Boseong - Le bout du monde Partie 2

La Corée du Sud, c'est le bout du monde.

Boseong, c'est le bout du monde, pour la Corée du Sud. En tout cas, c'est loin en titi quand on décide d'y aller en voiture lors du troisième congé férié le plus occupé de l'année. On a eu des plans, des plans annulés, des plans, des plans annulés... plus de trois fois. 

Le bonheur de la stabilité.

Je voulais aller sur l'île de Jeju pendant le weekend, mais ça a l'air que j'ai eu cette brillante idée en même temps que 2 milliards d'autres personnes. Le fait est que, finalement, on a décidé d'aller à Boseong en voiture avec le père d'une amie et deux autres copines. Boseong c'est la partie la plus au Sud de la Corée du Sud, si l'on ne compte pas Jeju et les autres petites mousses d'îles qu'il y a en bas. Comme je n'ai pas encore eu la chance d'aller à Jeju, on va dire que ces endroits là ne comptent pas encore...

Donc.

Boseong est renommé pour son thé vert, on peut trouver à peu près n'importe quoi au thé vert dans ce coin là. S'ils savaient comment faire manger du thé vert à leur poissons, ils auraient des fruits de mer au thé vert. 

... comme cette technique n'est pas encore inventée, ils se contentent de faire un BBQ de flanc de porc nourrit avec extra thé vert.

**Le porc n'était pas vert, dommage n'est-ce pas?**

Le voyage était sensé prendre à peu près 3 heures give or take an hour.

On est partis à 8AM, donc faites votre math...

9AM
10AM
11AM

...


...


...


midi
1PM
2PM
3PM

...


...


...


...

4PM
5PM
6PM

...

Vous arrivez à la même math que moi? 3 heures c'est ça?

Bon, comme vous êtes aussi bon en maths que moi, on va parler du bonheur du traffic en Corée du Sud. Il y a un truc à savoir en Corée. Il y a des dates en rouge sur les calendrier Coréens. C'est dates la sont des congés fériés. Il y a 3 périodes de l'an où ces dates là veulent dire "ON PREND LE METRO, OU ON RESTE CHEZ NOUS"

Le nouvel an lunaire.

La fête de Buddha.

Chuseok (l'action de grâce Coréenne à l'automne).

Bein la fin de semaine passée c'était la fête a Buddha.

Bonne fête Buddha.

J'ai beaucoup pensé à toi pendant la route Rouyn-Montréal. Euh. Seoul-Boseong.

Même affaire.

En fait je pense que je suis vraiment chanceuse de venir d'où je viens. Je suis habituée à rester complètement légume assise dans une automobile pour des heures sans vraiment rien regarder ou penser. 

J'ai même été quand même chanceuse sur ça, il y avait beaucoup à regarder: la nature de la campagne coréenne est magnifique, on ne se tanne pas. Surprise, elle est vraiment différente de la nature Japonaise que je connais. Au Japon c'est beaucoup plus bamboueux (hm... ça sonne merveilleux écrit comme ça) et comme il y a une période où ils ont complètement tout rasé les arbres sur les montagnes et ont compris trop tard que c'était une mauvaise idée, ils ont tout replanté. Les japonais étant perfectionnistes somme ils le sont, ils n'ont pas que replanté, ils ont replanté en rangées parfaites, ce qui fait que les gigantesques pins (pas sure pour la sorte d'arbre...) qui couvrent les montagnes, sont comme des petits étudiant japonais qui se tiennent en lignes. Malheureusement, comme les arbres sont tous collés ils sont beaucoup plus fragiles aux grand vents... 

mais je diverge.

En Corée les forêts qui recouvrent les montagnes sont pleines de feuillus et ont cet aspect naturel et robuste des forêts naturelles. Vert vert vert. Il y a un peu moins de plaines, en tout cas où on est passé.

À part le paysage, j'avais aussi autre chose sur l'esprit qui était parfait pour une randonnée d'auto dans le silence de mes pensées. 

