서울 음식 제3탄: 음식 총 정리 Seoul Food Part 3: Food Overview

Friday, 3/13/2015



Mark's Guide to Korean Food:

Without a doubt, one of the best things about Korea is the food and we've taken full advantage of that here, like this guy.

Though often very different from Western flavors, and occasionally still alive or piss-tasting, for the most part, Korean cuisine is delicious and pretty approachable, unless you're Joe Katarsky probably.  Yet, in Michigan at least, the variety of Korean offerings available are pretty restricted to the basics:  bibimbop, bulgogi, maybe a decent barbecue restaurant, but while these things are good, they represent only a small portion of the Korean food spectrum and may not even be commonly seen here in Seoul.  So whether you've never had Korean food before, or if you've frequented "Korean night" dinners at Seoul Garden with Peter, Jooho, Eunice, and me, here is a rundown of Korean cuisine basics and oddities.



The Staples:

Kimchi 김치:  This is more than just a Korean staple--it's a necessity.  Served with literally every meal, kimchi as most people are acquainted with it, is napa cabbage fermented with red chili flakes, salt, garlic, and shrimp paste, but kimchi actually refers to hundreds of different permutations of vegetables pickled in various spice mixtures served with specific dishes in specific seasons.  In its most basic form, kimchi dates back to the Three Kingdoms Period, but modern kimchi wasn't created until chili peppers were brought to Korea from the New World through Japanese invasion in the late 16th century.

Koreans are soooo into kimchi that a cabbage shortage in 2010 was considered a "national crisis" and the national government temporarily suspended tariffs on foreign cabbage to cope with the dearth.  Furthermore, during the Vietnamese war, special arrangements were made to bring kimchi rations to South Korean soldiers because their morale was suffering so much from kimchi withdrawals.

(If you get it, I love you.)

Banchan 반찬:  Really more of a course than a particular food, banchan refers to all those little dishes of "stuff" you get before your entrees come out at Korean restaurants and are meant to be eaten with rice (밥) as appetizers.  Kimchis usually account for a couple of the banchan at a given meal, but other common types of banchan are namul 나물, lightly seasoned vegetables that are steamed, stir-fried, or marinated; bokkeum 볶음, vegetables, meat, or seafood stir-fried in sauce; jeon 전, savory pancakes (so good); broths; and other things.

Peter and some banchan, from top-most, clockwise:   떡볶이 spicy rice cakes, cucumber kimchi, roast potatoes, fresh (not fermented that long) kimchi, and 도토리묵 acorn jelly.

Korean Fried Chicken 양념 치킨:  The holy grail of fried chicken, you might be surprised to find out that no one does fried chicken better than Seoul.  Distinguished by its thin and extremely crispy twice-fried skin, always juicy and tender meat, and many flavor choices, such as plain seasoned, spicy chili, honey soy, and green onion (pictured below), Korean fried chicken has become a bar food (안주) staple in Korea.  It is served with pickled radish, corn slaw, beer, and soju, just as god damn well intended.  For inquiring Ann Arbor minds, I think that Seoul Street's chicken is about as good as what you can get in Seoul, but significantly different in texture.

Yusss.

My Favorites:

Kalguksu 칼국수:  This is actually not my favorite; I'm including it only because Peter and Grace are obsessed with it for some reason and I can say something snarky about it because this is my blog.  While this seafood-based broth with soft wheat noodles is hearty and filling, I thought it was just kind of bland and uninteresting at the end of the day and tastes like what my impression of Into the Woods would taste like if it were a soup.  However, it is an excellent hangover food (which actually has its own word in Korean culture:  해장 haejang) after a night of too much somek (beer and soju bombs); incidentally, it also goes great with beer and soju.

You also eat it with spicy kimchi and dadaegi 다대기 (no English translation, but a spicy sesame oil with chopped scallions), presumably to add some flavor to an otherwise rather flavorless dish.

Mul Naengmyeon 물냉면:  My Korean friends were surprised to learn that this was my favorite Korean food; I don't see why that is.  Naengmyeon is a dish of long buckwheat, potato, or arrowroot starch (thin, translucent, and satisfyingly chewy) noodles in a slushy cold, tangy, and fragrant broth of ambrosial complexity and jealously guarded, familially-passed composition (though mostly beef and 동치미 radish kimchi stock).  It is then topped with half a hard-boiled egg, slices of boiled beef shoulder, and julienned cucumbers, pickled radish, and sweet Korean pear with rice wine vinegar and pungent mustard to add to taste.

