Eat Your Kimchi

Just a blurb about one website that is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. Aptly named Eat Your Kimchi, it covers a variety of topics South Korea related.

Martina and Simon -
Crazy Awesome Canadians

Simon and Martina are a crazy Canadian couple who live with their dog, Spudgy, in Bucheon. They moved there originally to teach English but now are the Gepik Representatives for Bucheon City - meaning if you're a Gepik in the Bucheon area and have questions about dealing with your school, you contact them and they help you figure it out. But what I know them for their amazing website.

They've got general Korea and Culture. Just some of the things they cover are Christmas, Valentine's Day, White Day, and Pepero Day - That's an entire day devoted to pepero aka pocky!!!

A huge section call Music Mondays where they review K-Pop videos. I've rediscovered my love of Asian music thanks to them. I look forward to every week and adding new music to my collection.

They did a series entitled WTF - Wonderful Treasure Find. There were so many hilarious things you won't find in North America. Mouth stretchers, ear picks, Winnie the Pooh sandwich press, spike ball hand massagers (which hurt, according to Martina and Simon), and circle contact lenses that are supposed to make your eyes cute. Watching them play around and try to figure out what these strange contraptions/inventions are for is hilarious.

Wednesdays are W.A.N.K. days - that's Wonderful Adventure Now Korea. They go different places and share the awesomeness. Namsan Tower, Shopping in Myeongdong, Arcades, and whatever else they or their followers can come up with. Each week isn't just a wander around, they have three things they have to do. 1) Find a K-Pop idol and get a picture with them. 2) Find the best (or worst, depending on how you look at it) example of Engrish. And 3) Complete a random challenge. Loser gets a punishment of some kind - dancing in the street, embarrassing stuff. Though there is a 1 in 6 chance of escaping punishment.

Every once in a while, a video on Korean food pops up. Tteokbokki (dok bok ki) - a spicy rice cake, meat, egg dish sold at Pojangmacha (street vendors). Mandu - grilled, fried, boiled, or steamed dumplings (probably the street food I'm looking to most). Naengmyeon - cold noodles with or without broth. And the amusing convenience store raid; they raided the nearby convenience store, regardless that they had no idea what they bought and tried all of it in a 4 part series.

There's a How-To section that I will probably use heavily. Appliances in Korean (washing machines and rice cookers), the subway/bus system, ordering food, and, possibly most importantly, paying bills.

Since Simon and Martina both taught English when they first moved to Bucheon, there are ESL tips, ideas, and games. Awesome stuff to use for any teacher.

And then there's the FAQ and TL:DR section. They go together. The FAQ answers some questions and then the TL:DR Thursday videos answer some of those same questions and more. Some are relevant - being a foreigner in Korea. Some are hilarious - Most Awkward Thing Your Students Ever Asked. And not relevant to us, but awesome anyway - like how Simon proposed to Martina.

The Spudgy sporting his awesome blue do.

And there is Spudgy. Spudgy is the pekingese they adopted from a shelter. He's an adorable little thing with his colored mohawk - yes, Spudgy has a mohawk that is currently blue. There are lots of Spudgy cameos - especially in Music Mondays where he has a dancing solo. Because Spudgy travels back and forth between Korea and Toronto, Canada (where they're from), Simon and Martina know a thing or two about transporting pets. I hope to get a pet (if I plan on staying more than, say, a year) and it will be helpful to know how to bring them home.

So that's my blog on the awesomeness that is Eat Your Kimchi. Go check them out!