Maudit gars. En tout cas :)

 Comme on est arrivés tard, on a attendu la deuxième journée pour aller voir le thé. C'était une journée très ensoleillée, mais venteuse. Parfaite pour la quantité de marche en forêt et montagnes qu'on a fait dans les champs de thé, mais inadéquate pour nos plans d'aller faire de la plage. On est allés sur la plage le premier soir et on s'est couchée sur et sous des couvertes dans le sable a regarder les feux d'artifices que d'autres touristes ont dépensé pour nous.

En haut à droite, on peut voir "I <3 Green tea" en Coréen. On le voyait d'en bas mais ils était caché par les arbres
qui entouraient le dessin alors je trouvais ça bien dommage. Ce n'est qu'après m'être essoufflée à l'escalade que
j'ai remarqué que le dessin avait probablement été fait pour être vu d'en haut, car il était parfait vu de cet endroit là.

Crème glacée au Thé vert (la crème de la crème glacée était merveilleusement
douce et fondait dans la bouche, moi qui n'est pas fan de la crème glacée j'ai été
séduite.

 Sur le chemin du retour on est passé à côté d'un site super neuf et joli, avec des pavillons traditionnels qui se sont avérés être la résidence d'étudiants de Pansori, un art Coréen où l'on chante et conte une histoire. Je devrai m'informer plus pour ce qui est de depuis quand ils ont cet forme d'art, mais ça fait au moins un bon bout de temps. 

On a vu deux fillettes, et le père de mon amie leur a demandé de nous chanter une chanson. Elles était incroyables. En regardant le vidéo, essayez de reproduire le son que ces artistes font. C'est une sorte d'art qui sonne un peu discordante à des oreilles occidentales, mais c'est vraiment impressionnant le contrôle que ces gens ont sur leur cordes vocales. 

Imaginez la même chose de la part de fillettes de 9 ans. C'était magique.

J'aimerais faire une formation de Pansori un jour.

On s'est aussi payé un lunch de roi :) dans une petite maisonnette où ils cuisine les plats traditionnels servis au roi (qu'on a aussi eu mes parents et moi l'automne dernier).

 L'endroit n'était pas traditionnel mais le repas était définitivement meilleur que celui qu'on avait eu au Korea House et avec une grosse différence de prix. La preuve qu'il est toujours mieux d'aller avec des gens du pays pour trouver des petits trésors. 

 Il y a deux raisons pour lesquelles les rois Coréens mangeaient leur viande coupée en mince morceaux, marinée et cuite en "streak haché". J'ai oublié la première parce que la seconde était plus logique pour moi. Les rois mangeaient beaucoup moins de légumes que les paysans et leurs dents étaient probablement beaucoup plus fragiles alors la viande devait être tendre. Ah les rois. Dans toutes les cultures, leur prétention les à conduits à la mauvaise santé à force de rejeter les légumes...... des enfants.

PANCAKE ORIGINAL STORY - Mokdong

Last night we had a great come back with the Samsung Smurfs, 11-1 in a perfect weather, with Kang Jeongho going homerun-crazy twice in a row, and Rotino being awesome as usual. I got to see Son Seung Lak, our closer pitcher, we hadn't had him in a while, because he does not come out in losing games, or unless it's very tight. The HisaYong (my cheering crew) had a special gift for us too, they gave us signed balls, and I got Sun Seung Lak :))) such a luck!

Anyways, I don't know why I start with the end of the day: I did other things than just going to the game. I met up with DM for a late breakfast in a Pancake Restaurant I had found a few weeks ago and wanted to try again. Last time I had gotten pancakes, because you know, Pancake place, you want to try the pancakes. But I had seen that they had Benedicts on their menu and wanted to try them.

The weather was super nice so I put on a summer dress with a summer sweater. I wanted to try the straw hat look, but I was afraid I'd look too summery and didn't want it to look weird. Oh what pride prevents you of doing. Anyways. I did take pictures, even if I did not actually go out like this (see pic below for actual hairstyle).