It is so fucking good.  It is incredibly refreshing, unique, and sophisticated in flavor, texture, and composition and I've had it four or five times here already with no signs of becoming inured to its delicious charms.  While originating the North Korean cities of Pyongyang and Hamhung, naengmyeon is now very popular throughout Korea, though quality and recipe vary significantly from restaurant to restaurant and it can be tricky to find a place that really does it well.  Unfortunately, it's even tougher in the States and if you can find it at all, it's still probably not going to be very good.  Guess I'll have to come back.

It may not look like much, but trust me.  Also, soju enhances the dining experience.

Naengmyeon is so popular that there's actually a 2012 hit pop song called "Naengmyeon" which you can see here, no bullshit.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zGDQ9r36p4

Bossam 보쌈:  I know, you get the meat sweats just looking at this picture.  Bossam is another somewhat subtle, but no less delicious Korean dish that's hard to get at home.  It's thick-cut slices of pork belly par boiled in an aromatic broth and then served 쌈 ssam-style:  wrapped in Korean lettuces or herbal sesame leaves with fermented shrimp 새우젓, bean paste 쌈장, raw garlic, fine strips of scallion, and crisp, fresh (barely fermented) kimchi.  It is extremely fatty, succulent, and a must for meat lovers.  Oysters and pork bone broth 가자당 usually accompany it and it is a very popular drinking food 안주 (anju), as its fattiness and saltiness pair amazingly well with soju.

Bossam is in the middle, cuddling with some smoked duck breast and sundae sausage 순대.  All of this was less than $30 (plus soju).

And now for a word from our sponsors, Chumchurum Cool Soju:

Chumchurum Cool Soju:  It's Seoul-tastic!

Bingsu 빙수:  Bingsu is a popular dessert here made of ribbony piles of velvety soft shaved ice with sweet toppings.  While the original patbingsu dates back to the Joseon Dynasty (1400-1900ish, roughly, between the Three Kingdom's Period and the Japanese occupation) and consists of plain shaved ice and sweet red bean paste, contemporary varieties come in all kinds of flavors with many modern and traditional topping options.  It can be a bit pricey, but it's so good thatitdoesn'treallymatterjustneedtoeatitnom.

Chocolate bingsu with almonds, brownies, and bananas -->

TimTams 팀탐스:  Okay, okay, so they're not Korean, but I was finally reunited with TimTams in Seoul after five long years of separation since we first met in Sydney in all their double cookie layered, chocolate-covered, straw-for-hot-chocolate-drinking-makeable-into deliciousness.

All those long years, but I never stopped looking.  I never stopped looking.

The Weird:

Pork Lung and Liver 하파 와 간:  The idea of eating organs is generally unappealing, but especially so, I think, for med students whose experience is further colored by an inconveniently intimate knowledge of said organs' physiology and microanatomy.  Served with sundaeguk 순대국, a stew of the pork blood, barley, and cellophane noodle sausage in pork intestine casing that I mentioned earlier (actually quite good), I gave these traditional accoutrements a try.  The lung actually wasn't too terrible and had a texture and flavor similar to pork sausage, but the bronchioles and lobules staring you in the face are not exactly appetizing, nor is the notion that it's, ya know, a fucking pig's lung.

Liver top, lung bottom.

Liver though, I have never liked.  I've had it multiple times in multiple forms and the flavor and texture is unapologetically visceral and I usually react like this.

Boiled Silkworm Chrysalises 번데기 (Beondegi):  A bowl of these caught my eye on a street vendor's cart one day, and I figured we had to try them.  While it makes sense to me that beondegi (bun-DAY-gee) became a thing when the ancient Chinese were trying to figure out what to do with the pupae after they had boiled away the cocoon silk, I just made that up right now because I'm practicing my Fox News impression; so that may or may not be true.

In any case, they were pretty innocuous overall--not bad, but certainly not good either--tasting kind of like mildly salted cardboard.  Over the last few weeks, I undertook Operation Beondegi Improvement and am discouraged to report that grilling, hot chili paste 고추장, garlic, and accidental burning do not significantly improve the overall beondegi experience.

Just think of them as salted peanuts, except for they're cooked bugs.

Mike's reaction very accurately sums up beondegi.

