Korean Street Food

Once a co- worker asked about Korean street food and I'm really hungry for some Korean street food. Hence, I wanted to blog about Korean street food.

Korean street food is quite widely available. A lot of people enjoy eating Korean street food. The most well known Korean street food is called 포장마차 pojang macha I can't really directly translate it, but its something like a restaurant on wheels.However, the food stall doesn't really have wheels, well most of them but some do. The reason is that they can travel to different places to look for people. So instead of people looking for the food stall, they go to the people.

They serve various type of Korean dishes that are relatively cheap. We have odeng, which are Japanese oden. I guess the colonization did influence more than we thing. These are really cheap. Only 500 won, which is 50 cents in the USD. The soup for the odeng is served in a cup and is free. Then there is spicy ricecakes! One portion of the spicy rice cake costs 2000won which is around 2 USD. Yes, its dirt cheap. It is spicy and sweet. So if your a spicy food lover, its definitely recommended. One of my favorite is called soon dae. Its pig intestines, liver and lungs. Well, a lot of people think its disgusting, but they are pretty good! Its only 2.5USD. They also have kim bab. Most foreigners know them as Korean sushi, but unlike sushi it has more vegetable/pork/beef. I am not sure about the price but probably 1~2 dollars. Lastly, there is chicken on a stick! Yes they put chicken pieces on a stick and cook it! Tastes wonderful. Some places have different flavors. They have the extremely spicy one that killed my tongue few years back...

Yes, compared to the U.S. its really cheap. Sometimes I wonder if American poor people go to Korea, they can afford their food at least.

But, I don't really go to pojang macha for the food, but the feeling you get when you eat a warm food in a somewhat cozy pojangmacha, to keep youself warm. Also, its a great place to get a snack!



Just Another Video!

North Korea & South Korea conflicts

Its thanks giving, and nobody is in my physics lecture ... I guess every one has a place to be that is more important than physics! Anyways, I wanted to write about the conflict South and North had couple of days ago. Couple of days ago I was studying and playing starcraft..  I thought everything was ok.. Then just yesterday, I saw my friends facebook post. It said "North Korea Attacks South"...? "WHAT????"

I saw the youtube video and found out that North Korea bombarded a South Korean island....I could not believe what I saw. North Korea directly attacked South Korea. WTF WTF WTF. I really do not understand North Korea's way in politics. I do not get what they are gaining from killing innocent civilians...I mean if they want to kill somebody, they could kill someone who is more involve with the matter. (Not that killing is good).

South Korea's ship was attacked few months ago. They killed around 47 marine soldiers. Now, they freaking bombarded an ISLAND. They kill around 3 people and a lot of people are injured. When the South Korean ship sank, we just had international criticism. But, I do not believe, international criticism is enoughㅡㅡ. I do not think they understand and care about international relationship. I wish the president comes up with a harsher punishment for North Korea. I mean we were spending tons of money for the military for years and years, and yet we don't really use it. I'm not saying we should have war, but do something about this matter!!!

North Korea and South Korea are the same Koreans. I don't hate them, I want them to join the South. Well, since at least from my point of view its doing better, and I think we might be able to sustain North Koreans as well. Its just freaking Kim Jung Il. WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM. I think he watched the movie Igor. I bet he wanted to create a country that would rule others with terror and they would give tributes to North Korea. 


Someday a North Korean hunchback would prove terror is wrong, if the movie is right!


Anyways I would like to say I'm sorry for those who were in the island and hope they can re build their lives. .. 


For those people who died. 고인의 명복을 빕니다.

Cyber Friends

This might sound weird to you but, I do have a quite of bunch of cyber friends, meaning that I have friends who I have never met before. I only met them indirectly through the internet and online games. Yes, I am pretty weird, but this is something that is quite common in Korea. A lot of people would have cyber friends.

How do you obtain a cyber friend?
For me, I am a quite hardcore gamer. So, in online games, I join clans and guilds. These people are the people who you would rely in the game for help or to exchange items. Hence, you get really close to them. Another way is to write blogs. Blogs are a more healthy way to find cyber friends but less interaction than online games

So, what do you do with a cyber friend?
Well, most of the time, I exchange ideas and thoughts about practically anything.

What are the advantages?
You definitely get the know more of their inside than outside, cause most of the time you never physically see who they are. Hence, its more about personalities that define whether he or she is a friend or not.


What are the disadvantages?
You really don't know who they are actually. They might be pretending to be a 13 year old boy or girl when they are 50. (there's nothing wrong with being 50, just pretending to be 13 is just... weirder.. than having cyber friends).  He or "she" might be a rapist!

So, its important to find good cyber friends. I have few... that I have stayed contact with over a year. Well, the thing is we decide to play the same game after we finish one.

Psh, I know what you guys are thinking. ' this guy must have no friends in real life!'


Well.... I do! hahhahahahha

A short post before going back to my hw... since i haven't posted in ages!

Talesweaver & Children of the Rune

This is a game that I have sacrificed my first semester of my freshman to. It has a really good story plot, so you won't be too bored of hunting. It involves tedious amount of clicking in order to make your character stronger. I reached level 200 and my fingers hurt a lot. So, if your not a very found of clicking, then the game might not be for you. Still, I love the game. I did manage to play it for about 3 years. So, I am very attached to the game.

