CURRY UDONG SOUP

Anyone reading this who knows me will probably know that I love to cook.  I'm not the most organised cook in the world and I pretty much never ever measure or record what I put in to my creations.  I just add things and see how it goes.  But one problem with this method is that I can never remake something the same second time around.  Anyway, I bought a rice-cooker the other day so will be doing a lot more cooking (well, cooking that involves rice...) and it has inspired me to start a food-blog-sort-of-thing.  I've been a bit shit  lazy with the blog updates so this will give me more to write about.

SO....

I am going to use this blog to:

 a) Add recipes that I would like to remember 

and  b) Add interesting Korean foods that people at home may find strange/amazing/disgusting etcetc

and c) Give you lucky, lucky people an insight in to my kitchen (or lack of with my one-hob stove).

CURRY UDONG SOUP  카레우동

The first meal I would like to share with you is Curry Udong soup.  You might be reading this thinking 'you spelt udon wrong, it doesn't have a 'g' at the end.  You idiot.'  Even if I Google 'Udong,' it kindly replies: "Did you mean: udon".  Err, no actually Google.. Udong is the Korean, as opposed to Japanese (Romanised) spelling of what is essentially the same thing (a thick wheaty, chewy noodle).

Anyway, I'm blabbing about nothing.  Let's get back to the recipe.  This is for two people:

Ingredients 

2x packets of udong noodles

1x medium onion

2.5x tbsp curry powder

2x cups of water with some dashi stock in it

1/3 cup of mirin / mirim (rice wine)
Corn starch to thicken

Splash of soy sauce (reduced salt if poss)

a sprinkle of sesame seeds

and a sprinkle of black pepper (optional, but tastes gooood).

1. Boil the udong for 1-2mins then rinse and set aside.
2. Finely chop the onion and then fry for a few mins until soft.
3. Add the curry powder and mix in with the onion.  (A good idea at this point would be to mix a tiny bit of water in with the powder to make a paste to avoid lumps before adding to the pan).

Ottogi curry powder

4. Add 2 cups of dashi stock (2 cups of water and about 2 tsps of dashi stock or vegetable stock)

Dashi - beef stock

5.  Add 1/3 cup of mirin (rice wine)

6.  Add a splash of soy sauce.

7.  Bring to the boil and add the necessary amount of cornstarch to thicken the soup up a bit.

8.  Add the udong noodles to the soup and cook for a couple more minutes.

9.  Serve up and sprinkle on a few sesame seeds to make it look good ;)

Curry Udong Soup 

07/04/2011 Radioactive-rain Day and the Day the Animals came to School

 So, I'm sitting here and it's been raining non-stop since last night - I actually experienced the biggest thunderstorm I have ever been in, it went on ALL night long.  No joke.  And I'm not talking a little rattle here and there, I'm talking full on storm.   The thunder was rumbling constantly and the lightning must have been flashing about 10-15 times per minute....all  night!  It was quite exciting (being from England, I've never really seen one last more than about ten minutes), but it did start to get annoying after a few hours of our whole apartment lighting up like a disco when I was trying to sleep.  On the plus side, I'm not epileptic.  Always look on the bright side.   All this talk of rain is making me think of an Adele song that I love  'Set Fire to the Rain'; boy I wish I could have set fire to the rain today.  I actually had puddles in both of my shoes when I got home this evening.

Ok, so the title of this blog post is about radioactive rain.  In particular, one specific day when the country freaked out.  Let me tell you the story...   The media had suggested a few days before that on the 7th April 2011, the wind would change direction from Japan and consequently blow radioactive particles on to the Korean peninsular.   Obviously, the government stepped in and did it's best to assure people that there was no chance of this happening and people were just panicking for no reason.  Despite this 'reassurance,' weather forecasters were still insisting that the wind had changed direction and that radioactive rain was upon us.  It turned out that we did have radioactive rain, but nothing at a level that was harmful to people.  They actually said that you could drink the stuff every day for a year and still not get ill.  I probably wouldn't go that far...