Hongeohoe 홍어회:  If you haven't read my post dedicated to this fucker, you can see it here:  http://markkgweehyang.blogspot.com/2015/02/1-seoul-food-part-1-hongeohoe.html
The flavor is said to be similar but slightly less vomit-y than hakarl, the notorious Icelandic dish of fermented shark chunks that you may have heard of.  And that brings us to a word from another one of our sponsors.

Hakarl Lite:  half the calories, half the ammonia, and half the involuntary dry heaving of Hakarl Classic.

Live! Octopus 산낙지:  This is the doozie.  Sannakji is live small octopuses (the correct plural of "octopus") cut up on the spot and then served wrigglingly fresh with salt, sesame oil, and chopped scallions.  It is a pretty popular 안주 drinking food and though it originated in the coastal southwestern areas of Korea, you can find it just about anywhere if you really want it, which, I bet you don't.  If you are still interested though, you might like to know that sannakji causes the odd fatality more years than not.  That's because it is also sometimes served whole--yup, a whole live little octopus.  But, if it's not eaten properly:  wrapped around chopsticks and chewed quickly and thoroughly, the unwitting diner--usually inexperienced, overconfident, and/or schwasted--the little guy can make a beeline for your trachea to exact swift, suction cuppy, asphyxiating vengeance.

Like this.

So I opted for the more common chopped up version.  I first saw sannakji on television several years ago and didn't think it would be something I'd ever try, but here we are.  Surprisingly, it was actually quite good with a simple and honest ocean-y taste accented well by the sesame and scallions and the texture was like a chewier oyster.  Unsurprisingly, it was still wriggling and suctioning, which was definitely strange, but not bad when you're expecting it.  Honestly, I wouldn't go out of my way to order it again, but I definitely wouldn't mind ordering it again to initiate another friend into the club--any takers?  (Alan was offered and punked out.)

There's a longer video of me eating it, but it wouldn't fit here.

So that's my rundown of some of the highlights--good and bad--of Korean food.  With a very small number of exceptions, everything we've had has been excellent, authentic, and pretty reasonably priced, so if you're up for a little adventure, I would say Korea is an excellent foodie's destination. 

You people who think like this know who you are.

Updates and Things:

Old People Exercising (3/10): Here are pictures of old Korean people doing weird, questionably effective exercises.  And here's "Eye of the Tiger" in case you're so inclined:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4

Orange track suit lady getting it.

Giant hula hoop.

This athletic wear though.

Boom!

BOOM!  Fucking majestic.

K-Pop or Cancer Gene Answers (3/13):
1.  EXID:  K-Pop
2.  2PM:  K-Pop
3.  FHIT:  Cancer Gene
4.  Sistar:  K-Pop
5.  JAZF1:  Cancer Gene
6.  RUNX3:  Cancer Gene
7.  T-ARA:  K-Pop
8.  JYJ:  K-Pop
9.  AURKA:  Cancer Gene
10.  MTHFR:  Cancer Gene
11.  MOA:  K-Pop
12.  TVXQ:  K-Pop

Teaching Minsoo English (2/26):  Megan is from Minnesota, and when Minsoo wanted to learn how to say which state all the Americans were from, she started off pretty well:  "Maryland," "Michigan," oh weird, all "M" states, but then we got to the last one, which after hearing it once, without a beat of hesitation, came out "Minsoo-so-ta."

Nailed it, girl.

Adoption Update (3/6):  I'm going to see Korean Social Service, which handled my and Stephanie's adoptions, to inquire more about my adoption and the progress in finding my biological family.  I'll report back with what I find out.

Match Day (3/19):  Tomorrow is match day, when I find out where I'll be spending the next four years of my life as an Internal Medicine & Pediatrics resident.  It's late here and I'm not fully acclimated back to Eastern Time, so I better try to get some shut-eye.

Time to Say Goodbye (3/17):  Today is my last day in Korea, which means my time here is unfortunately at an end and so is this blog, so the next post, which will be finished by Monday, will be the final post.


Goodnight, friends!
Mark

Update/Excuse for a Post

Hi all, I've been really busy trying to cram in as much as possible to my last several days here and haven't had time to blog.  I have two remaining posts planned and they are partially done and I'll try to finish them in the next few days.  I'm headed home tomorrow and look forward to seeing you soon!

P.S. I matched into Internal Medicine & Pediatrics and I find out where on Friday!

