More Scary Donuts

Aaaaand the Dunkin Donuts' "Smart Donut" campaign continues. The tofu donuts launched earlier in the year were surprisingly good, but following last week's broccoli donut scare, three new frightening donut concepts have hit the shelves:

First up, the "Red Bean Holic Ring". Red bean is a mean product because it looks deceivingly like chocolate. Usually if a Korean offers you something chocolatey-looking to eat... WATCH OUT- it's probably red bean. The taste, while not being immediately objectionable, is pasty and bland. And if you're a "holic" for this stuff, you've been seriously deprived, food-wise.

Next up, the "Carrot Donut". Everyone likes carrot cake, so in theory this could have been pretty good. We bought one, hoping it would have cream cheese frosting, but found out that we were just eating a generic cake donut with orange sprinkles. Bugs Bunny would not approve.

Last up, and tied for foulest donut concept ever with the aforementioned broccoli donut, is the SPINACH DONUT! Spinach!!!! On a donut!!! *insert disappointed Popeye joke here*

I hope this has been good news for those of you struggling to reach your recommended number of vegetable servings per day- little did you know, you're just one Dunkin Donuts trip away from a healthy day!

On a related note, a quick check of the US Dunkin Donuts website shows that a new pepperoni stuffed breadstick product has been launched... any idea when that will be for sale in Korea? Huh? I'm a "holic" for pepperoniz.

Santa Claus Cafe

On Sunday, we were feeling festive, so we went to the Santa Claus Cafe in Sinchon.

It looked like a winter wonderland as we entered the cafe.

The atmosphere really makes you feel like you've been teleported into the holidays. The cafe played Christmas music and no decoration was missing from the decor. There was even a Christmas tree and a sleigh full of gifts.

The walls were full of pictures of jolly ol' Saint Nick. Here's one of him playing in the daffodils.

Each table had a journal on it where guests could write a letter to Santa Claus. Of course, I couldn't understand most of it, but the letter is addressed to Santa Hallabogjie and speaks of presents. Our table actually had three journals full of these letters!

Moving onto coverage of the menu, all of the drinks were arranged into different "towns". Above is the coffee town, featuring cafe aMERRYcano.

Here we have draft and beer town, as well as casual drink town.

Some food options included Ms. Santa's french toast and New York Santa's French Fries No. 2. New York Santa, of course being the streetwise, leather-wearing Santa that we all grew up with. French Fries No. 1 were curiously absent from the menu.

I had a Bailey's coffee and, keeping with the spirit of giving, every drink came with a free chocolate truffle.

For me, the icing on the cake was when I tried to connect to a wifi network on my ipod. In Korea, Santa even has his own wifi network!

If you're interested in having a Christmasy experience, you can find the Santa Claus Cafe at Sinchon Station Exit 3... turn left at the Paris Baguette and you'll see it up the road. Don't forget to write a letter to Santa while you're there.

The Korean Folk Village

On Saturday, we decided to go to the Korean Folk Village near Suwon/Yongin. We'd been hearing great things about the folk village since the last time we lived in Korea. I really can't believe that we lived in Suwon for a whole year and never traveled to the place, considering how close it was and how much we love our touristy activities!

The first thing we did was travel from our Friday night base at the Lucy to Suwon Station. From there, we immediately hopped onto bus number 37 and traveled in the wrong direction for more than 30 minutes before realizing our mistake! We got off the bus at Hwaseo Station, returned to Suwon Station and tried this whole thing again.

At the tourist information center outside Suwon Station we signed up for a free shuttle bus to the folk village. It left at 2:30 (last one of the day!) so we had a little time to grab a coffee before leaving.

25 minutes later we were at the folk village. We were a little shocked by the 15,000 Won price tag, especially since the Andong Folk Village had only been 2,000 Won last month, but after being raped of our Won by admissions we entered to find ourselves at a scenic, and quite sizable park.

Unlike the folk village in Andong, no one actually lives here. It's built for tourists, and being near Seoul rather than in little Andong, it was pretty busy.

Much of the village is made up of straw-topped houses like this. Some of them are set up so you can look inside to see how the houses would have been used way back when. Some of the buildings have artisans working in them inside making old timey things. Tourists are free to watch the process, or if you can speak Korean, it looks like they give a little presentation about how the things are made too.

