love match party. I missed it.

Why did I not know about this?  Does it mean that you turn up with your significant other both already dressed the same? Do you turn up and search for  partner based on the fact that you will both be wearing the same New Balance sneakers? Perhaps you find your love at the party and then the party organisers provide you with same same clothes? How does this happen? I need to get on the party invite list (dude on the poster is a K-POP superstar btw).

thanks for your photos. It proves that the love match trend is becoming a world wide phenomenon!

It turns out that is not just me that has become obsessed with love match or with crazy adjuma matching clothes. Or maybe I have encouraged all of you to take to this thing with abandonment? Whatever the reason here are a few shots from friends that I am posting just to prove that:

1. I am not setting these shots up; and 
2. Love match is everywhere (including, apparently on a Chinese game show where the prize is a pair of custom made matching sneakers (thanks Amanda for pointing that one out)). I suggest you couples out there go shopping!!!

Mum and son. Why did the dad choose to not join in?

Nothing like grey trackie dacks with yellow sneakers

Too cute!

Matching socks and sandals for a rainy day

Taking the love away: Koreans on holiday in Jakarta 

Whilst in Rome? They are not Korean! It is official - love match is spreading!!!

True Love, South Korean style: Part 3 - Love match on holiday. I think the love-matchers may have a point...

 So there was an article in the paper this week (front page no less) about the problem of people not hooking up in Korea (the paper was a bit more nuanced than this. See "Mom wants you married? So does the State",  New York Times, 5 August 2013). Apparently the government has been  proactively engaging in the couple business, with some Departments/Ministries holding "dating parties" for their staff with counterparts from private corporations (the Ministry of Health and Welfare held four dating parties in 2010). Company rules are also being relaxed and inter-office romances are now allowed to take place. 

In the days that followed the initial article, and in the article itself, a number of reasons were put forth as to why it is that singledom is starring at the moment. Shyness seemed to be the prevailing rationale. Apparently, arranged marriages were the norm up until a generation ago and South Koreans still largely prefer formal introductions. Dating agencies, along with government schemes, are growing in popularity as a way to promote coupledom bliss (ultimately the government is hoping for children to be produced as a result of a happy union to boost SK's low birthrate). Some computer savvy types have even orchestrated special flash mob love events (men wear white and women wear red) in an attempt to uncover deep desires (see Flash mob for love South Korea Christmas 2012)

Subway advertisement for a dating agency (I think

South Koreans may have it tough when it comes to getting together but, again, as my love match obsession photographs demonstrate, there is no such shyness when it comes to displaying their love in public. I think (but feel a little unqualified commenting in this as have been off the dating scene for sometime now) that this is the opposite of where I come from. Not so shy in the initial approach (a little nervous yes but not intimidated by the prospect of new meetings) but once the hook up is well underway and the relationship status has been secured, public displays of affection (PDAs in my world)  are kept to a minimum. And as for love-match dressing? That would be a no. 

After a recent holiday around South Korea (more on that adventure later), I am beginning to feel maybe I have it the wrong way round. Just take a look at the loved-up pictures of couples clearly enthralled with each other on holidays. Romantic bliss in identical pink raincoats stands out as my favourite. I fear if someone had bothered to take a picture of me and my husband on our holiday we would not have come across just as serene and we certainly would not have come across as coordinated! While I could try to blame the stress of child-raising for this, it would not be the real answer and nor would it be much of an excuse. On my travels we saw many older couples dressed love match style (maybe not the whole outfit but the shoes at least). So I am thinking, just to keep the romance alive, perhaps it is time to purchase some same same articles of clothing for the pale, tall, skinny white dude and the short, chubby, olive white chick who hang out with each other most weekends and occasionally during the week? Only issue is what brand t-shirt would we be and where on earth do you find matching swimsuits? 

my fave couple in matching pink raincoats. 

      This couple also had on matching shorts and were super sweet
        about being photographed for what they referred to as  "couple dressing."

so not a fluke!

more brand love

all in love 

sunset watching happy love

too cool love

too much love!

sightseeing love

more sightseeing love 

more brand love whilst sightseeing

beach love

beach love for couples

And that is food!