삼국 시대 와 새일 노래방 The Three Kingdoms Period and Birthday Karaoke

Sunday, 3/9/2015

Sorry about the gap in blog activity--I couldn't finish a post in between side trips.  But!  I'll make it up by doing two posts now--just think of it as practice for buying my future children's affection as a doctor-parent (just kidding, I'm not going to be a surgeon or a cardiologist).

Anyway, I think it's time to switch up the blog angle again a bit again.  Since I've been traveling around the peninsula, we've eaten a lot of food and seen a lot of Korea's history, and I've shared the food, but I thought it would be good to share a bit of that history too.

I'm sorry if this is disappointing, but there will be no nudity or embarrassing family photos (probably will be soon enough though, don't worry) in this post, but there will be a whole lot of knowledge, so prepare to get cultured.



History Lesson:

In traveling to Buddhist temples, graves of ancient kings, and sites of major battles past, I've done my best to learn a bit more about the history of the peninsula as it lends context, substance, and continuity to the perceptions of my experiences here.  Complex as it is long, we unfortunately learn next to nothing about Korean history in the states, yet Korea has been a major player in East Asian history for millenia and is especially notable for the world's only deliberately and methodically created system of written language and some of history's most incredible examples of matriarchal rule.  Korea's beautiful and fascinating cultural legacy; its historical drama and intrigue which read almost like a novel; and its rather recent meteoric rise as a very relevant political, economic (one of the Four Asian Tigers), and cultural powerhouse on the global stage are powerful reasons to start paying attention.  Like trying to pick just one Game of Thrones book to read however (clearly the third one), since we can't tackle everything and still have time for a social life/sleep/adequate person hygiene, for now I'll just focus on one chapter of Korean history, and after my recent trip to Gyeongju, I think it's one of the most interesting periods:  the 삼국 시대 (Samguk Sheedae), or Three Kingdoms Period.

Strip away the forest of skyscrapers that carpet the valleys between the mountains of Seoul; peel back the concrete of the roads and highways laid during the industrialization and modernization of South Korea.  Let the years evaporate to a time before a globalized world, before the USA was less than an exciting idea, and even before the Roman empire had reached the peak of its power and grandeur in the West.

While Korea's prehistory begins over 100,000 years ago with the first arrival of hominids sometime between 300,000 and 100,000 B.C., the first major historical era of the Korean peninsula is the 고조선 Gojoseon (goh-joh-sun) period which started at an imprecisely known time before the 7th century B.C. and ended in 108 B.C. with invasion by the Han Chinese.

"History of Korea-108 BC" by Historiographer at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_Korea-108_BC.png#mediaviewer/File:History_of_Korea-108_BC.png

Blogger is getting mad at me for not crediting images that aren't mine, so sorry for making this seem even more like a presentation :(

Bronze blade-shaped coins from the Gojoseon era.  This picture is mine so suck it, Blogger.

The Han conquest shattered the previously unified Gojoseon into many smaller kingdoms and entrenched Chinese political influence, especially in the north, but it also set the stage for the Three Kingdoms Period.

"History of Korea-001" by Historiographer at the English language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:History_of_Korea-001.png#mediaviewer/File:History_of_Korea-001.png

Laaaame.

Over time, these small remnants of Gojoseon conquered or otherwise absorbed one another until 57 B.C. when only three remained:  Goguryeo, Silla, and Baekje.  The time from 57 B.C. to 668 A.D. is characterized by these three principal feudal powers in the Korean peninsula and known as the Three Kingdoms Period.  All three shared very similar language, culture, and religion (influences of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism), though there were differences.

불국사 Bulguksa Buddhist temple in Gyeongju, the [very] former capital of Silla.

"Three Kingdoms of Korea Map" by Chris 73 / Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea_Map.png#mediaviewer/File:Three_Kingdoms_of_Korea_Map.png

Silla 신라 (Shee-la) in the southeast was founded by Godric Gryffindor in 57 B.C. on the principle that all Koreans should have access to magical education regardless of blood status.  It is the kingdom that ultimately succeeded in uniting Korea and also one of the longest running dynasties in history, giving rise to the Park and Kim clans--now the two most common Korean surnames.  Here is an artist's rendering of what Park Hyeokgeose, the first Park (and more widely accepted founder of Silla) looked like:

I was going for something like this:

www.heavengames.com

But it turned out looking a lot more like this:

I refuse to cite a picture of Captain Crunch.

