Greg & Nee on the Go!

The Dabai Story

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:14:00 +0000

The best Dabai (O-lam in hokkien and kra-lan in Foochow) in Sarawak, a kind of local olives, are reputed to come from Sibu. There are usually available towards the end of the year. Prices range from RM12 to even 18/kg. This is one of the few things that my mum would definitely hoard back from every single one of her Sibu trips, without fail.

The preparation for Dabai traditionally includes soaking them in lukewarm water. Normally, these little delicacies will be washed in plain water and placed into a bowl of lukewarm water and soaked with a plate covering for about 20 min to 30 min or so.

But this is where the complexity sets in as the water temperature & the soaking duration has to be just right. The temperature has to be that you can place your hands in it. Any slight miscalculation & the whole thing would become inedible, hard and waxy.

The story goes that once upon a time, because Dabai originated from Sibu, many Kuchingites upon being introduced to them for the very first time, tried cooking them. They fried, stir fried, boiled and obviously ended up puzzled about how Sibu people could actually eat this ridiculously hard thing.

There exists another simpler method of preparing Dabai which we've heard of only very recently. The good thing is that this new method requires none of that temperature control & soaking. All you need to do is to wash and wrap them up in a plastic bag and freeze them. After completely defrosting, they are as soft as they can get. Season them with sweet (optional) dark soya sauce and sugar. And there you go! They transform into highly addictive morsels.

But this is not the end of the story yet, at least for people like Greg. His Dabai journey begins when everyone else finishes. If you're eating Dabai, and you're anywhere near him, you'd need to surrender the seeds to him, otherwise he gets upset.

Dabai seeds can actually be eaten. I know that part is true cos Greg has eaten them many times & he's still alive plus I haven't seen any Dabai plant growing out of his butt.

The seed is really hard as Greg would attest. You can see him pounding them away with the pestle & mortar, & debris will be flying off 10 feet away. When the nut breaks away, it reveals a fresh green nutty like filling inside which Greg would meticulously pick out with a toothpick.

Sometimes I wonder if Greg really likes Dabai, or that he's just trying to gulp down as much as possible just so that he can have the seeds later. But I think whatever it is, as long as he's doing the pounding & the picking himself, he can do whatever he wants.

Basil Chicken with Calamansi Lime

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 06:21:00 +0000

I am such a lousy gardener that the only thing that is kinda surviving are my thai basil and pandan plants. But Greg's Aunty Gim Ai is such a wonderful gardener that everything thrives. Just yesterday she gave me a whole bunch of calamansi lime and kedondong straight from her garden.

So, here's another simple recipe that cannot fail. With the tanginess of the basil and refreshing taste of calamansi lime (in Hokkien S'ng Kam), this dish will definitely conjure your senses.

Feed about 4:

1/2 no of big kampung chicken* or 1 medium free range chicken

Seasoned with:
3 tbsp of light soya,
1 tbsp of dark thick soya
1 tbsp of sesame oil
1 teasp of salt and pepper
1 tbsp of chinese cooking wine like hua tiaw
1 med no of brown onion/5-6 no of red shallots, chopped finely
5-6 slices of ginger
5 no of calamansi lime
2-3 tbsp of sugar

* i used this because i had a few huge gorgeous kampung chicken all the way from Sibu. I think you can only get solid looking fellows around that region nowadays. Chickens here no matter what the sellers claim looks sickly and underexcerised. Almost like child abuse!

1) Season chicken for an hour before cooking.

2) Heat up wok/pot with some oil and stir fry onions with ginger till fragrant and light brown. Add basil leaves.

3) This is followed by the chicken without the seasonings. Stir fry till chicken is all coated with basil, ginger and onions.

4) Add 1/3 cup of water to the seasoning and add into the chicken. Bring to a boil and turn to small fire to cook for 35- 45 min depending on your chicken till soft. I pressure cook for 30 min last night but that was overcooking (meat were all falling off the bones). Try pressure cook for 20 min.

5) Finally add sugar and lime, stir and taste for sweetness and sourness.

Get ready your rice or porridge! I still had some left from last night. So tonight will just be steamed prawns and vegies with this.

Chendol Agar Agar Mooncake: UPDATED

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:58:00 +0000

I know that Mid Autumn Festival 2009 is already over. But I still think I should blog about it as a few readers were interested in mooncake making in last year's posts. This year, due to Raya, I did not bother with varieties. In fact I did not manage to cook any paste like last year and I did not give away that many mooncakes too. This year Nee is a lazy bum.

So 3 days before the actual day, Jo and I just simply decided to get together and we did our Windmill Cakes and Traditional Teochew Mooncakes and we also managed this agar agar one, which everyone loves because it is such a deviation from the traditional baked and snowskin ones too. Honestly, I can eat the whole piece by myself. And you really don't need to have a high level of skill to do this. Even Greg can do this ... Uhm, on second thoughts I take that back. I think Greg is beyond sub-zero level when it comes to anything near cooking or baking. Eating yes, cooking no.

This recipes makes 4 big ones and about 8 smaller ones.

Filling:

350gm coconut milk squeezed from 1/2 kg of fresh coconut with 1/3 cup of water
300gm of chendol
100gm of gula melaka, chopped finely
25 gm of castor sugar
2 tsp of agar agar powder, I normally used Rose Brand
1/2 tsp of salt

1) Stir the chopped gula melaka with the coconut milk till gula melaka almost dissolves.
2) In a pot, place agar agar powder, salt, sugar and mix evenly. Pour in coconut milk into gula melaka mixture. Bring mixture to almost boil.
3) Add chendol and stir to loosen them. Bring to a boil and place mixture in a container that can help minimise wastage. The filling should be made first and chilled until set.
Cut the filling according to your plastic mooncake moulds. The height and width should be about 2/3 of your moulds.

The skin (White Mixture):

250gm of castor sugar
950gm of water
1/2 cup of evaporated milk
5 tsp of agar agar powder

4) In a pot mix sugar with agar agar powder. Add water and bring to almost boil.
5) Add evaporated milk and bring to boil.
6) Pour white mixture to just cover the bottom of mould. Wait till almost set. Meanwhile keep rest of mixture warm over small fire and stir occasionally.
7) Once almost set, place the cut filling into the moulds. Fill up with rest ofthe white mixture and chill to complete set before serving.

Day 4: Seongsan Ilchubong (Sunrise Peak)

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:14:00 +0000

It's not easy to get around in Jeju island. Almost all the scenic places worth going to were spread out along the coastal areas, & the only way to get there was by car, which generally mean taxi. Meter starts at 2000 krw (RM6) and every jump is 200 krw (RM0.6).

Car rental is the next best as Jeju roads are comfortable to drive on and all vehicles have GPRS. Rental generally costs about RM300 per day and above but you'd need an international driver's license. We didn't have that so the only option for us was to hire a taxi driver for about the same rate. And boy, were we glad we did.

