The Power of Jajangmyon & Bokeumbab

Jajangmyeon is a very popular food for everyone in Korea. It is even called as one of Korea national food. Originally, Jajangmyeon is from China (zha jiang mian), therefore you could easily find this menu in every Chinese restaurants in South Korea.

Our attention to Jajangmyeon was grabbed by a Korean drama (I forgot the name of the movie ^^). On the movie, the actress favorite food is jajangmyeon and she eats it anytime she has chance to eat it.

Jajangmyeon is also often called 'black noodle' since the fried sauce is black in color. The sauce is thick but yummy and rich of onion. Don't forget to eat it with radish pickle and kimchi, of course!

I'm drooling right now...

My first ever Jajangmyeon was after a walk at Haeundae beach for seeing International Sand Festival on June, 2009. I longed for Jajangmyeon since I watched the Korean drama and decided to find it nearby Haeundae on the way back home.

We found that on a small restaurant and the price was reasonable even though Haeundae area is tourist district where the price of food could be higher than normal price.

We ordered another dish, bokkeumbab. It is similar to fried rice, but they add kimchi when they cook it. It was served with the same sauce of jajangmyeon. It's delicious, too.

But the most delicious and cheap jajangmyeon I could find is at Seomyeon, the city area. It is at a just-opened-Chinese Restaurant and they gave discount only for jajangmyeon.

Uh-oh...I have to stop writing...baegopayeo (hungry)...

Street Food

Busan has so many variety of food, but the most interesting to me is the street food.

I remember in my childhood, my father was very strict to me for not so often eating kind of street food such as bakso (meatball soup), gulali (kind of sugar flower ^^), bakwan (meatball soup, too, different kind with the first one), tahu tek (Javanese fried tofu), es campur (mixed fruit ice), etc. His reason is understandable because he is afraid that those food are not clean enough and we can't be sure about what are the ingredients.

He is very clear with his rules that the children shall not eat the tomato sauce which always comes together with bakso or bakwan. He said that the tomato sauce wasn't made by healthy ingredients and usually used many food coloring. So, my mother always prepares tomato sauce that we can buy at supermarket.

He also didn't allow us to eat those food using the seller's plate/bowl/spoon/fork. We have to use our own eating utensils. That is why until nowadays, we usually try to take the food away, and eat it at home.

One of the favorite street food here is Odeng, ddeokbokki, and variety of fried food.

Odeng is flat fish cake on a stick which looks like sate (satay). It was boiled in soup and you can have the soup along with odeng. It is very comfortable to have this kind of meal in winter time because of the hot soup can warm your body.

I didn't really like ddeokbokki in my first bite, but I do like it nowadays, especially the sauce. When I saw the sauce, the memory of my father's rule about tomato sauce blasts on my mind ^^.

I think I will miss this street food if I move from South Korea someday.

August - The Month of Happiness

So here we are in the end of August!

San and I have almost passed our "Happy Month". We waited the coming of August eagerly since we would celebrate three big events in our life:

San's birthday on Aug 6
1st wedding anniversary on Aug 17
and ...
My birthday on Aug 28

What makes this month so special? It's our first wedding anniversary!

Looking back on how we choose the wedding date, both of us were extremely blessed when both part of our big families agreed with our choice.

First of all, we just want to get marry on August 2008. Then we started to choose the date: 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23, 28 etc...When we looked at the calendar, it seemed that 17 August is the best because it was Sunday, the day before is Saturday which most people have their day-off, and the next day is public holiday because of the Indonesia Independence Day was on Sunday. We thought that it would be better for our relatives and friends who live far away from Surabaya. They could come on Saturday and would not be in hurry to return to their home. I then realized that 17 August is exactly in the middle of our birthdays...!!!

Let's count!
San 6 + Dita 28 = 34 /2 = 17 !!!!
Exactly in the middle!

One of my friend made a joke to our wedding date: 17 Aug is the day when Indonesia had its independence, but both of you lose your independence on that day!

We don't lose our independece, indeed we have an independence of love.
Now, it's free to show my love to him, isn't it??? ^^

Korean & Education

I am impressed to know how Korean people love to study. Education is on their top list of priority. They will spend a lot of money to equip themselves or their children with the best education they can get.

I was surprised when I saw so many high school students walking out from the school at 9pm. My friend who was driving me to the nearest subway told me that the school hour starts from 9am to 9pm, Then into my surprise, she continued by saying that those students mostly were going to English Academy after school until 10.30pm. Some of them probably were going to library to continue study until 11pm. It is normal for Korean students to arrive home at midnight.

I remembered that yesterday night when I went to the study room in a public library, I could not find a place to sit. I needed to wait until somebody walked out from his chair. I could not give any comment anymore...it's summer vacation now! And everybody seems having their vacation in library! I only can say 'WOW'...


The way Korean value education is also showed by the way they appreciate teachers. May 14 is a national day specially for teacher. Our friends and us also celebrated it for our Korean Language teacher. He is a super nice person. I love the way he taught us. Eventhough he didn't use English while explaining to us, I could understand what he wanted to say.

Thank you for your kindness, Gyusunim. God bless you.

Off

I would be off for a while. I'm on another training stage from God and I need time to adapt. As soon as I can manage the time, I would be active writing again. I have many things in mind to write here, just I don't have enough spare time. Pray for me to be strong. God bless you all.

With love,
Dita