Goguryeo 고구려 (pretty phonetic there) in the north--the largest, most technologically advanced, and most influenced by Chinese culture of the three kingdoms--was the state most directly descended from Gojoseon.  It flourished during the first six centuries C.E., eliminating any remaining Chinese rule in the peninsula and greatly expanding its territory west and north into present-day Manchuria and Russia; however, it is historically criticized for its intolerance of muggle-borns and high rate of producing death eaters.

A lot of people didn't know that part.

Baekje 백제 (Baek-jae) in the southwest was the most culturally distinguished of the Three Kingdoms and is remembered for its religious and artistic contributions to Korean culture, in stark contrast with its historically poor quidditch performance.  Baekje, with its large coastal area and proximity, had strong trade relationships with China and Japan; however, it peaked in its power and influence in the 4th century, considerably earlier than Silla and Goguryeo, and fared poorly later on.

The Kaya Confederacy is not considered one of the Three Kingdoms and is the state that no one really wants to be in.  Their emblem is a badger or some shit.

The Three Kingdoms, as feudal states do, had a mostly antagonistic relationship with one another and this period is characterized by transient alliances of utility and convenience as each kingdom vied individually for supremacy over the long 700-year span. Baekje was often the tease in this this shitty love triangle, and it alternatively allied with Silla and Goguryeo several times.  Once Silla conquered the Kaya Confederacy in the 6th century though, Silla and Baekje entered into a 120-year alliance against Goguryeo's mounting momentum.  However, once they had recaptured the Han river territory (present-day Seoul) from Goguryeo, Silla broke the alliance, claimed the territory for themselves, and turned on Baekje.

Silla to Baekje.

From there, Silla struck an alliance with the Tang Chinese and over the next 100 years slowly nibbled territory away from Baekje and Goguryeo like this:

This blew my mind a little bit too.

Finally in 660, Silla subjugated Baekje, and in 668, under King Munmu, conquered Goguryeo as well, ending the Three Kingdoms Period and beginning the Unified Silla Period of Korean history.  Here is that same artist's depiction of what King Munmu might have looked like:

Nailed it.

That closes the Three Kingdoms chapter, but the rest of Korean history is fascinating as well, and its legacy of epic antiquity, the rise and fall of dynasties, tormented subjugation by foreign powers, and phoenix-like rebirth reverberates through the centuries and has a palpable presence today in the storied landscape, graceful architecture, filial piety, and guarded social demeanor of Korea and its people.



And now for something completely different.

Me on my first day learning to blow dry my hair by myself:

Learning!

Sunday 3/1/2015

The Goo Birthday Extravaganza:

There is a profusion of Goo family birthdays in March.  Heralded first by Mrs. Goo's birthday on the 1st, it's followed later on by Mr. Goo's and then Minook's birthdays as well.  Therefore, some sort of celebration was in order, so we students had something small planned, but Mr. Goo, as it turns out, had other designs.

Grace, Peter, Lee-Jiao, and I headed out to meet Adam (oh shit, I haven't introduced him yet--I'll do it below) in Sinchon for dinner since family meals aren't prepared in the house on weekends.  While out, we stopped at Paris Baguette (Korean Panera) to pick up a birthday cake for the Goos, and I grabbed some cupcakes for the kids.  At 9:00, we added our confections to the cake Mr. Goo had bought and set up the common room for cake and alcohol--which substitutes for ice cream in Korea, or at least the Goo household.

The cake that Mike and Peter picked out--only about $20!

Then we sang 생일 축하합니다 (Happy birthday) to the three birthday Goos.

At which point, Minsoo started feeling neglected...

...and wanted attention.  It worked.

Then, Mr. Goo told us the story of how he and Mrs. Goo met and (shortly thereafter) got married:

Well as much as Mr. Goo might think that I am a cartoon character, those are bold words coming from the man who, after listening to Mike recount his horrible day and nodding appreciatively, somehow produced a familiar green glass bottle and offered, "Soju?"  He has also taken to introducing Peter and I as "Naked ER" (emergency room) and basically hazed Peter at the bars with his old college friends last week.  Who is more cartoonish?  You be the judge.

In either case, Mr. Goo is an awesome and entertaining host and true to form, once we had eaten our fill of cake and had some of his Glenfiddich 18-year which he so graciously offered, he announced that we were all going to 노래방 (noraebang) Korean private karaoke rooms--a huge part of Korean culture here.  Here's how the translated scene played out:

Mr. Goo:  "Eberybody, get ready!  Let's go to noraebang!"  He then leaves to go get something.

