Samgaetang

Welcoming summer in Korea, besides facing hot sunny day with high humidity, you'd also find long queeing at restaurants serving Samgaetang. Samgaetang, or in other words, Ginseng Chicken Soup, is known as the food for welcoming Summer in Korea. Korean believe that this soup can give cool effect to your body, and give energy to prepare body's stamina along the whole hot summer. It was what I read in Korean newspaper.
At first I was confused. Eh? eating hot soup in hot weather? giving cool feeling? All I could imagine was sweating all over my body :p

But anyway, being in Korea, I'd like to experience it. Besides samgaetang is a delicious food, I also wanted to prove if I really get this cooling effect.

So 2 days ago we decided to have dinner at samgaetang restaurant. It's not early summer anymore (in fact its rainy season!), so I guessed I won't find long queeing at restaurant.

5 minutes after we ordered 2 portions of samgaetang and a bottle of beer, small plates of kimchi came. There were normal kimchi, radish kimchi (can't remember the name), sweetened peanut, a plate of fresh vegetables, white kimchi (not hot one), mashed garlic and kochujang (Korean chilli sauce)

The kimchi was hot, so Hiro didn't even think to try. But it was delicious. Inspite of the hot taste, I can feel the combination of sour and salty taste, mixed with fresh vegetable. The radish kimchi even richer in taste. I can feel sweet among hot, sour and salty taste.
The peanut was not special. It's just a usual sweetened peanut. I passed mashed garlic for sure, and thought of mixing the kochujang with the samgaetang later on.



After waiting for about 15 minutes, finally what we're waiting for was coming. Two bowls of very hot soup. I can see whole chicken drowning inside the soup, decorated with a lot of leek. The aroma instantly went into my nose, produced a lot of water inside my mouth :p.

Samgaetang is a whole chicken stuffed with korean sweet rice (chap sal), that was already mixed with spices. It was then boiled until all the ingredients are well cooked and the chicken's soft.

I poured salt and black pepper into the bowl, a big spoon of kochujang, then tasted it. Hmmm perfect. Then I tore the chicken's breast with my chopsticks. Strong ginseng smell came out. I found the rice with big ginseng inside. First spoon, awwwww HOT!!! But then....it was sooooo delicious. I can feel thick taste of ginseng mixed with garlic. There besides ginseng and garlic, I found ginger, chestnut and jujuba. Mixed with the soup, really....it was a perfect korean dinner!!

Total damage of 2 portions of Samgaetang and a bottle of beer was 23.000 Won (about IDR 230.000). Not expensive for such a delicious food in this expensive country (^__^)

Monday

Monday is the busiest day of the week.
Somehow I feel that I need more than 24 hours, only for this day :p
Every monday I prepare Iki's food for one week. For one week, so that I cook them all and put them in small containers and ice trays to be frozen. So everyday I only need few minutes preparing. Just TINGGG, and ready :p. (except for some food like egg yolk and tofu -fresh one is better, means no freezer). But because he eats different menu everyday, I have to prepare quite a lot for him.

So everyweek I have to cook okayu (porridge), dashi jiru and vegetable soup for basic meal. All other food will be mixed with these basics. Other vegetables are boiled one by one and then mashed. I just realise that this week is the last week I will cook this type of food. Next week, Iki will be 7 months, his menu will be different again!



This cooking thing takes more than 3 hours every monday. With Iki's higher demands of my presence lately, and a must to clean the whole house (well, he starts exploring things on the floor - so it be clean all the time!); I feel time just flies away. Suddenly it's almost 6 pm, haven't finished all the housework yet must start cooking dinner for Hiro's coming any minute. *sigh*

Summer holiday

Summer holiday is coming.
We spent this few days discussing the best way to spend it.
We want to go out of town for sure. Some places came into consideration:

Jeju Island, located at southern part of Korean peninsula. Well, some of you must have heard it from the famous "Winter Sonata". It is about 1 hour by air from here and I heard it's one of korea's must be visited tourist attraction. But the famous food there is sashimi!! Well, for me might be OK, but for the perfectionist Hiro, nothing can be more delicious than Japanese sashimi hahaha. As we gathered information about the island, then we found out that it would be very very crowded there during summer holiday. Beach, our main destination, will be full of people. It won't be a relaxing place anymore, right? :(

Resort at Hainan, China. Never heard about this though, what I know about Hainan is only "Hainan chicken rice" (slurrrp). Recommended by Hiro's friend. Kind of tempting, BUTTT...I need VISA. And there's no way to go to Seoul during working days with Iki. So.....we just have to forget it this time :(

Taipei. This idea was objected at once. Again, the visa problem. uuuh uuhhhh

Hokkaido. Hiro's family will spend summer holiday there. And as Hiro's mother dream is going on a trip for the whole family, we were thinking of realising it. But.....it's high season in Japan, and there's no direct flight to Sapporo from here. Guess what? the air ticket only will cost us about 1700 USD. Bah...!

Then out of sudden Hiro got the idea to go to Wakayama, his friend's house. There's beautiful white sand beach nearby, and we can meet his friend's family and have fun. We just have to fly to Osaka and go there by train.
But apparently his friend won't be in town!! He's going diving at his hometown, a city called Hagi. Didn't ring a bell for me hehehe. It came out that he invited us to join them, and.......then it's decided that we're going to spend our summer holiday there!!
We'll fly to Fukuoka from here, and rent car to Hagi. It will take 3 hours by car, but we can stop and take a rest anytime.

Waiting forward for it \(^_^)/.
Hagi....here we come!!


What's ur plan for summer holiday, friends?

To you, my dearest friend.

Last night I couldn't sleep
The news I just heard disturbed my mind
I can't believe what happened to my friend
Sorry I can't keep it for myself,
I need to release my feeling so I'm writing something here.

I'm so sorry to hear that,
But I didn't dare to say that.
I pity you of what happened,
But also don't want to say that for it doesn't make you stronger.
I wanted so say comforted words,
But I don't know any that can heal your pain.
I'm so speechless yet I have lots to ask.

I don't want to remind you of that,
Yet I can't help not to write anything here.
For this what I feel I want you to know.

Be strong, I know you are.
Whatever had happened, it must be for a reason.
For a better "you", it must be.
For a stronger "you", it must be.

Happy birthday

Today is the birthday of my father and my brother, Yosis.
Again, as already happened for like 9 years, I can only send my love by phone call.

But somewhat I feel different this year.
My dad cried on the phone.
Life is not easy anymore for him, he's been struggling hard for his two last children. To finish my brother and sister's education. To make his two last children doctors as he has always dreamed of.
And this year my brother will be. What a best birthday present he got.

I know he cried because he's full of proud.
Yet I know he cried because he feels so tired,
somewhat he felt that he failed being a good father.
In fact, he's not.
He's done his best.
And he's the best father!

Yosis, my little brother.
One egois creature that is now getting matured.
Well, life gave him a lot of lessons, and continously will.
Congratulations for your graduation.
Hope you'll be a good doctor after all.

Papa, Yosis,
I love you and terribly miss you (something I can't say on the phone :p)
Happy birthday....

Our small garden

Living in an apartment almost lost our dream of having our own garden and growing our own plants. But again, if there's a will, then there's a way.
So we bought some pots and vegetable seed, and arranged them at our veranda.
It may not a perfect garden that we've imagined, yet it satisfies us.

Look what we have in our small garden:

Mini tomato. Now we can already enjoy our first "harvest" hehehe. Looks yummy, right?! They're not "very sweet" indeed, but they tasted sooo good. Perhaps because we've been waiting for so long, watering and wondering?!



And then we have edamame (japanese green soy bean), asparagus, and kabu (turnip).
Look at those asparagus (i think u can guess which one!). I've never imagined that young asparagus would be like that. Just like the asparagus I've usually seen in supermarket, just in short and very thin form hahaha.



And last we have mitsuba (one of japanese leaf spices), stringbean (buncis), parsley, italian herb, and of course chilli.
Our chilli trees are like stop growing . They're not dead anyhow, but they don't get any bigger *sob sob*



My rose is dying (that's why I don't put the photo here :p), but I hope there'll be miracle to save it hahaha. And we plan to expand our garden by buying one more pot for morning glory flower ;-)

Iki's menu planning

Providing Iki good and balance food is likely my main job recently. Especially after he started having meal twice a day.
I have to manage so that in a day he could have meal contained enough carbohydrate (Category I), protein (Category II), fat (Category III), vitamin and mineral (Category IV). Or at least 3 categories out of four per day.

