My Old Apartment

I was sorting through some old photos and found a couple of the apartment where I was living for the first 5 months I was in Korea. It's been almost a year since I moved out of my old apartment and into where I am now. The small size made it really easy to clean and cheap to keep toasty warm in winter. It was also only a 2 minute walk from my school which was super convenient. 

All the furniture was provided by my school. Here is the bedroom/living area. Through the door is my very small closed in balcony where my washing machine lived. 

Looking back the other way, you can see the kitchen through the door.

Here is a short video of my first apartment in Korea. 

It took me a little while to work out the heating system, but once I did it was smooth sailing... until the gas company cut me off because the school forgot to set up my account.... grrr... Luckily I only had to put up with a cold shower and no heating for one night during winter before my school organized to have it re-connected. 

Mokpo City - Korean Wedding

On the weekend we traveled to Mokpo, a port city on the southern most part of South Korea, for a wedding of one of Jihyeon's university friends. 

I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, but for more info about Korean weddings check out my past blog posts here. 

We caught the KTX to Mokpo early in the morning. Summer is here and the rice fields have been planted and are growing like crazy.

Mokpo is literally at the end of the line.

Waiting for the ceremony to start. 

The MC doing his thing. 

Mothers. 

Smiling groom.

Beautiful bride and her father. 

Bowing to the brides parents. 

The groom reads a letter to his bride. 

The groom is a Buddhist monk who spent some time in Russia spreading Buddhism and teaching Korean. The guy below was one of the grooms guests (also the groom's best student) and played the guitar while singing the newly weds a song in Russian.

Some kind of silly thing the MC made the newly weds do. It was meant to be a test to see if if they were a perfect couple. They both had to shout "I love you" and turn around to face each other. If they turned the same way, it was proof they were a perfect match. Personally, I'd have rather seen the groom do some push-ups. 

All over red rover. 

Quick make-up fix and some more photos. 

Getting ready to throw the bouquet.

Time for lunch. Here is our lunch ticket. 

The buffet hall for lunch. 

nom nom nom. Fried pork in sweet sauce, bulgogi (beef), duck, fried chicken, fried rice, and some salad. 

After the ceremony, the bride and groom have a private traditional ceremony with their family for which they get changed into traditional Korean hanbok's for. After that, they have to go around the dining hall greeting all their guests before they can sit down and eat. 

We had some time to kill after the ceremony, so we went down to the waterfront. This guy was looking very cool in his pimped out car. I want one. 

After chilling out in a coffee shop on the waterfront, we headed back to Daejeon. 

Shabu Shabu with the in-laws

Shabu Shabu is a Japanese dish with Chinese origins which features thinly sliced beef in boiling water. Beef is the common meat used, but you can also use pork, chicken, duck, lamb or lobster. Beef and Pork are the most common meats used in Korea. 

The in-laws dropped by for lunch on their way back to Suwon today, so we took them for Vietnamese Shabu Shabu which is a little different to the Japanese variant. In Vietnam they wrap the meat with some of the side dishes in rice paper before eating it. It's kind of a 3 course meal. 

1. Wrap the meat and side dishes in rice paper before eating. 
2. Once you have finished all the rice paper wraps, throw some noodles in the pot and make a noodle soup with the leftovers. 
3. By now there isn't a lot of water left. Throw in some pre-cooked rice and make kind of a rice porridge. 

In the middle of the table is a pot of boiling water where you throw the meat and vegetables. While you are eating, it continues to cook and boil away.

The thinly sliced beef. Don't add it all at once. It cooks really quickly in the boiling water. 

Dip the rice paper in the bowl of hot water to soften it and make it sticky. 

Lay it flat on your plate and fill it with meat and side dishes.  

Wrap it up and eat it in one bite. 

Here is the 3rd and final stage of Shabu Shabu, the rice porridge. 

Once the Shabu Shabu was all gone, we served ourselves some ice cream (often free with meals in Korea) and then, stomachs full, waddled off home.