We were very, very, & very lucky to have met Mr Richard Kim, a taxi driver who took us from Sashimi St to another stretch to coastal road on Day 3. The best thing was that Mr Kim could speak Mandarin, after having worked (& studied, I think) in Taiwan for a many number of years. After his retirement, Mr Kim decided to drive taxis for a living, to start a new life, as it enabled him to meet different people from all over the world. Interestingly, he keeps a journal of everyone that steps into his taxi & plans to write a book about his experiences one day. We were simply awed by his passion, sincerity, commitment & drive (pun intended).

Ladies & Gentlemen, we have the honour of introducing our taxi driver friend to you -
Mr. Richard Kim Sang Ryul (email: skimsr@hanmail.net, mobile: 011-710-0065) You are welcome to contact him when you're planning a trip down to Jeju. He comes highly recommended from Greg & Nee.

What Mr Kim does every morning before he picks up passengers for a day tour is to check his tires, & apparently that morning, there was a bit of a puncture, but he got that fixed before picking us up at our hotel at 930 am. For 120,000 krw (RM360) for 10 hours or so, we get our wheels, our guide and our photographer.

We had a rough plan about where we wanted to go but it depended on time as well as logistics. There were only 3 requirements from us:
1) Beautiful scenic touristy places which we should not miss
2) Beautiful flowers which we kept seeing in the travel guides but didn't know where they were
3) Top secret food that only the locals know

This was obviously not food.

We kept seeing this in the travel guides & it looked like a place where all the other tourists would be at. This was Seongsan Ilchubong, a 182 metre high volcano crater at the end of the Seongsan peninsula, 48 km east of Jeju City.

This photo was taken by our friendly Mr Kim. We made a short stop for photographs on the way towards the Sunrise Peak.

The name Ilchulbong comes from its famous view of the sunrise but there was no way Greg & Nee would wake up early to watch the sun rise.

Jeju once had a lot of these short brown Mongolian horses which were bred to pay tribute to the Won Dynasty in China between 1073-1258. During those days, there were about 20,000. That morning, there were only two in front of us.

This was the main entrance to the Sunrise Peak. When we got there, we finally realised that this was where all the people in Jeju were .

Admission was about 2,200 won (Rm6.60) which was extremely cheap & you can see the long trail of people going up the peak like ants.

The place was crawling with noisy & sweaty Korean school teens who kept popping up in my photos.

The nice thing about this place was that half of the climb was a gentle slope that opens up like a field of grass into the vast blue ocean.

I almost wanted to do the Sound of Music twirl & run all the way to the edge of the cliff.

But Nee was watching so I didn't.

And then the other half was a steep mountain that drops down into the sea like a heavy wall of black lava rocks.

The view here was magnificent. I don't know how to tell you & I don't think these photos could convey the actual experience of being there.

Surrounding the crater are 99 of these strange rock formations which forms a crown along the circular perimeter of the crater's mouth.

The steep climb up the wooden staircase was as breathtaking as the scenery itself. However, there were platforms & stops to catch your breath.

But strangely, when you reach the apex, it felt a bit like a letdown. The real basin didn't feel like the gigantic crater photo in the travel guide.

Here's an explanation of the formation process for those who are more scientifically inclined.

Somehow, this gave me the same feeling as when I order a puffy Big Mac Value Meal but getting a deflated one instead.

Day 3: Another Insane Meal at Sashimi Street

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:42:00 +0000

The Jeju city promenade walk ended here with touristy mosaics depicting the popular places on the island just in case you missed out any.

We never saw any sabre-toothed walruses in Jeju throughout our stay there but there was one here for some reason.

Besides the black lava rocks, two other things that you'd always find in Jeju would be Women Divers & Lighthouses.

It was about then we started getting curious. No, it wasn't about the lighthouse, nor was it about the women divers.
We realised that we were about the only tourists there in the whole of Jeju city that whole day.

I was wondering if we were at the wrong place, & that all the other tourists were happily snapping away their I-was-there pictures in some other exotic locations & we were here looking at exciting wavebreakers.

We saw a few women divers coming up to this little shack. Apparently they sell their straight-from-the-sea goodies there, especially the seaweed, right away to the nearby restaurants.

This is the real definition of FRESH. You can't get any fresher than this. Anything fresher than this would see us eating seafood underwater.

This explains the whole stretch of seafood restaurants that lined the street there with buckets of swimming fishes, abalones and shellfishes. We didn't really know which one to go for but we knew we had to settle for one which had at least some basic English in the menu.

It was quite an unnerving experience to walk through that street. Business seemed to be slow that afternoon, and don't forget, we were the only two clueless tourists there in the whole of Jeju city. So it really felt like walking through a red light district in Bangkok. The restaurants owners were really coaxing us, & we were really afraid to make eye contact for fear that would mean consent cos we weren't sure of the social rules there. But in the end, we found one with a menu to our liking.

If I still remember correctly, it was about 4.30pm at that time and we wanted to head back towards Pyoseon Beach before it turns dark. But the journey is usually not over until we have one more meal.

And you would have thought we had learned our lesson with sashimi meals. I mean a real, big, hearty sashimi meal. So in Jeju that day, we had the earliest dinner ever in both our whole entire lives combined, including the ones to come. For 60000 KRW (MYR 180) we had the following:

Side dishes:
Seaweeds, kimchi, salads.

These are the more interesting ones. This may look like salted fish but it wasn't. It tasted more like fried/dried & it was on the sweet side.

Fish skin salad.

Octopus salad.

First course of shellfishes (again). Just in case you're wondering about the shell. It's probably there just for decoration, although I'm sure the contents must be somewhere on the platter, probably the ones next to it.

And the whole platter of sashimi again.

And ending the meal with this spicy fish soup, grilled mackerel, fried rice and tempura again.

I think Nee looks just like one of those primmed up Korean ladies here. Maybe it's the food. Maybe it's the air or the sea. Maybe it's everything combined.

And this looks like a half-drunk Korean man who's not even sure what he's reaching out for with his Korean chopsticks.

We didn't know it at that time, but this whole stretch of seafood place was called Sashimi Street & we only found out about it when we walked out after dinner. How lame was that?

Greg & Nee may be on the Go, but sometimes, they go around in circles & the other times they probably don't know where they are. So I don't think there's going to be a Greg & Nee Lonely Planet guidebook anytime soon. Maybe more like Greg & Nee Lost Planet.

Day 3: Greg & Nee in Jeju City

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 23:35:00 +0000

In case that made your jaw drop, NO, we did not go to Jeju island again. We don't have that much money.

We haven't been updating our blog for quite sometime now, and our posts on our Jeju holiday got left behind like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.

We thought that was unfair & that it's best to finish up the unfinished business. My mom used to tell me if you start something, make sure you do it well, and finish it off.

There's not much to see in Jeju City itself as most breathtaking touristy spots are spread out along the other coastal areas of the island. Nevertheless, if you happen to be there, you should take a walk along the promenade which starts somewhere at the Ramada Plaza Hotel.

By the way, the abalone porridge place which we were at that morning was just behind this hotel.

The promenade was clearly done up for tourists, with designs & artwork that depict the beautiful sea creatures of the island.

But I could only see seafood.

And somewhere halfway through the promenade walkway, there's this set of stairs that went down into the deep blue waters.

And at a distance, we saw a strange army of orange bobbing things out at sea. That got Nee all excited. I seldom see her like that, except when she's near the vicinity of an LV store.

Holy North Korean spies! They've made it as far down south to Jeju! It looked like an invasion.

Then one of them casually climbed out of the waters & clambered onto the street. It wasn't Kim Jong Il, but an old lady instead, in a sexy black wet suit.

That was an amazing experience. We had just had an encounter with one of the legendary women divers of Jeju. And she was crossing the street to her house so casually like she was just returning from the fish market.

You really couldn't tell these divers were old ladies until they change into their everyday auntie gear.
And they're probably going home now to cook abalone porridge for their very healthy grandkids. Imagine growing up under these iron lung-ed ladies. You've just got to give them the respect cos they earned it.

Beef Bulgogi

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:56:00 +0000

It has been a while since we last updated our blogs. Sometimes we are just being lazy and sometime we are simply speechless with the conditions of our surroundings, literally. For one, the haze is pretty bad now and I am finding it quite hard to even take a breath in some instances.

But don't worry, Greg and Nee still eats & that is for sure. If one day comes when we start losing our appetite, the world would have probably been torn apart literally. Last night, we indulged ourselves with Four Points buffet with heaps of oysters and sashimi, and please try their satay next time - good stuff that one! It doesn't matter whether one is happy, sad, lost, depressed, or overjoyed, we'd still have to eat. At heart, all human beings just want to be happy with no worries about food, job and living. At heart, Nee will still always do what she knows best. Cooking and feeding Greg!

We had a good meal in Korea with Grilled Beef ribs. So I decided to try this when we got back. Bulgogi is not unlike Samgyeopsal, it is beef version, but marinaded. I checked out a couple of recipe books and found nashi pear in all of the them. And I think that made a whole lot of difference. We tried this two weeks ago with our cell group bunch as guinea pigs. And they love it. So please try it out.

You don't have to cook it over a table top. Just in the pan will do and serve over meal. If you want a better presentation, do the sizzling plate thingy. You can definitely wow your guests with this simple dish that looks like a complicated one.

Serve 5-6

500gm thin slices of sirloin, pre-order from Choice Daily
1 med carrot, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
5-6 slices of fresh shitake mushrooms, slicely

Marinade:
3 tbsp of korean soya sauce
2 tbsp of rice wine or sake
2 tbsp of brown sugar
1 tbsp of sesame oil
1 no of nashi pear, grated
2 no of spring onion
1/2 teasp of black pepper
1 teasp of garlic, more if you like garlic, we dont so we omit

1) Mix the marinade sauces and ingredients well in the bowl.

2) Place the meat slices in the bowl and marinade for at least 3 hours or overnight.

3) Heat up a flat pan and line it with some onion, shitake and carrot slices. Add marinade meat and grill it up to your liking. Dont overcook, meat may be slight chewy and cardboard like. Dish out and serve with garlic, korean chilli bean paste wrapped with raw greens just like samgyeopsal.

4) Repeat till all ingredients finish or stir fry the whole thing and place it on the sizzling hotplate. Serve immediately.

Best eaten with rice. So there you go, another simple dish.

Life with Passion

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:23:00 +0000

For the past few days, due to this and that at work, I wasn't exactly feeling like I was on top of the world and most of all, I was really questioning my job. As most readers would know, I am a civil engineer working as a lecturer in a public university. I quit from the industry more than 6 years ago and went into teaching, not because of the more flexible hours, nor because of it's 'fantastic' pay. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a noble character but I was really sick of my profession and the industry which if full of people who cannot and are not qualified to be called professionals.

Corruption, bribes, big boys bullying the small. Justice is for those who have more money and power. These are all common stuff. Engineers bowing down to employers, and contractors kiss the feet of engineers and employers, and the story goes on in every project. I am sick of being the only lady in the group of males who expect me to pay for every single meals after meetings just because I work as a contractor. For anything that goes wrong on site, it is never the engineer's fault, their excuses are so ridiculous, and I don't even know how they have the nerve to say it and if these people join the Tai-Chi category in Olympics, the Chinese will have to step aside.

There has to be a better way. This industry is really sick, like terminally ill.

6 years in university and more than 6 years of trying to do my best for these future engineers so that they can be better equipped and hoping that they go out with some integrity if they cannot remember anything else I lecture. Meanwhile, the industry has gone from bad to worse. And what's new?! The industry is just the miniature version of our government. The government probably thinks that we want to change them, but really, all we just want is for them to change the way they do things. But nothing has change. And If I say some more, I will soon be finishing my PhD in the detention camp in Sungai Buloh.

But yeah, back to the story, I was really praying very hard to God, asking him so very hard, what the hell am I doing in a place (which is like another miniature Malaysian government) that does not give me credit and appreciation for all the effort I put in. Is the university where God really wants me to be?

On Tuesday, I attended a course on contract management and I was caught in a jam from the campus all the way to Stutong. Was getting really agitated because I was running late. Then all of sudden, I remember Alvina sending us one of those encouragement email. This IS where God wants me to be. Right in the middle of jam. And I talked to Him for one whole hour, asking again and again the same question. It is indeed a very rare opportunity to have a one hour conversation with Him. At the end of it, I had the necessary peace in my mind and heart to sit in and listen to one of top authority in the area of study in this country.

And God finally answered my question, through firstly the speaker, and then a young man who came to discuss about his future career path. This is what God said,

"Why are you looking for appreciation and acknowledgment in this dirty and unfair place? Can't you see that I want you to love and focus on these young people? Yes, the society is a bad place. But don't complain. If you want it to be good, you have to start making sacrifices. Can't you see how you can affect the direction and thoughts of these young engineers that will be unleashed into society. Out of the 100 graduates each year, if just a handful can be good, the industry will be a better place, the society can improve and it may not be such a bad world after all."

But God, I am nobody. My work is probably not read and my students are probably sleeping half of the time.

"It is not about you. It is about Me making the changes. Appreciation and acknowledgment CAN'T be forced because it is from the heart, not the mouth. As long as you use your heart when you work, that's all you need to do"

So to all the sad people out there who only cares about what advantages they can dig out from another person, who spend so many hours trying to strategize and position themselves to get the best of everything and everyone, who can make differences but do not hestitate spoiling the minds of the young, who want everything yet not willing to give anything, you are sad because you are empty.

Something you really want with all your heart and soul is your passion. Well, now I know what I really want, reminded of what I really want. You can crush my body and spoil my day but you cant disturb my spirit because my God is my Boss and I only have Him to answer to and my belief that my work and my students will some day, one day make a small difference is as strong as ever. My chin is up because my life is filled with Passion! Thank you Lord!

Day 3: Abalone Porridge in Jeju City

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:05:00 +0000

There are basically two cities in Jeju, one in the northern part of the island (near the airport) called Jeju City, for lack of a better name, & the other in the southern part called Seogwipo. Obviously the northern part seemed like the better place to stay in as its closer to the airport, & it makes a good base to travel down to the other parts of the island.

But during our 4-day stay at Jeju, we had to put up at Pyeosong Beach (south east coast) because the conference was there. Travelling by taxi from the airport down to the south takes about 50 minutes to an hour (although the guy behind the airport counter will tell you it's 15 minutes). So you can imagine how big this little island actually is.