Mrs. Goo at this point looks a bit conflicted since it's already 10:00 and the kids' first day of school is tomorrow, but excitedly hurries to get their coats from the other apartment, while still wearing her birthday hat.

Minsoo:  "But we have school tomorrow!"

Mr. Goo, returning with two metal canteens:  "It does not matter, get ready, Minsoo, get ready!

Minsoo:  "But we'll be late in the morning!"

Mr. Goo, pouring the remainder of the Glenfiddich 18-year (like $90 scotch) into the canteens:  "It'suh fine--it will be fun; get your coat!"

From canteen to my mini flask.  Minook is playing Smash Bros.

Minook then mysteriously disappeared at this point.

The rest of us realize that we are also present in the situation, stop watching what's happening, and also get ready.

Minook returns with a skinny tie on and freshly coiffed hair (he's considerably better at it than me).

Hide your daughters--he can sing too.

We headed across the street to the local Noraebang, which almost certainly laundered drugs in the 70s, unloaded the flasks and the rest of the very entertaining night passed roughly like this (there are more, better videos, but they're too large to fit here):

Let's Play K-Pop Artist or Cancer Gene!

As long as we're talking music in Korea, I think it's time to mention K-Pop (Korean Pop), a 90's-esque, bubble-gum pop genre centered around highly commercialized girl and boy bands which is hugely popular in Asia, and increasingly, everywhere else too.  While Psy's "Gangnam Style" is the only song to truly infiltrate American pop culture, the K-Pop fandom in the East is so enthusiastic that it borders on zealotry.

The great majority of K-Pop is, musically speaking, garbage, but most of it is quite catchy, and some of it is actually decent.  Nonetheless, it is a huge, possibly the biggest, part of the pop culture here, so much like I used to force-feed myself Natty Light back in college to acquire a taste for beer (it apparently worked though, and no, I haven't drunk Natural Light since), I have been listening, to Grace's utter delight, to more K-Pop.  

All of the groups are still pretty indistinguishable to me both musically and visually, and right now I can only tell groups apart by how many members they have:  4 to 12ish usually--definitely bigger than American girl/boy-bands--and they all have kind of ridiculous names.  The names seem to follow a rough pattern in fact, and so I've developed a quiz for you.  It caters more to the K-Pop fans, med students, and doctors, but that's exactly my point.  

From the following list, try to guess if the name is either:  a K-Pop artist, or a cancer gene.  Comment your guesses if you like and I will list the answers in the next post--no cheating and good luck!

1.  EXID
2.  2PM
3.  FHIT
4.  SISTAR
5.  JAZF1
6.  RUNX3
7.  T-ARA
8.  JYJ
9.  AURKA
10.  MTHFR
11.  MOA
12.  TVXQ

Here's the K-Pop song that's currently earwormed its way into my head:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nCLBTmjJBY&list=PLP9h2WpSyv8LxOcoqE0lKGZ9rnQC0nBXy


Updates and Things
Adam (2/19):  I forgot to introduce Adam, an adoptee from the Chicago area that I met at an adoptee Seolnal event.  He has been living in Seoul for 2.5 years teaching English and now works for an English-language magazine.  He has been hanging out with us on the weekends, is an expert on fountain pens, and just messaged me on Kakao Talk, so I need to respond to that.

TimTam Thieves (2/23):  Patterns of suspicious activity in the house have led me to believe that there are TimTim thieves living among us.  My top two suspects are Minsoo and Mike...

Alan (3/13):  Alan is arriving from Taipei in a few hours for a long weekend visit.  He has put me and Peter in charge of his itinerary.  If there's anything you'd really like to tell Alan, I recommend you do it soon.

Here's Peter PTFO after partying with his childhood friends:

Another post to follow soon!

Mark

한국 이발 그리고 대만 Korean Haircut and Taiwan

Thursday, 3/5/2015

Taiwan

Before the main post, I figured I'd take a little time to briefly summarize my trip to Taiwan.  I want this blog to mainly focus on Korea, but a lot of you have been asking about Taiwan, so I thought it would be good to do a quick overview.

