Korean health food for summer :D

Since we sweat a lot during summer, we need to eat something special!! hum.. maybe it sounds weird but it is better to eat anyways :p 

There are three days that Korean eat special food for summer. It is 'Cho-Bock (초복)' 'Joong-Bok (중복)' 'Mal-Bock (말복)'. We call these three days as Bok-Nal all together. 

'Cho-Bock (초복)' is July 18, 'Joong-Bok (중복)' is July 18th, and 'Mal-Bok (말복)' is August 7th. All three days are followed by Lunar Calendar. Usually in these days, we eat something has extremely high calorie such as Sam-Gye-Tang, Choo-Eh-Tang, or Bo-Shing-Tang. So if you are visiting Korea during these days, you can have one of those three foods and pretend that you are a real Korean :p 

Sam-Gye-Tang is a soup with chicken, Choo-Eh-Tang is made of mudfish and Bo-Shing-Tang is soup with dog... The most popular one is Sam-Gye-Tang :D 

Few days ago, it was Joon-Bock (중복) in Korea, so my family went to restaurant to have Sam-Gye-Tang since my mom was too tired to make it at home. This is Sam-Gye-Tang. Even thought my cousin loves the chicken only, personally, I believe the best part of this dish is the soup and the rice inside of the chicken. Just like turkey in western, we stuffed the chicken with a lot of other healthy ingredients such as ginseng, chest nut, leek, jujube and so on. 

If you want to try, you can follow the link below... :) Sam-Gye-Tang

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Korean Traditional Food 'Jun (전)'

If you are interested in Korea or Korea food, I am sure that you know Bi-Bim-Bob (비빔밥), Kim-bob (김밥), or pork-bone-soup (감자탕, gam-ja-tang) already. But today, I want to introduce 'Jun' (전, in the other words Korean style pizza) to you. We used to eat Jun in special occasion such national holiday like Chusuck (Korean Thanks giving day) or Sulnal (Korean new year) or in wedding and so on. But now you can easily find a restaurant which is selling Jun!! There a so many kinds of Jun so that I cannot mention in this post all of them, but I will do some which are famous popular so you can order from any Jun restaurant in Korea :) There are few restaurant which sells only  (almost only) 'Jun' there. The first Jun that I would like to introduce today is Pa-Jun. Pa-jun is mostly made with 'leak' with flour.   This picture is the one that I took yesterdays when I went 'Jun' restaurant with my mom and aunt :) This is actually not just 'Pa-Jun' but it is 'Hae-mul-pa-jun'. Which means it also contains some sea food not just leak. :) Since I LOVE sea food so much, when I was young, I used to pick sea food from 'Jun' HAHA!! To get rid of the smell of sea food, usually 'Hae-mul-pa-jun' is a bit spicy. But since I cannot handle spicy food well (yes, I am Korean but I cannot eat spicy food. You did not misunderstand this context) we asked them to take away the pepper from the Jun so that i can eat it as well :) The next one is Dong-Tae Jun. Dong-Tae Jun is made with frozen pollack. So if you cannot eat fish for some reason, you may don't want to try this. However, one thing that I love to tell you is... Dong-Tae Jun is also one of popular Jun in Korea :) Dong-Tae Jun is so soft and it does not smell like.. you know... fish! that much LOL And there are Go-chu-jun, which is made with pepper but not spicy at all. They take away the seed from the pepper and fill it with some meat and other stuff.  Even thought it is not spicy at all, personally, I am not a big fan of Go-Chu-Jun only because it is made with pepper LOL ... So if I can, I rather to order dong-gu-rang-ddang!!! I LOVE dong-gu-rang-ddang so much and I am dare to say that this is the most popular jun in Korea...cuz I never seen anyone who does not like this!! If I need to say something similar with dong-gu-rang-ddang.. it would be similar with bugger petty but smaller version :) When I was young, on Sul-Nal (new year day in Korea) or Chu-suck (Thanks giving day in Korea), my aunt always complaint that no matter how long she works there's only few dong-gu-rang-ddang because I sat down beside to her and never stop to eat it :) For the last, I would like to introduce a drink that match perfectly with Juns!!! That is mak-gol-ri!!!!! It is Korean rice wine. Even thought it is not that strong, it is so sweet so if you keep drinking... you won't be able to notice your parents even :p      

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If you phone battery is out.

