My experience with Hotteok has been rather limited, as I had only tried it once and that was several years ago during my first trip to Korea. I often see vendors selling them on the streets, but hadn't tried it since that first time. That is when I learned there are boxed mixes at the store and you can make them yourself! Maybe this is considered cheating, but it is the simpler and easier to produce way to me.
For those of you who do not know what Hotteok is, it is a common street food in Korea made with fluffy yet chewy dough, fried to a golden brown and filled with sweet brown sugar, cinnamon, and various other ingredients like sesame seeds. To a Korean, this 'pancake' is considered a dessert, but I struggle with this definition. Its taste is somewhere on the fine line between a breakfast food and an indulgence for me.
The reasoning for why I feel this way is simple. For starters, the name itself when translated is referred to as a pancake, and at least where I grew up, the only pancakes that you ate were for breakfast. They also are sweet and made of dough, just like a breakfast pancake would be. My second reason is the fact that cinnamon and sugar is used in the filling. Biting into the sweet dough pancake fills my taste buds with a taste of familiarity. Distantly reminding me of cinnamon-sugar toast, which is something that I ritualistically ate for breakfast any time I visited my grandmothers house throughout my entire childhood.
Then of course, you have to take into account the fact that the dough is fried, not toasted. When considering this additional element the pancake reminds me of a second very American-style food: the elephant ear. The fried taste of the pancake filled with brown sugar is also very similar to this common American fair and festival treat, which is why it also could be an indulgence.
It is like the Hotteok took the best elements of all three of these foods, the pancake, cinnamon toast, and elephant ear, and combined it into a fluffy yet chewy, deliciously sweet filled pancake fried to a golden brown.
Since I am American and because I love sweet things especially for breakfast...I decided that instead of treating Hotteok like a dessert, that I'd start my day off with it. Now I will say this after the fact - it was deliciously satisfying, but I do not recommend eating solely Hotteok for your first meal of the day. It may be sweet like a pancake or cinnamon toast, but it is not a light food. It is heavy and will create a weight in your stomach that will follow you around for most of the remaining day. Granted, one single box is way too much for one single person to eat, and I was greedy...but still, I wouldn't try it. Even if you want to eat it for your breakfast, it should accompany other lighter and wholesome foods. Otherwise an upset stomach is highly possible.
In other words, Hotteok could easily be either a breakfast treat or a late night one in my opinion, and a treat you will always come back to. It joins the reign of sweet, fried doughy goodness that people everywhere love and crave. The ease of being able to make it with a boxed set also makes it something simple that you can make with friends or family (although the process of making the dough can get slightly sticky and messy). Fun, delicious, and satisfying to any sweet tooth, I would totally recommend this food to anyone and everyone.
KIA Tigers Baseball Stadium - Gwangju, South Korea
This past week on Sunday night, I got a text from one of the teachers at my school, informing me that the principal had given her baseball tickets to that upcoming Wednesday's KIA Tigers baseball game in Gwangju to pass on to me. She asked me if I would be available to use them and told me I could use the second ticket for whomever I wished to attend the game with.
It was a huge, but welcome surprise which I gladly accepted. I picked the tickets up the following day at school, graciously thanking my principal in the process.
I went to the game with a friend of mine that lives in Gwangju. We met up, bought lots of snacks like chicken, mandu, and kimbap, and went to the stadium.
One thing that I love about Korea is that you are allowed to bring your own food and drinks to sporting games, you don't have to always buy overpriced stadium food. You can even bring your own beer, as long as you poor it into approved cups at the entrance of the stadium. You don't even have to sneak the food in! Haha
Compared to the Twins game I went to in Seoul, the seats were certainly better this time, seated still high up in the back, but situated near third base and not the outfield. I could see the entire game much clearer than I had previously. Plus, the weather was beautiful and warm for a day in March. It's one time of year where I appreciate the climate difference between Korea and Michigan, it is only March, but the weather feels like late June/early July to me. Its like perfect summer weather right now and I plan on enjoying it before it turns devastatingly hot.