A typical building in the folk village.

Unlike the folk village in Andong, a great deal of the park is devoted to other attractions beside straw houses. There were museums, backdrops for Korean dramas, a temple, lots of different bridges and boats, and an amusement park. There were also many small gardens growing various things, like lettuce, ginger and radish. This garden was growing rape. Beware.

We stumbled upon an exhibit called the World Folk Museum. How diverse! This happy fellow is the first thing you see in the "Africa" building.

Behind the World Folk Museum was a small statue park, which unfortunately involved stairs and a hill.

2 Nipples rubbing together= best statue of the day.

There was also a small amusement park with a few rides for little kids. Also embracing the theme of culture was this humongous arcade (yeah, kids still go to arcades in Korea).

There were a few performances scheduled while we were at the folk village, and the first one we saw was this adjoshi doing acrobatics on a tightrope. He had a mic on and kept making noises that sounded like he really needed to hawk up a loogie while he performed. He also fell on his crotch numerous times for a cheap laugh, which is always a crowd pleaser.

This kind cow was all by himself in a very small, round pen in the middle of the village. There were some goats, donkeys, jindo dogs, horses and a bunch of chickens in various places around the village, too.

This old guy was making shoes out of rope.

There were a lot of Korean restaurants and souvenir shops, this place specialized in traditional masks. No word on where the horse head masks are produced.

A colorful tree outside the wedding ceremony area.

At 4:00 there was a re-enactment of a traditional Korean wedding. I asked Mel to briefly sum up what she thought of it, and she came up with "boring". Yeah, it was pretty boring. They just slowly took turns drinking tea while dude in the black hat read from a script.

We bought some pork belly kebabs to snack on, and some makgeolli to wash it down with. Let me tell you, those kebabs were absolutely amazing.

Mel and her makgeolli (the liquor is traditionally drank from a bowl).

We ate in a pagoda and watched old foreigners jump rope.

One of the old houses had a traditional toilet on display. I am very familiar with this type of washroom from a childhood of camping in Dalhousie. This one looks less spidery than the one I used to use.

Here I am holding a pair of urine containers. From the posted signage: "An urine of people was used as an important manure in the past. Why don't you carry an urine container over your back. Make sure to put it back for the next people waiting their turns after experiencing and photographing it."

By this time, we'd been at the folk village for two hours and the last shuttle bus back to Suwon was about to leave. Although there were some things we didn't have the chance to see, we had to catch that bus. The bus back was super busy and the traffic was a lot worse, so it took almost twice as long to get back into the city as it had to leave it earlier in the day.

We decided to get something to eat around Suwon Station before heading back to Seoul for the night. We weren't really feeling like Korean food, but that's pretty much all there is to choose from in the area, so we went to a BBQ place up the road opposite the station. It was so delicious! I never realized how cheap that street of restaurants is. The orders of meat were all less than 6,000 Won- half of the usual price in Seoul, and the noodle/eggy sides were only a few dollars too. It was a very, very good meal!

If you're interested in an urine container, skipping rope or petting cows I would strongly recommend a trip to the Korean Folk Village. It may not be fit for a queen like the one in Andong, but it's a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Top 3 Shirts of the Week

From Suwon's Paldalmun Market on Friday night:

#3- "Don't touch with me! My Uncle is in the army."

#2- "Who the fuck are Black Wire?" (No need to be rude about it, Google says they're a band from the UK)

#1- "I can't be fired! Slaves have to be sold!"

Nothing like a funny slave-themed shirt. I love Suwon.

How Moving Day Should Be

At home, moving day always sucks- especially when you have to move everything upstairs. But lately, I've been seeing more and more of these moving trucks around town. They have an extendable conveyor belt on the back! The movers just move everything in through the apartment's windows. I wonder if they'll have this technology available in Ontario by September?

Fun In The Sun + Korea's Most Glamorous Toilet

I'm quite sure that I can count the number of April 16ths that I've spent sunning myself by a river on one hand. If you didn't know any better you'd have thought that summer came to Seoul this weekend. On Saturday we spent the sunny afternoon relaxing by the Han River. I had some paperwork to prepare for University, so I brought my new netbook (thank you, PSA, for the gift certificates!) to the river to do some typing in the warmth.

