Street Noraebang

On our way home from seeing How to Train Your Dragon (awesome & so cute!), we decided to walk through Nowon's Culture Street.  We came upon a street noraebang (music room/karaoke) session!

Although Nowon is pretty far from Seoul center, it's pretty lively on the weekends.  People come from even 10 stations away in any direction to party and have a good time since Nowon is the biggest district within that radius.  It was no surprise that there were many people eating, drinking, and having a good time all over this street.  However, today we encountered something very different.  There in the center where the clown statue blows bubbles and smoke was what looked like a public noraebang session.  There was a clothes rack of costumes and wigs.  There was a sound system complete with mics and screens running the selected song's words.  And making full use of this equipment were random people willing to put their pride on the line to sing in front of everyone on Culture Street.  The three sings were saw were all guys singing Korean songs.  One duo actually sang a Korean song with English words.  Most were very impressive.  Others tried their best to be impressive but at times wouldn't be able to reach certain notes.  People smiled and chuckled, but at the end of each person's performance, applause encircled the brave singer.  I am so impressed with the district of Nowon making this service available to the public.  What a great way to get the masses together and enjoy what they love so much in this country: singing!

Man v. Food & Cake Boss

With Top Chef in hiatus till Season 7 airs Wednesday June 16, Dave and I have had to find new shows to fulfill our cooking show cravings.  Two not so new, but awesome shows we've been watching are Man v. Food and Cake Boss.

Man v. Food is a Travel Channel food reality show about Adam Richman who travels all over the U.S. showcasing "big food" of different cities.  Each episode he goes to a different city trying anything from sandwiches, burgers, pizzas, burritos, or steaks.  What is special about these foods is that they are prepared in ridiculously massive proportions.  At the end of the show, he faces a local restaurant's food challenge.  Some amazing feats have been:

• 72 ounce steak with a bread roll with butter, baked potato, ranch beans, shrimp cocktail, and a salad in one hour.
• 6 "Atomic" chicken wings in a 150,000 Scoville unit sauce in 30 minutes without help of milk, icecream, or napkins.  After, he would have to wait 5 extra minutes without aid.
• Spicy P'haal, claimed to be "the hottest curry in the world" in one hour.  They had to wear a gas mask to cook it because the combination of peppers were so toxic.
• 180 oysters in on hour with only help of cocktail sauce.
• 12-egg omelet. The omelet, which includes beef brisket chili, salsa, sour cream, and cheddar cheese, weighs roughly five pounds and is served on a pizza platter in one hour.
• 2-gallon sundae consisting of 8 scoops of ice cream, 8 different toppings, and 8 servings of whipped cream, all served on a "kitchen sink" in one hour.

There were just some of his conquests.  Currently he is 24-14 with these challenges.  He has only attempted on Guinness World Book of Records attempting a 190lb burger with the help of 40 other people.  The burger was topped with 4 pounds of bacon, three pounds of tomatoes, three whole heads of lettuce, pickles, onions, and 10 pounds of assorted cheese.  He and his team had to finish in 2 hours but only ate 160lbs.  Only!

Check out more about this show here.

Another show we've been loving is TLC's Cake Boss.  It showcases Carlos' Bakery in Hoboken, NJ.  It is a family run bakery featuring Buddy, the head and owner going through the everyday trials and successes of his family and a cake business.  The show is only 30 minutes long showing the process of making on average 3 speciality cakes per episode.  Some notable cakes were a New York landscape featuring the statue of liberty, a burning building with a fire truck, and a roulette table.

To read more about this show and their awesome cakes click here.

I had to include this clip of Bridezilla.  She couldn't come up with a concept she wanted.  In fact, she wanted her wedding cake to feature funeral flowers.  Her mother wanted a more traditional white tiered cake.  Buddy compromised with both.  In the end the bride sabotaged the already beautiful cake.  You'll have to watch to see how unbelievable some brides can be!

My Mom Would Be So Proud: Filipino Adobo

I have only tried to make this twice in my life.  Both times, I did not have bay leaves, and used basil.  Don't they sound like the same thing?

INGREDIENTS:
600 g of pork, cut into cubes

16 cloves of garlic

1 large or 2 medium onions, sliced

3 bay leaves

1 tsp. whole peppercorns

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

4-5 Yukon gold potatoes, quartered

Layer all the ingredients except potatoes in a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes of cooking, add the potatoes and cook for another 20 minutes or until sauce has reduced but not quite dried out yet.

Before I made this, I found a YouTube clip of how to step by step make adobo.  Unsure of myself still, I needed exact readable steps, so I followed this recipe I found online.  However, I bought some really lean pork so it was a little tough.  I couldn't get the sauce to thicken or dry out.  I ended up uncovering the lid for a while and added corn flour to thicken the sauce.  It was a little too vinegary, so I added sugar.  In the end, after a couple finger dips to taste and more soy sauce (you can never go wrong with more soy sauce), I came out with a decent pot of adobo.

This was my best attempt at my making adobo.  Since I was a child, my mother would make this at my request.  I remember each time, she would make it, I would ask her to put more garlic and more onions.  Eating this now made each spoon full with rice bring me back to those memories.  Although it's not even close to my mother's, I'm glad I was able to mimic it and share it with good company (ie. Dave & Mike Santos) while watching our new favorite show Man v. Food.  Check it out!