On our 2nd day in Jeju, we hoped onto the free hotel shuttle to Jeju City. It was a wild ride as the driver accelerated up & dived down the hilly winding roads. When we got to Jeju City, we swore never to take a bus again.

Our intention was to hit the streets of Yeon Dong. The Frommer's Travel Guide foretold of good food there. But in the end, it was just a waste of time cos the street address given was as vague as a Malaysian politician's comment. After completing a full circle, we gave up and hailed a taxi.

The taxi driver turned out to be a woman who couldn't speak a word of English, but was extremely sincere in wanting to help us. All we could muster was the sign language for food (hand in mouth) as we pointed to Jeju City on the map. We hoped that translated into Where food? We go! but it didn't work out as well as we thought.

The taxi driver drove us to her husband instead who actually owned the taxi. Don't ask me why she was the one driving it. Maybe it's got something to do with the iron lunged Jeju women being the breadwinner & all that. My first thought was that she was going to sell us to the Korean underground, but of course that didn't happen.

Anyway, as soon as the hubby got into the taxi with us, he tried Japanese. When that didn't work, he called someone who knew some half-past twelve English (whom we believed to be their son probably working in Seoul), but not enough to know what we wanted. At that point, I felt like getting off & telling them to forget the whole thing. I wouldn't know who else they'd be bringing us to & we really didn't want to involve more people & meet their relatives. We just wanted to be dropped off somewhere where there's food.

Then at the end, out of desperation, we simply pointed to some place on the map that seemed like a good stretch of coastal road which could have food. We stopped at Ramada Hotel for no particular reason other than that it had a recognisable English name which the taxi couple knew as well.

And when we got off what seemed to be the longest taxi ride ever, we saw the abalone porridge place & it was just across the road from Ramada Hotel.

Two things that you'd have to know about Korea. The shops do not have English signboards & the addresses suck.

This was Nee looking very tired. Even so, we were glad to have found this little authentic place.

As usual, the side dishes were compulsory & bottomless.

We noticed that Koreans liked to serve this cold cucumber soup with hot porridge. It has a vinegar-like sour edge to it.

The seafood kimchi soup came with a very generous portion of seafood with four number of abalones on top of other seafood.

Look at the size of the thing.

This was the abalone porridge that we had. It may not look as appetising but it was superbly excellent with slices of abalone fresh somemore.

This was definitely worth the wild goose chase for.

Wong Soon Khai Kampua

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:13:00 +0000

My father-in-law brought this kampua noodle back from Sibu over the weekend. He was raving about how fragrant it was, as soon as you open it up.

Now, upon seeing it for the very first time, it looked like any ordinary kampua. I even thought that it didn't deserve my DSLR so I used my Nikon Coolpix instead.

But this is no ordinary kampua. In fact, it's so special that people in Sibu has given it a name.

Are you ready?

They call it...

The Wong Soon Khai Kampua, for reasons unknown to me.

Maybe, if you take a good, close look at it, you'll be able to see Wong Soon Khai's apparition.

I didn't see it though. I wasn't paying attention cos I was gobbling it down.

Samgyeopsal

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:33:00 +0000

We have to admit it, we are belly pork lovers and like what Roger says, "You guys always eat good stuff". So it's getting pretty hard to lose weight like that.

Our favourite meal in Korea is the Jeju Island's Black Pigs. This seems to reaffirm our belief that black animals have tastier meat (eg. black skinned chickens). Pieces of pork shoulder meat and belly pork from black pigs are grilled on table top and cut into smaller pieces before eating, wrapped up in lettuce and spring onion. Heaven!

Interestingly in Korea, the meat are not paper thin, rather they are about slightly less than 1cm thick. We realised that with side dishes like Kimchi, daikon, spinach and many others, even though the main meal is meat, they are at least another five portions of vegetables, which makes it a pretty balanced meal.

I got my Samgyeopsal hotplate in Namdaemun market. Was debating whether I should get the Bulgogi one too, which was only 20,000 won (RM58) but did not dare to push it. The Samgyeopsal ones (45,000 won, about RM 130 each) were metal pieces of slanting plates that let the oil flow off the side into a smaller bowl while Bulgogi ones are dome shaped, reason being Bulgogi are marinated, so it is wet in the first place while samgyupsal is dry but oil will flow out later.

Why am I feeling a nagging sense of regret for not getting the Bulgogi ones too?

Here is my latest addition to the Nee's Kitchen family of arsenals.

Samgyeopsal are basically pieces of pork (bacon like raw strips but not cured or smoked like bacon) meal grilled on table top stove, dipped in sesame oil salt and pepper dip before wrapping in lettuce with chilli bean paste and spring onion salad (to our liking but optional). I found my pork strips at Butcher's Deli and Greg was smiling from ear to ear. Me too because i can imagine cooking becoming easier because he is going to grill his own meat. All I needed to do is prepare the salad, wash the lettuce and cook the rice.

We tried out my new toy when Roger was back for his holidays. His Royal Highness thinks he liked it, which was like an almighty compliment for his humble sister 'chef' or was that 'slave'?

Greg, well, he thinks it was as good as the ones we had in Korea.

For 3-4 person:

500 gm of sliced skinless pork belly, store bought which can be quite thin or you can slice it if you have good sharp knife when the piece is semi frozen.

Whole pieces of lettuce like romain, butterhead.

Gochujang, korea red chilli bean paste

Raw pieces of garlic sliced thinly lengthwise (optional)

Green chillis peppers (optional)

Sesame dip:

1 tbsp of salt

1 tbsp of cracked black pepper

2 tbsp of sesame oil

Scallion/Spring onion salad:

1 tbsp of soya sauce (korean)

1 1/2 tbsp of white vineger

1 tbsp of sesame oil

2 tbsp of water

1 teasp of korean red chilli flakes

1 tbsp of sugar
6-8 stalks of spring onion, cut thinly lengthwise

1) Toast salt and pepper in a pan over med to low fire. Add to sesame oil. Set aside.
2) Cut spring onion, especially the bottom half, into 2 inch length and slice into thin fine strips. Mix soya, sesame oil, sugar, vineger, water and chilli flakes. Add spring onion strips and mix well. Set aside.
3) Place pork strips on a pan over a table top gas stove. Grill on both sides till slight golden brown. If strips are too long, cut into half.

4) Dip in sesame dip.
5) Place on lettuce. Add garlic, spring onion salad and chilli bean paste. Wrap and eat with or without rice.

Jeju Rocks!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:39:00 +0000

Literally. Black, volcanic rocks to be exact.

Apparently the entire island was formed by volcanic eruptions 2 million years ago which makes it a very natural World Heritage Site.

Except that these rocks were piled up unnaturally by cheeky people, probably Korean honeymooners from the city who had nothing better to do.

Most travel guidebooks will tell you that Jeju is famous for 3 things:
1) The impossibly blue sea
2) The volcanic rocks
3) The volcanic women

We saw one. But it wasn't alive.

