Merry Christmas!

The last day of school before the holidays was on a Thursday.  We did not have to teach any of the classes but the teachers still had to be present.  It was just a half day so the teachers wanted to have a Christmas lunch before we separated for the break.  We ended up going to the middle of nowhere and ordered a fusion set lunch.  I've never been to a Korean restaurant where the food comes out one dish at a time, in small portions.  It's similar to Chinese set dinners where you have to order the set before hand and each dish can only feed a set number of people.

It looks like a house, but this is the restaurant.

And I wasn't lying when I said it was in the middle of nowhere =P

DDeunl An Chae

We got 5 orders of the 27 000 won set. =)

Cute little tables

1. 팥죽 (Red bean congee/porridge)

It's traditional to eat this on 동지 (winter solstice) and the red is supposed to protect you from evil.  Some people love it but I didn't really like it.

2. Potato-squash salad 

3.잡채 (japchae)

4. Smoked salmon salad

5. 보쌈 Pork with pickled radish and greens

6. Shrimp salad

7. Sashimi

8. Two types of 파전 (Korean-style pancakes)

9. Octopus salad

10. Blowfish soup

I'm not even sure if it's actually blowfish..since it's apparently dangerous but it was just really spicy and it just tasted like any other soup

11. 갈비

12. Meat from the "blowfish"

 close up

13. Finally a set of eel, soup, rice and veggies

It was delicious and definitely different.  It wasn't really Korea, Asian or Western so I guess fusion was the perfect description.  If you ever get a chance to try something like this in Korea..please try it!

***

After school was over I had to start getting ready for our "Ugly Sweater and White Elephant Party."  I found my ugly sweater last minute at 강남역 (Gangnam station).  If you ever want to do some cheap shopping, a lot of stations have like little shops inside the station and you can find a lot of shoes, jackets, clothing, accessories, beauty products, even cell phones and food.  My friend, Heather, found this place called "I am Hof" right by 강남 station where they allowed us to order turkey and "rent" out the place to us for a couple of hours.

Heather and I getting the place ready

Nick too cool to wear an ugly sweater

Nick carving our turkey

Turkey #2

Ham, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies...etc. you know the drill =D

<3

Nick and Katie

Mother-daughter duo that had to take care of all of us

The boys

more..lol

김지호 and I

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!!

xoxo

Jazz in Korea?

So this year, my friend Claudia will be in Hong Kong for Christmas, so we wanted to get a few of us together and have our own little Christmas dinner before she left.   Anyways, the guys, John and Stefan, found this Jazz lounge called "Club Evans" and asked if we wanted to go there for our "Christmas" day. We have been looking for a good for a long time and this was the best time to check one out. I was soooo excited to go, I was jumping around at school.  We arrived in Hongdae late and Club Evans didn't serve food so we just found a Kraze Burger and engulfed it in 30 seconds.  Pretty much, our dinner wasn't much of a Christmas dinner buuut it was a very good burger though, you have to try it!

Claudia and I getting ready to head out.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We got our Kraze Burgers to go and just ate it outside.  It was like literally 1 minute away from Club Evans.

MMMMMMMMMM...

Waiting for it to start.  We ran out of the door too quickly and forgot my camera =( BOO!

Stefan, Cat, John =)

Stefan and I all excited!

John being too cool for me..LOL

The band was awesome!  Claudia and I had a little crush on the Sax player, but who doesn't right? =P If you get a chance you have to go to Hongdae, you have to check out Club Evans.  Stefan is ready to head over there every week. =P    They have different bands playing there all the time, so I can't say that they will all be awesome but 박주원(Park JooWon), the guitarist and his band were amazing!

Caudia, if you read this, I hope you have fun in Hong Kong with your pops and I'm super jealous that you get to see our friends from home =(

Happy Holidays!!

xoxo

A night out..

Its not uncommon for Koreans to grab dinner and drinks on a school night.  However, other than my co-teachers I haven't really hung out with other teachers at my school so I was pretty nervous to hear that I had a "dinner appointment" with the other subject teachers.

Typical Korea night out:
1. Dinner + Alcohol:

보쌈..It's pork that you wrap with lettuce/cabbage or sesame leaf, dip in sauce, add garlic and radish kimchi..SOOOO GOOOOOD! I ate the 1/3 of this plate LOL

That weird pile of green seaweed looking thing is sesame leaf

Spicy fish that I don't remember the name of..we also added noodles into the sauce afterwards..

There was also makkeolli (Korean rice wine), soju and beer; as well as makkeolli mixed with soju, and beer mixed with soju..and whatever other random combination of mixing drinks you can think of =P..I couldn't snap a picture because we were too busy drinking..but Korean ahjusshis can drink...a lot

2. Noraebang (karaoke):

Must end the night with some singing, dancing, tambourine-hitting, more alcohol and obviously some Korean-double-handed-heart-over-the-head-making LOL

Depending on who you go out with, sometimes people would jump to a few different bars before going to a noraebang but this was a Monday night and we all wanted to catch the last train home so we skipped the bar hopping and jumped right to the noraebang.

Have a happy Monday =)

xoxo

YG Family Concert!

So those of you who know me, know that I was obsessed with Big Bang (male Kpop group) and ever since 2NE1 (female Kpop group) debuted, I've been pretty in love with them too.  Obviously, over the years I've grown out of them a little bit, but when I heard about the YG Family Concert, I really wanted to go.  Tickets sold out in like 2 hours so I was pretty sure that I would have no chance of seeing them.  However, a lot of people were selling individual tickets and I got my hands on one for last Sunday, December 4th.  Luckily, I got tickets in a standing section near other girls so we were all able to meet up before going inside.  Up until the day of the concert, I was just content about going to the concert, nothing too extreme.  Buuuut..as soon as we went inside Olympic Stadium (where the concert was held), I got super excited!! Because we were standing there was a lot of shoving to get closer to th front and OMG!! seeing TOP and Taeyang up close.....it was like a dream come true.  At one point, G-Dragon (leader of Big Bang) sat down right in front of us too.

Ever since the concert, I've been listening to both Big Bang and 2NE1 non-stop, so for sure the concert has made me fall in love with them all over again.  Also, Se7en, Gummy, Psy and Jinusean made an appearance as well.  I've never heard of Psy before but I definitely like him.  He was so unique!  He's like an older, bigger man ;P but he reaaally knew how to get the crowd going.  It was awesome.

Anyways..we were in the section of one of the aisles, but we were pretty up close to the front of our section and they were very strict with taking pictures so I wasn't able to get any of the concert itself..especially because there was always a guard right in front of me.  I was able to capture some before though and my friend who went another day sent me some of the pictures that he took.  He was a lot further back than we were though.

Here are some pictures:

My ticket =)

We got free folders and I bought a YG Family glow stick thing.  I wanted to the the Big Bang crown one..but...meh

<3

Before the concert

=P

Sneaking pictures before the concert began

again..

and again =P

 

CL <3

Sandara Park 

Gummy

TOP <3..I didn't take this picture..cuz if I did...TOP would NOT be blurry =P

GDragon 

SeungRi

Taeyang <3

   

After the concert

Because I'm a loser =P

Hope everybody can experience something that reminds them of what they once fell in love with =)

xoxo