So, here I am advertising the game

http://tales.gamengame.com/

It is a interesting game as the game is based off a very deep fantasy novel. The book is called the "Children of the Rune" More info can be found in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Rune_(Korean_novel)

There are many versions available in the Asian market. Translated into Chinese and Japanese. I don't think it was translated to English just yet. I would highly recommend people to read these books as they are truly amazing.

I wasn't really good at reading in Korean as I never got a real Korean education. Plus, I was sort of a retard as I could not read until I was 3rd grade? I am not sure, but my sister was able to read earlier than I could.

Anyways, the book is based on a character called Boris. He is the second son of a rich powerful family of travaches. He has a very cool brother who loves Boris dearly. His family also has possession of the most powerful armor and weapon. However, their father's younger brother destroys Boris's family. Boris and his brother barely manages to escape with the armor and the sword. They are not immune to the poverty they are in. They have to struggle in order to survive. Boris's brother suicides as he is poisoned by a monster and soon he would become one. Boris is left alone and struggles to survive himself.

Well, the book is way more complicated and better than the short description

I gave. Moreover, you would ask why they had to run if they had the most powerful weapon and armor. The reason probably was that they wanted to keep the existence of these legendary equipment secret as their exposer would result in more people attempting to destroy the family. So, why does Boris throw the sword away and run? Well, he has an emotional attachment. As you can see his brother who was infected, killed himself in order to prevent himself from turning into a monster and do harm to Boris. Moreover, the sword was given to Boris as a gift from his brother.

Its quite random for me to write about this game, but I did owe them the song I am using for my background. So this promotion of the game and novel might work out as a redemption? hahhahaha

Weezer & me

My relationship between weezer isn't anything particular or special. They were the first band I actually started listening to, but they were also the band I listened to while I was having a hard time in life(well not too hard since there are more people who have a harder time). And after that I would seldom listen to their songs since I have couple of thousands of mp3. Today, I was using Grooveshark which is a pretty good music player, since pandora has so many advertisements. I really didn't have any artist names that came in mind except for weezers. Wow, while I was listening to weezers a lot of flashbacks and emotions came through. This is really interesting since its like classical conditioning. I was conditioned to express nervousness(except that I'm nervous most of the time) when I listen to old weezer songs.

Still, I love weezer though. They didn't really encourage me to live for a better future, but they provided a distraction.To distract myself from my surroundings, well at least for a moment. Actually, Grooveshark gave me a whole bunch of weezer songs that I have not yet listened to . I guess I have plenty more to enjoy now :P

So, why am I writing this? No real reason. I just wanted to write something personal. So, this blog is like more of a MY blog. Maybe something like a open diary. So, the future me will see this and laugh about it. Who knows maybe this would be reference for aliens when humans are gone. Maybe I'm just personalizing this blog cause I'm used to writing diaries and its fun the re-read them.

Interesting though, I only have 20 more Korean blog posts to go! Then, I'm probably going to shift gears to another topic. I haven't decided on what topic I should write about. I am interested in making videos like those popular asian video makers on youtube.... But, I have no idea how they are so funny and interesting to watch!

Apple and Samsung

So, here I am waiting for this person to call me so that I can meet up with him and do a project together. Well, he was suppose to do most of the work since its not that important for me to do this project(we have to do 2 out of 3 and I already did one, he on the other hand didn't do any). Well, I still want to submit something so I figured I could help out. So... I kept on asking him about how far he went... and everyday... there is no progress LOL. He keeps on saying, he and this other person was trying to understand the project. So... finally they decides to start programming when the due date is tomorrow LOL.. and he asked me to help out. Well, they didn't really start since they didn't even make a program file for the code. So.. I was suppose to help them code their stuff, but here I am in a computer building abandoned ㅡㅡ.. So I'm just going to write a short blog entry sine I haven't done that forever and start working on my coding

I came across an interesting comment on youtube while I was excitingly reading these rage comments on youtube. It said that apple products are actually made by samsung or something like that. So, I googled key words like "samsung" "apple" "supplier" like a good student would do. And google gave me this website.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/hardware/Is-Samsung-benefiting-from-Apples-innovation/articleshow/6740264.cms

This was probably a WTF article since I always thought that Samsung and Apple were competitor and Apple would hate samsung for imitating their products while Samsung would hate Apple for taking its market share in the mobile&mp3 industry. Apparently,they are holding hands in the inside while they punch each other in the outside. They are collaborators. Samsung provides Apple hardware, since Samsung is one of the best hardware manufacturers. So, I assume that they are benefiting from each other. Apple gets the advanced hardware and Samsung gets the design. Maybe that is why Apple didn't sue Samsung yet. I'm pretty sure that is why since Apple does sue a lot of companies. Well, at least that is what I read in the newspaper now and then. But sadly, Iphones and Galaxy S are not within reach for me since I live on a student budget.

Well, at least its good to know that samsung and apple don't hate each other :P

Now back to coding stuff!