A taste of Korea

I am fleshier and fairer (I think). Fleshier is because every day I eating rice for breakfast, rice for lunch and rice for dinner!! 3 meals a day. Fairer because of dry and windy weather in Korea! It feels good to be back to Kuching! *wink*

I started to miss Kuching food on 2nd day. Everyday kimchi and kimchi, I would want to stay away from cabbage and radish for the time being! Lol!

My vacation started on 14th February evening, where we took a flight to Singapore in the evening. Reached my transit hotel in Singapore around 12 midnight and the next day, we checked in Changi International Airport for our departure at 9.20am. We reached Incheon International Airport around 4.15pm (Korea time is 5.15pm - 1 hour ahead).

I have yet to sort out all the photographs. Over 2000 photographs from 5 cameras, so I will need to take some times to sort through. For time being, let me tempt you with food.....

My first Korea meal is dumpling. Korea food is indeed very healthy. Korean do not eat much meat, mostly vegetables and lots of kimchi. Pork and chicken are common meats as beef is very expensive in Korea. Not much fruits can be found especially during winters.



Either we are hungry or the dumplings,and soup were delicious, we finished up the whole pot. Not to mention the assortment of kimchi as side dishes. After the dinner, we headed straight to hotel for early rest.



Other food that I enjoyed in Korea is the above. If you noticed, that white long starch is "nian gao". Korean celebrated new year as Chinese around the world. Btw, Korean is Mongolian descendants; the culture is not much different from Chinese. Chinese is still used around Korea, which shopping malls using Korean and Chinese languages for announcement etc.



Back to "nian gau", the Korean nian gau comes in few colours, such as pink, white and green. To eat this nian gau dishes, you simply stir it together with rice, seaweed, marinated chicken, carrot slices and cabbage slices. Above picture shows the nian gau dish before you stir the ingredients.



Korean enjoyed their food either in hot pot (soup) or BBQ. This is to keep them warm during winter. One thing about Korean food. You can ask for re-fill but do not waste food. They charge wastage accordingly. So we keep re-filling the kimchi, rice, water, add soup, add meat and prawn paste. I do not quite like BBQ as after eating, my whole body and hair are smelly!



Above is the famous Korean stone rice. I do not have much comments about stone rice. For me, it is just like claypot rice. Lol!



However I enjoyed this ginseng chicken that I tasted last Saturday afternoon. They used spring chicken as you can see the size of the chicken. How you eat this dish? First, you add some rice wine into the soup to taste. You can add soy sauce, pepper and salt if you like. You add in mee sua into the soup. Then you eat the chicken. After finished up the meat, you cut open the chicken, and eat the glutinous rice in the chicken. A very great dish, but I did not finished up the rice as too full.



Assortment of kimchi. Korean has over 200 ways of making kimchi from mild to spicy kimchi. We mostly tasted mild kimchi as most of us do not enjoy taking spicy food.

Again, BBQ. Self-serviced BBQ. We grilled, we cut and we served ourselves right on our table. Lol!



Next post - pictures on Korea scenery!