Korean Tour (part 1)
So I am back, from the country that brought us so many amazing dramas, thats right, its Korea, and I am ready to share my experiences from the vacation. So fasten your seat belt, sit tight, and follow me on the journey to this land of mystery.
I will make it a 3 part blog, in this first part I will talk about food, culture, lifestyle and fashion of Korea. Then in the next 2 parts I will introduce the tourist attractions there.
Something I find special about the lifestyle there is that Koreans sleep on the floor more than on the bed, even in four or five star hotels, some do not provide beds, just mattress to spread on the floor, a pillow filled with rice shells, and a blanket. During winter, the floor will be connected to heating system to bring warmth.
When people ask me about what is the greatest ever thing Koreans ever come out with, I will answer without doubt, plastic surgery. Nowadays not only movie stars, huge number of girls in Korean spend their first few months of salary going for artificial beauty, regardless of the pain suffered, and through my observation, almost all young lasses walking on the streets are perfect looking… Apart from that, I would say that Seoul is an emerging fashion city, everyone walking on the streets are dressed in latest fashion designs, even winter clothes, all of them are very uniquely designed, simply amazing!!
If you look at the photo beside very closely, you will find that all the cutlery are made out of metal, especially the chopstick, which makes it very slippery and difficult to be used. This noodle above is called "wu long mee", resemble the Japanese ramen, and its served together with the yellow radish and "kimchi", red in colour, sour tasting, containing 20 nutrients, and is a must have in every Korean meal.
This thing beside is called "tie ban shao", means burning food on a metal cooker. Ingredients include special sauce,sweet potato, cabbage, Korean "nian gao", meat and also rice, which is mixed later to stir together. The cooked meat can also be wrapped by raw vege to eat together with chili sauce. Notice the empty plastic cups on the table, Koreans usually serve plain water on meals, no soft drinks, coffee or tea, to lower the consumption of sugar.
Next up, this is called vegetarian steamboat. Korea is a very health conscious country, especially on their food, they eat vege more than meats, which free them from deadly diseases such as SARS and bird flu, the best thing is they do not use pesticide on their vege. The bowl of rice beside it is the famous "stone rice", called that because of its bowl is make of stone, red hot all the time and the rice need to be stirred continuously to prevent it from being overcooked.
This is called barbecue meat, in a unique Korean way. A big piece of meat is placed on the heating tray, turning it over all the time, cutting to smaller pieces in the process, an ideal meal for winter.Its served with white rice, which is completely round in shape, different from the shape of Malaysian white rice.
This is my little brother, beside him is one of the famous food of Korea, ginseng chicken soup, served with mee sua. The chicken is stuffed with sticky rice balls and ginseng, and its added with a small cup of ginseng wine, tasty and healthy as well. Korean is very famous for its ginseng, can be considered best in the world, as it is the warm type compared to the hot type from China and cold type from America.
I did visit the biggest fish market in Korea, besides fish, they have giant crabs sold here, and even the squids are gigantic, which they dried the squids, ferment it and its a very popular food among locals and foreigners, can be barbecued or added into soup.
OK thats all for today, will write more soon, before I go, big congratulations to Nicol Ann David, the recent double world champion, we penangites are really proud of you, keep it up!!
