Night 8!

I’m back!, not that I forgot you my dear blog, I just feel like I’ve been everywhere and yet anywhere, stress and drama have been close to me for a long time now and I’m just learning how to deal with this on my own…. Cooking has helped A LOT and I’m more inspired to cook than I’ve been for a while, I’m also excited since I’ve lots of this to write about, I have yet to write about a new Korean Restaurant I just found, the Cultures Festival in Mexico City (I’ve been there like 5 times already this year!), a Korean Bakery I found like 3 weeks ago, a story I want to make about a little Steam bread  Shop and I have to finish my almost endless (okok ,,, not so endless but it sure seems like it) stories about Seoul…. As you can see I have lots of things to do… plus Work and well… life in general o_o

So, back to the post I owe you about Korean Karaoke노래방 or Norebang, Norebang was brought to the conversation over a dinner with some “friends”, all the Korean Guests agreed that Norebang was a MUST in Seoul… I didn’t know much about it except that they really enjoy it and it’s in a private room  (unlike most Karaoke Bar’s I’ve ever been…), they finally convinced us that we should go and Eugene offered to take us so we could party, I was very excited to go out with Eugene since I was a dedicated reader of his blog and find his sense of humor to be very much like mine…

K Jin and me met Eugene at City Hall around 10pm but felt like 3am since we’ve been out walking/eating all day long, but we HAD to go see that Norebang they talk so much about… I was more nervous than anything because well…I don’t sing and by I don’t sing I mean… I SUCK at it…

First we went to a Bar (I don’t know the name of the bar, I only remember it was pretty close to City Hall…), we had beer and… something to eat… little balls of..I don’t remember (lol, and I wasn’t even drunk!), we had a nice chat there and then it was time to move on… OH NO!!! It was time to sing u_u 

Eugene chose the place, it was on the 2^nd floor and for me it was really weird…. We went to our very own private room, a room with 3 couches, a table, a TV and a huge remote control… we had TONS of songs to chose, but when you know you are bad at singing you just can’t find the correct one.

Eugene and K Jin were the surprise of the night, both are very good at Norebang!, Eugene even sang some songs in Japanese!!, K Jin sang just Korean Songs and to me sounded like a pro :D , Melly and I were not so good at it, so we were just playing with the tambourine and doing “background” choruses lol…. I had to sing something alone L and the 1^st song was Time of your Life by Green Day and the 2^nd one was a song in Spanish but I sang that one with Eugene hehe.

It wasn’t all about songs… we also had beer and some Korean snacks … and there was something like M&M’s (not sure if they were M&M’s), I have to say… I think Norebang is way better than regular Karaoke… you can have your private room to be with your friends and act the way you want without having some strangers looking at you haha.

I recorded a couple of videos…but I won’t be showing those (I wanna remain friends with Eugene and K Jin lol)

After all… I had lots of fun at the Norebang with K Jin, Melly and Eugene, hopefully we’ll get to do it again sometime…..

If you have the opportunity to go to a Norebang… GO!!!!!!!!!! If you (like me) can’t sing you can always have fun with the Tambourine or something like that!!!

And that was it…. I still have another day of stories and then we can move onto some of the other things I want to write about so stick around for more fun ..yay!! lol

-Gisela V.

Videos!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 2nd Video is from the Sangmo Dance, The sangmo dance is a representative Korean folk dance, people dance the joyous sangmo dance by swinging their multicolored sangmos (a helmet-like hat with a long ribbon). The beautiful long ribbons of the sangmos swirl like the wind, forming colorful shiny rings around the dancers.   

The sangmo dance represents the highest level of nongak dance, showcasing the most challenging skills of nongak dance and bringing it to the climax of excitement.

During a sangmo dance, the dancers repeatedly swing their heads with neck force, moving the sangmos in various postures. They can swing the sangmos while jumping, forming dynamic rings with sangmo ribbons.

-Gisela V.   

Videos!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello :) 

The 1st video is 꿀타래 or Korean Court Candy wich made of fine strands of honey and maltose with a 7 nuts filling.

Day 8 Saturday and let’s get this Party started….

Just like the past day, this one had an early start… Getting up at 7am to shower and get ready to have breakfast around 8 was something I was getting used to and this day was something I was very excited about because 1^st of all…it was Saturday!!!, 2^nd we had a river cruise planned and the Traditional Folk Village to visit and later that night we would meet Eugene to have some drinks and Korean Karaoke.

