Trekking Korea: Bukhansan and Gochang Fortress

It's impossible to stay in Korea and not get swept into the hiking/trekking culture. I live near a hiking path and every weekend, brightly dressed ajumas and ahjusshis pour out of the subway station to take on the local trails.

Although it is winter, the cold weather doesn't stop the locals from taking on the trails so I didn't want to let it stop me either. In January, on a particularly warm day, some friends and I decided to take on the hiking trail near my house. It was a particularly small path, but a lot of fun. Here are some pictures:

Oh the selfie stick photos

During the vacation, I was also lucky enough to visit my homestay family. Since they knew I liked hiking and trekking, they brought me to the Gochang fortress. Apparently, if you walk around the fortress walls with a stone above your heads a few times, you can live forever!! We only went around once.,..without a stone over our heads...so I guess we'll never know!

The fortress was originally used to keep away Japanese pirates. Now, it is just a nice walking path and a good time for a beautiful day :)

My homestay dad Jaesung

Hwacheon Sancheoneo Festival

During the freezing cold days of Korea winter, what could possibly sound better than Ice Fishing? Recently, some friends and I decided to check out the Hwacheon Mountain Trout Festival. This is a yearly ice fishing festival held in Northern Korea. (Not North Korea, but close to the DMZ) From Seoul, it takes around 2 hours from Dong Seoul bus terminal. 

Our group woke up really early so we could get there early. Obviously, an ice fishing festival would be cold. Because of that, we wanted to spend our time there in the sun and finish before sunset. Also, the festival pretty much closes down around sunset. 

Once we got there, we had to figure out where and how to fish. In the main area, there was an ice fishing area that was very crowded by Koreans. We went to ask if we could join and were directed to a much less crowded area dedicated to foreigners. Well, it was dedicated to foreigners and children. Yes, we were fishing in the kiddy pool. 

Here's 2 of our group getting ready to fish. As you can see, there are only children behind us.
Now, maybe it was because we're awesome fishermen or maybe it was because we were fishing in an area that wasn't crowded and stocked with fish, but we started catching fish pretty quickly. We were all allowed to catch 3 fish each.

 Within an hour, 6 of us had caught 3 fish each.

 Here are some of our filled fish bags. Don't they look delicious?

So, what did we do with our 18 fish? Well, we sauntered from the foreigner section to the Korean section to get our fish cooked. I think in the foreigner section, they gut and season your fish for you. It costs 5,000 won a fish. At the korean section, however, they just wacked it over the head to kill it, cut some slits in it, salted it, wrapped it in foil, and baked it. This was only 2,000 won!

 Here are our delicious fish waiting to be eaten.

 So, now it was still really early and we had eaten our fill of fish. We decided to explore the rest of the festival. First, there were these creepy ice walking robot carriage things. These fake bunnies things would drag you around the ice in the carriage. We decided to skip on that experience...but it sure looked interesting.

Then, we found a man made ice waterfall thing. It was also pretty cool.

On the way back to town, the lanterns were all lit. It made the town look really pretty under the lights. Those are the mountain trout at the top. Once in the town, we decided to check out the largest indoor ice sculpture exhibit in Korea. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was much cooler than I thought it would be. The artist had taken famous monuments and turned them into ice. Here are some of the sculptures.

 

 
 
 

Hummus!

After learning how easy it is to make homemade tahini, I decided it was high time to make some HUMMUS! Hummus is not so commonly found in Korea so I knew it would be a special treat. I found chickpeas at the department store. The one closest to me is NC where they have pre-boiled canned chickpeas. Unfortunately, I guess this isn't so common, but I know you can order chickpeas online.

Anyway, first, the tahini paste. Tahini paste is essentially olive oil and sesame seeds. It's about 3 tablespoons olive oil to 1 cup sesame seeds. If you are in Korea, buy your sesame seeds at a local market. It is much cheaper than a department store. I followed this recipe and used my trusty blender/food processor combo to make the paste! Tahini paste - Check!

 Here is the freshly made tahini paste and some other ingredients (like the chickpeas waiting to be used!)

 After that, it's pretty smooth sailing to make hummus. I used this recipe.
The ingredients are:
-Chickpeas
-Garlic
-Salt
-Tahini
-Chickpea water
-Lemon Juice
-Hot Sauce
I messed with the amounts on the recipe quite a bit because I wanted garlic hummus. But, since this was my first time, I followed the steps of the recipe quite closely. Again, I turned to the handy dandy food processor/blender...

 And voila! Hummus! Delicious delicious hummus.

So how did I eat my delicious hummus? Well, one of my favorites is hummus and carrots, of course. Best afternoon snack possible!

But, when you're too hungry for just a snack, a hummus sandwich will always do. For those of us who live in Korea, we know that lunch meats aren't quite the same here. I nice sliced turkey and hummus sandwich was a little bit out of the question. So, it was time to get inventive. I decided to make a fried tofu sandwich. So, I took my extra firm tofu and sliced it thinly.

Then, put a little bit of oil on the pan and maybe a little bit of salt on the tofu. Then, gently fry the tofu slices. Be careful. Even if you have extra firm tofu, it might break apart a little. Just be careful when flipping it. When it is lightly browned, remove it from the pan and prepare the rest of your sandwich. Put the tofu on one slice of bread...

And the hummus on the other. I also had mozzarella cheese and lettuce for filling. 

And that's how you make a hummus tofu sandwich! All in all, it was delicious. Oh and if you have some bean sprouts, you can make kongnamul and put it in your sandwich too. Kongnamul is incredibly easy to make. You steam bean sprouts and then add garlic and sesame oil...or some extra bells and whistles if you'd like. It adds an extra crunch to your sandwich...a little like adding potato chips to a tuna hummus sandwich. 

And after all these culinary successes, I have quite a failure to admit. Recently, I decided to make a blanket. I found some yarn and knitting needles and thought it might be nice to have an extra small blanket in the house. Basically, I made the blanket way too long and thin. So, I created a cross between a scarf and a blanket. Here is Olivier trying to convince me it could still be useful. In reality, it isn't.