Golden Weekend (5.3.14 - 5.6.14): Boseong

When I couldn't find anyone to go down south with me for Golden Week and help me knock some places off CNN's list, I was like, screw it, I'm going by myself and calling it a mental health retreat.

The morning I took off I had the 6:45 - 8:15 class, then went home and packed clothes and food into the same backpack I've been using since my first year of high school. I've been on a tight budget and decided to spend as little on eating as possible, which is tricky for me anyway. Without any semblance of a plan beyond knowing that there were three places I wanted to see, I didn't even call and check to make sure there'd still be bus tickets available until I was headed out the door. Taking the regular (as in, not-slightly-comfier) bus to Gwangju costs 17,600, and from there, it's another 8400 to Boseong.

FYI, Boseong is a tiny, po-dunk town with no jimjilbang, so don't bank on staying in one like I originally was. 

Animal welfare in Korea has a ways to go on all fronts.

I walked along the town's single road from the bus station, stopping at a little picnic-type area with benches and a few wooden tables under a veranda to make and eat a sandwich with the rice bread and other things I'd brought. It took quite a bit more wandering around the town and finally asking at a convenience store before finding out that there was no jimjilbang, sauna, or hostel I could stay at, and I ended up getting a very large, decent motel room for a pretty low price.

Actually, I don't remember if it was before or after I went to the famous green tea plantation, but I ended up staying at that super comfy place - which was also very peaceful and quiet except for the large police station directly next store, which made a couple of loudspeaker announcements - for two nights, and one of those nights I watched The Little Mermaid and Rurouni Kenshin in Korean. I never had a TV in Korea and have never understood how terrible Korean TV generally is, so that was surprisingly entertaining.

Either way, I set out for the plantation in the morning, and for some reason I walked all the way back to the main bus station to do it, forgetting about the small one in the middle of town. Take the bus from there, it's much easier.

Crossing the street from the bus stop, you walk uphill through a really nice but inevitably crowded wooded area that surrounds the tea hedge-sculpted hills. At at least two different points along this area, you can get green tea ice cream and other treats.

You can catch glimpses of the famous rows on smaller hills tucked between the trees before reaching the main photo-oppy areas.

And those photo-oppy areas really are one of those things that look exactly like all the pictures you saw online or elsewhere before seeing it yourself, like the Grand Canyon. 
Something I definitely didn't expect and that you probably won't read anywhere else, though, is that these fields are absolutely teeming with black wasps. At first I was like, "Fuck.", because one landed on my upper back, another on my arm, and another on my lip at different points when I was walking up the stairs along the main terraced spot everyone goes to see. But then I realised they were oddly lethargic, and even seemed slow while flying. They just kind of derp around and meander off if you lightly swat at them. Totally bizarre for insects that've chosen to spend their lives around a highly-caffeinated shrub, right?

 

The higher I climbed up the hill, the more I realised that the view was actually way better from the bottom, so I never made it to the topmost part of the largest hill. It was super crowded anyway, and I don't enjoy being so enrobed in a throng of strangers that I'm forced to walk at their pace, wait for their annoying children, etc., so I mostly just walked around the lower, quieter, shadier areas of the plantation taking pictures.

On the way back down I had a green tea ice cream and steamed green tea buns filled with red bean for lunch. I shouldn't have eaten bread (or an ice cream cone), but I mean, they were all hot and steamy and made right there. And I was really hungry. And I didn't die or anything, so it was fine.

There was some time to kill before the next bus back came, so I wandered around that side of the road a little, too; aside from the large dirt parking lot for the popular plantation, there's nothing around there except hilly countryside, irrigation canals, little farmhouses, and other fields.

Unless you decide you want to do some legitimate hiking around the green tea hills, seeing what the plantation's all about is a really short trip. I'd read that there are activities you can do, like learning from workers there how to pick the tea leaves, how to brew different kinds of tea, etc., but I saw nothing like that at all once I was there, no posted schedule, nothing. So, if I could do it again, I guess I'd ask a Korean person to call ahead for me and inquire about those kinds of things. They seem like they'd be fun to do as a couple or group and like they'd really enrich the experience.