These days, the phone is very important. We use our phone as camera, map, notepad, and so on.... not just as a phone. But when your phone is getting out of battery, don't get panic because there are easy ways that you can charge your phone.

• Find convenience store: if your phone battery is getting low, try to find convenience store as soon as possible. "Mini stop","seven eleven","C&U".. any convenience store would be fine. Just enter the store and ask to charge your phone. It will take approximately 30 min to charge your phone and cost only $1 or $2. 
• Why don't have have some meal? Almost all restaurant in Korea will let you to charge your phone. Some might ask you if you have cable but to be honest, no one asked for cable recently. 
• Try to find USB port. If you are in the bus, try to find USB port. Because some buses has it!!! I believe most Mbus (which is blue colour) has one!! Unfortunately, I haven't seen any from subway :( 
• 

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Korean Frozen Desert Pat-Bing-Soo

The weather is extremely hot in Korea these days. How hot is it? I thought that I would melt down on the street today LOL... So I decided to post something can make the hotness go away!

Few days ago, I read an article, 10 Brain-Freezing Treats From Around the World, and Pat-Bing-Soo was introduced in the article as well! So, I decided to post something about Pat-Bing-Soo to let the hotness go away!!

As it is described in the article, Pat-Bing-Soo means"red beans with ice" in Korean. The dessert consists of shaved ice, bean paste, fruit, condensed milk and fruit syrup. But!!! We do have more kinds of Bing-Soo!!

The original version of Pat-Bing-Soo that my mom and I tried last summer! It contains a lot of red beans and tastes so good for me even who does not like red-beans that much. Red-bean as a desert might sounds weird to you, I understand this because one of my best friend who is came from columbia (good job on the world cup by the way!) told me that it is weird for her to eat red-bean as sweet for her. If you feel the same way, don't worry, we have plenty kinds of Bing-soo.

These are Bing-Soo from Paris Baguette (which is one of most famous bakery franchise in Korea). As you can see above, Paris Baguette serves fruit Bing-Soo, Mango Bing-Soo, Blueberry Bing-Soo, Rice cake with been Bing-Soo, and rice cake Bing-soo... I know.. there are too many right? but this is not all!

Sing almost of cafe and fusion restaurant has their own Bing-Soo menu, it may take more than a year for you try all of them!! haha

This one is one of special Bing-Soo which is called Melon Bing-soo. They made bowl with melon and put crushed ice in it and decorated with scooped melon on top. Even thought the visual is so pretty, it was too sweet for me. Yet, if you love sweet desert you can try.

I was about to give you the address of this restaurant since it was so new in 2013 and you had to make reservation to have this special Bing-Soo. But it is so popular in Korea so that you can find this Bing-Soo so easily!! So just search for Melon Bing-soo or 메론빙수!!!

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Beef- Tripe and pork-tripe

Beef-tripe and pork-tripe are one of my favourite foods in the world! and yes, I am talking about beef tripe!!! Some restaurant cook it without sources and some restaurant make. No matter how it cooked, I love it!! Maybe you think this is too much for you to try because how it looks. Yet, please don't say anything but try it first! You will love it!!

This restaurant is one in the Il-sal which is near Seoul. I could not find any better restaurant in Il-san than here!! they even set fire on your dish. I don't know why they do it, but it is fun to watch it!! haha. when I found this restaurant first, I went there almost every other week!! :*(

Unfortunately, beef-tripe is a bit expensive. It will cost about $20-40 for two people. Usually Korean eat this with Soju

So, if you want to try it as Korean does, you can order soju as well!! But be careful because most of my foreign friends does not like it!

