the rubbish dumps and soil landfills, but when we got out of the station, we had quite a shock, cause it's very metropolitan in Suwon, and everything is very built up, just like Seoul.

Suwon is the capital city of Gyeonggi-do, and has been earmarked by the government as a special tourist zone. We found the Suwon citizens really friendly and inhibited; a rather big contrast to the Seoulites. For example, a old lady overheard us trying to find out where the Hwaseong Fortress was, and actually led us to the correct direction, although she did not speak a word of English at all. People in Suwon seems more eager to help, and the restaurant ajumas are all very friendly. The ajuma in the first restaurant we went to was so friendly and kept talking to us during our meal there. We even got free coffee after the meal! And the coffee (from Maxwell House) was amazing! I have never tasted such good coffee (serious!) in my life!

Hwaseong Fortress (not a palace, as stated by the name), is a really long wall (like a miniature Great Wall of China) that encircles the city centre of Suwon. More information about its history can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwaseong_Fortress

When we got there, there was actually some filming going on. If I am not wrong, its for some tourism advertisement for Suwon. Quite impressive to see guards dressed in ancient costumes at the fortress, although they were joking and playing around when the camera was off. Rather interesting scene.

Interesting fact when I got there: Hwaseong Fortress is actually the filming location of Dae Jang Geum! I was so surprised when I saw stand-up cutouts of 长今 and 闵大人 in the fortress itself. The filming location itself was called Hwaseong Haenggung, which in reality is an actual palace for the late King to stay during his official duties out of Seoul. There are plenty of Dae Jang Geum information in the palace, and in each palace quarters, there are stamping machines where we could stamp special trademarks of that quarter on paper.

The day was horrendously cold today, and because there are very little buildings to shield us from the wind, we were basically freezing our asses off. We were so cold we decided to take a trolley ride, as seen in the bottom picture. Each cabin is actually designed to look like the king's sedan, for greater authenticity. It was such a wrong choice, cause the wind got even stronger as the trolley moved. I had to put on my gloves and wrap my head with my scarf, and it still chilled me to my bone. The ride though was super enjoyable (less the wind), and we got a really good view of the fortress wall, and the surrounding city.

Along the way on the trolley ride, we rode past some high school. The uniforms that the students wear are so much nicer than the ones found in Singapore. Of course, the weather plays a big part in the uniform design, but looking at their uniforms (shirt, pants, tie, vest and blazer) makes me so jealous, especially when I had to wear shorts for 4 years and 3 months.

The fortress stretched so far that Val and I walked for around 4 hours. Over here, there's an archery range where people can practice their shots. We were kinda scared that the arrows would hit us, but the wind blowing at us was way worse. Especially when we were up on the fortress and there was absolutely nothing to shield us from the fearsome wind.

My dinner! We found the restaurant, Jang Gu Shi Tang, cause the wind was so strong and blowing directly at us so we had to find some shelter to rest for a while. Interestingly, Jang Gu stands for 蜡笔小新 in Korean, and Shi Tang just means 食堂. The owners of the restaurant are really nice and friendly, and our side dishes, for the first time, contains fried fish! Fish as panchan (伴菜) is super uncommon, and we even had ttokboki (not sure of the spelling), which is fried rice cake in hot sauce! Usually those are sold for $1 or $2 outside, but it's free here, so the meal (which came up to $4.50 per person) was really damn hua. Towards the end, the nice uncle even served us free coffee!