In my case, though, it was still pretty early in the day when I got back, and after chilling in my room a few minutes, I went out to walk around the little town more. I went up a hill past an enclosed temple and to a church, and then up another hill to a nice park with a panoramic view of the whole area.

Since it was pretty hot, sunny, and insecty and I was pretty sweaty by this point, I decided to stay that second night in my big empty room (and I think that was when I watched those movies), have a hot shower, and start early the next day.

And that next day, I headed off to a fairly isolated hanok or traditional Korean house village called Naganeupseong.

Gluten-Free, Vegetarian Recipe: Bullet Blender Experiments

Like all of my "recipes", there's really nothing exact about these, so if you're one of those people who needs to know down to the half-cup of vegetable broth or shredded cheese exactly how to make something, you're gonna have a bad time. 

I just kind of wanted to post some of the things I came up with after investing in a $29 mini bullet blender, given my restrictive diet and limited resources (teeny tiny semi-outdoor kitchen, no oven, no microwave, no fresh herbs, etc.) in Korea. Like I usually say, maybe they'll give someone else an idea.

Aside from the delicious and very simple spinach fritatta thing I already posted, my blender creations included: broccoli cheese soup, apple-lemon-ginger smoothies, blueberry-cherry yogurt smoothies, mango smoothies, tofu-cauliflower pancakes, and salty roasted dark chocolate sunflower seed butter.

So, this one time last summer, shortly after buying my little Magic blender, I opted to buy fruit instead of paying my utility bills. This was the only time I had cherries in two years, and they were glorious.

The mixture here was about 1/3 blueberries and 2/3 cherries, more of which were added once the fruit was pureed and more space was freed up. I also added one carton of plain drinking yogurt (damn, I loved that stuff), one small paper cup of little ice cubes, and a dash of milk for drinkable consistency. It's better not to add very much ice because you want it to be smooth.

Mmm, I love the taste of murder in the morning.

The finished product is the smaller container on the right! It was so rich and so good.

Okay, next up is the tofu cauliflower pancakes. I saw some recipes for gluten-free pizza crust that used cauliflower "dough", and wondered if pan-cooking something with blended up cauliflower powder stuff in it would yield similar results, even though ovens are obviously much drier than pans. 

No matter how hard I tried, though, I couldn't get enough water out of the fresh cauliflower and tofu before cooking it, and accidentally oversalted it in my attempt to draw out more water.

Yeah, these first ones didn't hold together. I ended up adding potato powder, which is fine like powdered sugar and a great thickener.

There we go! They look like actual pancakes, huh? The texture wasn't great, and I think it'd be much better with chunks of other cooked veggies in it, like carrots and bell peppers. They'd make a nice side dish as little medallions, and are nice cold straight out of the fridge, too.

Next up is the broccoli cheese soup. My first batch involved spinach, and the flavours really do not work together, so don't get curious and try it like I did. 

If nothing else, it did match the collage I was working on, I guess.

This version was delicious. On the left you can see vegetable broth concentrate, minced garlic, and preserved vegetable broth from other veggies I'd cooked before. I think I used most of a regular-sized onion, first sauteeing it and the garlic together, then adding the finely- and roughly-chopped florets of one and a half heads of washed broccoli. The rest I pureed and added in to cook after several minutes. 

What I had there was not a large amount of veggie broth - maybe half a litre - and was quite concentrated for flavour. I filled out the rest with milk and most of the package of orange cheddar (which I found on sale at HomePlus at the time; I was so excited), letting it all cook together while stirring frequently and seasoning with salt , a little Korean red pepper and cumin, and powdered black pepper until finished. 

Then, of course, I added more cheddar on top of my individual servings.

Finally, there was the hearty sunflower butter I made with a rather old package of hulled sunflower seeds roughly the size of that package of shredded cheddar, but fuller. I simply put them in the hot, dry, wok-like pan I used for everything - because there's always a little residual oil left in your pan that comes out when it's heated - and tossed them with a generous pinch of sea salt until they went from the picture on the bottom left to the one on the bottom right:

The amount of seeds above produced a huge amount of butter. I'm not sure how many grams it was, but it was also very difficult for my Magic Bullet knock-off to take on, as it simply isn't as powerful as a food processor. 