Jeju is famous for its tough women divers called haenyo (sea women). They have lungs of steel and are able to dive all year round, even in cold water without professional scuba gear. Not only that, traditionally they are mostly head of the family as they control the income. That suddenly made me feel really small, hanging out on an island like this.

Since we had the whole afternoon to kill, and since we over-ate, we thought we'd just take a nice bicycle ride around Pyoseon beach.

There wasn't really much to see there but it felt nice just to be there. Like the Zodiac statues that you can find in Sibu town, the Jeju council also built similar ones that lined the beach front, which meant only one thing - camwhoring opportunities.

By now, you should be able to guess who bullies who (whimper whimper).

The tide wasn't in, so there was more sand than sea. And those volcanic Jeju women again.

And volcanic Jeju lighthouses.

And volcanic Jeju rocks.

And more volcanic Jeju rocks.

Being in a place with nothing else but the purest of blue skies, blue sea, rocks & air as fresh as the day life began, it's easy to think of nothing but the person next to you.

In a place as basic as this, you are no longer rushing, no traffic jam, no deadlines, no stress, no work. It strips you down to bare necessity. It takes away all extraneous identities that we have built for ourselves in our busy lives & what's left is our true self, a human being. And being humans, being our true selves, we only need the air, the sky, the sea, good food, & of course a good partner & friends to be happy.

And on our very first day in Jeju, we finally understood why this place was the most romantic in all of South Korea.

Day 2: The First Meal in Jeju

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:52:00 +0000

Ok. We're getting back to our Jeju postings...

A 5-star hotel like Haevichi has the tendency to make you want to lie in bed all day, watch TV, sleep & do nothing, just like farm animals. The only other time we felt the same was when we were on the Star Cruise. However, this time around we were not on a ship. So there was no excuse to stay in bed. After all, we were pure blooded Malaysian tourists. We squeeze out as much as we can from our trips.

Jeju and to be more precise, Haevichi Hotel and Resort is located near Pyoseong Beach. This is a very extremely nice place. However, public transportation is a pain. Don't bet on getting around on the bus. We hardly saw any. So we rented bicycles at the hotel for 5,000 won (RM15) each & that's good for up to 3 hours. However, the hotel staff was nice enough to let us use them for longer since there were nobody else around.

We cycled to this little pier which was just about 2 minutes from the hotel. We could have walked you know. But we didn't know it at that time. But anyway, we thought it'd be romantic.

This is Jeju sky & Jeju water. They're all blue.

And then we saw this restaurant which was just next to a police station. Now, that felt like a pretty safe place to be, so we parked our bikes outside & went in.

We were taken upstairs where there was a panaromic window that stretched from the left to the right, giving us a wonderful view of the sea & the pier outside. As it was late into the afternoon, the restaurant was empty, except for the both of us. That's a tip. To avoid crowds in restaurants, go at the wierdest hours.

This was to be our first actual meal on Jeju island. We didn't really know what to expect cos the hotel staff couldn't tell us much about where to go. He just said everywhere is OK & that a seafood meal cost around 100,000 won (RM290) on average. We were wincing hard & at that point, we seriously thought we would be bankrupt at the end of the five days. But we had a secret weapon - credit card.

The restaurant waitress didn't speak English. So we used a combination of sign language, charades, theatrical facial expressions & mime. We found a few English words on the menu that we understood like assorted seafood for 81,000 won (RM240). We thought we could order a seafood set platter for two plus another separate soup ala carte but the waiter was pretty insistant that we don't do the soup cos the set was SPECIAL. So after a few pointing actions, we thought we understood what she meant, that the soup was already included in the seafood set cos it was SPECIAL.

Here you go. The meal started with a variety of side dishes:

The set came with side dishes of all things that you can find inside a fish, and everything else outside of the fish.

Then came 2 different kinds of salad (raw fish salad and the plain soya salad) plus carrot & seaweed side dishes.

Then there was surprise - yummy clam porridge & seaweed soup.

At this point, we could have walked out & it would have been pretty ok to last us till dinner. But then the real thing came out. And every time the food came up the elevator shaft from the kitchen downstairs, there was a doorbell-like ring DING DONG. When we saw this, we were like "Oh... so this IS the assorted seafood. Right".

This was like the clam/shells set. We practically didn't know what we were eating but it was quite exciting. And as we were eating, our minds kept racing ahead & wondering if this was the main dish. We wouldn't know cos there was no point asking the waitress.

When the next DING DONG came, both of us stared at each other. You mean there's more? This looked pretty much like the actual main course, a kind of white fish and this was a huge plate of sashimi.

Then the DING DONG went off again and both of us just did not want to make guesses anymore. This super delicious grilled abalone dropped onto the table.

And even more fish, grilled this time.

At that point, Nee & I were both giggling silly. This has got to be the longest meal ever. We were beginning to dread the DING DONG. And it came again, DING DONG and with it came more stuff, which wasn't really necessary, but they looked so good.

Grilled corns

Do you know what it's like to be full? I think you do. It means there's no room for anything else. It means every single gaps that were there in between the food that has already gone down in your stomach has been filled up. It means that there's no room even for air.

And the train of food kept coming. I was beginning to be worried if they actually keep charging us for every dish that comes to the table until we tell them to stop.

Tempura

So I held up my little finger to the waitress & asked her if this is the last. She nodded her head & we thought we were safe.

Some kind of fried rice

But she LIED to us cos the mother of all DING DONGS came after that. It was the super duper fish soup in a bowl that was bigger than the size of both our faces put together (we measured). And there was a whole fish inside.

Images of grandma & all the other grand aunties that kept shoving food onto our plates came flashing by. I think Koreans have stomachs even up their backs. No wonder it costs RM240.

Super Duper World Saving Enzymes

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:55:00 +0000

Okie Gals and Guys. You guessed it right. This is the enzyme thingy that EVERYONE BUT ME seems to already know about. Very upsetting. How can I not know?!

Anyway, this thing is brilliant for the following reasons:

1) Environmentally, we are playing our part in cutting down rubbish. Recyling is good. I wonder if the trees TPK cut down for the Jalan Song (read about it on Kenny Sia's post here) can be used in the same way. I am still very very upset to see those beautiful trees gone. I told Greg I wanted to do a case study of it under UN-SUSTAINABLE construction and climate change and write a paper on it and present it somewhere. My hubby had to restrain me, reminding me that I will likely be sacked if that were to happen, and of course I will remain a peanut in my department for the rest of my life if I do so. Bloody dirty politics. So bear with me. I am just venting my anger, disappointment and displeasure over the whole thing on my OWN blog.

2) Sorry, back to enzymes. This thing is quite amazingly useful. I got a whole bottle of it from a friend. Hers is the pineapple ones. I am still not used to using that on its own. So I dropped a few drops and a cap or two into my dish detergent and floor detergent and reduced both the detergent by the equal amount. Hey, the results have been really good. My floor is seriously squeeky clean, not just borderline clean. My stainless steel top and sink are now really free from my constant baking butter, cream and chocolate. And it does give a hint of fruit fragrance after use. It's upposedly really good for timber doors, window frames and window panes.