The game started at 6:30 and lasted about three hours. It was fun, entertaining, had good saves, plays, runs, and all that, but it was slightly disappointing that the Tigers lost to the Samsung Lions by a very large margin (6-0). Especially since they are Korea's highest ranking team, with 11 national championships, including last year in 2017; I was expecting a lot more from them. That's sports though I guess, never know what team is going to have a good day that day.
I also have to hand it to Korean people, they sure can fan chant, and unified as a force. Their coordinated cheers honestly do impress me.
Another thing about the game that I loved was the snacks. Even though we had stuffed ourselves with food, we still ended up with snacks to top it off. My friend left to get concessions and returned with fried buttery squid...yes SQUID. Only in Asia would you be able to get fried squid in a baseball stadium while you watched the game. The thing is though, it is delicious. It has like this irresistible chewy texture and doesn't taste fishy at all, just buttery and chewy. Just thinking about it makes me want to eat more. My only regret was that despite being super full, I felt like the serving wasn't enough haha. I could've eaten so much of it. My friend also said it pairs very well with beer while you are watching the game.
Here are some videos of the game:
In the first two videos you can hear the clearly devoted KIA Tigers fan that was sitting in front of us with whom I'm assuming is her boyfriend. Between the two of them, it was clear who the true fan was lol. It amused me to watch the two of them at the game. Alas, her cheering spirit messed up my videos more than one time, which is clearly seen by her arm shooting in and out of my shots haha.
This was the only video I took where I managed to get a Tigers player actually hitting the ball, a home run looked promising, but unfortunately it just wasn't quite far enough.
The game coming to a close
Outside the stadium as we were leaving
I am glad that I was able to see a second professional game during my time in Korea, especially since this was my home team so to speak. Now my students will finally be satisfied by the fact that I have at least seen their team, although I didn't get a Tigers jersey like I did for the Twins. It is just too expensive haha.
For information on the Korean baseball schedule and teams, click here.
After watching the men's single short skate the day before, we had no other plans for our time at the Olympics. That was at least, until the ice skating event ended and they announced the line up for the kpop guests that would be at the live stage the following day. I had had no idea that BAP was going to be at the Olympics while I was there, so my friend and I both were extremely excited to learn that they would be coming. BAP is my favorite kpop group of all time and they will forever be Best Absolute Perfect in my heart. They are all so talented and hard working.
Not ONLY was BAP going to be at the Olympics, other than paying 2,000 won to enter the Olympic Park it was completely free to see them! With that being the case, my friend and I assumed that there would be many fans there to see them, because it was a first come kind of set up. Even though they didn't perform until 8pm, we arrived at the Olympic Park at noon. We tried to waste time inside the park, but in all honesty there wasn't much to do there if you didn't have tickets to an event. We sat on the ground at the live stage and watched the event live streaming on the big screen there, watching the Men's Free Skate. Then we wandered around, played on the VR Bobsleigh machine, and frequently visited an art exhibit nearby (because there was heat). It was cold outside, which would have been tolerable for a few hours, but not quite all day. We were freezing. My toes hurt so bad because they were cold. However, we refused to leave our things and the spot we had claimed for the show. We WOULD be front row, no matter what. I ended up breaking down and buying ramyeon to eat, and also bought myself some hot packs and earmuffs from the official goods store (had to use up my Visa money anyway...).
We watched a few live performances throughout the day, a DJ, BBoy Crew, traditional dancing, but time passed slowly. I got bored. And I got cold. That is when we had a surprise. BAP suddenly walked out on stage at like 6 pm. They were doing a soundcheck, but I was thrilled to see them earlier than I had expected. My friend frantically waved at Zelo and he returned her wave too, so we were both dying a little. They were the kick that kept us going the next two hours until the show began. We thought that they performed first, because the line up listed on all the posters showed them first. So, the plan was to see them perform and then go home. We were wrong. They went last, which proved to be a problem for us later. Almost a very big problem.
