a kimchi love affair

I was always brought up on home-cooked meals and as a student I almost always cooked for myself as it was the cheaper option. However, a funny thing happened to me when I came to Korea… I stopped cooking. Well, I haven’t stopped completely, but it’s just so much easier to grab something cheap and yummy than to find ingredients and the space to cook them on. Let’s just say my kitchen space is not ideal for cooking anything that requires more than one pan/dish. Or anything that requires baking, as I don’t have an oven.

That being said, I have a few staple dishes that I occasionally make myself, each with a slight Korean twist. Haha, that sounds way too sophisticated. Basically I take something that’s easy to make and dump kimchi in it.

one of the few staples in my fridge.

The first is a Kimchi omelette. It’s just a regular omelette but I fry up a bunch of kimchi with the veggies to start. The same goes for my kimchi spaghetti sauce and kimchi mandu (Korean dumplings).

I love the smell of frying kimchi in the mornin

I haven’t tried these options yet but they are HIGHLY tempting:

... possibly my next lunch!

And those are just the things that I make at home! When eating out I always go for the kimchi. My favourite kimbab is kimchi kimbab, my favourite bokumbab is kimchi bokumbab (for a much healthier version that you can make yourself, click here!), and kimchi mandu (actually stuffed with kimchi, not just fried with it) are to die for!

Kimchi is not just a snack for Koreans. They believe that you won’t get sick if you eat lots of it because it contains probiotics (like yogurt). There is a kimchi museum in the COEX mall near me, so I will have more info once I get my butt over there.

From my experience, Korean children are exposed to kimchi at a very young age, even though it’s quite spicy. We have kimchi every day for our school lunch and the kids have to at least try it every time. If it’s too spicy they can add some water to it.

So, next time you feel like spicing up your same-old dishes, head to your nearest asian market and grab some kimchi! You won’t be sorry!

good reads

One of my favourite things to do is sit in one of the many coffee shops in my neighbourhood, order a large cafe late and just read for hours. Since many of my friends and fam are also avid readers I thought I’d share with you some of the books I’ve read while I’ve been here in Korea.

When I first came here I was obsessed with the Millennium series by Stieg Larsson and they consumed pretty much my whole Summer vacation (which is only a week, but still…). I have seen the Swedish and American films of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and personally I think the American one is much better. It is truer to the book and Blomkvist, who is supposed to be somewhat of a stud, is not so repulsive in the American version.

coffee and cigarettes comprise about 70% of the novels

the way shittier Blomkvist and adequate Lisebeth

Keeping along the mystery/thriller lines, I’ve read a few Dan Brown books as well. I read Deception Point, re-read Lost Symbol and Digital Fortress is sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me. My Dad says that after a while all Brown’s books get fairly repetitive and formulaic (if that’s not a word, I just made it one) and I’m starting to get that, but I still find them really enjoyable.  Deception Point was ridiculous slightly unrealistic at times, but nonetheless it had me reading until the wee hours of the night.

Who's deceiving who?

I’ve read a few ‘love’ stories including Girl with the Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Both of them were page-turners but Norwegian Wood was a bit depressing. They are beautiful novels but I found GwtPE let you go deeper and use your imagination more (what exactly happened between them…!?). If you’ve read GwtPE, I’d also recommend The Virgin Blue by the same author.

Easily my favourite book that I’ve read in the past year is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It is a truly inspiring book and anybody who loves to travel or who has followed their dreams or wants to should read it too!

hey, if Madonna likes it, it's gotta be good!

Over the Christmas vacation some friends and I went to Boracay, a gorgeous island getaway in the Philippines. I will be the first one to admit that I was anti-social at times and it’s all because of the book I was reading at the time. The Beach by Alex Garland is an awesome vacation book (or just to read any time) but it made me feel a bit guilty about being surrounded by tourist-mania.

I thought it was a true story for about the first 200 pages...

The book I’m reading now is called “Kissing Outside the Lines” by Dianne Farr. Farr writes about falling in love with a Korean man and the challenges she has to overcome to be accepted by his family. Needless to say, I don’t need advice on this just yet, but you never know if it might come in handy in the future. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Dianne Farr and her freakin' gorgeous family

I hope I’ve spiked your interest in some of these novels. If so, let me know and I will post similar blogs! If not, well, this is probably the most realistic update I’ve posted on how I’ve been spending my time :P.

knew it!

I knew this would happen!! Just like my countless journals, my good intentions to write regularly don’t seem to be enough for me to actually keep it up for more than a few months. So I am making a new, more realistic goal of writing a blog at least once a month.

I think the main reason why I haven’t written is that my life doesn’t seem all that different than my life back in Canada, so why would anybody want to read about it? There are definitely some distinct differences, such as holidays and the whole language thing, but for the most part my day to day life is not all that ‘foreign’. I have a new kindergarten class, with 12 gorgeous 4-year-olds and I moved into a larger apartment (no more living in a shoebox!). I still go to the gym regularly and have started going to Judo practices once or twice a week.

Practicing our backwards break falls. I never knew falling was so technical.

The weekends usually bring about some kind of excitement, whether it be partying, shopping or just wearing flip flops to the corner store for the first time of the season (like today :D!!). This weekend was a big one, being St. Patrick’s day. I went with some friends on an all-you-can-drink booze cruise which was lots of fun but could have been longer.

This past Wednesday was a Korean holiday called “White Day”. Basically, on Valentines Day the girls get their boyfriends candy and presents and treat him really nice for a month until March 14, when the boyfriend gets them candy and gifts. And if you’re dating a Korean woman, it had better be a really nice gift. I only got a couple lollipops, but it still made my day :).

It’s White Day in Japan too!

I’ll leave you with one more K-pop video that I actually like. The music isn’t stellar but the story is super cute and there are some nice shots of (what I assume is) Seoul.