Onni and the driver picked us up at 9:30am because we had a long drive to the Traditional Korean Folk Village, the Village itself is amazing to say the least… the 1^st thing I notice when we enter the Village was a bunch of Jars where Kimchi Is usually stored, I know.. Who would notice that instead of all the other cool things, right?, for someone who loves FOOD and Korean culture, you will know this things are sort of important and well known, I’ve seen this in books and read about them before going to Korea or even before imaging I would get to go (ever!!), the picture was amazing, the sun was shining and there was still a little bit of snow on the ground and on top of the pots. After a photo shoot with the pots (lol) we walked towards the Restaurants Area not that we were hungry or anything… but we had to decide on a place to have lunch to make a reservation J , after choosing our next restaurant we walked some more and saw the entrance to the “Amusement Park”, we didn’t go in because we didn’t have enough time L, especially since we found one of those stands where a guy makes this Korean Candy with Honey…they take this big “pill” looking piece of honey, make a hole in the middle (like a donut) and then make it into really thin strings of candy, cut it and put 7 different kinds of nuts, wrap it and you are good to go… after the Candy show we had to run to see the Farmers Music and Dance show, again you have to cross another gate and before the gate there are some trees and a table with paper and pens, you are supposed to write a wish and put the paper on either the Trees or a Tree looking thing there and your wish will come true (I filled lot of those in Korea) then it was time to run (for real…) to catch the Farmers Music and Dance show  after the show we took pics with the dancers and then  went to see some more of the Village … unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to see all of it…. But we found a group of kids there, they were with a few young guys that seemed to be taking care of them, Onni explained to us the kids were from an orphan and that once a while they were taken on a field trip J , the kids were really nice and funny, one girl past us running and yelling “Hello!!!!” the she would come back just to say Hello again and again we just sat there with some of them and watched the others play for a little while until it was time to run again to watch the show of Acrobatics on a tightrope (See pics below) 

 
We wondered some more around the Village and met a woman knitting  silk… or more like, she had the silk worms and was pulling the strings out of them K (I Suck at explaining....).. See the pic to understand what am I talking about haha.

Then we went to what it seemed to be a part of the Kitchen?, this part reminded me of my mom because they had this “real size” posters of Jang-geum of the famous Daejanggeum or Jewel in the Palace Drama (my mom really liked this one for some weird reason…) so I took pics with the posters just to please her (haha).

It was time to eat (again….) so we went to the restaurant and this time our driver came with us, he is a really nice Ajosshi  each one of us ordered something different (as always) and that way we’ll get to try more dishes… I had  Yukgaejang a spicy soup made with beef, leek, green bean sprouts and bracker, this time we only had water since no one else seems to be into makgeolli but me L , on the table next to us there was a middle-age couple and as usual they were staring at us, I just made a lil bow (as a Hey, what’s up kind of bow lol) and he bowed back, then he handed me a cup of makgeolli and asked me to try it (if it was Mexico I would’ve said NO, but this wasn’t Mexico… I was on the other side of the World and I wanted to try as many things as possible, plus he didn’t look creepy or anything, and I got to eat my spicy soup with rice wine… yay!!

After lunch we had to go because it was time to go  to the Hwaseong Fortress, so we got to rest a bit on the Van. We got there, and had to take a lil train that will take us there, since we had about 30mins until the next train we took pictures at the entrance and just look around, then we took the train and got off on “top” of the fortress, we walked down the stairs and went inside, it was a bit late and looked very lonely, in there we only had like 30-45 mins to look around and take pictures because it was time to run again L , the driver  picked us up and it was time to go to the Han River (one of the longest rivers in Korea)… it was a long drive and we got to take a nap and just have a quiet time in the middle of the 6pm traffic, I was super excited about the Cruise because when I visited the 63 building I saw the lil ships and wanted to try it, we arrived there around 7:45 and had a dinner reservation at 8 (yup, it was time to eat AGAIN!), we went to a nice restaurant to have a “Korean Style”  stake… it was like grounded meat in a square shape… (yup, like a squared burger only with a better taste) , we also had garlic bread, salad and some tea... overall it was a nice dinner and I´m glad it wasn’t as BIG as our meal (while being in Korea I felt I was wasting a lot of food :s ) then it was time for the actual Cruise!!, we had 2 choices, the top Floor had a Magician to entertain and bottom floor had a band playing, since we figured it wasn’t something like a rock band… we went for the Magician show while Onni went for the Music show, the Magician looked like he was 15 years old but he was good and they played Disney music (awww!!), the trip was around 50 minutes, we didn’t go outside because it was really cold, so I don’t have any night shots (not that I’m good at taking night shots lol) and again it was time to go and hit the traffic one more time… this time we left Melly in a Mall (???) because she was meeting her PenPal, the driver took K Jin and me to the Hotel around 9 and we had to meet Eugene at 10pm at City Hall…. 

 Ok... enough!! lol ..Beers and Karaoke with Eugene  will be left for another day/post :) 


-Gisela V.