KOREAN SPRING

I've been googling the brand name of this milk tea since I couldn't read the bottle, but whatever, the picture should pretty much speak for itself. It's a brand of bottled milk tea from Taiwan and slowly gaining popularity in Korea as well. They get sold out pretty quickly, so when my colleague found three different flavors at the convenience store, she immediately bought all of them. And naturally, this caught my attention and I asked if I could buy one from her and taste it myself. ^_^ The shape of the bottle is quite peculiar and not what you'd normally use for a beverage. When I first saw it I thought it was a cosmetic product or something. I think it would feel a bit more comfortable if I were to pour it separately into a cup before drinking it, because drinking straight from a bottle which looks like that, just doesn't feel right. Nevertheless, it tasted quite lovely and very rich, much more authentic than the Korean milk tea cartons sold in conven...

My good Swedish friend Mikael sent me a can of surströmming (fermented herring) to sample, a few weeks ago. We had talked about this dish during his stay in Korea last year as an exchange student, about how it's 10 times smellier than 홍어, which in my opinion is already one of the smelliest fermented fish thingy to ever exist. Surströmming, however, is different in that it's a canned food, and the can tends to swell while it ferments over a couple of months. For this reason, some airlines have even banned it on flights altogether (for fear of explosion). I'd mentally prepared myself by watching videos of people eating it and puking, and going on about how nasty it is, and at the same time researching the traditional way to eat it. So I ordered some tunnbröd from IKEA, boiled some potatoes, chopped up some onion, and brought along butter to make a proper meal out of it instead of just an experiment. I drove all the way to Songdo, Incheon, where a friend of mine lived - s...

Language exchange is probably one of the best ways to improve language learning - all while making new friends too. It's so much more convenient than traditional snail mail pen pals, what with the internet and smart phones and all that. I first tried it out for myself via this site called Conversation Exchange, when I took a semester of French back in college. I ended up meeting a really nice French girl, in person too, eventually, when I visited Paris, but since I didn't keep up with my French studies I forgot all about it after a while. Now I've been learning Mandarin for 4 months now, and I'm taking it much more seriously because I need to learn it for work. So I made a new account on CE and found a LOT of Chinese people looking for an English speaking partner. I found that the most convenient way to chat was through WeChat, the Chinese version of Kakao Talk/WhatsApp, because it was a lot more advanced than Kakao Talk. I mean... they've got translation function...

So I just discovered this at 7-11 yesterday, and being the curious soul that I am, I had to try it for myself. I actually consider myself quite the adventurous type when it comes to trying new things at convenience stores, because Koreans sometimes come up with really funky and crazy things. I regret that I hadn't blogged about all the new things I've tried, because I probably won't buy most of them ever again. Anyway, so this "coconut mango" beverage caught my eye, along with its partner, "coconut banana." Korea's coconut game is not very strong, to be honest. I think the flavor is just not very popular among the people here. Most things coconut related are imported, like coconut biscuits and chips and whatever. Recently I started to see coconut milk (which actually contains like 0.1 percent coconut) and coconut water, and now this. Unlike the fake coconut milk I tried previously, this one contained 18% coconut milk, which is a big step up from...

The main branch of Shinsegae Department Store in Seoul has quite a unique food court. Also known as Gramercy Hall, this place is more like a restaurant that just happens to have menus from a bunch of different countries. It's got Korean food, Western (which probably means Italian), Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, and more I think, I wasn't paying much attention to the menu. The reason I went and even knew of its existence, is because my best friend got a job at the kitchen there, in the Indian food section. I heard enough stories and gossip about her colleagues to be curious about her workplace, and plus, she invited me with promises of complimentary services (from her manager, if I informed of my visit in advance). And I wasn't to visit on a weekend because then she would be too busy to pay attention to me. So tonight, on a Thursday evening, I met up with my brother after work and visited Shinsegae Department Store - the oldest department store in the country, actually...

A couple of weeks ago I went out with a few of my colleagues to a birthday dinner at the Ramada Hotel buffet. The birthday girl wanted to go someplace a bit fancier than usual since it was a special day, and chose a place with a nice view of the city skyline and a wide terrace where we could enjoy the evening outdoor weather - which we ended up regretting a bit because the weather was hot and humid, and much pleasant indoors with the air conditioner blasting. Anyway, that's not really the point. I have a whole lot to write about this place, as well as photos, which I'll try to dedicate to a separate post. Today I wanted to focus a bit on the people who were at the hotel buffet, Koreans in particular. Man, I mean, I know I'm Korean too, but these people seriously need to learn how to relax and enjoy themselves. I can go on and on about a ton of other situations to which this applies, but I felt this strongly at this hotel dinner, specifically during live music time. So I h...

Singapore holds a very special place in my heart because of the incredible experiences I had. The sightseeing, while enjoyable, honestly didn't stand out much in particular, probably because it was rainy and I was sick as hell. Rather, as it always is with traveling, it's the people I met that made my days there so amazing. My memories of Singapore are still pretty vivid, and I already wrote a short diary during my trip, but I want to rewrite them down in detail just in case, to make sure they never fade. This country actually wasn't even on my original itinerary. My plan was to head straight from Thailand to Europe, but this changed due to a guy from Couchsurfing that I'd never even met (hi Steve!) before. Steve had reached out to me during his visit to Seoul in the winter, and we chatted for quite a bit on WhatsApp before making plans to meet up. He was very likeable and fun to talk to (still is), and I had agreed to take him out to budaejjigae since it's the ty...