The Road to 40 Day 216/365: Love for Korea

I never thought about Korea being a big part of my life, but here I am, with a lot of Korean recipes, K-Drama recommendations, and even hairstyles.

Che started off with Chinese and Taiwanese dramas before moving to sappy Korean stuff. When she moved to Singapore, our dates were mostly watching K-Dramas on one device and a video call on the other.

I hated kimchi back then – I couldn’t stand the smell, and didn’t really understand why it had to be spicy and sour at the same time.

But the more I watched K-Dramas with her, the more I got interested in the food they had. I sought the different jiggaes, how jjajangmyeon tasted, if gukbap was as refreshing as they say it is, why they stuff rice in samgyetang, and what was so special about Hanwoo beef, among other things.

When we visited Korea, I concluded that their food was almost all the same sauces with just different components.

Yet, I just can’t have enough of it.

This day was one of those days that I wanted to have a nice Korean lunch. I was set to have my haircut at Fusionopolis, and there was a Korean restaurant that I frequented in the area.

Unfortunately, it was closed for renovations. I walked over to Timbre+, my old workplace, to find out if there were any new and interesting concepts.

After going around for quite a bit, I was almost heading over to Iskina Cebu, my old workplace, for some Pinoy food goodness. But I guess my appetite was for a Korean lunch, so I ordered kimchi jiggae with beef, which came with rice.

I think it’s an amazing value for about SGD8.50. Taste-wise, I think it’s a bit too salty, maybe they added too much doenjang. I didn’t really care much for the egg, and it didn’t have a lot of kimchi flavor. Still, it was food that I craved, so I was fine with it.

Once I got that done, I walked over to the barber shop for my appointment.

The problem I have with my hair is that it’s straight and just goes down. It’s difficult to style because at some point, it just falls back down. Cutting it too short makes my face look fat, but not cutting it at all is just a hassle because it’s so hot in Singapore.

The longest I went without going to the barber was three months, and even then, I feel like it wasn’t enough length for the salon to style my hair the way I wanted it to.

I’ve tried different salons, and though they might be a bit expensive, I just thought they would know best about what to do with my hair.

This day, I decided that I wanted it to be just short and clean. I had several pegs, and yes, as in the theme of this blog, it was mostly Korean hairstyles that I was looking at.

I think the guy cut it fine, I liked how he cleaned up the sides and the back of my hair. The top is always going to be a problem, as I don’t like how it looks without hair products. But I think I can deal with it.

I picked up Vino after my haircut and we went straight home. Che had a dinner appointment, so we decided to order takeout. He was asking for ramen again, and I wanted to choose something different. Ultimately, I ended up ordering ramen for him because there was an option to choose from other restaurants in the same order. It allowed me to order chicken murtabak with curry.

Usually, when we eat, I tell Vino to stop using his tablet and just watch on TV if he likes. He would tune in to one of the shows he watches – some nature or aeronautic documentary on Disney, or some cartoon he started watching.

Surprisingly, he tuned in to Confidence Queen. I have been watching this series because Che didn’t like the pace of the first episode. I feel like it has picked up, and Vino has been watching it with me for a couple of nights already. Now, he wants to watch it with me, so I can’t watch it by myself.

It’s nice though, at least he was the one who chose the show we were going to watch. It’s funny that he adapted to this K-Drama craze this early in his life, but I’m happy that the subtitles aren’t as bad as when Che started watching. At least he gets to practice reading and reading really fast.

After dinner, we went to the room to get ready to sleep. We played a bit of Call of Duty, because he wanted to wait for Che. Since we were playing, I put on a show on the background that didn’t need subtitles – Gladiator 2.

Of course, the blood and gore made me realize it might not be a good idea for him to watch it, but he wasn’t really paying attention, so it was alright.

When Che arrived, he was excited and all, and didn’t show any signs of sleeping. However, once Che was in bed, it didn’t take long for him to fall asleep by himself.

Tomorrow is going to be his last day in school, and a free day for Che, so it’ll hopefully be a productive day for all of us.