PANCAKES ORIGINAL STORY:

Very tiny restaurant in the corner of nowhere. It's a store situated in Mokdong's Paragon building, in the small areas between buildings where they put rooftops, probably to protect people from the crazy summer sun rays, right in front of the big SBS building. They have a pretty varied menu with brunch sets and open pretty early for a Korean restaurant (usually nothing is open before 10-11am in Korea, which was part of my cultural shock when I got here, and expected the Japanese let's get up at 6am culture).

They seem to be the second store to open in Seoul (the other one being in Hannam-Dong). The waitress I have had both times I've been was not really good. She's a bit slow on seeing who needs to be served, even though the store is tiny as a shoebox. She does not seem to be all there. You want to order a coffee while waiting for someone and she'll go get her pad to write it down - either she got a trauma forgetting an important order in the past, is just extremely insecure, or just has the memory of a goldfish. Regardless, if either of those is true, it makes no sense that she would not carry the pad with her (took a long time after I sat down before she came to see me, and when she did I asked to get a cappuccino as I waited, and she went to get her pad to get my order). Maybe she's just a little all over the place as a rule. Anyways, she seemed to have a bright sweet personality so I hold no grudge. Who goes to a pancake restaurant on a Saturday in a hurry, expecting the best treatment given in seconds anyways. 

Thing is, in Korea there is a lot of things that are amazing, especially for food. The food is usually served within minutes, fresh and yummy, they have all kinds of Korean foods, and if you go in any beer/food restaurants on the street, people eat fast and leave fast so the service is quick and sharp. Koreans are the masters of bar hopping, as if they can't really sit and enjoy only one good place, and need to try another one. 

When you go to a slow pace restaurant though, waiters SUCK. Like, really. Having waited on people for 6 months in a bar, and 2 years in a high class restaurant, I am in a position I can criticize service, because I know I can do better. Do not mistake me here, I am not bragging, just speaking service/common/sense here. In such a small place, it's a waiter's paradise, everything is close and easy to manage, it's easy to take a quick look to get an overview of your clients and see if anyone is in need of anything. Yet, she was completely clueless anytime I tried to get her attention. I blame the Korean habit of yelling very loud when you want to order in bars. People don't think it's rude to yell to get service in a restaurant so even slow-paced waiters don't feel like it's their job to serve people, they feel like they just need to wait to be called on.

They had a funny section in their menus. English is funny, but not that much. We might just get it a weird way to talk about smaller portions. But the Korean translation is much more explicit: For those poor things that could not get married. And the Benedict eggs are in that menu. I felt like I should never eat that when I go alone, question of pride. 

 The first time I went I got the cinnamon apple banana pancake. It was a bliss. Served in literally 3 minutes, the apple and banana pieces were warm and covered in sweet cinnamon and there was a little piece of butter on top, to melt over the pancackes. It was sweet enough on it's own, but I got a hot chocolate with the set, as I had already gotten a coffee that day. The hot chocolate was really good, prepared old style with whipped cream, that I just put on my pancake to eat with the fruits. Everything melted in my mouth.

They also had Canadian maple sirup, which I felt was kind of cool, taken that I hadn't had it in a year. It was not, however, my favourite maple syrup flavour, a bit too sweet. 

I've always been pretty picky with maple syrup, because my mother always got us maple syrup from a specific place in Quebec, where her family always got theirs from, and it was this quality taste that you don't get everywhere. But eh? We can't always be picky? It was good syrup still.

 Yesterday I got the Benedict, with my "morning" brunch coffee. Was great. It was not too big (even if I did leave some, I can't eat crazy quantity of food lately) for a person - so here with the "single" menu - and it had lots of sautéed vegetables in it which made up for the usual lack of veggies in Korean brunches (that tend to be the typical let's-just-put-lotta-bread-and-meat English style brunches) and was yummy enough. 