Initially I was thinking of going to Japan for a week or so while I was over here since I've always wanted to go and had the luxury of time, but after being here for a while I realized I wasn't really prepared logistically or linguistically for that trip and I'd rather just focus on enjoying Korea, so I'll have to save it for another time.  However, I had some other friends from medical school doing an away rotation in Taipei, Taiwan, so the stars aligned well for a quick (really just like 48 hours of actual city time) trip to Taipei.  Brief as it was though, the weather was significantly warmer than in Seoul and we made the most of it by covering a lot of ground, which mostly means we ate a lot of food.

Again, my flight was delayed by 20 minutes,

but Thai Airways was actually quite lovely and I made a new friend from Seoul on the flight over.  Other than that, forgetting my SD card in Seoul, and an unfortunate mix-up with the flush and bidet functions of Harriet and Jamie's toilet at their Taipei apartment, the trip was without mishap. 

#Bidetproblems

But anyway, here is the trip in pictures:

The Taipei 101 super skyscraper is the 2nd tallest building in the world and a landmark of Asian modernization.  It is almost 1,700ft tall with 101 floors, and absolutely dwarfs all the other building around it and even the mountains adjacent to the city.

Here it is lit up at night,

and here it is trying to be Sauron.

We also went for a hike in one of the mountains around the city, which was awesome, if a bit soggy.

It was the rainy season after all.

At one point, we had to climb up these sheer cliffs with ropes and metal handholds and it was terrifying/awesome.

The four beasts of Four Beast mountain (1000 ft).

Taipei 101 is even taller though.

The rest of the trip was spent wandering through Taipei from restaurant to restaurant, food cart to food cart, in pursuit of the many delicious, cheap, and unique foods there.

Wax apples (Myrtaceae)--a fruit I've wanted to try forever--it's got the texture of watermelon rind, but tastes like an apple/pear.

Another bucket list fruit:  the guanabana or soursop (Annonaceae).  Seriously, probably the best fruit I've ever had.  It's incredibly sweet with the texture of a ripe pear, and the flavor is somewhere between banana, pineapple, and pear.  (Florida bio and marine bio folks, it is everything Dan Skean said it was and more.)

A fruit stand in Shilin night market.

Our compulsory dinner at Din Tai Fung--a famous dumpling house that originated in Taipei.  Their specialty is shiao long bao--steamed pork dumplings full of soup stock, pork, and vegetables--we got four orders.

Stinky tofu--stinky, yet satisfying.

Oyster omelet, another Taiwanese specialty.

Duck skulls and duck necks.  We sat this one out.

We did try duck tongues though :P

So a whirlwind tour it was, but it was a lot of fun and we got to do a lot of things in the given amount of time.  Oh, and the drivers there are crazy; I'll just leave this here:

Thursday, 2/26/2015

Haircut Time:

Change is hard.  I don't think it's something that naturally comes easily to anyone, especially me, and though I think I've gotten much more flexible over the years, some things are just easier to do the same way they've been done forever.  My haircut is probably the best example of that side of me as it has gone through very few changes in my life, but being in Korea, world leader in haute hairstyling (where barbers are called stylists and can charge upwards of $200 for a haircut) and the country that brought you this:

 which I call "the sexy paintbrush," and this:

 which they clearly just stole from Neopolitan ice cream

--I figured it was time to take a leap of faith and try to embrace the pop culture a bit.  In that spirit, last week, I went with my friends to get a "Korean" haircut.

Now before we get to that, let me take you through a quick (and I say quick, because I really only changed it like 3 times ever) history of my do without further ado (heh):

Age 0-4:  This hardly counts; typical little kid haircut that I had no control over.

Here it is not too long after the stage where it stuck straight up.  I apologize for not having a picture of that, but there are only a few old photos on my laptop and my parents don't know how to use the scanner.

Age 5-like 14:  Bowl cut.  Rocked that shit for pretty much all of elementary and middle school with the rat tail combo through grade school that you now know about (and now understand was racially motivated so you can't make fun of me, right?)

Just chillin' with my friends.

High School:  So for you non-Lumen Christi-ers, we had a dress code at Lumen that had stipulations about hair for boys:  it can't touch your collar, it can't touch your ears, it can't go below your eyes, and natural family planning is the only acceptable method of birth control.  So naturally, many of the boys wanted to grow their hair out as long as possible without incurring disciplinary action.  Now if you're trying to imagine what straddling that delicate line looks like, let me help you; it looks like this:

It's like a tiny Asian Elvis.  Also, these shirts are actually white and gold.

Franz, Leah, and Eric, I believe this might have been Team Blue's day of glorious triumph...