That's why now I'm working on excel sheet for better plan :p



Iki likes to eat all food I introduced him so far. Only one kind caused allergic on him, but basically he likes, hmmm LOVES to eat all kinds of food. It really encourages me to prepare delicious meal for him. It satisfies me to see him opening his small mouth widely and eating the food enthusiastically.

Yet too bad that he doesn't like milk now. He prefers solid. The delicious meal his mom plans and prepares everyday ;-)

Typhoon

One thing I used to see on TV only for years. Yet now I experience it here.
I had no idea that today typhoon would hit Korea, so I planned to go to hospital for Iki's immunization after lunch time.
But then around 10 a.m I got sms from Hiro about this typhoon. That probably the wind will get stronger in the afternoon.
So I got ready, woke Iki up (sorry :p), called taxi, and off to hospital.

Downstair it was raining a little, but I didn't think that the wind was strong. So I spoke to myself "bah....exagerrating. It's only little shower here"

So did when I left the hospital.
But then when I opened my taxi door in front of my apartment, I was shocked.
It was not little shower anymore so I MUST use umbrella to protect Iki.
Man....the wind was sooooo strong. The strongest I've ever experienced in my whole life.
I just needed to walk about 10 metres from the taxi to the apartment building but it was like walking 100 metres. I felt like I'd be blown up by the wind. And with Iki and umbrella in my hands I felt so hopeless. So while struggling to reach the apartment door, all came from my mouth was this long and loud "TOLOOOOOOOOONG" scream. Of course no one understood and helped me hahahaha.
Apparantly native language will come automatically in panic situation :p
Iki was so scared, clearly seen from his face.

Well dear Iki...
So this is our first typhoon ;-)
Next time I'm not stepping myself out during typhoon!!!!!!!!!!!

Bet

Both Hiro and me are not so fond of football.
So when the worldcup hit, we didn't waste our time in front of TV till midnight like what others did (except of course on Japan games for nationality reason hahaha).
This early morning (3 a.m Korean time) was the final between France and Italy. Just to feel the tension, then I raised a bet.
Hiro was on Italy side while I was on France.
At first Hiro said the bet would be 1000 USD!!!
Well, nothing to lose for me. If I won, I'd get the money. If I lost, I'd just pay by cashing my CC (in which the bill will go to Hiro) hihihihihi.
Of course he OBJECTED the idea =))
So then we came up with this bet:
The one who lose must give a one hour massage.

Well, I guess the whole world knows who must give a one-hour massage now (>_<)

Meteor Garden

When I was washing dishes in the kitchen, suddenly I heard a song from TV. Sounded so familiar that I stopped my work and ran to watch TV right away.

Meteor garden!!!!
It's played by Mplex (korean TV station) now. With Korean subtitle of course, but watching this drama again, brought me back lots of memories in Surabaya.

In 2002 this taiwanese drama was a hit in Indonesia. Like many other people, I also watched this together with my friends. We were so in love with it that we bought the whole VCD series at Pasar Atum, watched it together. Forgot to eat, forgot to sleep. We stayed awake some whole nights in front of TV. Laughing together, crying together, excited together.

Popular drama brought the OST on top hit as well. Of course I also bought the CD, and can sing all the songs well. Not satisfied enough, everytime we went karaoke we brought the VCD and sang the songs hahahaha.

Seriously now I think that I was a stupid young girl.
But because of watching again this Meteor Garden....
I remember Pei's yellow fence boarding house where we watched this drama together.
I remember those laughes and cries we shared.
I remember starting to learn Chinese because of watching this drama.
I remember hunting the CDs at pasar atum together.
I remember my mobile phone ringtone right away.
I remember my karaoke buddies in Surabaya.



I remember my memories.
I remember my friends......

Pei, Nyo, Ayik....If you happened to read this post:
I miss you guys. So much.
Meteor garden is only ONE of our memories I treasure :)
*Imoet is singing meteor garden OST now*