Anyway, when people heard the news that the dreaded rain was coming, they freaked out. Yes they did.  About 150 schools were closed in Seoul because parent's didn't want their children to get rained on.  Shops sold out of masks, umbrellas, raincoats and alien costumes (see below).  Sadly, our school didn't close so James and I had to brave a short walk to school in the rain.  I was hoping to gain some super-powers, but all I got was a cold and an ear infection, which was in fact unrelated to the radioactivity.  So that is the story of radioactive rain day.  For some, the freaking out continues (just a few days ago my co-worker was refusing to get rained on, insisting that it is not safe) but for the rest of us, life goes on!

Environmental activists protesting over nuclear power in Seoul (taken from segy.com)

                                         Alien abduction.....nope just radioactive rain  (photo from msn.com)


Now on to the next part of this blog.   As a consequence of the radioactive rain palaver, many parents complained about us taking the kids on a field trip to see the cherry blossoms (which is a HUGE thing in Korea).  They come out once a year for a few days, and the whole country goes crazy and people flock to the parks with their very advanced digital cameras, snapping away and posing with every blossom in sight.  I must admit, I did join in the fun and yes I did pose with a cherry blossom or two.  Why the hell not?  I'm in Korea.

Posing with some cherry blossoms

'Flower' setting on the new camera

Anyway, I digress.  Our field trip got cancelled because the parents didn't want their kids to breathe in the bad air, so instead we decided to have a 'market day' where we gave the kids $10 each to spend on various things, which most ironically, were outside.  Hmmm.  Logic aside, it was really fun.  We transformed the school in to a market zone and had candy floss, balloons, a toy/book/clothes shop, face painting, and wait for it......30 something animals!!  I had to admit, I couldn't even imagine how they would do this, especially when we were told that these animals would include a 'big snake,' a sheep, a goat, a pony, a skunk (yes, a skunk) and various other furry and feathery friends.  Sure enough, when we arrived to school that morning, all the animals were there waiting for the hoards of kids to start pestering them.  

At fist, I think I was more excited than the children.  All weekend, I was like...'oooohhhh animals are coming to school on Monday!!' (yeah, I need to get a life), but when I arrived and saw the animals, I actually just felt really sad for them and had a short moment where I felt like I needed to rescue them and just set them free!  They were all in tiny cages.  There was even a cat in a cage, surely this is wrong?  I was in charge of pony rides, which I was super excited about, but when I saw the state of the poor old, haggered pony, I really didn't want to be the one responsible for putting small children on it's bony, spiny back.  It looked so sad.  Luckily, the children just posed with it in the end and had a photo, so it was all ok in the end.  Plus it gave the kids tonnes of entertainment when it decided to have a huge shit poo.  When the first kid saw it shitting pooing, they starting shouting 'dong!' 'dong!' and had many laughs.  James was in charge of animal feeding.  In his pen, there was the funny goat (it kept eating the sign), a duck, a pig, a sheep and a goose.  One kid wanted to feed the duck, so proceeded to shout 'duck' and lobbed a piece of radish at the duck.  Poor thing.  I don't think the duck understood.  The goat & sheep loved it, although the pig, being a pig, didn't have many children interested in feeding it.  I'm sure it got enough food though.

Bony Pony

Fun in the school

The hungry goat.  He was the best!

BANGING IN KOREA

If one visits Korea, then one will almost definitely participate in banging of some kind, whether it be naked in a public bath or drunkenly singing at the top of one's voice.  Let me expand....  For those of you reading this with a dirty mind - shame on you.  Bang or 방 is the Korean word for 'room' and is one of the main leisure activities for anyone in Korea.  There are so many different kind of bangs.....I will explain some of them here!

