The Street Markets of Korea (Janghowon part 2)

Here's the continuation of my report on the street market of Janghowon.


Here's a stall selling various items of clothing for kids. I found cool military outfits for my boys in one of these stalls.

I adore the cute animal pillows in this stall. I was going to get one of the crab pillows but the $7 price made me put it back. Eeek!


More veggies for sale. The yellow and green pile you see are leeks piled waist-high. A bundle of leeks sell for about $1 to $2 here.


A snack stand, well more like a drinking stand, sells various dishes for accompaniment to soju (korean alcohol like japanese sake) and maekkoli (traditional rice wine). I believe these are pig skin, pig trotters and chicken feet marinated in gochujang sauce (red pepper paste).


There are also military outfit/tools stalls like this. I got my replacement Swiss Knife here (my original got stolen back in Manila).




Sun hats and visors abound on this stall. Usually elderly women and married ones prefer these type of headgear (I'll tell you more about this on the following posts).


Remember the gochujang & gochucaroo stuff I keep posting awhile back? Well here are bags of where they get that stuff. Dried red peppers waiting to be ground up into powder and made into red pepper paste.


Another snack stand, this time selling blood sausages called "sundaeguk". Usually this sausages are sliced and served with sliced steamed offal.


These are rice crackers. I'll show you how it is done.



See this gizmo? It heats up and puffs up rice kernels and then spits out this perfectly shaped rice cracker. A pack sells for 2 bucks and can keep you happy chewing and crunching the whole afternoon.

Well this ends my report on the street market of Janghowon. I'll post more pics when I find something new and unusual in our weekly street affair. :)

The Street Markets of Korea (Janghowon part 1)

I have told that I absolutely adore street markets. I try to be at the weekly street market here in Janghowon (the tiny agricultural town we're living at right now). The market is scheduled at days ending at 4 and 9, which means the market happens every 5 days (4th, 9th, 14th, 19th, you get the picture). The only times I miss the market is when it is raining or if I'm not feeling well.


These pictures are from the last street market. What you see here is a large bundle of radish, usually slated to make radish kimchi. The name of this kimchi is pogi kimchi (which is really funny for me since pogi is Filipino for handsome). There's another name for this radish kimchi but it is lewd and thankfully I forgot the korean word.


Look at this gorgeous bell peppers. What vibrant colors! And believe me they smelled heavenly too. The korean word for bell pepper is pimang which hubby and I use instead of bell pepper. Pimang is much easier to say than bell pepper. (Yeah, we're lazy like that).


I made Billy stand beside these huge leeks. I swear these leeks were as thick as sugarcanes. Leeks in korea are called Pa. They're found in almost all korean dishes especially soups and stews.


Here are some freshly gutted fish whose name I have no idea. All I know is that they're good fried or grilled over live coals.


You see some monk fish here right in the middle of the picture. Monkfish is fairly cheap here in Korea and goes for about 2-3 pieces for 5 bucks. The liver is particularly prized by chefs and is sometimes referred to as the foie gras of the sea. Hmmm, I wonder if these monkfish are obsessive compulsive too like Adrian Monk?


More monkfish splayed open for buyers' viewing pleasure.


Little octopi crowd a platter. These are dead and are destined for stir-fries and soups. The live ones are for eating whole and raw. Yes, koreans have this fabulous technique of eating squirming octopi off a chopstick. Get a small octopus, stick the chopstick into its mouth, wrap the tentacles several times around the stick, stick the head of the octopus into your mouth and suck the whole creature in. Try to stuff all the squirming tentacles into your mouth (so that you don't look like an alien creature). Chew as fast as you can to kill the octopus before it realizes its predicament and decides to kill you instead (by lodging itself into your throat).


Billy tries to stop himself from poking these orange sea squirts in a bag. The way these sea squirts are prepared is fairly simple. Get one squirt, cut the root off, peel the tough orange layer. Get the squirming innards (pink and yellow) cut into bite size pieces and then dunk into gochujang sauce (red pepper paste) and plop in your mouth. No, I haven't tried it but I plan to sometime in the future. *wicked grin*


Various shellfish enough for a seafood lover's buffet. These are also one of Billy's favorite victims to poke and prod. Billy gets away harassing the seafood because a lot of koreans think he is so cute. Like this seafood vendor who owns this stand.



These grapes are usually imported from the US or if not from China.


Bright red tomatoes are a rarity here in Korea. Usually the tomatoes sold are green or greenish red.


Billy watches a street vendor roast some kim or seaweed laver. Kim is usually used to wrap sushi or kimbab. Or crumbled as a topping for stirfried rice or noodles.

Look how cute these piggy tails are. Pigtails are great for soups and broths. I would use maybe half a kilo of this to make Pork Sinigang (Pork Tamarind Soup).


A couple slices up boiled pigs trotters (feet). The latter is called " chokpal or chokbal". The sliced meat is eaten with garlic and kimchi wrapped up in a lettuce leaf.


Various potted plants for sale. I try to keep away from buying plants like this, I have a heart. Which means I also have a black thumb. You're looking at someone who has managed to kill 2 cacti plants. Don't ask me how, I'm still recovering from that shame.


Black chickens great for soups. Believe me, these chickens actually have black skin, meat and bones. And they make the tastiest soup broth.


Quack-quack, I see baby ducks. I steered Billy away from these fowl and the chickens above since there is another round of bird flu hitting Korea now.

This ends Part 1 of the Janghowon fish market post. I'll post Part 2 tomorrow.

Spring has stung...

Remember a few days back when I told y'all that spring has sprung? Well, I had this crazy notion to go out walking and take some more flower pictures. Of course when you have an abundance of flowers, you will have hordes of bees. This was a pear tree growing under the window of our apartment. Well, sort of, considering we're five floors up.

Here's a close-up of a cousin of the hive denizen that stung me.


It was actually this peach tree in front of our favorite samgyeopsal restaurant that got me. I was admiring it so much that I took a couple of snaps. As I turned away to find more pictures to take, I saw something coming right at my face. It hit my left cheek and felt scratchy while I brushed it away. A few minutes later, my cheek started to itch like crazy and eventually was getting numb. I hightailed it to the nearest pharmacy and got some antihistamine pills.

It helped the itchiness and the numbness a lot but didn't prevent the nasty asthma attack that felled for me 13 hours (yes, I slept that long). But it was worth getting all this spring flower pictures.

Spring has sprung

When a tropical gal like me comes to live in a different climate zone such as Korea, one thing I have found out is that you become thankful when spring has started. Winter gets long and dreary plus the bone chilling cold does not help at all. So, after three long cold months, the first sign of buds on the trees are a welcome sight.

The first time I experienced spring, it was a joy to behold. Everything seems to come alive as the earth changes her grey wardrobe to a vibrant mixtures of greens and reds, yellows and purple. When my parents came over to visit me here a few years back, my mother exclaimed out loud to my hubby "Bill, why aren't they cutting down those dead trees?" (pointing to the grove of peach trees). My hubby gently told her that those leafless trees weren't dead at all. It was just the end of winter and it was too cold for the leaves to come back. My mom sadly shook her head and gravely told him that they were dead. Imagine my mom's suprise when she saw the peach trees flower and bud. She was so overjoyed and laughed over her mistake.



So here are some of spring flowers that I have taken pictures of.