I added tiny amounts of soybean oil and water just so that the mass would move; it never actually got smooth, but was still manageable. I also added the remainder of my cocoa powder, and it came out quite salty and rich.

(a)Musings: Korean Quirks

For better or worse, every place/country has a series of weird little things you just never expected. For example, I didn't expect black licorice flavour to be so prevalent in Germany that it's even in the toothpaste. I also didn't expect an entire section of the (admittedly pretty fancy) grocery store to be dedicated to marzipan, or for the Denglish word for "cell phone" to be "handy".  

Go ahead, it's way too easy to have fun with that one (e.g., "Hurry up and give me my handy!"; "I was so excited when my dad gave me a handy for Christmas!").

This is just a series of things I was thinking about before leaving that only people who have lived in Korea will probably understand, and that, if you're headed there or have recently moved there, I don't think you'd have ever expected. There are a lot of other blog posts out there like it, but this one is mine.

Koreans don't usually travel independently, preferring to use travel agencies that book every detail of their trips for them, and they often to travel in large groups comprised exclusively of other Koreans. Yeah, that whole embarrassing, fanny pack, socks-and-sandals Asian dad stereotype is a real thing.
One man told me that, when he and his wife visited a particular bridge in the Czech Republic that's well-known through a movie or TV show or something like that, he felt like he was back home, because every other Korean tourist in the vicinity had the same idea. 
The Czech Republic is suddenly everyone's interesting dream travel destination the same way last year's food trend was churros and this year's is Chicago-style deep dish pizza. The groupthink mentality is very strong with this one.

They hate cilantro and Mexican restaurants will ask to make sure you want it, even though most of the leaves Koreans use in their cooking - and more than once unceremoniously described to me under the umbrella term of "lettuce" - are so pungent and bitter that they'd be considered inedible in the West. 
And, indeed, there's a good chance someone literally foraged for them by the road outside. Old Korean ladies are all about foraging. Which is totally cool, I mean, I'd love to go mushroom hunting in the German woods with Hannes' super nice parents, but like, if something tastes like a random plant you can eat without getting sick, it's just a random plant you can eat without getting sick. Ain't no survival situation up in here, grandma, just make me a salad that tastes good.

On the topic of old Korean ladies, or adjummas, they always wear purple and large visors. It's like the national uniform of being a married woman who's borne a child, aged, and officially doesn't give a fuck about anything anymore, except finding deals on practical household items and being as rude and belligerent as humanly possible.

Source

Being a very mountainous country, hiking is extremely popular in Korea, and there is a ubiquitous, national hiking uniform. It makes people look like terribly uncomfortable Gore-Tex crayons when they flock together in large numbers, which they always do. 
Nature is always seriously fucked-with and landscaped in Korea, too, so you really have to be a wilderness or rock climbing enthusiast to find an area without stairs, guardrails, or even a convenience store to explore.

Source

Young women especially will spend an absurdly long time furiously brushing their teeth in public bathrooms after lunch and hogging the sink, but no one ever washes their hands after using the toilet. 
To be fair, people everywhere are guilty of this. I found the notoriously widespread lack of toilet paper and soap in public restrooms in otherwise nice or at least decent places something I could accept, but only grudgingly. I'm very good at drunk-pee-balance-hovering, I'll just say that right now, and if you're a chick headed to Korea, you probably will be, too. You'd better be, I hate it when people get it everywhere. Gross.
Anyway, the most common type of public restroom soap is a blue bar stuck to a little metal thing jutting out between the sinks. And countless people have grabbed that bar.

Countless.
People.
o_o
O_O

Holding hands is totally common and acceptable at any age and for both genders. Korean parents definitely don't know when to cut the cord, I think that's a big part of it. 

