January 6th: Makes you smile.

Pictured above is Esther, Becky and Anna, some friends living in Jeonju that I visited this evening for dinner. These lovely ladies, as well as fried chicken, make me smile. We didn't have enough chopsticks to go round so we used them as pokers. Esther seems to have made a little kebab.

Gamsahapnida for reading,

Stabbystick wielder

January 5th: Something you wore

In Korea, most people wear slip-on shoes so that when they go into their houses or a restaurant it's easy to take them off again (no shoes inside!). The shoes above are my most Korea-friendly in that respect as they're easy to slip on and off.

In the last week I've become a bit of an amateur ice skater in these shoes due to their terrible grip. It also means that I look overdressed on excursions, especially when I go for a quick ice skate down the alley to pick up eggs from the shop. 

Gamsahapnida for reading,

Slippy McSlipperson

January 4th: Letterbox

This is my letterbox. It's not exciting and it's not interesting, and all I get through it is bills. Since living here I've only received one gas bill, and I've been using my floor heating a lot, otherwise I would end up like this. When I get my bill, I will probably be like this.

Gamsahapnida for reading,

Million dollar bill payer.

January 3rd: Something you adore.

This was a special treat from my mother as part of my Christmas package. I actually got three of them. Only one remains. I'm actually coming near to the end of all the treats I got. All that remains is this, half a packet of ginger nut biscuits and some jammy dodgers, which is quite impressive considering the box arrived around three weeks ago now. Were I able to buy special home treats this easily here in Korea, I don't think the box would have made it the five minute walk home from where I had it sent.

Gamsahapnida for reading,

Suprisingly self-controlled.

Adventures in Hong Kong, and in my belly.

Happy New Year! 

For the Christmas part of the festive season, I journeyed to Hong Kong to visit the lovely Perdy, a friend from university who I hadn't seen for two years previous. The journey there was long and not fun. The meals on the plane were fine except for a mysterious article which I suspected was cat food. It was jelly, in a tin shape, with bits of meat in it. Of course I tried it. This was setting me up for a week of new culinary experiences, which you will read about soon enough unless your computer decides to install updates or you get bored. Anyway, it was cat food in taste as well as appearance. In conclusion, it was cat food.

Over the next four days, I travelled by:

• Foot
• Car
• Cable Car
• Speedboat                                                
• Ferry
• Bus
• Train
• Subway
• Mini-bus

Hong Kong was overtaken by 'Hong Kong WinterFest', a city wide decoration festival and they were really creative in ways to make your average Christmas tree unusual and interesting:

Christmas Day

On Christmas day, Perdy and I met up with her mom for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We (me) ate A LOT at this dinner, and everything except a fish stomach was delicious. 

Alice, Perdy and I.

This is called a century egg, because it's been encased in clay which makes the egg more alkaline and it goes black, green and blue and solid without having to even cook it, after weeks to potentially months of sitting waiting in its clay home. This was one thing I REALLY wanted to try on my trip, and coming in a pork rice porridge soup, it was tasty and something I'm glad I tried. I'm not sure how many of you will be convinced. It's like you don't want to eat old eggs!

Another course in our feast was chicken feet. There's an interesting and quite invasive method of eating these. The trick is to suck the meat off the knuckles until you break them off, and then move onto the next knuckle down. Not much meat on them (look at your own fingers, about that much) but they were tasty!

Cake a la Hong Kong.

Some tasty beefy balls.

Some tasty porky balls. The pork was similar to that which you get in a pork pie.

Afterwards, me and Perdy wandered round the markets, a railway museum and then went to meet her friend Blueky at his family's Hong Kong Style barbecue. See below:

Afterwards, we drank wine and played a board game (Mahjong... better described as a game on a board). This combined with the ritual stuffing of myself with lots of food actually gave way to a traditional style Christmas, just on the other side of the world.

Miscellaneous Food

On display here is beancurd 'sauce' (chinese cheese) covered green beans, deep fried oyster and pork in rice in a hot stone bowl, making the rice nice'n'crispy. Following this we ate snake soup. 

This was my final meal in Hong Kong: Breakfast. It included French toast, noodles with sauteed beef, pineapple bun with butter (not cheese, although it looks like it in the picture) a sausage keeping warm under a lovely ham blanket, egg and a piping hot cuppa tea.

And so, after my culinary journey of Hong Kong, it was time to say goodbye.

Goodbye.

Photo Challenge

Moving onto more festivities, a few friends and I spent New Years Eve celebrating in Seoul. It was fun. I stumbled across a photo challenge on fatmumslim.com.au for the new year. Each day, I will take a photo, as according to the list:

I'll be uploading my photos here (hopefully daily) so keep on checking back.

Day 1: Me

This was very early in the morning of January 2nd, so I'm already not doing it to the rules, but it was at this time I found out about the challenge. You can see my little froggy friend in the background.

Day 2: Breakfast

I didn't have time to grab anything more substantial, so a tasty cold caramel coffee had to do. I was not disappointed.

Gamsahapnida for reading and check back tomorrow,

Cat Food Connoiseur.

P.S. K-ballad 'Don't Forget' by Baek Ji Young.