We saw a variety of other performances, from bands and girl groups to soloists, and then finally at like 9:30 BAP came out on stage. Of course I screamed and waved a little, super excited to see them so up close. They played three songs in total, one of which was from their newest album. They seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage despite the cold weather. I hope their dancing managed to keep them warm while they performed, since they took their coats off to dance.
The highlight of my night though was Daehyun. He is my bias, and forever my top favorite singer. During their final song, my friend and I saw him wave to a member of the crowd, and so naturally we started waving at him too, hoping to get his attention. Being in the front row benefited us greatly, as he not only saw us both waving at him, but HE WAVED BACK. He waved at me and I nearly died right there I was so excited. After the show we tried to stick around and see if they would greet fans, but they didn't. Probably ran off somewhere to get warm, which I wouldn't blame them for doing.
💓 💓💓
BAP slays the crowd with their amazing vocals, rap, dance and pure talent ~
See the full video of their performance below:
Now I mentioned the fact that BAP performing last was almost a very huge problem. Here is why...
So, we finished at the Olympic park and had to get back to Jinbu where we were staying. It was about 50 minutes away by bus. We waited in line, took a free shuttle back to the bus terminal, and went to buy tickets home. With the Olympics going on I had heard they'd added a lot of buses to all the routes nearby, so I hadn't been worried. I should've been worried, and then finally I was very worried. There were no more buses to Jinbu when we arrived at the terminal. I was shocked, it was still early, and the events had just ended. How did they expect everyone to get home!?!
We asked two locals for help and they confirmed our fears, buses to Jinbu were finished until morning. My friend and I jumped straight to our Korail application and there was one last train heading to Jinbu, and it was a miracle we were able to buy tickets. Then we had to make it on the train though... it left in like 25 minutes, and we had to get to the station, get through security, and make it on the train before it left. We ran through the terminal and to the taxi stand (luckily we knew where it was already). Then once he dropped us off at the terminal we ran to security, with several people rooting us on, clearly obvious that we were trying to catch the train. We made it, luckily, but it was another exhausting effort on our part. We pretty much collapsed upon returning to where we were staying. Seems like I can never travel anywhere without some sort of transportation disaster scenario. As stressful as it is and as much as I hate it when those situations happen though, usually it has always been worth it.
I'd know about the Olympics for months, but I wasn't sure about attending them. First off, tickets were pricey, and I wasn't sure it was worth the 7 hour trip from Naju and the money to go. So like everything else I put it off, unsure. Then, after my trip to Japan, my friend and I were discussing the Olympics, which were about 2 weeks away. We wanted to go. There were so many obstacles though.
First a place to stay...surely they would've all been sold out or the prices jumped. Lucky for me though, a friend of mine lives in Jinbu, right in the middle of all the Olympic arenas. We talked to her and squared it away to stay with her if we could get tickets.
Transportation was the next step...was it available? For me, coming from nearly the opposite end of the country, transportation was an issue. I couldn't get there directly, so it was a mix of overlapping bus times or trains and unpredictability of traffic jams (due to it also being Seollal - Korean New Year, and one of the biggest holidays of the year). The easiest and cheapest path I could find that was manageable was to bus 4 hours to Seoul, and then later that day KTX to Jinbu from Seoul Station. It cost about 40,000 won total.
Now the most important step...We had a place, transportation was available...but Olympic tickets? Now THAT was a challenge. I feel like because I am a foreigner but living in Korea it was especially difficult. We could buy tickets online, but ONLY if we had a Visa Card. This turned out to be the biggest problem of our entire trip. I have a Visa, but it is my American Card and since I've been living in Korea for over a year I don't exactly have loads of money in my American account. Not to mention if I used my American credit card, I would have to lose a lot of money to currency exchange to send money home later to pay off the bill. It was not easy. All I had was my NH card, and my friend only had MasterCard. It wasn't like we could get a Visa overnight either. So we ended up relying on people we knew, and a teacher at my friends school bought our tickets with her card and we transferred her money. It was the easiest way we could use, but because of it we only bought ticket to one event. We didn't want to use her too much, and she wasn't around all the time to help either. As much as I would've loved to go to more events, I don't think I could've afforded it in the long run anyway though. Ticket availability was also a road block. Everything was sold out unless it was like the 300,000 won tickets for seating. My friend and I had our hearts set on seeing figure skating, as it was both of our favorites and the only thing I ever watched on TV as a kid. Only men's singles were available the weekend we intended on going, and they were sold out.