If you are looking for the typical sort of salty butter Benedict sauce then it's not the right place for you to go to. The sauce is good but pretty "tasteless" so the taste of the veggies feel stronger than the Benedict taste. 

Korea House - Dinner Part

I regret having taken so much time to write my blog entries, because I am starting to forget a few details about all the things that went on during the time my parents were here. time flies, it's already been two whole months. 

After our trip to Namsan Tower and our never-ending walk under the highway beside the Han river, we went to Korea House for dinner. We made reservations and there were no spots on normal chairs and tables available, but I still asked if it was possible to get them, if there were cancellations or anything. I knew that the experience asked to have the low tables and seats on the floor, but my dad being 60, and 6 feet 4, with knee problems... was not really realistic. It would have been only painful for him...

So I was glad when we got there, to see we got a spot in the western side of the Hanok. Sadly, after getting a glimpse at the gorgeous low table room, with windows giving to the inner courtyard, we walked to the quite empty room with western tables to have our meals. Oh well. The experience was the food, anyways, so I suppose I couldn't complain. 

The buildings were gorgeous, with slight lights at the base of the small constructions, so it was peaceful to walk in the chilly breeze of the evening. We got the basic 12 meals course with the Korean performance after. I think it was something like $98 per person, but to be honest, with the quality of the food and the performance that we got to see, I feel like they are not getting their money's worth from us. It was a great presentation and a delicious meal.

Night view of the inside of the restaurant. There was a large inner courtyard and a small pond with flowing waters and catfish inside. There were other guests at the house that night, but surprisingly, not as many as I expected. I think that the reason they said they didn't have space in the western side is probably because they usually don't open the room unless there are enough people to fill it. There were only two other couples in the room we were in. A couple from Hong Kong, and another family of 4. I think they were from the states, but I couldn't be sure.

I realized that I tend to look at architectural details more when I am with my dad. I suppose I try to see the world through his eyes, because I respect him so much. Anyways, I like that in Asia they found so many ways to deal with different type of weather in ways that differ a lot from ours. Have you noticed that they have sliding doors and then opening panels to make 2 layers ? I mean, they had to have something like a two layer door thing, since the weather is so crazy humid in the winter, and they have doors all over the place. Well, those outer doors can be completely taken away from the sliding doors with the help of hooks and cords attached to the roofs. (see picture UP, for open panels)...

See picture UP for suspended panels of the same type or doors. I doubt that they always were glass window doors, but I feel like that was what had to be done for people to still want to work there in our modern winter...

So here starts our royal buffet...

I do not know if they used to come one after the other in the time of kings, but that's what we got. They gave us the servings one by one, after telling us the name of each.

Those two are respectively called the 9 and the 5 flavors plate (9절반과 5절반). Neither my parents nor I really were fond of the asian dry fish. Only, my parents didn't know that yet, so they tried it. I knew they were here for the experience, so I let them try it :3 I knew I wouldn't like it, so I refrained. That's the only thing that was left. the 9 flavor set was basically shredded pieces of many pickled vegetables to be eaten in a thin round shaped wrap. It was blissful. The 5 flavor set was just a bunch of side dish to eat individually (in which there was the weird dried fish in sesame).

We all had a serving of radish soup, kimchi and vegetables, what were refilled throughout the evening. When my parents understood that as long as they kept finishing them, they would bring more, they concentrated more on the main dishes, which would not keep coming in such case...

The third set was a plate of small Korean pancakes (전) to eat with the dipping sauce we each had. I've always liked Korean pancakes :) They did not taste that much more special than in other shops, but they were really prettily set, with the pieces of vegetables all set at the same spot for each of them.

That one is pretty self explanatory. It's a salad. The dressing was really good though, I think it was made with radish puree (샐러드).