Jjimjilbang 찜질방


This is the one which is most westerners find the hardest to get their heads around, although it is such a prevalent part of the culture here.  Jjimjilbang translates to 'heated bath' and is basically a place to go and relax.  There are two main areas - the dry sauna area and the wet bathing area.  When you first arrive, you take your shoes off and are then given a key for a small shoe locker - do not step in with your shoes on, and do not put your shoes on before you exit - you will be shouted at by an angry Korean (and they often sound angry at the best of times).   If you want to go to the dry sauna area, you change in to the shorts and t-shirt provided and then do whatever you want - sleep, read a book, sweat in a pizza-oven style sauna, chill in an ice room (literally...ha)(sorry for that bad pun, but it had to be done. Then I did a poem without even knowing.  Ok I'll stop now.)  But the dry areas are amazing - depending on the size of the jimjilbang, some have a cinema (only ever showing Korean films, but the novelty is there), they all have a restaurant of some description and they all have sleeping zones - many people just come here to sleep as they are open 24/7.  Many people come to them drunk for a cheap place to stay - I can honestly say I've not had this privilege yet.  I think I'm missing out on sleeping on a hard floor next to snoring men with a block of wood for a pillow...But, ho hum.


Now we get to the exciting bit - going 'native' in the pools area.  Ok, the first time I did this it was confusing terrifying to say the least.  I went on my own (I thought that I'd be more comfortable getting naked in front of people I didn't know), but OMG it was a scary experience!  For starters, the lady on reception spoke no English, so I had to navigate my way around a 6 story jjimjilbang, not knowing where to go.  So I explored for a bit and got worried when it dawned on me that I had no idea which was the men's floor and which was the women's, so I went back to reception and casually followed some women to the right floor.  The actual bathing area was pretty amazing.  The awkward feeling of nakedness never went away, it was even worse knowing that I was the only foreigner in the building and that even fully clothed I got stared at and talked about every day.   I have to say though, that now I absolutely love the jjimjilbang experience.  It's so relaxing and refreshing - there are so many pools/jacuzzis, all of different temperatures, heated floor slabs to sleep on, spring water pools, green tea pools, more saunas, strange fat-breaking water streamers (I'm not too sure about these...).  But you feel so clean and relaxed when you leave.  Hey, I even took my mum when she visited!   The sight of Korean women vigorously scrubbing eachothers backs to the point of being red raw is pretty funny too.




DVD Bang


Whenever I mention to a Korean that I love DVD bangs, I get such a strange look.  They are basically a mini private cinema with a sofa and huge projector screen.  Just like Blockbuster, you go in and select a movie from the hundreds available and then you are shown to your room where you watch your movie.  It's so much better than watching a movie on your laptop; however they are notorious places for young couples to  'make out.'***  There is also a section of dvds devoted to porn - not subtly on the top shelf either, but eye level graphic dvd cases, sometimes quite hilarious.  Not that I spend time looking at these...  But porn aside, these are really cool places. 


***Thanks to Ian Robinson for the appropriate 'bang bang bang' link...


Noraebang 노래방

Karaoke rooms - what's not to love!!  Hours of entertainment are to be had in these..... Just on my street alone, there are probably 50 of them... and I'm not even exaggerating!  There are literally EVERYWHERE!  Karaoke is about as popular as kimchi (the national dish of spicy garlicky fermented cabbage which is served with every meal and more).  You've got millions of songs to choose from as well as a few instruments to play along with!


There are more bangs to talk about, such as board game bangs, but I've not visited any others, so I couldn't possibly comment!


Chow for now :-)

Annyeonghasseo!