I found this restaurant just few weeks ago then addicted to it! This is pork-tribe. It is a bit spicy but not too much. There are dozen of pork-tripe store in An-yang. Those stores are along the alley so people calls that alley as Gopchang alley (Gopchang means tripe in Korean). My aunt told me that gopchang alley has been more then 30 years! It is even cheat as well! It is only $7 for one person.

You can find beef-tripe restaurant easily in seoul but if you want to try some pork-tripe restaurant in Gopchang Alley, you can follow the map below! Hope you enjoy it <3

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Best summer food = Nang-myeon!

Nang-myeon is one of the best summer food!! There is a song for Nang-myeon called by Girls Generation. This noodle is sweet and a bit sour but in one sentence, it is extremely delicious!! But Nang-myeon tastes better when you eat it with meet (it doesn't matter whether it is pork or beef!! :p)

http://cfile2.uf.tistory.com/image/204A830F4A84D58D2C3123

So, this restaurant, GoSsam Nang-myeon, serves nang-myeon with pork only at 6000Won (which is almost $6!!) The restaurant is franchise so you can find this restaurant in many places. If you are planning to stay in Seoul, you can visit restaurant in Shinchon.

You will have three choices when you go to the restaurant. Pork + water nang-myeon, pork + bibim nang-myeon, and pork + hot noodle. Water nang-myeon will be served with cold soup while bibm nang-meyon is spicy noodle without soup. Personally I suggest you to try water nang-myeon with pork!! :)

 

How to Eat

Wrap piece of meat with your noodle and eat it! and enjoy it!

 

Music below is the song about nang-myeon ^^

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMvMarhwpJs]

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How to ride subway in Korea 2

Last time I introduced subway line in Korea. That we have 10 lines near Seoul and you can use card to travel. Few days ago, when I went to ShinGill to meet my friend, I saw six white men were stuck on station since they the machine did not let them go outside of the station lol.

It happened because they did not know where to put the card. So I will talk about 'how to use your transportation card!' today.

When you get on the bus or go to subway station, you will find little machines which are look like below.

Once you find this machine, don't get panic, and just put your transportation card on top of 'T money' sign. Then you will hear little 'beep' sound and the screen will show you some number. The number is how much you got charged, or sometimes it will show you how much money you spent cumulatively if your card is not prepaid card.

As long as you heard 'beep' sound, you are free to go and find your seat!!! Also, as I discussed last time, you should put your card once again before you get off from the bus or leave the station. (don't stuck in the subway station like those six white men in ShinGill station loll)

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How to take subway in Korea

 

It may seem complicated!! but don't worry it is not that bad as you think!

There are around 10 subway lines and each line has their own colour. With subway, you can go almost everywhere around Seoul!! If it is too hard to map out your trip with this map, Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit will be very helpful!! It provides journey time, fare, and transfer station.

If you are stay longer than a month, you better buy commuter subway pass which is 46,200 Won. You can use for 60 times for 30 days. But you would not be able to visit few stations with commuter subway pass, such as line7, so you may need to check it earlier.

If commuter subway pass is not suit for you, you can simply get a card for transportation that you need to charge money in it. (I will post how to charge your transportation card in next post).

 

Don't forget to put your card on the machine before you take off from the bus!!

https://enuri.com/knowbox/Kbreadprint.jsp?kbno=312714&cate=0304&modelno=0&zoom=85

I know you would not forget when you take off from the bus because you won't be able to go outside if you have not put your card yet.

But it is easy to forget when you get off from the bus since no one force you too!! Yet, it is important for you to put your card on this machine because they will charge you 900 Won (which is almost $1).

Korean subway charge you based on how far did you go by taking transportation. But they would not know where did you get off from the bus if you do not put your card on the machine when you get off. So they charge you the maximum price. If you don't want to loose your money, DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR CARD BEFORE YOU GET OFF FROM THE BUS!

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