In the late afternoon, we went to Gasum Lounge, a cafe opposite the Comme De Garcons building near Hangangjin Station. Hannah had promised that the cafe had Seoul's nicest toilet, and we were not disappointed.

At the moment, Seoul is literally saturated with cafes. Major chains are everywhere, and the independent shops are doing everything they can to stand out: there are English-only cafes, lamb cafes, bed cafes, cafes where tanks of fish will give you a pedicure, and then there's Gasum Lounge.

We knew we were in the right place because there was a stuffed goat and a 6 foot tall balloon in the front window. We took a seat on chairs that had been upholstered with someone's old teddy bears, and under a TV that was playing a looped video of a woman popping a balloon. So hip!

We wasted no time in going straight to the toilet for a look-see. We hadn't even ordered drinks yet. If you need to go to the bathroom, even your queuing experience is fabulous at Gasum Lounge- look at this amazing floral chair waiting outside the washroom.

The bathroom is quite a surprise, given that the door is made of unfinished wood and the doorknob itself is just a screw. Check it out in the picture above- every surface is mirrored, and hundreds of colorful beads hang down from every inch of ceiling. It looks like Mardi Gras exploded in there. It was fantastic.

After we left the cafe, Mel and I went to eat at Santorini, which I'm pretty sure is Korea's one and only Greek restaurant. The restaurant was under construction, so only the 3rd floor was open for business, but it was full. The waitress apologized and told us that there was a new Santorini just up the road if we'd like to go there instead. She reserved a table there for us and even gave us coupons for two free glasses of wine. A strenuous (joking!) 5 minute walk later and we were in free wine and fresh Greek food heaven.

Next, we took the train to Myeongdong because Mel has been craving her some Forever 21 for a few weeks now. After a bit of shopping, we headed home for the night, happy with such a full and warm day.

When we woke up Sunday morning to weather just as nice as we'd enjoyed the day before, we went straight back to Hangang park! This time, we rented bikes and cycled from the Hannam Bridge to just past Dongjak and back. All together, we'd cycled 10KM and, even though we were being passed by adjoshis left, right and center, we were proud of ourselves for doing something slightly fit for once!

It was a really nice ride. Seoul should be really proud of Hangang Park- the cycling routes are fantastic, and the cityscape looks beautiful along the water. Everywhere, families were picnicking, playing basketball or soccer, and just generally enjoying the day. It's cherry blossom season, so the trees were looking really nice along the trail, as well. We're really lucky to live so close to this area.

After resting our legs by passing out in the park for a while we went across the bridge to the UN Village area. We got a light lunch of nachos and soup at the curiously named "O' Tacos", and then walked through all the international embassies to get to Haddon House, a supermarket that specializes in foreign foods.

I really like Haddon House, because it's the only foreign food market that I've ever been to in Korea that appears to care about it's customers' shopping experience. It's clean. It's organized. It looks like a real supermarket. They have turkey, root beer and stracciatella Lindors. What more could you want?

We took a bus back to Gangnam, did some quick shopping at Kyobo and then went for supper at a Taiwanese restaurant called Din Tai Fung. Mel and I loved the food in Taiwan. Our neighbors were keen to educate us on the local food, so we tried a lot of good stuff (a lot of weird stuff too) and we have very fond memories of Taiwanese cooking.

I have a new favorite restaurant!!!!!! This place was amazing. Everything we had was delicious. We ordered pork and leek mandu in soy sauce, lemon chicken and...

...beef noodle soup! We used to eat this soup several times a week... it's probably Taiwan's most famous dish. It would always be cheap too, like $2-3 a bowl and I was always very poor in Taiwan so it was a lifesaver to me there. If you want to check out the restaurant, the address is here, but it's best found by taking the first left after Gangnam Butterfingers. It's in like the second building on your left, up the stairs.

We're getting closer and closer to our "leaving Korea" date, and we have a lot to be excited about when we go home. But, weekends like this remind us that having one last summer in Korea is exciting too, and there's still a lot of good memories to come here, as well.

Rock, Scissors, Paper

In Korea, even Mickey's into it.