I have long been fascinated with the discovery of foods that today we find as everyday items on the supermarket shelf.  For example, consider the day that the first potato chip was served up. Someone (George Crum apparently) peeled a potato, sliced it, fried it and added a bit of salt at the end to create the crisp. Well done George. A relatively simple, yet transformational, achievement for the potato. Not all food metamorphoses are as straightforward however. Take chocolate. Imagine being a Mayan warrior and waking up one day to deduce that the bitter, bitter, fruit of the cacao tree could be turned into some yummy kind of deliciousness if you simply: fermented the seeds of the cacao fruit; dried seeds; cleaned seeds; roasted seeds; removed seed shell; grounded the insides of the seed; liquified the grounded bits; turned the liquid into a solid;  added sugar; and (finally) added milk? The Mayan warrior might not have completed all of these steps in one go (the last two steps were European additions) but you get the point. From this:

The humble cacao bean

To this:

           Chocolate chips from Costco (best I could do here but if I could
           have found Lindt dark chocolate the picture would have been      
           very different (imagine a face covered in chocolate smears but not
           the chocolate itself!!)

Where am I going with this while in Korea here you ask? Well, it turns out that Korea has quite a lot of food to add to a list that I will title "What were they thinking when they decided to do that to that and then eat it?" (WTF for short). My present list comprises of some complicated and some more simpler food substances.

Kimchi

Of course, I have to begin with kimchi. Kimchi is Korea's national dish which is eaten at practically every meal, either as a side dish or as a main dish (kimchi stew, kimchi chicken, kimchi tofu, etc). It has been to space (and I assume all was eaten there with the Korean astronaut so none came back). Who woke up, sometime in the 7th Century, and worked out that salting cabbage and adding red pepper, garlic, ginger, spring onions and radishes (the most usual combination but there are variations depending on region and season) and burying it outside in a stoneware pot  for months at a time could result in  a spicy, smelly dish of extreme goodness for your body (not necessarily your senses although you do start to get used to it). We recently moved house and were presented with a Kimchi fridge (that has special controls to ensure kimchi is kept at optimal temperatures during its various stages of fermentation) in addition to our usual fridge  Apparently November is the prime kimchi preparation time, so I shall have to stop blogging and commence kimchiing then. Let's just hope the rain stops soon or we might be faced with a kimchi crisis reminiscent of 2010 when there was a national shortage of cabbage across Korea leading to a hefty increase in the price of cabbage and a fear that the kimchi pickling season would have to be abandoned.

Traditional kimchi storage pots

Kimchi at the supermarket

Acorn jelly

In the front yard of my family home, right next to the red brick letter box, we had a huge acorn tree that provided endless hours of entertainment for three rambunctious kids. We could climb, swing, hide, run round and round, jump in the tree leaves and, of course, collect the thousands of acorns that would fall from the tree in autumn. We would save the acorn hats for the fairies in the garden (useful as umbrellas for the poor little darlings) and use the bodies for various craft projects (creating acorn people was a favourite). Yet with all of our acorn related adventures we had never considered cracking the acorns open, grounding up the inside into a paste like susbstance, stirring that paste into water, collecting the starch that then forms, purging the starch of noxious tannins (over the course of several days), settle and dry the starch, mix it again with water, and perhaps some corm starch, to make a jelly where, added with sliced garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil and red chilli, we would eat it all up. What were we thinking? This is dotorimuk (and it is actually rather delicious).

Acorn jelly pre-made (you can also buy it as a power and
make it up yourself)

What it looks like out of the packet 

Bamboo salt

Bamboo salt is a perfect example of WTF. It is described as a "warehouse of vital minerals" (for around $55 a vial I would expect nothing less) yet how this warehouse came to be is completely bizarre. First of all you need to locate natural sea salt from the West Coast of Korea. Next, find bamboo trunks that are at least 3 years old, fill them with the west coast sea salt and plug up both ends with specially located yellow soil. Stack the salt filled bamboo trunks inside a steel furnace but only burn the furnace with pine tree firewood and the pine resin. Repeat this process 8 times and on the ninth and final time the temperature must reach 1500 degrees to ensure that the now liquified salt fuses with the minerals from the broken down bamboo and the yellow soil. Amazing.

Bamboo salt for sale 

Live octopus

Here, I would argue that covering in bread crumbs and deep frying with a sprinkling of salt, pepper and  chilli, is a great idea. Eating live, raw octopus straight from the sea (or in our case the fish tank at the front of the restaurant) with no additives is actually not that pleasant (and rather chewy). I kept expecting (not that I ate that much) the tentacles to keep crawling and sucking in my mouth. The trick seems to be to watch the tentacles slowly stop moving (that would be die!) in front of you while you engage in meaningless banter with your dinner companions over a glass or two of soju. I'm not rushing back people. 

Mountain herbs 

This is a dish we discovered on the outskirts of Odaesan National Park, just beyond the gates of the Woljeongsa Temple. We watched the men come back to the restaurant from a morning of picking what really did look like weeds from the side of the mountain. They then spent some time de-soiling and skinning followed by pickling, dipping, covering in kimchi, sesame oil, chilli etc and presented us with plates of mountain herb delicacies. It was delicious. Seriously. 

Lunch for five (three of which are under six)

Crust of burnt rice tea

Crust of burnt rice tea is literally just that - the crust of burnt rice from the bottom of your rice cooker (and I thought it was only me that managed to burn rice in a rice cooker). Luckily, Korea does sell this tea in bag form so you don't need to wait until you burn your rice for dinner (or breakfast or lunch) to partake in this deceptively simple concoction. I do feel that it tastes a bit like cornflakes which I am not sure I like so much in a cup of tea but when in Rome...

Soul to Seoul: it's not just chicken soup for the soul here but an array of herbs, a lot of chilli, some marinated bamboo stems, dried lotus flowers, pickled persimmons and a lot of special preparatory processes thrown in for good measure! And I have only just begun...

adjuma fashionistas

When I reach 40 I intend to be super fashion savvy. A leader in style and elegance. I shall be smart and savvy, with a quiet sophistication, a definite flair, a refined finesse. I shall have an outfit for every day and every occasion coupled with an arsenal of handbags, shoes and accessories from which to complement my look. OK, so that is the plan anyway. Surely with age comes wisdom about one's clothing choice? Surely it has got to get better than where I am at the moment? 

Looking back, perhaps the teenage years have been my fashion highlight to date. But that is not really saying much as my wardrobe then consisted mostly of school uniforms for the week, sports uniforms for the weekend and the rest being whatever it was that my mum chose for me, my sister handed down to me or the neighbour's daughter, Kerrel, was throwing out (please don't mention the bottom accentuating red dress I wore to the high school debutante ball). My twenties were spent mostly in jeans and baggy t-shirts and cheap suits for work. And my thirties? A bit of a fashion disaster to be honest as I have tried desperately to remain dressed in twenties clothes (hard to move on from a Sportsgirl/Gap addiction) but with a post three baby body shape, a relocation across three countries in three years with extreme variations in temperature and very little disposable cash to top it all off. I think it would be fair to say that my clothing crisis is currently at an all time high. I am now living in hope that in the three years I have left before reaching 40 I will:

1. Receive a huge sum of money from someone; and 
2. Set about magically transforming my wardrobe into something resembling a successful 40 year old's wardrobe. 

Ignoring the problems that fulfilling number 1 on the list poses (Kickstarter grant worthy?), number 2 needs some clarification. What exactly is a successful 40 year old wardrobe? Let's turn to the streets of Seoul for inspiration. Seoul is well known for being a city of beautiful people. Advertisements for plastic surgery are abundant, nail bars are to be found on every corner and the make up stores are ubiquitous. People are generally very well groomed and extremely well put together, from the shoes to matching bets to matching handbags and occasionally (but more often than you would think occasionally would mean) matching dogs. 

As I am not intending to head down the road of Korea's equivalent of the Japanese Harajuka girls (spotty socks with frilly lace aside), I have been surreptitiously checking out Seoul's older generation for some fashion savvy guidance. The adjumas seem to have a definite sense of style in Seoul. From them, I have prepared a list of things that it appears I need to accumulate over the next few years as I begin to assemble my descent into the 40 something life wardrobe. 

Sun visors

The bigger the better is the trend here. Why go for a baseball hat, peak hat or even a bucket hat when you can go all out in front with a super sized sun visor (that has the added bonus of letting your perfectly coiffed hair remain free in the wind)? I would estimate that the largest I have seen to protrude at least 30cm from the forehead. Not that you are ever in danger in Korea but I have a feeling that the super sized visor could also be utilised as some sort of weapon of mass destruction should the need ever arise (images of a pack of adjumas wielding sun visors manically above their heads as they descent in zombie like movements down a mountain trail resplendent in their fluorescent hiking gear spring to mind here).

Fluorescent hiking gear 

No matter where you are hiking - be it a Sunday stroll down the main tourist strip of Insadong, a walk around the palace of Gwanghwamun or an actual hike up one of Seoul's mountains, it would not be a hike unless you wore some sort of fluorescent clothing. The more the better.