Manicures aren't usually uniform across all nails. It's common to have one nail on each hand be a different colour/pattern/style/all of the above, and for women to wear only a few acrylic nails instead of just taking them all off and starting again. Same goes for toes. The former is cute, the latter looks terrible.

Things that aren't supposed to be sweet are simultaneously very sweet and bland. Have fun with your sugared garlic bread and nacho cheese that tastes like salad dressing, bitches.

Prescription pills come in individual little plastic packets you tear open for each dose, and there's usually a little cocktail of very low-dosage pills in each one. Korean doctors are terrible about wantonly over-prescribing antibiotics, too.

Black mold is very prevalent in walls, especially in the summer when it's just disgustingly humid, largely because Koreans insist - even in their subtropical swamp climate - that wallpaper is cheaper and easier than plain white paint. 
If you complain to your landlord about the massive colony behind your bed that may or may not have developed to the point of not only having gained sentience but perhaps to the point of having a viable culture and economy, he's just going to stick more paper over it.

No really, this happened to me, even after months of a mysteriously ongoing upper respiratory infection. Some people even tried to tell me it was harmless. Problem solh-ved!

Many Koreans can't swim. They effectively live on an island, the North being a big blank spot on the map, so don't ask me why. I've seen adults wearing full lifejackets in the Han River Park Pool, which is barely chest-deep at its lowest point. You also have to wear them for every single water activity ever, even if you're just taking one of those little swan pedaling boats into a metre of water. You can't swim more than something like 10 metres from shore at any beach without having lifeguards frantically whistle, wave, shout, and sometimes jetski you back to safety, to water so shallow it's impossible to swim. People will argue that blind submission to authority wasn't a major contributing factor to the Sewol disaster - which you know I think is absurd if you read my rant about it - but you'd better believe that a whole bunch of kids started getting swimming lessons after it went down.

Speaking of water, Korean bus drivers make it their mission to simulate the sensation of surfing.

That's all I can think of right now; maybe I'll add more later. I even read another blog post that said Korean women don't drink coffee while pregnant for fear that the baby will come out brown. "Not because of the caffeine or anyhing". I mean, wow.
I've got very mixed feelings about Korea, but like any place, there's plenty of good along with the bad. Not necessarily like any place, though, I can guarantee that it's never boring.

Cute Shit: Dunkin' Donuts in Korea

It was the first thing I saw when I got off the plane, which would've been a real kick in the nuts if I'd been entertaining any delusions of false exoticism. Dunkin' is hugely popular in Korea and has a number of fun and unique flavours that change seasonally, plus promotions. Apparently they barely break even on the doughnuts themselves and make all their money on the drinks. Based on the huge number of small locations they have and the fact that the fresh doughnuts, bagels, muffins, etc. need to be delivered to all of them by truck every day, I can't say I'm surprised that their overhead costs eat so heartily into their profits. 

Anyway, their selection of rice doughnuts are unfortunately wheaty to varying degrees, and I know not just because the Korean site says so, but because I've experimented with all of them.
... And the chewisties. The cheese one is the best.
If you're allergic to wheat or intolerant to gluten and dying to roll the dice on a delicious fried bready snack, though, go for the glutinous doughnut sticks or Munchkins with black sesame seeds on the outside. The sticks are perfect for dipping into coffee, and I was almost always able to eat them with very little or no swelling or other symptoms, as my allergies are not severe. 

The purple sweet potato lattés were also a guilty pleasure of mine, and I drank tons of them, especially before leaving Korea. During that time they had these cute ethnic people cup designs to represent all of the countries in which Dunkin' operates. 

So anyway, enjoy my small collection of 2 years of doughnutty phone pics from Korea:

I can't remember what smoothie flavour this was... Maybe taro? Plus a sweet potato rice cake from another chain called Bizeun.

Green tea chewisty

Local black rice doughnut and purple sweet potato latté

Tofu black sesame doughnut with nuts and a honeydew bubble tea from a different café

Red velvet!

They did this "monkey's banana" doughnut and apple smoothie combo last summer

Some Halloween 2014...

Some Christmas 2013...

And the cute Christmas 2014 Moomin campaign!