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.

보성 여행

저번 주말은 1월부터 엄청 기대했던 주말 이었다.

오래동안 가고 싶었던 제주도에 가려고 했던 주말이었다.

일본에 살았을때부터 난 녹차를 사랑 하게되었다. 제주도 가서 찻잎을 딸 수 있으면 내 차를 직접 만들어 보고 싶었다. 제주 테디베어박물관도 가보고 싶었다.

그런데...

기대됐던 주말이였는데 올해는 어린이날이랑 석가탄신일이 5-6일 연휴라 제주 갈 티켓을 구하지 못해 최소되었다.

그래도 우리는 포기하지 않았다.

대신에 부산/거제도에 가기로 했다. 차를 타고 바다도 가고 여러가지 구경도 하기로 했다.

그런데...

그것도 결국은 안 되었다.

같이 가기로 한 언니 가족에 일 생겨서 못 가게 되었다 ㅠ.ㅠ

그래서...

4일의 여행 계획에 빈 틈이 생겼다. 

난 원래 긍정적인 성격이라 그냥 주말을 한가로이 지내려고 했다. 어차피나 구로로 온지 할달이나 지났는데 아파서 제대로 구경하지 못 했으니까 잘 됐다 싶었다.

...

그런데 밤11시에 전화가 왔다. "


"토욜 아침 8시에 아빠치로 보성가는데 같이 갈래?"

난 망설이지 않고 대답했다.

"물론이지 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ"

오늘도 어떻게 될지모르고 낼도 어떻게 될지 모르는 이즐거운 세상을 어떡하면 좋을까?

결국 우리는 제주는 아니더라도남쪽으로 내려갔다. 한국에서 만드는 녹차가 대부분 보성에서 온다고 해서 기대를 많이 했다.

바다도 보고... 나만 노메이크라 사진 찍기는 쫌 그랬었는데 생각 보다 잘 나왔다.

 갑작스럽게 가게된 여행이라 우리는 숙소를 찾을 수가 없었다.

하지만 찾으려면 언제든지 찾을 수 있는 무식한 자신감으로 도착 하자마자 우리는 숙소도 찾지 않고 식당 가서 밥 먹고 바다에 갔다. 그런데 우리가 밥 먹고 신경쓰지 않고 있을 동안 언니 아버지께서 이 바쁜 시즌에믿지못할 만큼 깨끗하고 싼 방을 찾아 주셨다. 그것도 한명에 만원!

그날 밤 우리 처럼 계획 없이 내려온 위국인 두명 만났는데 그사람들은 숙소를 찾지 못 했다. 우리가 같이 찾으러 다녔는데도 찾지 못 하고 결국 보낼 수 밖에 없었다. ㅠ ㅠ 

보내기전에 연락처라도 받아 놓을껄 혹시 못 찾으면 우리랑 같이 지내자고 말 할걸... 그런데 보내고 나서 이리저리 찾아봤지만 결국 찾지못했다. 좋은 곳 찾았겠지? ㅋㅋㅋㅋ

보성에서 회도 먹었는데 그렇게 맛 있지는 않았다. 하지만 녹차 삼겹살은 완전 맛 있었다.

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. 

What does the Fox Say?

Fortis's kindies are just plain adorable. They love singing and have a singing class every Wednesday after lunch for an hour. For this time-period they learn English songs and on Fridays, same time, they put dance moves on the songs. 

They are just stinking cute. Last time I heard them singing "What does the Fox say". How is it that songs that are so not meant to be sang by kids, are sang by kids, they are amazingly cute? Anyways, I was late for this one. The whole class had been singing it all morning and I didn't film, and when I decided to pull out my camera, only Ellie was singing it and it was not the best part, but she's still adorable. 

Don't you love Yvonne at the back, who thinks I'm taking pictures, and waits for the trigger sound forever? They were singing while preparing for lunch time, packing stuff for after school.

