Street Food #1 - Taipei

Looks like a burrito, right? Except that's a huge pile of peanut brittle shavings (note the huge block on the right), topped off with pineapple ice cream and chopped cilantro.
It was amazing.

요리 자랑

Thanks to finals and just life kicking me in the 엉덩이 I've been shamefully neglecting this blog. Not that it really affects anybody since my only readers are my parents and they know I'm still alive. But the other day my mother mentioned she actually ENJOYS reading this so now I'll make an effort to keep up. Plus...no more school, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks!

Oh boy, could I write a novel about my last teacher. I've put off looking up my final grade because in order to do so, you have to fill out an evaluation. Knowing this process might take me a couple hours, I've been procrastinating.

Anyways, I'm trying to clean out my fridge. Also, economize. Here's what I made for dinner:

Mmm, 바지락 된장 찌개. How can I afford clams?? Well, thanks to Michael, I now know of a delightful store called Market 999. And a nice bag of fresh clams is only 990 won. I think a real Korean would knock off points for the fact that there is no onion or zucchini in here, but all I really need are some mushrooms, tofu, and hot peppers. I may even like it better than (gasp!) my Spam version.

The other day I went to the market and saw this:

Besides selling vegetables and jogging pants, there are rows and rows of people selling tasty things to eat. Here the woman is making huge mung bean pancakes. Behind her is a stone grinder used to grind the mung beans. The smell was just too tempting so I had to buy one to take home. $3.50 gets you a pancake bigger than your head and a little bag of onion-vinegar-soy dipping sauce. I'm not sure how I managed to restrain myself the entire subway ride. I felt sorry for my fellow passengers every time the lovely fried-pancake aroma wafted out of my bag.
I could barely finish half:

It was pretty good, but my Minnesota grandma's mung bean pancakes are still the best.

Street Food #6

Up the street towards Ehwa University there's a tiny waffle stand that always seems to have an unreasonably long line in front, despite freak snowstorms (just this past Monday!) or rain. On my nightly walk I decided to see what all the fuss was about. If I kept count of all the street snacks I've seen people walking around with I'm pretty sure waffles are in the top three. So far I've been pretty disappointed with every waffle I've tried (although honestly, I've only tried maybe two in all my trips to Korea combined) but this one was different. First, it was actually cooked until it was crunchy. Second, the cream inside was freshly whipped and not "flavored" with some awful food coloring meant to represent green tea. It was called "yogurt cream" but somehow managed to be really light and fluffy while retaining proper yogurt tanginess. Not sure how they pulled that off. Best of all, it was only 88 cents.

Pancakes!

So tonight for dinner I made this:

It's supposed to be 김치전, a korean kimchi pancake, but since korean baking powder seems to be especially hyperactive, it looked more like an american pancake with kimchi inside. It was very easy to make:

That's flour, milk, agave nectar, kimchi, kimchi juice, an egg, water, and some baking powder. Here you can buy a flour mix specifically designed for making these kinds of things but I already had the regular flour.
You should always make a "nibble" pancake to see if your batter is properly seasoned. Also because your first pancake usually turns out funny-looking. I learned that from Liv:

The real reason this was my dinner is because I'm trying to use up the kimchi my aunt gave me:

I swear, after two months I barely made a dent in this thing. Plus I had to stop my aunt from giving me more. She was convinced I would run out in a week. I didn't have the heart to tell her she gave me more kimchi than I usually eat in a year.

Also, last weekend I made real pancakes, and I've had pancake-brain ever since. (Yes, that's a real ailment. Look it up.)

Apparently if you live in a country that considers December a summer month you would call these "pikelets"...
효천 brought tapioca balls and milk tea mix from Taiwan and made us bubble tea. After eating we spent the afternoon discussing politics and the economy:

Yup, serious topics. In no way did we engage in any behavior that might be illegal if performed out in public or talk about subjects unsuitable for children under 16.

Yonsei on Fire

Walking home from lunch (maybe around 2:45-ish?) we saw a whole bunch of people and perhaps 서대문구's entire fire-fighting unit crowded around a building near Yonsei's main gate:

By the smell of it, something chemical-ish was burning. Also, this poor man was hanging out the window:

When we first saw him he was so still we wondered if he had passed out. Luckily he was just trying to avoid inhaling too much smoke. He was rescued shortly:

According to YTN (the first time I could read a news article in Korean without wanting to pull my hair out, whee!) the fire started in a semiconductor lab at around 8:30 am. I sincerely hope that poor man wasn't hanging out the window for 6 hours...
The damage looks quite bad, but seeing as this is Korea, I wouldn't be surprised if the lab is up and running by Friday.


It was merely two weeks ago that Seoul had a "heat wave" and I was running at the track wearing short sleeves in 65 degree weather. This morning I walked outside and saw this:

The campus was beautiful today: