The Hweh Club

Last night, Carolyn, Lane, Mandi, Victoria and I started a new tradition:  The Hweh Club.

Hweh (회) is the Korean word for raw fish.  (Actually, "회" is often given the romanized transliteration hoe, but we didn't want our club to be confused with any already existing clubs for garden tool afficianados.)  

The Hweh Club goal: to meet once a month at a local fish market to sample a different kind of seafood.  And what better a place to meet than the Noryangjin Seafood Market (노량진수산시장).

Located in central Seoul, the immense Noryangjin Seafood Market is one of the best places to find some of the world's tastiest and most bizarre-looking sea creatures.  

However, about 6 months ago we posted loads of creepy critter pictures from our trip to Busan and the Jagalchi Market, so I'm going to focus this entry more on our shopping and dining experience and less on things like undulating spoon worms that resemble uncircumcised phalluses.  (But if you're into that kind of thing - spoon worms, that is - click here for something awesome.)

First, we spent about an hour walking around the market, comparing prices.  It's a big place:

We didn't really know what we wanted, but we definitely wanted to try something other than the familiar tuna or salmon.  We ended up making our selection based on some very high-brow criteria: the little guy looked pretty cute in the tank and was reasonably priced.  

The fish we we finally settled on was a tomi (도미), which is "bream" in English (at least that's what The Google tells me).  Tomi weighed in at a meager but affordable 1.7 kilos, a little under 4 pounds:


Then we watched as Tomi, his tail still thrashing, was expertly filleted before our eyes:


Little Tomi's finer parts were nicely displayed on a bed of uncooked cellophane noodles and his unsightly remains were handed to us in a plastic bag, a gesture we thought - at the time - a little unnecessary.  But we accepted the bag with a pleasant smile, purchased 2 kilos of mussels to contribute to the meal, and headed down to the basement to the Sansu Restaurant.

Like most fish market restaurants in Korea, Sansu doesn't offer any seafood on their menu.  Really!  All they offer is side dishes and beverages.  But when you walk in, you simply hand them your purchase from upstairs, and they'll prepare whatever you bring, for a reasonable per-head fee.  

So, before we knew it, the waitress had hurried off with our mussels and the bag of fish remains, leaving us to dig in to our hweh.

Carolyn seemed just as eager to crack into that bottle of soju:

When the waitress returned, we were treated to some of the best - and certainly the freshest - seafood I've ever eaten.  The fish carcass had been stewed into a spicy soup called maeuntang (매운탕) which was absolutely fantastic, and the mussels had been steamed with onion, garlic, and greens.  Delicious!

A fabulous first outing for The Hweh Club.  Stay tuned for more!

Hikin' in a Winter Wonderland

Last weekend, Victoria and I took a lovely winter-weather hike with a few friends:

L to R: Eric, Carolyn, Rob, Me, Victoria, Jo, & Jenna

It comes in vending machines now?

And apparently it's for men, too!

Thanksgiving in Seoul

There is nothing like big fowl to cure all of life's woes.

Hung over? Have some fried chicken. Sick? Slurp up some chicken noodle soup. On a diet? Take turkey on wheat. Homesick? Find a turkey for Thanksgiving.

It was in this spirit that we celebrated turkey day last week. I've been a wee bit homesick, and our Thanksgiving cured it. We had eight guests who generously cushioned our main course with wine, appetizers and desserts (the most exotic of which was a sweet potato-coconut pudding, a la Carolyn). The food turned out wonderful, despite a cooking technique on the turkey that was a little on the nontraditional side.

It's not the first time we've had Thanksgiving in a foreign country.

Back in Kyrgyzstan, I got to pluck tail feathers. Let me tell you what, that is special. But our second year there, when we celebrated Thanksgiving at my friend Matt's house, he took it to a whole new level. When we arrived, he told us he couldn't wait to show us how delicious the turkeys looked. He led us around the to back of the house, and then out to his turkey pen. In the turkey pen were three fluffy turkeys strutting around and -- here's the clincher -- making eye contact with us. Well, let's just say it's not exactly what we were expecting, but they did taste amazing.

This year, I didn't see anything close to a live turkey. They don't have live turkeys in Korea. My turkey was raised, killed, frozen, and shipped in the U.S., and delivered to a Costco here in Seoul.

I only have a tiny oven, so after thawing our 17-pound bird, we had to take it to the market and try -- in broken Korean -- to tell the butcher what to do with it. The woman next to me at the shop thought it was a monstrous chicken. I have no idea what I ended up sputtering out, but the turkey was promptly buzz-sawed in half. One half ended up deboned, and the other ended up just barely fitting in my mini oven. Here we are (with our friend, Jo) gesturing wildly:The end result. Sitting sideways in the pan, the half-a-turkey looked a little surreal:

But it turned out great, aside from taking five hours to cook. It was a delicious meal, minus a little incident involving me, a drumstick, and the kitchen floor (hey, everyone insisted "ground" turkey was okay!)

The best part of this Thanksgiving is that Carolyn, Mandi and Lane were all here with us to celebrate.

The next day, Mandi, Carolyn, and I went on a girl hike (girl power, that is) in the rain and snow, and had a blast.

Seoraksan in Autumn

We took an awesome trip to Seoraksan National Park, and hiked for 4.5 hours straight uphill to the peak, and then took a 7-hour scenic route down, all in one day. We were sore for the better part of the following week, but it was well worth it. So beautiful!

For some pics of the trip, push play, sit back, and enjoy. You can also turn on the captions by clicking the little speech bubble in the bottom left corner.

Fire! (Drill)

Anyway, one lovely morning in October, I was supposed to meet a student who needed to interview a foreigner for her international business class. We planned to meet at a little coffee shop in one of the SNU campus buildings. However, when I got near the building, this is what I saw:

At first I was concerned, but then I saw all of the Fire Officials monitoring the situation:

The Seoul Fire Department was simply conducting training, albeit a very public one. The show was a grand spectacle, featuring fake yellow smoke, rappelling rescuers, zipline escapes, and a window-washing from every fire hose available:



The fact that the Fire Department had a PA speaker system set up and were running play-by-play of the whole event makes me suspect that this was more of a PR stunt than an actual training:

(If any Korean speakers are interested in translating or summarizing what is being said in the video, I'd be curious to know. Feel free to post a comment.)

Newest Member of the Family

Meet the "Countess."

After several weeks of debating (and waiting for a faulty pick-up to be replaced), I have adopted a lovely mandolin made by a Korean instrument company called "Countess." It has been at least a decade since I've owned my own mandolin, and I'm really excited to start pickin' again.

I purchased it at the famous Nagwon Musical Instrument Arcade in Insadong, a neighborhood of Seoul famous for its tea shops, antique shops, art galleries, and yummy Korean restaurants.

Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera with me, which is a real shame because the Nagwon Musical Instrument Arcade is a veritable smorgasbord of sights and sounds. It is rumored to be the largest instrument market in all of Asia, and with its two sprawling stories of vendors' shops selling every instrument imaginable, I think it might very well be true.

I could easily drop a year's pay in this place before even making it past the first aisle.

Anyway, if you want to get a sense for what the arcade feels like check out this brief video tour or click here to see some lovely sketches of the market created by Korean artist, Lee Yong-Hwan.