Gopchang Iyagi - Beef Intestines Story

Yesterday, Nexen... hmmmm.........how to be politically correct and avoid "rape" culture in this situation... was put down and made into a baseball-stadium-cleaning-rag by Samsung's ugly smurf team. A painful 14-2, of which I only watched the end. I feel lucky to have been late (I never catch the beginning of the games even if I like close, because I get off work passed 7h30 and games start at 6h30) because I only saw the soft part of the massacre: the beginning of the game was what destroyed the team. 

You know, with baseball, we generally can't tell who wins and who loses right away, because  (especially lately with Nexen's weird way of coming back strong at the end of games lately) there's always a possibility to just make some crazy home runs or the messing up of either team's pitchers. Last night though, there was just no feeling of home. They just went on with 4 runs then 5 runs in the first two innings. And we really played like blindass weird chicken with heads chopped off (going to the wrong direction and chasing the wind)... strong picture? Ask Nexen fans yesterday. Almost everyone was gone at the end of the game. 

We are still 1st of the league as of now, because the current rival team lost to Doosan badly, and Samsung is at the end of the queue...

I still jumped around all the game (maybe except the last inning and half, when I realized that it was ridiculous and almost sad to cheer at that point) and now my legs are super duper sore. I feel though, that the fans were bad. Leaving the game before is just plain mean. Real love is not love only when you are happily hanging out, it's also be there when things go bad. And they were bad. 

Whatever.

Last night I had an amazing evening. 

I went Karaoke with DM and I felt like paradise. I don't know if you go karaoke, but there's this thing, when you go, when people sing songs you love, but screw them. And you wish so dearly that they could sing it well, because they're such nice songs. Well, I got the paradise set yesterday. Every single song  he sang was just as it should have been. You know the feeling you have when people sing a difficult song, and they come to the bridge and you clench your fists, hoping they won't screw up? I did not even get to have that stress. The kind of singing I just wanted to close my eyes and listen.

I always say that when I am a very old and crazy rich lady, I'll get a vintage Steinway - white - in my huge living room, and pay a handsome young pianist to just play piano all day. CD and mp3s will always lack this quality live music has. And when you listen to live music, you usually pay for it and listen to it in an environment already set for people to listen to, and have lo actively listen to it. I've had this selfish desire to have the quality of live concert as a soothing background music, that I can listen to as I do my things, without having to actually sit and stay still, only listening. 

I did sit and only listen last night though. But it was like a private show.

We went for food after and I had wanted to eat raw beef, but we were not into buying that expensive delicacy so we went for delicious Gopchang. And what was not our surprise when they brought a small plate with sides: raw beef and raw liver. Man it was delicious. Just the right amount to melt in the mouth and make you hungrier for food as it cooked. 

It was my second time eating this kind of food, and the first time to eat beef gopchang; the first time I'd gone we ate porc one. It was just plain marvelous, and they served it with seasoned rice cake sticks that got ready just a bit before the intestines, so we just had a non-stop flow of food to eat. I love Korea.

And.... just because I feel like it was such a perfect prediction... I'll add up my daily astrological randomness.....

Aquarius Horoscope
Saturday, April 26, 2014

Right now you live for someone else's opinion, and that person is thinking all the right thoughts. Once you have the approval you so desperately seek, anything is possible for the two of you. It seems that everything in the Universe is on your side, which certainly can't hurt your chances! You get the message loud and clear that the Stars have reserved this day and night for both of you. Sit quietly together and observe as your love lights up the sky for miles.

은경언니 과 원교오빠 축하해요!!!

This Sunday Korea was blessed with amazing sunny weather! It was a gift for my friends' wedding in Ansan! I was so happy I got to attend a wedding in Korea! While they call it western style wedding, there it's pretty different than from the western weddings I went to back home. I've always loved to go to weddings, they are putting me in some sort of trance of happiness. Korean western weddings are a little bit more distant than the weddings I know of. Everything is a bit more mechanical and it's mostly all about the ceremony and less about an after party.

They are glamorous though and everything is pleasing for the eyes.

The bride was beautiful :)

Here we go, a bunch of pictures of the wedding, sadly, my pictures do not look half as good as the real thing was...