Our Adventure in Making Kimchi!

In November Zak and I took a trip with our neighbors to make Kimchi in Seoul. The winter months are typically when kimchi is prepared and ready to be fermented. We took this trip with a group called WINK, it is a tour group based primarily out of Seoul that has trips available with English translators. This was the second trip I had done with them and I am overall satisfied with this organization aside from being a bit expensive for the quality of the tours. 

It was a cold and rainy day and we ended up waiting about an hour for our bus out of Seoul to where we were making the kimchi but the rain eventually subsided and makgeolli appeared just in time for us to enjoy the experience! It is hard for some people to get past the fermented aspect of kimchi but if you give it a chance you just might fall in love with this sour spicy cabbage like I have. 

The act of making kimchi is easier than I had previously thought. All you need is a salted cabbage and ingredients such as, salt, ginger, garlic, powdered red pepper, sugar and radish. Just rub your mixture of choice onto each cabbage leaf section, let it sit at room temperature for at least 48hrs and there you have it... home made kimchi! (Caveat: Kimchi must be prepared while under the influence of Korean rice wine)

(this is me keeping a look-out for the old Korean woman who pops up just to remind you that you are doing it allllll wrong)

If you want some live action checkout our youtube video:

We were lucky to have a great photographer with our group who has kindly allowed us to share his photos, if you are interested in visiting his blog it can be found here: Kimchibytes

Thanks for reading xxx

Green Month Wrap Up & Tour De Cure Seoul

Zak successfully finished green month!! I am so proud that he stuck it out even though I gave up on the third week. Here are his totals from the month:

421 Miles
20513 Calories
43h:18m:47s on the bike
$91.30 saved

In addition to finishing a month of bike riding Zak and two of his friends completed a "Tour De Cure" from Seoul to Pyeongtaek for the American Diabetes Association. They were able to raise $800 for the cause and completed the 60.55 mile ride in 5 hours and 20 minutes.

Thank you to all that donated:
 Brian Simms
Erich Oelschlegel
Elizabeth & Chantz Shealy
Kimberly Shealy
Martha Jane Allder
Danielle McSwain
Zachary & Nikki Moreland
Stanley Stinehour
Kevin Crocker
George Daniel Gunter
Anthony J Stinehour

And a huge congratulations to Zak, Chantz, and Anthony for completing the ride for such a great cause!

Oktoberfest @ the Seoul Grand Hilton

As I was perusing one of my Korean foodie blogs Seoul Eats I noticed a post about Oktoberfest in Seoul at the Grand Hilton and jumped on the opportunity to get tickets for this event. It was a surprise to Zak and I managed to actually keep it under wraps for the week prior to the event. I usually spill the beans within 24 hours of planning a surprise, so this was a big step for me! :-P So this event was a one time rate for unlimited German beer and cuisine, a live band from Germany, and a whole lot of fun! We definitely enjoyed ourselves and drank enough Paulaner beer for the year, I love Oktoberfest. It was nothing but a ballroom full of people who like to drink beer and eat pretzels, my kind of people!

Me in the hotel room before we went to Oktoberfest, trying to contain myself of spilling the beans! Oh and thanks for the free bottle of wine Seoul Grand Hilton, I had to drink it before Oktoberfest or else my husband would have been on to me that we are going to a drinking event if I didn't pop it open... ha ha

And now onto Oktoberfest, this right here made every penny worth it:

Tapping of the keg!

This Korean boy in his lederhosen was just too cute, even though he looked forced to wear this by his mother...

Zak about to arm wrestle..

We drink Paulaner beer! I wish you could here me singing this, because I have literally been singing it since Oktoberfest..

Drunk Nikki being silly..

And the people we shared our table with, they pretty much won all the competitions, the lady on the left it one hell of a beer chugger.. and the one on the right dominated in womens arm wrestling.

And a video I have put together from the event, beware there are embarrassing drunk moments that you will probably enjoy.. but hey it was Oktoberfest!

In all this was definitely an awesome time, we cannot wait to go again next year!!! I might just order some lederhosen  ;)

Family Visit to Korea!

Back in July some of our family came here to Korea to visit us. We were so happy to hear that someone wanted to come enjoy this amazing country with us for a while, and they were here for two weeks!! (Still not long enough to see everything though!! lol)

Upon landing in Korea we gave Kathy, Brittany, and Michelle gift bags of survival needs while in Korea which included things like, a T-Money Card, Practice Chopsticks, K-Pop Fans, Toilet Paper, Rose Flavored Gum and Cell Phone Accessories.. you know.. the essentials.

On their first official day here we all headed to the DMZ which was a trip that took up most of the day. While it was raining we all still had a great time crawling through the tunnels and realizing that we are super close to North Korea!

They were here for 4th of July and our mission for that day was to be as American as possible...

Mission Accomplished.

We then spent a fabulous 4 days in Seoul.. because you need that many days if not longer to see the whole city!!! In Seoul we introduced them to Korean Baseball, The Han River, King SeJong (yes that is Michelle planking on him), Korean Comedy Shows, Seoul Tower, all the Dongs (Myeongdong Insadong and Dongdaemun), 4D Movies.. and of coarse CHEESY BITE PIZZA! 

We also did a wine train tour while our family was here, it was great fun until they cut us off the wine and put us in a bus to the ginseng museum over an hour away.. nap time. I did however manage to beat everyone in our train car for the title of rock paper scissors or Kai Bai Bo in Korea. 

And now for the awesome random pictures (that you may or may not understand):

We can't thank Kathy, Brittany, and Michelle enough for enduring that long a** flight to come out here, and we hope you all had as much fun as we did while you were in South Korea!!

(All photo credits given to Kathy, Brittany, and Michelle because somewhere between our soju bowls and the excitement of pyeongchang winning the olympic bid Zak and I lost our camera!!!)

Thanks for reading!!! xxx

Han River in Seoul

Probably one of the most beautiful places I have visited in Seoul is the Han River. It flows directly through Seoul and is often used in terms of direction... i.e. "It's above the river". We always pass over the Han when going to Seoul by train but up until recently we have not actually spent a day by the river. This past week we decided to embark on an adventure taking our bikes on the subway to the Han river. Usually it takes about 90 minutes on the subway to get to Seoul but about once every hour the "express" subway comes through and you can hop on it and be in Seoul in an hour for only 1,800 won (roughly $1.65 with the current exchange rate).

It was such a beautiful day and the weather is definitely starting to get hot here in Korea, I think its only a matter of days before we are into the full fledged sweltering heat of the Korean summer.

Once reaching the Seoul area we got off at "Singil" (신길) on line 1. There was a nice path over the walking bridge and through Yeouido to get the the Han River.

And for the record, Korean kids have the best playground equipment...I think Zak would agree...

Once we got to the Han river we enjoyed the nice bike path along side of it where you will often spot the natives in their elaborate over the top biking outfits to go along with their ridiculously expensive bicycle, which is only used/worn to bike on this bike path. Its status to have a nice bike and matching riding team here in Korea, I am thinking Zak and I need to come up with a team name and have shirts made. 

A few photos on the Han:

The Han is also host to many festivals during the year including the one we visited earlier this year, the Hi Seoul Festival:

If you get a chance I would pack a lunch and spend the day relaxing at the Han!

                       Hope you are enjoying your week, thanks for reading! xxx