I don't know how mine will turn up. So far so good. But you can have the recipe first cause my final results will only comes in three months. Will let you know how mine turns up. Probably everyone already know this but here it goes:

10 litre of water
1 kg of brown sugar
5 kg of any fruit skins and left over*

1) Stir water and sugar till they dissolve in a plastic container that come with a lid. Add in fruit skins. Stir and close the lid. Leave it under the shade in a cool place.

2) For the next seven days, open lid to stir and release the gas.

3) After the 7th day, leave it for 3 months to ferment and decompose. Strain the final product & you'll have the enzyme. The leftover can be used as compost apparently.

* I was told any fruits skin would do. Mine has lots of pineapple skins and the shaved off eye bits. I threw in lemon, orange and passionfruit skins. I think more acidic fruits smell better. You can also try apples, kiwis, peaches as well. But only if you so happen to have them.

Pineapple skins are available in abundance in wet markets but the traders are getting smarter. Cause demand is up due to this enzyme thingy, they are selling their pineapple skins instead of giving them away. The lady gave me her whole 8 kg for RM 4. Heard some vendors even go up to RM1/kg. Not exactly cheap for 'rubbish' but not exactly expensive if I thought about reducing the dumping on this poor overloaded earth.

Nee's Latest Mystery Concoction

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:02:00 +0000

It's always hard to keep up with what Nee is up to. If you've been following us since the early days, you'd remember THE URN.

Well, this is the latest in-thing with housewives in Kuching. Almost everyone is doing it. And of course, Nee can't help it but to join the race of super housewives.

If you're caught in this craze, you'd already know what this is. If you haven't, take a guess.

Homemade Steamboat Meal

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:03:00 +0000

We thought we'd take a break tonite from posting our travel entries, which seem to be unending, and talk about hardcore food. I have always wanted to blog about steamboat at home but most of the time I don't quite remember the exact ingredients I threw in.

With His Royal Highness Sharp Tongue Roger at home from Melbourne, we had a session at my place tonite with family. The special thing about steamboat is when you can have everyone sitting around, talking near yelling level, while dumping in whatever you want to eat. Homemade steamboat is devoid of salt and msg. And it always feels cleaner and less fattening than the typical lard-loaded Chinese meal cos it uses lots of fresh raw ingredients of the best quality. I LOVE steamboat.

Anyone who has steamboat before would understand that a good steamboat session is about 2 things:
1)Freshness of ingredients
2) Quality of the stock

This recipe for stock is my own secret concoction, which sides towards a clear chicken herbal mix but it turned up slightly dark this time, probably too much longan meat and red dates. Usually it is clearer. That is what I meant by i always forget exactly what I put in the last time.

Feeds 8-10 people:

For the stock:

8 -10 litre of water
1 small chicken
4-5 no of chicken bones, better to parboil them to rid smell and blood if any
2-3 no of pork big bones , better to parboil them to rid smell and blood if any

Chinese ham (Jin Hua Hou Tui)

Some dried scallops

1-2 no of medium mengkuang

For the following herbs, please refer to the picture above for rough estimation of quantity:
Red dates (not too much, otherwise the stock will be a little sweet)
Thornberry (Gou zhi)
Solomon's seal (yu zhu)
Yam Root (huai san)
Dried longan meat (cut down by half, otherwise the stock will be on the sweet side)
Mit Zhoa (honey date)
Dang shen
Ginseng slices

pine nuts
2 stalks of leeks

1 no of garlic bulb

Some chinese peppercorn (Hua Jiao) (Optional)

1) Boil water in the big pot. Add ingredients and bring to a boil. Simmer for at least 6 hours. I normally cook the night before and continue simmering for about 6 hours before serving.

2) Sift before using.

Raw ingredients to be cooked:

The balls series ~ Fish, prawn, pork and beef are our favourite. Always do your own fish balls and prawn balls. Nothing beats it.

But if you are tight with time, finding a good supplier will have to do.

Our must have also. It's called the sandwich, available in most wet market.

Our favourite is this fish cake called Sweet Not Spicy which Joyce brought from Melbourne. Locally this is close but still not as good.

The yong tofu series, which is really good homemade.

The noodles series: If I am really hardworking, I will make my own noodles.

But vermicelli is usually a must. The photo shows the buckwheat noodle from Korea.

The sliced beef, lamb and port shabu-shabu style. These never fail. Without them, steamboat is just not good enough. They need to be pre-ordered at Choice and Butcher's Deli.

Seafood series like mussels, oysters, fresh fish slices and huge prawns.

The mushroom series ~ oyste mushrooms, abalone mushrooms, needle mushroom, black fungus

The seaweeds and beancurd sticks and tofu.

The vegies series ~ QQ chai, chinese wombok, sweet corn.

The sauce ~ my favourite is soya with cut chillis and the chilli garlic sauce. Greg's favourite egg with some Taiwanese sauce Al introduced him called Sha Cha Jiang which is available at Ta Kiong.

Once everything is clean and washed, get ready the carbonated drinks and beer and we are all ready to swish-swash. Everyone cooks their own favourite food while the conversation get louder and louder and at the end of it, everyone falls flat on the floor, rubbing their tummies. To us, with good company, it is a meal that never fails.

But please be very careful with quantity. I am really bad that. I always have a bad habit of going overboard. A little of this, a little of that and KABOOM! we have have a whole ten seater table full of food.

Day 2: The Arrival in Jeju Island

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:38:00 +0000

As much as we were excited about Jeju, leaving Seoul after one day felt like an unfinished business. We were both curious & at the same time a bit anxious about what Jeju could offer us. Our preconception of an island was a place with lots of sea water, lots of sand, lots of sky, lots of sun, & nothing else. What were we going to do for 5 days on a remote island? I looked at Nee, & she also looked back at me. It looked like there was going to be a lot of looking between the two of us for 5 days.

We arrived at Jeju airport at 11am & quickly proceeded to find our way to Haevichi Hotel. The first thing that we realised was that Haevichi was pronounced as HEYBITCHY. The second thing we found out was that there was a free shuttle bus to our hotel at Haevichi. The third was that the bus only leaves at 12.30pm. And since the guy at the information counter told us that it'd take only 15 mins to reach the hotel, we decided to take the cab.

The cab ride took 50 mins & it was more expensive than we thought it'd be. 40,000 won (RM120) & that really made us feel like two Malaysian suckers. Here's something that we'd like to share with you. We'll call them Things Which We Found Out Too Late:

TIP #1: Koreans always get their zeroes mixed up. 50 mins can become 15 mins. 50,000 can become 5,000. When you're there, always make sure to make it really clear when dealing with numbers.

TIP#2: When you come out of Jeju airport, there would be two taxi lanes. DO NOT take the one on the left as its for foreigners who get charged more, unless you think you're a Malaysian, & you know better, Malaysia Boleh & all that. Like us. We got suckered.

But despite all that, we were glad that we got to Haevichi early & in one piece. Haevichi turned out to be a big 5-Star hotel which could do some serious damage.

Do you see the stars yet? All 5 of them?

The place was quite empty cos we arrived in the middle of the week. But even when people started to come in during the weekends, the crowd was small. I guess it's still a relatively new hotel.We found out that the normal rates here was like RM1000 per night. Yup. My mouth opened like a capital 'O' & I almost wet my pants. But we knew we were lucky. Because they had a special promotion, we had gotten the rooms earlier for only about RM390 per night.