We ended up scouring the fan to fan page looking for people that were selling the cheaper seat tickets. We found only 1 ticket. My friend was going to buy it and just hope that another turned up, even if it meant not sitting together or only one of us getting in. However, by some MIRACLE, the moment she went to buy the one ticket someone else posted on the site selling two tickets and she managed to grab them. It was an Olympic miracle for us! Tickets bought, transportation reserved, and a place to stay squared away we just had to wait for the day we left. We would go for two full days and two half days, but our only plan was to see the Men's Single Short Skate Program on our first full day there.
With it all set I announced to my family that I was going, and there were growing concerns. They were worried about North Korea's presence, about security, about the people, about a norovirus that was apparently going around making people sick. It was a list. A list I promptly ignored lol. I was going to be perfectly fine. And, I WAS.
Sulbing...What I believe is the best dessert cafe in S. Korea.
설빙 빙수 맛있어요~
One thing that I have learned during my time here in South Korea is that bingsu is one of the most delicious deserts ever. I mean, it is like eating fresh clean snow, but with delicious toppings all thrown on top and sweet milk to mix it all together. What could be better than that?
While I am aware the Sulbing offers more on their menu than just bingsu, I haven't tried anything but this delicious dessert. It may be a bit on the pricey side, but it is well worth the taste. However, it is a dessert that is meant to be shared, as one bowl would be a huge serving to eat by yourself. Often times it is a dessert best shared between friends, family, or your significant other.
If the satisfying taste wasn't enough to make bingsu a dessert that makes your mouth water, it is also an extremely visually appealing dessert. Anyone who knows food understands that the visual appeal of it is sometimes just as important as the taste, as we usually eat with our eyes first. Just one look at a fresh bowl of bingsu and your taste buds will be screaming, I NEED IT!
The Instagram section of your brain also usually will begin screaming... "I need a picture of it!"
So allow me to take you with me on my Sulbing journey, as I taste as much bingsu as I possibly can.
First up is the chocolate bingsu...an extreme chocolaty explosion for your taste buds. There is nothing more satisfying to a chocolate lover than a pile of chocolate snow with chocolate shavings, chocolate chunks, brownie pieces, cheesecake, and chocolate syrup.
Next up is the strawberry bingsu - I have had the strawberry flavor multiple times as well. It is naturally sweet, with fresh Korean strawberries (which in my personal opinion are some of the sweetest, juiciest strawberries I've ever eaten in my whole life) and cheesecake. Depending on the type of strawberry bingsu that you order you may also be blessed with a generous supply of whipped cream to top it off also.
Don't forget the condensed milk for that extra sweet touch. Mixing in condensed milk as you eat makes it all the better!
Yummy delicious chocolate bingsu - topped with some classic green tea ice cream and powder.
Yummmy deliciousness
Not entirely sure what this flavor was honestly, as we just picked one off the menu and tried it. I am pretty sure it is the traditional kind, with bean powder and red bean ice cream as the topper. I do remember that it was good, but not as sweet as some of the others, as it had a more natural and subtle sweetness.
I got this one a second time. I really do think I like this one a lot. Living in Korea has made me come to appreciate a natural and subtler sweet taste in desserts.
Nothing adds some health to your dessert quite like half of a honeydew melon on top. This one was delicious but somewhat more difficult to eat. In my opinion, it was the only type I tried that I felt was too expensive and difficult to eat to buy again.
Yummmmm Blueberry Cheesecake flavor. These were some quality blueberries too. They were nice and big and very sweet in a blueberry syrup.
This was Peach Cheesecake flavor, with some vanilla ice cream on top. The peaches were, once again, very fresh and ripe off the farm tasting. The freshness of the fruit is what I think makes the bingsu so delicious. Even though it is a big bowl, it feels light because most of the dessert only consists of shaved ice and fresh fruit. It's still an indulgence, but its one you don't feel quite as guilty for eating.
Stay tuned - I will update this one with more bingsu varieties as I try them! :)
Living in Naju, I had heard and seen things relating to the Gwangju Uprising or May 18th Democratic Uprising, but I had never put much thought into understanding it. That was, not until a new movie, A Taxi Driver, came into theaters during mid 2017. In school during this time I had been practicing the phrases, "My favorite ____ is ____." and " I like ____." with my students. That is when suddenly, it seemed like every 5th grade student's answer to, "What is your favorite movie?" was"Taxi Driver! My favorite movie is Taxi Driver." After hearing how great the movie was from several dozen students, I was curious what the movie was about so I asked another teacher. This teacher simply told me that the movie took place in Gwangju, which was why the student's liked it. I figured it must've just been some type of action movie that was filmed there. I thought, the students like it because it is set close to home, in places they've probably seen before.
I decided that if my students loved it so much that I should give the movie a chance. That way I could impress them by telling them that I had seen it too. So, I patiently waited for the movie to be released with decent English subtitles somewhere online for me to watch.
Finally after a long wait I found the movie and was able to watch it. It was only then that I realized it was far from the type of action movie I had been expecting. I couldn't understand why all my students loved the movie so much. Sure, the movie was fantastic and moving and had great cinematography, but it didn't seem like the type of movie a 5th grade student would be obsessed about.
This is because it is a historical movie and based on a true story. Obviously the movie can't recreate exactly what really happened, but it can give the viewers an idea. The movie was, at least for me, incredibly sad (I cried). The movie was very moving and opened my eyes to what the situation had been like in Gwangju really not all that long ago, it made me appreciate the history of the city more. It was especially striking for me because several scenes in the movie took place in areas where I had been before. I had stood in those very places, but never thought about or realized the history that had taken place there in the past. After seeing the movie, I grew more interested in the history of the area near where I lived. I even visited the 5/18 museum in downtown Gwangju to learn more about the history of what had happened there.
The movie itself gives some insight into that particular moment in history, along with its own story as well. The acting was fantastic and the scenes were steeped with imagery and feelings of moral responsibility. It is one of those movies that sometimes makes you feel like you owe it to yourself to make a greater difference in the world. Overall this movie makes it up there to the higher rankings of favorite Korean movies I've seen.
I still would like to visit other historically significant areas of Gwangju in relation to this event, as well as watch other Korean films that are related to it. I also definitely would recommend this movie to anyone who wants to appreciate and understand a part of Gwangju's past.
For my next Korean cooking extravaganza I decided to try and cook one of Korea's most popular street foods: tteokbokki. Tteokbokki in simple terms is long tube-shaped pieces of rice cake that are cooked in a sauce of Korean gochujang peppers and sugar. It is a dish with a balance of spicy and sweet. This however does not mean that all tteokbokki is created equal, as depending on the restaurant, vendor, or cook it can vary greatly in its level of spiciness and other ingredients that are added to the sauce. The most common additions or toppings include cabbage, fish cake, green onions, and sesame seeds.
I once again was following a recipe I found at Future Dish. The recipe was simple enough for me, especially with their accompanying YouTube video providing me with a visual. It did take me a while to make, but I am sure that as I grow used to making it my prep time will become shorter. Now I can not only enjoy this food when I am out for a night in the city or walking around with friends, but I can cook it right in my own apartment. The authentic way!
To enjoy a silly video of me as I make 떡볶이 see below.
Stay tuned for the next dish I try to cook, probably some time after I go to the OLYMPICS! :D