I'm showing off a bit by titling this blog in Korean as I don't actually speak Korean.  I can read it though.  Well, I say I can read it, but it is is more of a level lower than my youngest phonics students and I think that if I actually read something Korean to a Korean then they would probably just look at me as if I'm on something.  Like once I was trying to order cheese seasoning for my chips, I was really proud of myself for reading the word in Korean, but the lady on the other side of the counter taking my order was just looking at me blankly with an utter confused look on her face.  I kept repeating it, but after no luck (and her starting to laugh at me.  Yes, she laughed at me),  I just found the word on a menu somewhere and pointed it out to her.  She then laughed (again) and said 'oh cheese!!!' Apparently 'cheese' is the same in Korean as it is in English. Typical!

Anywayyyyyy, I digress.

~~~~ARRIVING~~~~

WHAT AN EXHAUSTING WEEK!!  I got up at 5am last Saturday and left for Heathrow (such a lovely and not dull at all airport).  We said our goodbyes (boooo ;(( ) and were on our way.  The first stop on our incredible journey was Istanbul where we had to wait for  6  l o n g   h o u r s  before getting our connecting flight.  We had a snack in a restaurant and had a beer.  I still had some Lira left over from our holiday in Turkey last year, so without thinking I put the money down and we made our way to the gate.  At least, that's where we thought we would be heading until the waiter caught up with us and insisted that the money I had used was 'charity' money and has not been valid for over TEN YEARS!  How embarrassing.  I must have gotten swizzed by a dodgy tour salesman in Turkey.  Luckily I had some 'real' money, so gave it to him, apologised greatly and made a swift getaway.   The next flight was ok, although I was sat there wondering if our pilot was a trainee as the seatbelt light was on for the whole journey (about 10 hours).  Like the first flight however, I was sat next to someone with incredibly bad b.o.  And they say Koreans don't get b.o like westerners - WRONG!  It got a bit better as the air-con came on, but still.  Ugh.  

When we finally arrived in Incheon at 5pm the next night, we were expecting to be picked up.  Our taxi driver had made an epic fail and got there too early, couldn't find us so went on a new call.  Grrreat!  So after a little panic, we got in touch with the teachers at the school who arranged that he come back.  After another hour or so he came to get us (phew!).  He did however come just as I was about to use the toilet.  He seemed to be rushing, so I decided to try and hold it in. Oh my god!  The journey was actually only just over an hour (but it felt like foreverrr).  We went straight through the center of Seoul so there were a lot of pretty lights to keep my mind off the toilet.  It was pretty late by the time we arrived at our apartment so we basically just went to bed.

17 hours later........we woke up!!  I have never in my life slept for such a long period of time!  We had a look around our new school which is just a 3 min walk from our apartment (ooh yeaaa).  That night and the next night and the next night and the next night I hardly slept.  Damn you jet-jag.  It's now Sunday and I am overrrr it, yippeeee.

~~~~TEACHING~~~~

So my basic schedule is to get in to school about 9ish to do prep then have the first lesson at 10.  The lessons are 30mins each, so lots of rushing around between classrooms.  We stop at 12 for lunch (help the Korean teachers serve up some food), then start again at 1.  We then have 3 more kindie lessons followed by about half an hour of craziness of giving the kids a snack and getting them ready for the bus.  The next hour is pretty good - some nice peace and quiet (apart from a handful or two of children who stay for afterschool lessons) to do more prep for the elementary classes.  We have 2 classes of elementary kids and then finish at 5.30.  Ahhh, home time. 

The Children:

Hmmmm, how to describe them!  They are all incredibly cute.  So cute I could eat them.  I jokingly told one class that in England, we eat 'children' ice-cream.  I had to take this back very quickly and let them know I was joking as a few actually looked quite scared!!  The first day, we had a 'bubble man' entertainer come in to the school.  The children were beyond excited, it was so adorable watching them go crazy over a few bubbles!  After just a few hours with these kids, they love you and want to hug you all the time.  It's so sweet.   Well, most of them are like that......

There are two classes of extremely young kids (like 3/4yrs old).  They  like  love to scream.  And I mean screaaaam.  In the mornings when they get dropped off there are usually a few crying at the same time.  My ears!  They (usually) quieten up apart from the odd moment.  They are so young though - one girl who we like to call 'the dribbler' for obvious reasons, sits in her seat creating a lovely pool of drool around her.  Another one, who does not like to sit in his seat now has the nickname 'the runner' also for obvious reasons.  He sees an opportunity to run and boy does he take it...all around the school....running around with a cheeky little grin on his face.  Cute, but impossible to teach. Also in that class is a crier.  One that doesn't stop unless she is being cuddled.  I can't imagine how I am going to teach these kids 'rhyming English words' in a couple of weeks when they hardly even know Korean!! 

The rest of the classes are a little bit older, so a lot easier to teach.  Their English is also so good for how young they are, for example, they will ask nicely 'Teacher, may I go to the bathroom please?'  I was really impressed, this is actually better than the much older students I was teaching last year.  I am teaching Creative Arts and Total Reading.  This weeks art project was 'popcorn trees.'  The first lesson was to cover popcorn pieces in glue and glitter.  My first mistake was to open a bag of popcorn and expect the kids to use it for 'art'.  The first bag in each class ended up being eaten :-)  My second mistake was to give a glue stick (you know the clear liquid glue sticks) to 'the dribbler' (who is about 3years old).  She squeezed the whole lot out on to the sheet of paper (which ironically I had put out to protect the desks) and then proceeded to glue to paper to the desk.  Then, when I took it off her she started to cry.  I managed to make her stop by supplying her with popcorn to snack on.. phew.   But what a mess!  

I could write for longer, but I'm tired and I have just spilled tea all over the bed and my left foot so I am going to say goodbye for now.

Annyeonghi gyeseyo  (goodbye!!)

Quotes from my Students

So, I've been in Korea for less than a week and already the children at my Academy have made me laugh with their funny quotes.  It's so much funnier because they are so young (like 4 or 5 years old).   I've decided to keep a blog page about them which I will keep updating as I go along to remind me of the crazy things that come out of their mouths.  Maybe they will make you smile too...

Last Year

Last year, I had some great quotes from my Elementary students, for example in one lesson one of the girls was just sitting there touching my arm.  I was like, 'Rebecca, what are you doing??'  She replied, 'Teacher, your fur is very many.'  !!!  Fur!!????  I'd just like to point out at this moment that I do not have hairy arms. Well, a little bit, not they are defo not 'furry.'  I discovered later that a lot of the children get confused between the terms 'hair' and 'fur' and that she was actually quite amazed by the fact I had blonde hair on my arms as opposed to black, which everyone in Korea has.  James actually had a student start stroking his legs in one class, looking amazed and saying 'gooollllld'.    

I remember once teaching my elementary students on eye colour, and then asking the question about what colour eyes your teacher has.  One girl was like 'Teacher you have blue eyes.'  I replied, 'nope, they are not blue, have a look.'  So she looked in to my eyes and almost immediately let out a high pitched shriek, looked away and covered her face.  It was a bit of a WTF moment!  She then proceed to say whine 'aaahh cat eyes!! Scary cat eyes!!'  (I have a green/grey marble kind of eye colour, just in case you were wondering if I actually have cat eyes. I really don't!)  But this kid was so surprised to see an eye colour which wasn't just a block colour, it genuinely freaked her out.  Haha.  She got over it pretty quickly.


There were so many more, but I didn't bother recording them so I really don't remember what they were.  This year I will try and write them as they happen!

This Year (Feb 2011 onwards, aged 4-7)...

Student:   "Kayleigh Teacher, why is your skin so white?  Do people in England have white skin?"
Me:         "Yes, they do."
Student:  "Oh, it's just I thought it was more peachy."

This one was after I sneezed (I guess I maybe have a strange sounding sneeze):
Student:  (In a shocked voice) "Is that how people sneeze in England??"
Me:   "No, I think I just have a strange sneeze"
Student:  "Like a monkey sneeze!?"