College:  Unfettered now as I was by private school hair length restrictions, I just went balls-out with it, only getting haircuts when I couldn't see enough to serve in tennis or Stephanie would start punching me.

Yes, my hair is ridiculously long, but Colin is wearing jorts.

Medical School:  Perhaps as more maturity and social awareness began to slowly sink in, I have been gradually getting my hair cut shorter and shorter since the beginning of med school.

Here I am reading a bedtime story to a pair of gloves.

All right, back to the present.  Now the motivation behind getting a haircut here seems pretty sound, but the subsequent planning was not.  Your suggestions via Facebook were, believe it or not, less than helpful (except for Greg, which actually did influence the result), and I just kind of dropped the ball on researching out the possibilities.  I clicked through some images on Google and creepily took pictures of Korean dudes on the subway and stuff, but in the end when Peter, Grace, and I walked into Blooming Hair Salon in Sodaemun, what I had prepared basically amounted to asking the stylist, "one Korean haircut please!"  

I had a couple example pictures to show her and I stipulated no dye, no perm, and not too much maintenance, but that was literally it.  She and Peter conversed quickly in Korean for a couple minutes, in the span of which the magnitude of my unpreparedness sank in and I began to get quite nervous about how this was all going to turn out.  It was then that I noticed that the stylist was wearing a plastic apron like a butcher, that my hair, ya know, really looked just fine the way it was right then anyway, and this thing:

I have no idea, but it was very grabby and intimidating.

At this point, I rather urgently started trying to have Peter relay that I definitely did NOT want to have this crazy bowl-cut-on-top-shaved-sides nonsense that I'd been seeing around, or this:

or this:

There are 28 state-approved haircuts that you can get in North Korea, and that is a fact.

Well stylist Moon seemed pretty confident that she could whip something up that I would like, so that was reassuring, but she went after it so fast that I had no choice but to just go with it at that point as a steady flurry of black hair tumbled to the floor.  The style she was going for is called "two block" and it basically means short on the sides and back, but still kind of long on top--it's what the kids here are doing these days I guess.  Here it is in stages:

That's what nervous laughter looks like.

First go the sides...

Then the back...

Then the fancy detail work.

The thing is, with a Korean haircut, you're not done after the cut--you have to style it too.  Previous to this, my only experience with styling was parting my bowl cut with gel in middle school because I thought it was cool.  Well lucky for me, Peter is a Korean styling expert and has been doing it since before he could walk or sing a Brian McKnight ballad, so he took me under his wing to teach me how to maintain my new do.

First is blowdrying, which apparently you do to train the hair and give it volume and it's really hard and I'm bad at it.

He can even do a no-look.

Oops.  This is the 100% inevitable result of giving Grace your camera.

Then you have to wax it, which involves lightly brushing the ends of the hair to set the shape and make it look intentionally a little messy, but "not the way you're doing it though, Mark".

I did it wrong again, so Peter had to step in again.

In the end though, I was really very pleased with the result, and my mom said she likes it.  So despite having to get used to styling it (I just let it air dry today; don't tell Peter), I really like it and am glad to have taken another opportunity to explore and embrace my Korean side.

Updates and Things:

Mr. Goo Thinks I Am a Cartoon (2/23):  Mr. Goo informed my housemates recently that he thinks I am a cartoon character.  I'm not sure exactly what he means, but he screenshots my misspelled Korean texts and randomly takes pictures of me in the apartment (like when I am editing photos, shaving, or eating breakfast).  I'm pretty sure that his perception of me is basically like what yours would be of the child who made this:

Carded in Seoul (2/27):  I went to the corner store to buy some alcohol because our house was going out that night.  Well I approached the counter with a bottle of makgeolli, a six pack of shitty Korean beer, and some unidentified Korean drink and the lady at the cash register looked at me very suspiciously, asked "몇 사리에요? (How old are you?)"  I handed her my Michigan license and she puzzled over it for a good 30 seconds before conceding that yes, she believed that I was over 19 years-old, the legal drinking age in Korea.

Busan and Gyeongju (3/6):  Peter and I are headed for the south of the peninsula to the cities of Busan and Gyeongju for the next couple of days.  No laptop, but Busan is a bustling port city with lots of cool things to do and Gyeongju is the old capital of the Silla kingdom--the dominant of the three kingdoms of feudal Korea--so there should be lots of updates when we return.

Until then,

Mark