Things That Shouldn't Exist: Donut Edition

On Sunday, we went to Dunkin Donuts to study for our Korean class and we saw a disturbing new product for sale. This was much worse than the Mini Toilet. They were selling BROCCOLI donuts! No. Just... no, no, no, nooooooo.

A Day in Daejeon

On Friday night we decided to travel 2 hours south of Seoul, to the city of Daejeon. Since it is home to more than 1.4 million people, I'm sure you are already very familiar with this city, and if you're not then I'm afraid you won't learn too much from this blog since we mainly went there for the hotel and the shopping.

We arrived around 10pm and were very happy to see that the area around Daejeon's express bus terminal was surrounded by nice and fancy love motels. There were over a dozen acceptable options, but we went with the I Motel. They were going for an old fashioned/cabin sort of feel for the rooms, which was different, and we liked our room a lot. For $55 CAN there was a whirlpool (of course), 2 computers, a big TV, a sofa and lots of nice little touches like the random mural painted over the bed.

We were also provided with some room service options. Of course, there was food to order but there were also GIRLY options. I could have had any of the following ladies come to my room: Strawberry, Flower, Model, Love, Bang Bang, Tomato, Young, Sense, Sue, OK, or Talent.

I was interested in Sue, but instead we just decided to drink beer and watch Steve Murphy and the CTV News.

The next day, we walked to the nearby Home Plus and got some lunch in the food court. One thing that's great about traveling out of Seoul is how cheap eating out can be sometimes. Check out all the food we were served for $10/CAN. Mel got a cheese oven spaghetti with soup, salad, pork cutlet and radish kimchi and I got ddoekbaegi bulgogi with naengmyeon, rice, kimchi jiggae, kimchi, lettuce wraps and more radish kimchi. Unbelievable quantity and still totally delicious.

We weren't sure where exactly in the city we were, so we checked a map and found that we were a here.

We got a taxi to take us from the area around the bus terminal to the main shopping area called Jungang-no for 5,000 Won. The shopping area was pretty great, and I scored some excellent Engrishy shirts at (where else?) a store called Tomato.

After about an hour of shopping, we decided to actually do some sightseeing. Daejeon offered a few touristy options to choose from, all of which landed rather high on the MEH scale of interest. There was a dam, a science museum, a mountain, or a park to choose from, all of which were just out of the way enough that we only had time to do one. We chose the park.

We caught a bus (number 311 or 313) from Jungang-no to Ppuri Park. It's about a 30 minute ride, with a long, bouncy green bridge marking the entrance.

The park was built to celebrate Korea's family names. If you were to pick up a Canadian phone book you could probably find 100 different family names on any given page, but Korea only has about 250 different surnames registered in the whole country. As a race, Koreans have a very pure bloodline, for example: 21% of Koreans are named Kim and 14% are Lees!

At Ppuri Park, there are 136 statues, each representing a different surname. Some surnames are represented multiple times, because the name is traced back to the clan's hometown as well. The above statue is for the Hamchang Kim's.

This one is for the Jeongju Lee's.

If you were Korean, I think it would be pretty fun to trace your family's history at a park like this. A lot of people were dressed up for their visit, even the little kids were wearing their Sunday best. Alas, there were no Keddy monuments, so we took the occasion to lay in the sun near a pagoda and some fir trees for a while. What a nice afternoon.

There was a monument of the different Zodiac sign characters.

There was also some picnic space in the trees (Koreans prefer the shade to sun). Note the lack of picnic tables. Instead, there are flat surfaces for picnicking so that the family can eat almost like they're sitting on the floor.

Randomly, there was a collection of nearly every street sign known to man next to a field near the entrance. I guess part of the park is being turned into a traffic safety awareness center for children- naturally, since that concept goes hand in hand with tracing your genealogy. It was interesting to note that no matter where you are in the world, the traffic signs are nearly all the same.

We'd hoped to make it to one more destination before going back to Seoul, but it was close to 5pm before we returned to Daejeon Station. Since both the dam and the science museum would soon close, we decided to have supper at a galbi restaurant and then go home. However, upon arriving home, I was made aware that the Daejeon Aquarium has recently acquired a PINK DOLPHIN. Who cares about Ppuri Park??? It's a PINK, freaking, DOLPHIN! So. I have a funny feeling there might be a second, much more interesting post about Daejeon coming in the not too distant future.

What the what?!