Shopping for Seollal

Seollal, 설날, is the Korean lunar New Year Festival.  This is the time when Koreans return to their ancestral homes to see their relatives and tend the graves of their ancestors,  Since it's a lunar thing, the dates can vary considerably--this year it's Wed., Thur. and Fri. of next week.  Lots of Seoulites are taking two vacation days Mon. and Tues., so if you don't work Saturday it's a nine-day vacation--virtually unheard of here! 

Seollal really does tend to empty out the city, and the streets can be eerily quiet.  Not today or tomorrow, of course, at least not on the two main streets of my neighborhood: Yeomchang-no is a main connector to the Olympic Parkway and points west, and Gonghang-no is the direct route to Gimpo Airport; they are both bumper-to-bumper.

When Koreans travel home to visit their relatives, they take gifts.  Nice gifts.  Expensive gifts.  Like Spam.  And mushrooms.  Anf coffee.  But seriously, things like ... Spam, and mushrooms, and cofffee.  But for the purposes of gifting, these products are all wrapped up in nice cardboard gift boxes and exhorbitant pricetags attached.  And hawked by pretty ladies (도움이, doumi) in traditional hanbok.  To wit (from my local neighborhood E-Mart):



The whisky doumi

 

I'll have the Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam.  I like Spam.



If you don't want that much Spam, have the Spam--well, the Housewife brand of "luncheon meat" ,  mild (water-packed) tuna, and soybean oil



Or, the Spam with huge packs of laver, aka, dried seaweed

A gift box of soap, toothpaste and shampoo products sends your loved one a not-so-subtle message

Industrial size packages of instant coffee mixes, beloved by Koreans

Korean red ginseng extract, noted for its virility-enhancing propertes

Raw ginseng, noted for its money-extracting properties (those packs are roughly USD 200-400)

 

Assorted fungus and nut gift boxes

Some kind of mushroom

"King Crab Set", 3.6 kg of frozen King cab legs for about USD 95

Candy assortmets, presumably for the children

This blog post should not be considered an endorsement of E-Mart, Korean red ginseng or any of the other products pictured here, except King crab legs.  And maybe Spam.  Oh, and I do like whisky okay.  Further, this blog received no remuneration or other consideration from E-Mart, Shinsaegae corporation, its parent companies or subsidiaries, more's the pity.

Seoul Food

A few (!?) more photos taken by Tanner during his stay, capturing some of the food we ate.  Thanks old chum!

뼈해장국, hangover soup, at 청진동, a popular restaurant chain

These three photos show seafood awaiting a gastronomic fate in Guro-gu

My French coffee at Gecko's Terrace, Itaewon

영고치, Chinese style lamb skewers in Bongcheon

The manager of preceding lamb restaurant

삼겹살, samgyupsal at 찌개마을 or Stew Village, in Insadong

Some 반찬, banchan, to go with our samgyupsal: seasoned bean sprouts

소금구이, sogeumgui, or salt pork, at 새마을식당, New Village Restaurant in Gangseo-gu cheong

More banchan, pickled onions: Tanner had three bowls

Cow's liver, stomach lining and kidney (?) , meant to be eaten raw

곱창,gopchang, cow offal, for which the preceding two banchan were provided. The restaurant is named 한우곱창전문, Hanu (or Korean Beef) Gopchang Specialists

볶음밥, fried rice, being prepared in the griddle used to cook our gopchang.  Crispy and delicious, though I personally can do without the added seaweed

Korean comfort food, 부대찌개, budae jjigae literally means army base stew . This is the Heungbu variety as served at the Nolboo chain

So, those are the culinary highlights of Tanner's Seoul experience.  We didn't have time to try everything, and he wanted a couple of dishes repeated (the haejangguk and yang gochi in particular).  No boshintang, nor beef galbi, and no hong-eo, haha.  I did try to tempt him with sundaeguk, but once I had to tell him what "headcheese" is, he shied away ...  Still, we covered most of the highlights, ate well, and left him wanting for more.  Come on back, TB, the city has refilled its soju stocks.

Oddly, I've come over all peckish.

Attack of the Korean Coffices

Does a Starbucks or a Caffe Bene seem to spring up every time you leave your home? Get used to it: coffee chains will continue to multiply, according to industry sources.

According to the JoongAng Daily, at least. As if to fit the action to the word, a coffeehouse opened to replace the Pujimi restaurant that closed in my building called Damjang Coffee & Honey Bread.



I don't know about you, but the first thing I want in the middle of sweltering heat and hundred-plus percent humidity of Seoul in August is some honey bread (whatever that might be) to go with my coffee. Or vice versa. Still, it is the only coffeehouse in the building, so maybe they're onto something.

Indeed, according to the JoongAng Daily story, coffeehouses are spreading through Seoul like bubonic plague through 1300s London, and even beginning to infect the countryside. More:

Coffeehouses operated by 12 branded chains now exceed 2,000 locations recently [sic], with 500 added since the end of last year. Starbucks opened 27 new locations from January to August to reach a total of 318 locations. Angel-in-Us Coffee follows closely with 311 branches, of which 103 opened in 2009 and 80 more this year. Most chains have goals to add 30 to 50 more locations by the end of 2010, and ambitious newcomer Caffe Bene - which has opened 270 locations since its launch in April 2008 - plans to open 100 more by the end of the year.