When playing 'I spy'  
Me:  "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with M"
Student A:  "Mouse"
Me:  "I don't see a mouse in here...."
Student B:  (With a Eurika moment, hardly able to sit in his seat) "MONKEY BOY!????"


When putting the students in to teams for a game
Me: "Ok, so what team names do you want?"
Team 1:   Crazy Killers....
Me:    Hmmm...
Team 2:   Malformation
Me:   Whatttttt!?  How do you even know that word!?  No, your team is not allowed to be called 'Malformation.'
Team 2: Ok, 'Team Disabled'?


When asking them, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'
Student 1 (boy):   A dinosaur doctor..
Student 2 (girl):   A King
Student 3 (boy):  A power Ranger
Student 4 (girl):  A bone doctor


When trying to get a class to remember the word 'shield' ( we were making them in art)
Me:   Ok, here is a hint... it begins with 'ssshhhh....'
Student: (excitedly starts shouting) SHHITTTT SHIIIITTTT SHIIITTTT!!!
Me:  Errrr, no.  Not 'shit'...


First lesson back after Christmas vacation
Me: Did Santa bring you any presents this Christmas?
Student 1:  Yes!!!  I got THREE!!!!  I also left him some candy and I prayed to Santa (he then did some praying motions) to tell him to give some of the candy to the reindeer.
Student 2: I got ONE.
Me: What was it....*excited face*
Student 2: A Scratch.
Me: A scratch??
Student 2: Yes *points to scratch on nose with an annoyed face*.  Santa scratched me.
She then kept insisting that Santa scratched her and that was her present...

Just asking a standard spelling question
Student: Kayleigh Teacher, what is the English word "T-H-O-N-G?"
Me:  Errr....why?  Where did you see that word?
Student: In my house....

Korean Adventure: Part 2

Well, here goes my first attempt at writing a blog.  I've never really written a diary before, unless a little pink one that I had when I was about 10 with a zoomed-in photo of a kitten on the front counts.  It was a "secret" dairy, you know one of those ones with a tiny padlock on it so only you can open it.  It was at least secret until I realised that my "secure" padlock could actually be opened by several other keys.  I remember the panic when I discovered that there were about 5 or 6 other little keys lying around the house that could reach in to my secrets about best friends, girly arguments and top ten boy lists that my friend and I made.  

Anyway, I'm heading back to South Korea in a week for another adventure, but hoping for a lot better luck this time! The reason I am starting a blog is simply because I feel like I could have written a best-selling novel about my crazy unimaginable experience of Korea last year.  I won't bore you with the details (like I said, there is enough for a whole darn book), but for those of you reading this that don't know or are looking to teach in Korea, then be very careful of your choice of school!

So (in bullet point form) here is a brief rundown of what happened:

• James and I find a job in a Hagwon (see below for details)
• We start work, but find notes from previous teachers about not getting paid *alarm bells start ringing*
• We get paid for the first month.  
• Delayed pay the 2nd month, but got it eventually after threatening to strike.
• We were not paid for the next 4 months (immigration rules make it pretty much impossible to get a new job). 
• We were evicted from our apartment on several occasions because our director hadn't paid any rent. The first time this happened we came home to our crazy Korean landlord shouting at us (in Korean) to leave the next morning.  He didn't speak any English, but we got the jist.
• After the final eviction, we quit and were left homeless (luckily we had some amazing friends who could give us a bed until we flew home!)
• We took her to the labour board, but the bitch still has not paid up a penny won.
• To make things worse, we found out recently that she has been spreading malicious rumours that the reason she didn't pay us is because she found us taking drugs in the apartment!  She is the devil in disguise!
• The school is still open and looking for staff - do not work there!
• The school is:  E.Bo Young Talking Club  Sannam-dong branch, Cheongju.

Fingers crossed for a better experience this time!  

So stay tuned for some exciting updates on when Essex meets Korea......

Laterz