The fifth serving was a pumpkin soup. Really yummy. I like how they made us go from cold to hot, soft to hard, and simple to complex types of foods. (호박스프)

"Royal Codfish". We didn't get the Korean translation, if there was. The green salad on the side was just as amazing as the fish itself. The fish melted in the mouth, and both seasoning was perfect. One of my favorite <3 

The seventh serving was Korean hotpot (시설롱). We got our own personal mini-hotpot. We usually get those in huge size in Chinese Hotpot places but this was my first time to see its tiny counterpart.

I think that is beef (떡갈비찜)? I am not sure. It's weird because it basically had a texture similar to your regular "hamburger meat",  in that the piece of meat had been completely taken apart from the bones, and put back together. That made it soft on the tongue, and the seasoning was, once again, really good.

King Shrimp (왕새우). Literally. Shrimp, scallop and zucchini. I love zucchini in Korea. They always taste great and have this amazing crunchy texture. I know I am weird, not to talk about the seafood that should be the focus of that meal, but while I do love seafood, I like zucchini better. Period.

Korean beef barbecue (불고기). Mini portion of a Korean barbecue meat. I like that that evening got my parents to try the mini version of many Korean stuff, instead of getting too stuffed with the crazy amount of food that they'd normally get by ordering them from a restaurant. Served with rice.

That soup was the last thing we got that evening. It did help a lot to make everything go down. Because let's face it: that was a lot of food.

I said the soup was the last, but the soup was number 11 out of the 12 servings we got. So the dessert was obviously last. We got a fruity tea (didn't get the name T.T) plus fruits and rice cake to end the meal. At that point nothing else would have gone down so we were grateful that the dessert was so small. I had a feeling of Déjà vu, from the time in Japan, where we got a traditional supper, my brother and I. Luckily, in Japan, they don't really eat dessert. 

During the evening, we had two different waitresses. The first one seemed really cold, distant and mean. She seemed in a very bad mood, so I invented her story.

She is the manager of the waiting staff. It's her only day off and one of the waitressed call in sick, or quit. Tonight is not such a busy night, so let's just not open one of our rooms, and do with less staff. 

However, there are too many people who called to make reservations at the western tables so she ends up coming to work. She is irritable, because she just missed a date with her boyfriend. So she decided to come to work without a single makeup tough - which means the end of the world in Korea. 

That's why I say she is the manager, because an manager would never let a normal employee come to work without any makeup... 

That said. 

She started her evening and got pissed. Those foreigners. I hate them all. they should just stay in their country. 

Well, think about it princess, why are you working in a foreigner paradise of a restaurant if you think like that? Just saying... 

Oh and this tall guy, why does he keep taking pictures of everything with his big camera. I'd like to see him try taking a picture of me. See I'd give him a piece of my mind. 

So here goes for the setting story. 

My dad loves the costumes all the waitresses are wearing, I mean, me too :) and takes pictures of the food. Then he says, Oh, when she comes back, I'll take a picture of her as she brings the food. Normally I don't make a fuss, but that time, you know, I had made the story of Princess here, and explained that, if my story (cuz my imagination is always right) was right, a Korean prideful lady would NEVER even go out without makeup, but that girl did, she already looked irritable, so I doubt she'd like it. Better ask first. My dad looked at me doubtfully. 

As the girl came, he took his camera, and asked her if it was okay, not really waiting for the answer, as he was expecting an indifferent yah sure. But she was like "no". Take the food if you want. On a tone that did not leave any place for dialogue. Whata bitch. I say that not because of the refusal. I was sure she would, but because she hurt my dad's feeling. He is such a people lover, outgoing with a warm aura that he shares with other, and I saw that he was feeling super sad and awkward at her answer. I wanted to hug him. Bitch. 

Anways... later on in the evening, two more waitresses came to work (yup, I noticed) at other tables, and our last 3 plates were brought by another younger, prettier, happier waitress, and that one, let us take a picture. She was surprised that we'd ask. And I saw she found it funny. She even make a fake "pouring tea" pose for the camera. Thank you <3