Subway Purchase

I bought this today on the subway ride.  It was only 1,000 won!  This should help with the dust bunnies in my apartment.  If not, I will throw it around my class like hot-potato as we memorize the summary.

The Negro Bar

 

I did not give it this name.  It was affectionately given by the foreigner community here in Seoul.  As you can imagine from the package, the Negro Bar was dubbed this particular name because of the package's character.  It is actually called 까마쿤 (ka-ma-kun) or The Black Crunch Bar.  This name is interesting because the translation is Oh! It's too dark. Being a culture obsessed with looks, especially with the usage of whitening cream, I'm not surprised to find this icecream bar.  Although it is a play on cookies and cream icecream and a Crunch Bar, I wonder if the Lotte marketing execs ever stopped to think, "Is this culturally and ethnically biased?"

It boasts the slogan Now there's a crunch bar for every craving. Check it out everywhere!  The foreigner community consists of about 1 million legal and illegal residents.  That's a little over 1% of the population.  Every new school year, more and more foreigners flock to Korea to take advantage of high wages and an unlimited supply of soju and megju never having to face a curfew.  They come here facing a homogenous society who think the best English teachers are those with blonde hair and blue eyes.  Many students are afraid of black teachers.  I've heard of an instance where a student went back to her old teacher upset because she now had a black instructor.  My students think I'm black or from Africa because my skin color is not "white".  In one critical thinking project, my students were required to play as presidents from different countries and have spies find secret information.  One group had Lee Myung-bak and Barack Obama as their opposing sides with spies and double agents going to either side.  In the end, Obama was killed.  As part of the lesson, we encourage students to ask the presenting group questions to better understand the project and foster critical thinking skills.  "Why did you kill Obama?"  The presenting group hesitated and finally answered, "Because he is black."

The idea that "foreigners are bad/dirty" is propagated even more since foreigners are required to undergo HIV and drug testing and submit criminal background checks when foreigners who are ethnically Korean do not have to.  To read more on how Korea views foreign English teachers, click here.

Well Korea, foreigners are everywhere!  Although Korea was one of the poorest countries a half-century ago, it has made strides in pursuing an open-door economic policy (11th largest economy)  and forward-thinking attitude (Western fashion, music, movies, and culture).  Although it wants to be seen as a cosompolitan society, it needs to think twice about what ideas they pursue versus what ideas they promote.

Unforgettable Pictures Around Seoul

Although I've lived here for over a year, I'm still so happy that I can find quirky things about Seoul that keeps my interest alive.  Here are some photos around Seoul that make me smile.

My surname "Lim" is surprisingly common in Korea.  Being of Filipino ancestry, I never knew that my name crossed over land and sea to the land of Kimchi.  There are only 250 Korean family names with Kim, Lee, and Park being half of the population.  Based on Korea's 2000 census, there are about 800,000 임 or Im in Korea. Lim is actually derived from Chinese characters as the Chinese population migrated in and around Asia to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines.  I'm guessing that's how I got my last name.  A Lim came to the Philippines and bred with my other Spanish ancestors.  Anyhow, I was very happy to find Lim's: Love in Memories jewelry store in Myeongdong, a major shopping area of Seoul.

Walking around Myeongdong, I never go without a look-see into Forever 21.  That's right.  Seoul has a Forever 21.  It was one of my favorite stores back in the States and is here as well considering that Korean size is not exactly on par with American sizes.  Thankfully, I can find clothes that fit here.  One day, I casually walked in ready to browse and walked right past this woman.  Dave pointed her out to me and I didn't realize what I was looking at.  It was a a woman surrounded by shopping bags.  She was not only passed out, but she was in ajuma fashion (old woman squat).  Korea is known to be the top for most hours worked/day followed by drinking all night to follow-up with another work day.  They've got to get some shut-eye in there somehow.  Korea really is the land of zombies.

I've seen a lot of magic-eye/ special effects displays.  ie. the floating spout with water gushing out.  This was a new one I found in Myeongdong.  A restaurant advertising their noodles outside their restaurant.  This was a bowl of noodles with floating chopsticks.  This particular display was even more special because the chopsticks magically picked up the noodles too!  Props Korea for creating such awesome displays!

I was doing my routine Sunday grocery shopping visit when I encountered this massive tuna head display.  I try to mix up my grocery stores to see what different ones offer since the right sale price will allow me to indulge for a bottle of wine that week.  On this particular Sunday, I visited Lotte Mart.  It is a brand widely seen around Korea.  There are Lotte Marts, Lotte Department Stores, Lotte Cinema, Lotte World (similar to Disney World), and Lotteria (like McDonalds).  Again, Korea really has a way of attracting customers.  This day, they had a tuna sashimi sale.  In order to advertise this sale, they placed a giant tuna head in the middle of the display while the workers sliced the body into sashimi.  I didn't buy any, but they definitely got me to take a look!

This is one of the most beautiful signs on Spring in Korea.  The Cherry Blossom is very special here.  Although it is indigenous to Korea, Japan brought some species during the occupation.  Some of the trees were cut down at the Gyeongbok Palace to commemorate the day that Japan surrendered during WWII.  Despite its Japan ties, the cherry blossom coincides with the beginning of Spring.  There is only a two week window to see these trees buds and blossom.  Luckily, I live in Nowon where there are Cherry Blossoms lining almost every main street.  Korea is the first place I had ever seen the Cherry Blossom.  Absolutely breathtaking.