Matching prints 

These photos are hard to come by (it is really hard to do on the sly and given that most of the adjuams I come across seem to want to provide me with instructions about my children it is hard to discreetly snap away) so, i have resorted to images of the prints to provide an example of what goes with what according to the discerning eye of the adjuma.

the black paisley print is a favourite

UPDATE: Thanks Mike for this special snap below.

Note that the shoes at the bottom of the ensemble will either be fluorescent hiking sneakers or some sparkly sequinned number.

shoe example (very rare to see black pants) 

Sparkles and sequins are not just for the Seoul woman however. For men, there are plenty of options to adorn oneself in some sort of shimmery, sparkly number. This jacket remains my favourite to date (it also comes in silver).

Soul to Seoul: a whole lot of style.

underground seoul

My Dad read my first post (a while ago now) and became rather concerned about the possibility of people being lost underground for hours/days/months on end (his actual question was whether anyone had died on the subway system for lack of being able to find their way out again).  To contextualise, here is the metro map my Dad knows compared to the metro map I am now faced with.

Melbourne metro map

Seoul metro

Perhaps, for the purpose of some memory exercise/weird party trick, I could get to know the Seoul subway map off by heart but the map is just the beginning of the crazy subway world here. In hometown land, not only is the track map simpler (the lines go to the same middle point with none of this crazy crisscrossing, round and round caper (unless you are on the city loop (all of a massive 4 stations))) but the stations themselves don't require special orienteering skills to navigate. Most of the stations (again, with the exception of the city loop) are above ground (which already makes it easier to orient oneself) and have only one escalator or set of stairs taking you to the same entry and exit point. This is what you find when you enter the Seoul subway. Bring on a labyrinth of underground tunnels, travelators and escalators that take you several floors down. Know your exit - is it exit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12 (I haven't been to a station higher than 12 exits yet but I am sure it exists) that you need? Lack of attention to detail (a common fault of mine) regarding the correct exit for your intended destination means you will face a completely different part of Seoul then where you wanted to be when you do (eventually) emerge from the underground. Yes, this can be rectified, but it means either returning underground to walk a further 2 kilometres to the correct exit or finding your way across highways upon highways, each with 5 to 10 lanes of traffic, whilst juggling the GPS on your phone and holding grimly onto three crazed children who have become frenzied by finally making it to the outside. 

I am yet to confirm whether Seoulites are born with an inbuilt GPS which allows them to navigate the subway (or the highways upon highways for that matter) better than anyone else (understanding the Korean language is probably also a distinct advantage). Koreans all seem extremely calm (hurried, but calm) underground. This is in complete contrast to me who stands like a deer in the headlights,  transfixed by the signs (that I cannot read), furiously looking for numbers (which, thankfully I can read - ten years of university finally comes into its own) while scrolling through my phone to check what it is I am meant to be looking for in the first place (why I have even left the house is often the question that pops into my mind around this stage). But, to assuage Dad's concern, it really wouldn't matter if I did become temporarily disorientated while in transit underground: remember, this is Seoul and there is everything and anything to be found, especially when taking a train.

For starters you can recharge your phone and it's free. Yes, free.

You have access to gas masks. Reassuring if slightly confronting.

You can peruse art works, sometimes displayed in underground gardens. Serene.

I like the slogan 

You can shop. Mostly for books, bags, lingerie, the infamous leggings and mini skirt sewn together spring combination and hiking shoes (in any fluroscent colour you like) but also for your weekly shop or your next plastic surgery appointment (all with the mobile phone and the posters with the QPR codes). Underground is the only option for cheap coffee, either from a coffee chain (for below the average above ground price of $4.90) or from various contraptions placed practically right on the train tracks. (Be warned though; you are not allowed to take drinks on the actual train. Don't do it. Adjumas do get very cross if the rules are not obeyed.)

hot coffee on the tracks

Or how about just sitting and watching the rest of Seoul go by? I am yet to discover a subway stop with less than 1000 people in it so it does provide an excellent option for people watching (and love match snapping). It is all very orderly of course, provided that you stay on the correct side of the escalator/travelator/stairs/walking path (that is often wider than a double car lane) and are prepared for some serious closeness (can I just say now that not being able to buy deoderant very easily in Seoul is a crime?).

All of this for the price of around $1.00 per ride/adventure. Bargain!

Soul to Seoul: so many souls in the underground.