Korea coins a word: According to the article, a new word is coming into being to describe the way some customers see their local/favorite coffee shop, "a place to be rather than just a cup of coffee":

Coffee + Office = Coffice

This is something you will never hear me say, except derisively. Not because I have anything against neologisms, Konglish or otherwise, but because I already have this:

Beer + Drinking place = Beer drinking place + More beer = Beer drunking place + More beer = Find new drunking place when they kick us out + More beer = Eating something strange in a pojangmacha + more beer = I don't remember what's next

Who needs a "coffice" when you have one of those?

What's Happening Now?

No, not the old TV show from Television City in Hollywood with Roger (Raj), Rerun and Roz, but a brief update on the state of things in this little patch of Seoul.

1) It's freaking cold. How cold is it? It's so cold ... I saw a fire hydrant chasing after a dog. (Old Johnny Carson line.) The temperature here hasn't broken the freezing point since about the first week in December. There has been snow on the ground for one and a half weeks now, and while the sun has been out the last two days, the snow is still in piles everywhere you look.

2) I had my third day of winter camp today, and attendance has been particularly abysmal so far--perhaps due to the weather. My three classes have 52 students amongst them, which is 156 "student attendance units" to date. Attendance on Monday was 13 (including zero during 2nd period), yesterday I had 12, and today an uptick to 18. With 43 SAU, that's 28% overall attendance.

3) Today, I tried out a lesson I'm planning to use next semester based on Harry Potter. I'm not a big HP fan, but the kids here love it, and I find it mildly interesting if enormously derivative. After we watch the Sorting Hat scene from the first movie, we discuss what it is that makes the hat decide which Hogwarts house a young wizard goes into. The answer is something like "talents" or "character", maybe.


I hand out a worksheet to each group with a list of these character traits or talents, and a table with the four houses. Next, I show a video I found and downloaded with Jim Dale doing the first year Sorting Hat song. I added the lyrics using MovieMaker, which I am gradually doing to many of my videos. From this, they can begin to place the adjectives in the correct column for each house.

With copies of the fifth year sorting hat song posted in the far reaches of the classroom, we play a game called "Running Dictation". This is a good activity if you can keep it from becoming a cheat-fest or a spelling bee. Each team has a recorder who sits at their table. The other team members go to the posted document one at a time to memorize a part of the text, then return and dictate it to the recorder. They take turns memorizing and dictating until the entire piece is "downloaded".

Once they have the whole Sorting Hat poem in front of them, they can complete the chart-filling activity. This all went really well, as I expected. If time permitted, we watched some deleted scenes from the movies. To finish off the class, I showed them this video, after reviewing "parody", a term we learned during the Movies unit last semester:


4) My school announced plans on Monday to build a gymnasium, as part of its Innovation 2010 theme. Now, ground area is a bit limited so, as I understand it, the gym will be built above the school gate--that is to say, cars and pedestrians will actually pass under the new building, which will be on stilts to conserve space. Even though PE classes are already a bit cramped (the soccer field is about 50 yds X 70 yds), I would think the PE folks will jump at getting a dedicated indoor space instead of shoving chairs out of the way in the assembly hall when the weather is bad.

5) Like it is now (the forecast predicts a ten-day high of 30 and a high low of 13 F). Which explains why I am sipping a kalhua and coffee with a touch--or two--of Chivas Regal and getting ready to bundle up in bed. Ondol, do your thing!

The Java Jive

I love coffee, I love tea, but my preferred caffeine delivery system is a 20-oz bottle of Diet Dr Pepper.

Alas, not only do they not have Dr Pepper in Korea in any form, low calorie sodas are pretty hard to come by--virtually only found in national brand convenience stores like Family Mart and Buy the Way. Diet Coke is occasionally available as Coke Light, but most often you will find Coke Zero.

Well, surely you can just have a cup of coffee, then, I hear you say. Alas, Dear Reader, this too is hard to come by. I mean, a properly brewed cup of black coffee is hard to come by. A product called "Coffee Mix" is practically ubiquitous, though its exact relationship to coffee is shrouded in mystery.

These thoughts are precipitated by an article in today's Korea Times detailing the Korean addiction to this concoction, which I initially found to be undrinkable. As with so many things, though, the passage of time softens the edges, and nowadays I meander down to Cheong-gi's studio on my first break, put two sachets of mocha mix in my mug and settle in for a smoke. Never think twice about it.

Well, okay, sometimes I think twice about it, or even three times, but I drink it anyway. The stuff comes in a foil tube which contains some instant coffee, some artificial creamer and some sugar. Each sachet is enough for about four ounces of water. You can also get it from vending machines (unironically branded "Teatime") for W200 (about 15 cents). Back to the article:

"It's housewives' job to do grocery shopping in most families. These consumers try to be frugal and tend not to spend much when purchasing product items like coffee, which are inessential," [said an office worker named Song]. "They can buy the cheap bulk instant coffee and I think this probably explains why sales records of the instant coffee brands are relatively good amid the economic downturn."

Ah, it's cheap. Frankly, I don't buy this argument, as Koreans are as sophisticated as any consumers--and they consume big-time. Besides, this is the stuff they buy even when times are good. No, it's weak, it's over sweet and it's simply what they like!

As for me, I don't have room for a coffeemaker in my flat, so I just keep a jar of Taster's Choice instant (no fake cream or sugar mixed in) and boil water in a saucepan, as needed. I do mix it, though ... with Kahlua, vodka, and a dribble of milk. I think I'll do that now, and listen to a certain song. This is a pretty decent a capella version by some folks at Hawaii Pacific University: