Monthly Archives: December 2007

Korean Folk Village

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http://www.koreanfolk.co.kr/folk/english/

Today we decided to visit the Korean Folk Village which is located near Suwon. We had to take a bus to Suwon then take another shuttle to the Korean Folk Village. We ended up heading out a bit late but as we have done every morning before leaving, we say “hi” to the puppies at the local pet store:

They are like our temporary pets in Korea that are there every morning when we leave and are there every evening when we get back. They are so cute! I wish I could bring one with me back to Singapore.

Anyways, we made it to the Korean Folk Village and paid 16,000Won per ticket to the Korean Folk Village which included a shuttle bus ride back and forth plus entrance to other activities there. We arrived at the same time as two busloads full of children.

We arrived also around the time when all the afternoon shows were started. We watched a traditional dance, a see-saw demonstration, and the tight-rope walking demo. The tight-rope walking demo was pretty amazing as the man performing wasn’t very young but was very flexible and did many tricks.

After the shows, we checked out the rest of the village which included some exhibits on Korean life, authentic homes and palaces, food, and other museums.

Here we are posing in front of one of the larger compounds:

For lunch we ate at the food court and tried Korean sausage stew, it’s pig intestine stuffed with chap chae (clear noodles) and pork’s blood. It didn’t actually have much flavor but in the stew it was pretty okay.

Later during the day, I attempted to do the traditional way of carrying water on my head. The pot was pretty heavy and it had hardly any water in it!

After walking through the rest of the park (which included a Haunted House – scary! – and sculpture park), we headed back to the main city to try their famous kalbi (pork ribs). Apparently this region in Korea is famous for it. We kind of randomly picked a place that seemed full and had pictures of their menu. We were very lucky that one waitress spoke Mandarin so was able to converse with Ron. We ordered the kalbi and it was really tasty.

Afterwards we had a long train ride home and were greeted by our housemates since one of them was having a birthday, we shared some of their cake and are heading to bed.

Click here for more photos in my Picasa album or see slideshow below:

Coex Mall and Street Food

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So today was a pretty relaxing day although we did get a bit lost… but at least the subway isn’t too expensive and we didn’t go too far away. It’s just that Ron had a meeting downtown then we had a free evening. We spent most of it wandering around COEX Mall and the Sports Complex Mall. We were hungry for some food so we tried a food stall, basically more pointing and gesturing. I got to eat my favorite Korean dish called duk bok kee.

It wasn’t very spicy but it was still yummy. We had a long walk back and ended up buying some drinks for home and Ron went out to buy some sweet and spicy fried chicken, which is apparently pretty popular in Korea.

It was quite a bit of walking today so it was nice to stay in, have some drinks and fried chicken and watch a Korean movie called Lover’s Concerto. I recommend the movie…

Day 1: Arrival in Seoul, Korea

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http://picasaweb.google.c…valInSeoulKorea

(Click on the title to see complete photo album.)

Today was Ron’s last final and the end of the period champagne party (which I unfortunately missed) and I read on other people’s blogs that they finished off all the champagne in 2 hours, something like 200 bottles (?), could be wrong…

I hadn’t had a chance to pack yet so I stayed home to take care of packing and settling all the bills before leaving Singapore. Ron went to sing karaoke before coming home around 11pm. I slept from 9-11pm and then we stayed up all night packing and cleaning up our room. The cleaning lady had come that morning so the place was pretty tidy but we still had stuff to put away and make neat for our departure. Our flight was at 6:50am to Hong Kong first with a short layover then to Seoul, Korea.

We left for the airport at 4:30am and we were basically exhausted because of lack of sleep. Ron didn’t sleep and I only slept 2 hours. Once we got on the plane we fell asleep but woke up for the yucky breakfast. We flew United and their food is never really good, it was either an omlette or chicken noodles and both were burnt. Oh well, it was nice to have some hot tea and then go back to sleep.

We arrived at the Hong Kong airport around 10:30am but our flight to Incheon (Seoul) wasn’t until 1:30pm. We wandered around the terminal and bought some candies at Aji Inchiban. They have cute snacks, I especially like their nougat candies. Then we had lunch at Popeyes! I know a bit weird but there wasn’t much else that was appetizing.

We were glad to finally board the plane and again fell asleep right away. It was so easy to keep on dozing. But we also woke up to have our meal (lunch or dinner? not too sure since it was 3pm) of bi bim bap. It was quite nice actually and came with some sort of fish soup which complemented the meal well.

Aftewards, more sleeping before arriving at Incheon airport around 5:30pm. After clearing immigration and customs, we found our way to exchange some money and rent a telephone. The exchange rate seems bad right now, it was 1USD for 940Won comparing the rate in 2005 was 1USD to 1035Won. Just as a tip, the exchange rate is better inside the airport terminal compared to when you’re in the arrival area outside. The phone rental was relatively cheap, only 2000Won per day.

We then went in search of the bus to take us near to where we would be staying, in Hapjeong. The place we are staying at is sort of like a youth hostel but a bit more private, it’s called Kim’s Guest House. One thing that was great is that they have a very detailed map filled with pictures on how to take a bus and with landmarks on how to arrive at their front door. We got there safely and checked in and had to pay all upfront, it was 344,000Won for 9 nights (with 4 nights for 3 pax). We’re not staying at the main house but instead at a close very closeby which seems more private and quiet. There are 2 guys staying upstairs and a group of 3 girls staying downstairs in another room. Our friend Susan is joining us in a few days and will be sharing our room downstairs across from the bathroom. I’ll update some pictures of the place later, I haven’t had a chance to take any yet…. but we also share a common bathroom and kitchen which isn’t so bad… it really is like living in the dorms again.

Now finding a place to have dinner was an interesting and difficult matter. Although we do know the names of common foods, not all restaurants have those foods and many shopkeepers don’t really speak English here. After wandering around for a while, we finally settled on a BBQ place and used hand gestures to order food. We had some sort of bulgogi stew, it has muchrooms, onions, other veggies, and the bulgogi stewing in a broth. We think it’s called this: Seolleong-tang, which is ox bone broth with bulgogi and vegetables. It was delicious and with a bottle of soju, it warmed us up. The soju here is so cheap, only 1500Won at 7-Eleven and was 3000Won in the restaurant.

After a full day of traveling, it was time to go to bed. Not sure what we have planned for the day since Ron prepared most of this trip… I’m sure it’ll be fun whatever it is 🙂

Shopping and Macaroons (yum!!)

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I wanted to mention a new shopping hotspot in Singapore, it’s called Haji Lane and it’s located near Arab Street. Gladys and I visited Arab Street on Sunday to buy some gifts for our friends and family and she mentioned this very cute lane full of boutiques. While shopping many of the store owners were very friendly, they mentioned that most of the shops had only been opened for less than 6 months. Many of the shop owners were having BBQs outside their store front or sharing a meal with their friends and family. One of them even offered us some of their curry, it was made with condensed milk instead of coconut milk (something I’m gonna have to try to make myself at home). The clothes in the shops are very unique and very hip. They seem to have lots of sales but overall, it’s not too expensive to begin with… a dress was 40SGD and tops were around 30SGD. They had other shops selling homewares and quite a few mens’ clothing shops. The only disappointing thing was that it was Sunday and it seemed like almost half the shops were closed. Apparently it is like that on weekends and locals don’t frequent the area on Sundays but more likely will come out on weeknights. I hope to go back soon.

As for the macaroons, my preceptor Siew Woon loves this bakery called Canele Patisserie Chocolaterie which she had brought over for our Thanksgiving dinner but we didn’t eat until a few days later so they weren’t fresh. So instead, my friend Alex brought them for us as Christmas gifts and dropped them by work before I was to leave for Korea and before he was to leave for his European vacation.

In its nicely packaged box:

Close-up of its creamy filling:

Macaroons are interesting pastries, it’s sort of crunchy and flaky on the inside but as your bite into the cookie, it becomes a bit chewy and the creamy center melts in your mouth. I had the purple colored one which I think was yam and it was yummy. We shared out macaroons with our co-workers at the end of the day. Nice way to end a tough day at work.

We leave in the morning for Korea!!!

Update before leaving on holiday…

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2007

Our French girls planned a wonderful holiday party for the partners held at the condo next door, Dover Parkview. Some of the partners would be leaving for Fontainbleu right after the break so this was a good time to get together to say our farewells. Each partner was to bring one food item (appetizer, entree, or dessert), a bottle of their favorite drink, a decoration item, a gift (under $10), and come dressed in something red (although I didn’t know about the red thing until last minute so didn’t have anything to wear). We had music playing and had a wonderful dinner. See the slideshow for pictures although I’m missing a few items like the risotto and pumpkin soup. Emilie played Santa Claus and we did a game gift exchange. The organizers had written “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” in different languages on note cards and if you guessed the language, you could open your gift. There were other rules involving “stealing” gifts but I think the majority of us were too shy to “steal”. It was a nice night but I was quite tired and had started to feel a bit sick that morning so I left early to head home to sleep.

See slideshow below or click here.


FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2007

We had our own Friday Foody with a few of the couples at INSEAD. JP and Anne Sophie had been to this yummy Thai restaurant closeby, near Clementi Ave. The place was called YUM YUM THAI. It’s the best thai food we’ve had in Singapore but still not quite like US. But then we also don’t know what real thai food is supposed to taste like since we haven’t been to Thailand. But it was a good meal, the pomelo salad was very refreshing, the green curry wasn’t spicy enough, and I enjoyed my favorite dish of eggplant.

See slideshow below or click here.


Afterwards we also went to celebrate a bit at Clarke Quay at a place called Barfly. I had a Longan Mojito which was excellent. But it had been a long week so we headed home around midnight, which unfortunately is a terrible time to catch a taxi, the queue is very long and taxis don’t stop on the street, they’re waiting for a booking. Tip: it’s better just to queue, don’t try to catch your own taxi from the street.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2007

Today I took a baking class at Palate Sensations. It was a 6-hour workshop on how to make four different petit fours. The instructor was Nan Ong from Classique Gateaux. It was quite a good class with lots of hands-on practice. The only thing I did not enjoy was that there were quite a lot of “old-timers” who have been to classes before and the instructor would ask them to do tasks that they had learned before rather than letting newer people do it. But Ron explained it by saying that it just means I need to attend more classes so I can be like those people. We’ll see. But I did get to make my own pastry dough, learn how to decorate tarts, make buttercream, and now have some great recipes. My favorite is the mango panna cotta. I can’t wait to try to make it again next year.

It was heavily storming today as well so it was good to be inside and feeling Christmasy with the baking and the music… almost felt like being at home in my kitchen.

See below for slideshow or click here.


For dinner we went back to the Clementi area where we had thai food because I had a craving for steak. There’s this restaurant called Grill Out that served beef from the US. So I had a ribeye, I love all the marblelization but I try not to eat too much of the fat… but it tastes good. The steak was delicious on its own without the sauce provided, it was seasoned well and tender. Not sure if it’s worth the $30 as our flatmate Justine says at another restaurant called Essential Brew in Holland Village served an $18 ribeye steak that’s not bad. Guess I’ll just have to go check it out.

We walked around for a bit afterwards just to check out what else they have around and there’s a steamboat place plus two food courts. I think we’ll be frequenting there more often next year as we’re kind of getting tired of Holland Village. The Clementi place isn’t that far away, it’s probably the same distance.