The room made both of us felt like we could live there indefinitely, so long as someone else's paying the bills for us.

The bathroom was separated from the bedroom by a 3-piece frosted sliding glass door (not in picture). It's just the perfect kinky thing for those young honeymooners.

Then Nee finally hit the jackpot. She has found her Golden Toilet for her Royal Golden Arse.

This is the Royal Arse Washer to Nee's delight.

Our room was just next to the Jeju Folk Village which emitted recorded folk songs intermittently. But fortunately, they were more atmospheric rather than a disturbance of peace. We were so deeply immersed in Korean folk songs for 5 days that Nee was able to sing it in her sleep.

Day 2: Hoedeobbap at Gimpo Airport

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:22:00 +0000

We woke up early on day 2 cos we were excited to get to the airport. Our flight to Jeju island (yes, the official honeymoon island for Koreans) was at about 10am. We took a free bus shuttle from Gimpo Hotel Airport to Gimpo Airport, which only took 2 of us & nobody else, & we got there in about 5 minutes.

We have booked our flights earlier online with Asiana Airlines, which turned out unknowingly to us to be the best airline of the year or something like that. So that was fine & dandy. A return flight to Jeju from Seoul costs about RM520 per person & it take about an hour with one complimentary drink. :) It was a very comfy flight cos the seats were definitely larger than Malaysia airlines. The plane was very clean, so were the flight attendants' skin & uniforms. Reminder to self: remember to buy the Korean beauty face masks.

Now, the real reason why we wanted to be at the aiport earlier was because we knew they won't be serving food on the plane. So the plan was to have a good Korean breakfast at Gimpo Airport after we checked in.

We found a restaurant which had quite a number of customers and naturally that's where we went. Our mantra has always been something like if you're stupid, just do what everyone else does, & you probably won't go wrong.

The restaurant felt like a food chain cos you'd have to pay first at the counter & they'd give you a number to collect the food yourself.

We were more cautious that morning cos we didn't want to overeat before a plane ride, so we ordered just one Hoedeobbap meal to share. It was like Bibimbap except that it was rice mixed with fresh glorious sushi topped with salad trimings & an alien special sauce.

When it went into our mouths, our first thought was why haven't we come across this before, why didn't we know it even existed before, & why haven't we thought of making this ourselves before? It was such a simple & ingeneous idea.

But of course, there was the missing ingredient - the alien sauce. But of course again, do you think Greg & Nee will let that slip away from them?

We hunted it down at Namdaemun when we got back to Seoul again. It's called the Hoedeobbap sauce for a lack of its own special name. But it's actually vinegared red pepper paste. Don't ask us what else is inside it. We'll have to start talking to our Korean friends.

Day 1: Samgupsal (BBQ Pork) Dinner at Namdaemun

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:03:00 +0000

Namdaemun market is not unlike our Petaling Street or Hong Kong Women's market or even Temple Street. It becomes even more livelier after 5pm when vendors push their carts in a single file to setup shop right in the middle of the street.

It's quite a sight to behold when you see a long line of them quietly entering at the same time without any grand announcement.

Just like the markets at home, you can also find practically anything & everything here. However, Namdaemun is a market of a grander scale. With 6 entrance gates, it's definitely more extensive than the rest.

From the map it looks pretty oragnised, but in reality, when you're down there in the streets, rubbing shoulders with the crowd, & getting tai-chi'd by the aunties, it's pretty easy to lose your direction. But the good thing about tourist places in Seoul is that there will always be a few information booths around with helpful English speaking staff & lots of maps.

We spent the later half the afternoon surveying the site, marking down our targets - Korean souvenirs, Korean ginseng & Korean kitchen utensils. And as evening arrives, our priorities changed to food.

Again, unlike the time when we were in Hong Kong, we didn't have any particular food guide with us this time. So when that happens, it was more like 1) deciding WHAT to eat, 2) look for a place with that SOMETHING that we'd want, 3) surveying which stall had more customers & 4) scrutinising the menu & prices.

This place was located at an alley on the right as you're walking from Namdaemun Gate 6. There were a few BBQ shops here but of course we ended up at the one which seemed to have more customers. But actually we realised later that all of them were full.

The tables here were from a makeshift oil barrel, with a flat circular piece wielded onto the top. They had holes in the middle for the pots (which carries the charcoal) with the bulgogi plates sitting on top.

See hole? No hole! Sheer ingenuity.

And as with any Korean meal, it came with many side dishes, refillable & bottomless.

However we haven't tried pushing the limit before & do not intend to. If you really like something, you can afely ask for more.

This was the Chinese lady who served us. At 9,000 won per person (minimum set), we had BBQ pork wrapped in fresh lettuce leaves & finished up with a bowl of complimentary seafood soup.

The bill for everything came out to be 19,000 won (RM55). Absolutely satisfying!

Day 1: Getting to Know Seoul

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:24:00 +0000

It takes a while to get to know a city. You've got to in the heart of it, doing what the locals do, travel the way they travel, & eating what they eat. I was also going to add and speak the language that they speak but that was quite an impossible task for us. Besides, we found out that there was another option for us - Mandarin!

No. 1 : The Subway

Seoul is so well covered with the subway system & that has got to be the best way to travel. No traffic, no jam. subway maps & names of places are in 3 languages: Korean, Mandarin & English. Wait, that is not the best part. The best part is that they're cheap. Most of our trips cost us about 1000 won (RM3).

Tickets can be purchased at vending machines in English.

Every ticket that you buy has an additional 500 won (RM1.50) added to it. Upon arival at your destination, you can return the ticket in another machine to get your 500 won back.

We were looking for something like an Octopus or an Oyster card but the closest thing to that was only the T-money card, which was the furthest from those.

The T-money is quite useless if you're there for only a few days like us. You see, you need to pay 2500 won (non-refundable) for he card, & then, you need to add in money for the trips. The 2500 won is just for buying the card. You'd get about 10% off every trip that you make, but to get your money's worth, you'd probably need to travel like 25 times.

No. 2: The People

We had a theory. We observed that we could actually draw a generational line at 45 years old. Anybody above that age would seem to be aloof & pushy (as in physically).

1. Don't be surprised if an auntie suddenly pushes you aside at the counter, with a sweeping motion of her arm, even though the cashier has not given you back your change yet.

2. Don't be surprised when you get pushed aside when you're in the middle of flipping through some bargains. They will slide in from behind or the side.

3. Don't be surprised if they squeeze thenselves through your armpits as you're stuffing your bags into the airplane luggage cabin overhead just before you take a seat.

4. Don't be surprised if an arm or a knee or a foot accidentally hits you, & you turn around to see a stone-cold face, & they just walk past you like you don't exist.

This is Korea. And after a couple of days, we really got used to it. In fact, we started doing what they did. And it felt good. And nobody complained. It's strange I know, but it's acceptable.

Other than that, everyone was generally friendly & helpful. Most of the older ones do not speak English. The younger ones probably does. However, I would say you'd have a better chance with either Japanese or Mandarin with the older folks.

No. 3: The Road Signs
They almost do not exist. Major streets have signages but most smaller lanes do not. In general, knowing the landmarks would be much more practical.

And with that, we were finally in Seoul!

Day 1: Korean Traditional Porridge at Myeongdong

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:26:00 +0000

Ok, it's about time we post about Korean food.

After one whole morning of catching up with sleep at Gimpo Hotel Airport, we were fully charged to 5 bars, revving to go, with our stomachs at empty tank, & our mouths wide open. This is our very first real day in Seoul. FEED US!

We weren't really sure which were the good restaurants but we knew that there were supposed to be lots of food in Myeongdong. And we felt like porridge, sort of like to cleanse off the constipated airline food in our system.

In the maze-like confusion of Myeongdong street, we actually had to circle a few rounds before spotting the porridge word in Mandarin, right above our heads. If you're coming out of Myeongdong subway, you'll be at the main road. The restaurant is at the first inner street, parallel with the main road (see how confusing it is?) If all fails, just look for UNIQLO. The porridge is just opposite from there.

If you can read the name of the place, tell us - it's inverted in the photos.

You'd need to walk up the stairs to this nice little cosy restaurant that serves all sorts of Korean porridge - abalone, chicken ginseng, red bean, beef & pine nut. Compared to that, we Malaysians only know 2 types - Teochew style (porridge with separated rice & water) & Hong Kong Cantonese style (really sticky, almost like puree). This is the porridge of the third kind.

Korean style - very sticky but with the grains still whole. Extremely different texture. Extremely nice. There's something about Korean short, stubby & fat rice grain.

For 2 hungry travellers, this has got to be the most refrshing meal ever. The porridge came out piping hot with the Korean side dishes. Porridge with Kimchi, now that's an idea!

And we found out later that Korean's unsually serve cold soup with hot porridge. It's sort of like a pair that goes together in cooling the body down.

We ordered the Abalone porridge. Abalone pieces small as compared to the Jeju ones but that is another story. Still yum nonetheless!

Chicken and ginseng porridge. Korean eating ginseng is part of their meals unlike Chinese which treat it like a rejuvenating herbal 'medicine'.

The whole thing cost us 18,000 won (RM50) which was pretty normal for a standard Korean restaurant meal.

Gimpo Hotel Airport

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:11:00 +0000

We touched down for the very first time on Korean land at Incheon International Airport on May 25 6.30am (that's for our record). We were flying the whole night & you know that as much as you try to sleep on the plane, it doesn't really work. The old MAS Airbus 330 didn't have the adjustable head rest (although the seats were reclining) so our heads kept bobbing forward everytime we started to fall asleep. So we knew we needed a night of good rest before we flew down to Jeju.

The thing was this. Incheon was about 1 hour or so away from Seoul. The flight to Jeju was from another airport (Gimpo) which was 40 minutes away from Incheon. So the game plan was to rest for a night somewhere in between Gimpo & Seoul so that we needn't rush back & forth from Seoul city centre. And that in-between hotel was Gimpo Hotel Airport. And it was just a mere 5 minutes away from Gimpo airport which meant that we could just wake up, pack up & go.

We read from somewhere the hotel could actually pick you up from the airport if you ring them up but that sounded too complicated for us so we decided take an airport bus. And it was cheap. we paid only 5,000 won per person. That's like RM15 for a 40-minute ride. Despite the fact that the bus driver didn't speaking the England, he was kind enough to let us off quickly when we realised that we missed Seojong Station.

This is Gimpo Hotel Airport.

It wasn't really a hotel that everyone was raving about. We found it on the internet & the reviews were pretty much okay with certain things still left to be desired. However, its close proximity (5 mins drive) to Gimpo Airport is extremely convenient, & the nearest Seojong Metro Station is just almost at its doorsteps & that could take you all the way to Seoul city centre in 30 mins.

The room looked like this, a bit old but averagely clean.

The fan is there for a reason cos the air-conditioning moves like an old man. If you put your fingers near the ventilation, you'd be lucky to feel a faint, slight movement of air. Of course it didn't help to complain cos all rooms were the same & we didn't want to go thru the complexities of language with the hotel staff.

The bathroom was clean & it had what it's supposed to have for you to wash & to let go.

All the basic amenities were there including the hair dryer, although my favourite auto wash toilet funtion wasn't there.

Emergency flashlight in case of power failures.

Emergency ropes for climbing down the building in case of fire. I am not kidding.

I guess that's what you probably need to have when all the rooms are smoking rooms.

This was really in a more suburb Seoul where you could see school children walking alone, people sitting outside their shops minding their own business.

The hotel staff spoke some English but not fantastic enough to completely understand one another. The rate was about 80,000 won (RM240) BUT it apparently did not have any non-smoking rooms & the room was slightly old & dark in their decor. It's basically clean but it was just too smoky for non-smokers like us. But they gave us an air purifier when we requested for one, & that really helped a lot!

So yes, we'd recommend this hotel if you'd need the convenience & the free shuttle service to Gimpo airport. Otherwise, there would certainly be better hotels in Seoul.

And so we slept the whole morning, woke up around noon, & were on the go.

Greg & Nee Back from Seoul

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:17:00 +0000

GREG: Hi everyone! We're back! (Actually we were back on Wed midnite after a whole day of flying. That's a long story which we will keep for later) We've just downloaded about 1400 pics onto our laptop. Lots of editing work to do...

South Korea has always been one of the few places that I've been wanting to go (only second to Japan) especially now with all the Korean Wave & all that. I'm not much into the Korean craze but I've always been interested in pop culture.

Our trip wasn't really a well planned one as we didn't really have the time to do that. We got what we thought were the appropriate travel guide books & we pinned down the hotels early. However, much of the transportation & itenary were left till the very day before we flew & dealt with on the plane.

We had our concerns about language difficulties but everything went smoothly throughout & the only thing that was a bit uncomfortable in Seoul was a couple of days of hot weather, & the less than impressive antique MAS Airbus 330 without the individual entertainment console.

NEE: Also please note that nowadays, MAS has the habit of changing people's flight times due to flight consolidation & low passenger load. So always check before you are due to fly. It happened to us twice already; once on the trip to Melb & now to Seoul.

Will write more this weekend! Thanks for staying with us even though we virtually disappeared for the last 10 days. Ye shall be rewarded soon.

Greg & Nee in Seoul

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Hi! We're finally back in Seoul after about 4 days in romantic Jeju island. That was 4 days of nature, sea, cycling, women divers, black pig pork BBQ, lots of Jeju folk culture, hiking & lots of zinc intake from all that seafood.

Seoul is all hustle & bustle. We're located just next, like really next, like a spit away from Myeongdong area, where the shopping & food stalls are. Wait a minute. Actually, we ARE staying IN Myeondong!

We've been binging, and for the ake of our readers, we are taking an oath to eat more. Keep on reading! :)

Greg & Nee in Winter Sonata

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Wee) — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:17:00 +0000

I know it's the cheesiest Photoshop job ever executed on the face of the internet, but it's just something quick & cheap to keep you entertained while we're away.