I'm always feeling cold even from the lowest fan wind. I studied in Midlands/Zimbabwe for 2-years, where lowest temperatures are recorded. Believe me the Midlands winter compares to Korean fall or spring. Korea is extremely cold in winter. I'm talking about negative temperatures! I first saw snow in Daegu, but it wasn't thick like what we saw on news in other places like Seoul.
Later on, I realized I was in the hottest city of Korea 'the Beitbridge/Kariba weather city' in Daegu. People around me used to say Seoul area is even colder, but I said no, a cold is cold there is no colder place to me. Yeah, Daegu winter was freezing cold. The 3-winters I spent in Daegu were freezing cold, I used to layer up like a Christmas tree. One could just recognize my eyes of-course since they were the ones exposed. As you can see, in the camel jacket below.
Left: me in camel jacket and my friend Nini in white, on a snowish day at Keimyung University, Daegu, December 2011.
8-winters later, I'm used to cold now but I don't like winter!
Thank you for reading my winter diary. Now temperatures are dropping and I have started layering up! Please leave a comment if you can, do you like winter?
I grew up with constant upset stomach which automatically detoxify after eating spicy foods. In other words, a little chilli sauce could just send me to the restroom. Before I came to Korea, I was worried how I would survive with all the Korean spicy foods around.
Rice with black sauce, spicy kimchi, bibimeon and sea weed soup.
Like for every Korean dish, if you see red-stew-like color be rest assured it's chilli! Whilst in Zimbabwean dishes if you see red-popping it's definitely a tomato.
So yaah, at first I thought maybe I would find tomato stewed menus in Korea.. Alas! There wasn't any.
Korean food: rice with spicy chicken, soup, spicy kimchi cabbage and radish type and soy pan cake.
Then, I guess my gastrointestinal system got aware of it and decided to normalize. Yaah, you heard me well, from the first day I ate kimchi, I never experienced any "running stomach" or grumpiness. So it's now that I really wonder what is the secret nutrient in the fermented Kimchi that stopped my lifetime chilli-triggered upset stomach. Up to now I can't figure out but I can say, the Kimchi fermented microbiomes corrected my gastro-fauna to accept all the chilli. Forget the 'microbiome' term lol, just know that kimchi settles well in my stomach now!!
Raw sea food kimchi.
So yeah you can guess the taste of kimchi, it's fermented so yaa that kombucha/vinegarish taste is the one I enjoy whenever I eat it.
Thank you for reading my spicy food breakthrough 'Kimchi superfood' story. Please check out my videos where I was enjoying Kimchi.
My next blog I will share tips on how to select Korean menu for non-korean speakers.
I knew Asian community uses chopsticks to eat. From the TV programs I noticed that they were 2-types of chopsticks, the wooden and stainless steel types. I wasn't surprised to see chopsticks the day I first ate Korean meal in Korea back then on 26th of March 2011, "Bulgugi rice' at Keimyung University.
Since it was my first meal, I just used the spoon throughout. I tried chopsticks for a short while but they were sliding from my hands, yes, they were falling down on the floor not on the table. 😂😂
So I thought, 🤔 how will I manage for the next 3-years. Few days later an idea came to me. I had to practice till I perfect my chopstick eating skill.
Luckily they sold wooden chopsticks attached to cup Ramen. That was the beginning of my success story to handling stainless steel chopsticks. I repeatedly tried on other foods then 😎 I became a pro. Now I can even cook with chopsticks, yeah 😂. I hope you enjoyed reading my chopsticks success story in-few-words. Have you ever tried chopsticks? Please check my YouTube video where I was trying to cook chicken with chopsticks.
My next blog, I will share my kimchi taste review.
