Special Evening Party

French Wine & Korean Dishes

Do you like French wine? Or are you interested in Korean Royal cuisine?

The Seorae Global Village Center is inviting you to a special party which will take place on January 6th, 2012. At the event, you will be able to learn about how to pair French wines with Korean dishes, especially Korean Royal cuisine. After the presentations, participants can taste the French wine and Korean cuisine prepared by experts.

          *Host: Mr. Pierre Mettelin, Professor of Oenology at Kyunghee University

          *Languages: English & Korean

          * Date & Time: January 6 (Friday), 2012 from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m.

          * Participation fees: 15,000~20,000 won (depending on the number of participants)

To sign up or for more information, please contact the Seorae Global Village Center at 02-2155-8949 or visit the website http://seoul.global.go.kr/seorae/

The 2^nd Expats Day festival is taking place on September 24^th (Sat.) at the Seoul World Cup Stadium. The Expats Day event , sponsored by FC Seoul, 10 Magazine and the Seoul Global Center, consists of two parts: a main program and a pre-game event.

The main program is a soccer match between FC Seoul and the Daejeon Citizens at 5 pm , but the festival will begin at 2pm with the pre-game event, featuring b-boy performances, concerts and a variety of game booths at the venue.

For only 10,000won, you can get admission to the soccer game along with free beer and a hot dog. For more information about the event or tickets, please call at 010-2434-6351 (English available) or email at  kbh@gssports.co.kr.  For more details about how to pick up your ticket, click the 10 Magazine website. (Tickets will be sold at the venue as well.)

Kimchi Fermentation Science Cafe

As one of the main programs of the 18th World Kimchi Culture Festival this year, the ‘Kimchi Fermentation Science Cafe’ event will take place on September 15th (Thur) in Insa-dong. The event will feature a wide range of fun activities including Kimchi Characters Street Parade, a percussion performance, and the kimchi art stage from 11 to 5 pm. As a major program of the event, particpants can learn about  the special recipe from the kimchi master, try making kimchi on their own and bring it home with you. If interested, check out the following information.

          -Date & Time: September 15 (Thur), 2011, from 11:00 to 17:00

          -Venue: Nam (South) Insa Madang in Insa-dong

          -Participation fee: 3,000 won per person (will be donated to Good Neighbors)

          -Hosts: Gwangju Metropolitan City, World Kimchi Culture Festival Organizing Committee

For more information, please call at 777-1493 ( Jung Hyun-joo) or email at diamond0373@naver.com

For those who are interested in any of the  activities, please contact the Seorae Global Village Center (02)2155-8949 or seorae@sba.seoul.kr (Seorae Global Village Center’s Web site: http://seoul.global.go.kr/seorae/)

Held under the theme of “Meeting and Sharing of the World, and Unity,” the Seoul Friendship Fair 2011 serves as a venue where traditions and cultures from all around the world converge. This international culture festival features performances by invited overseas performers, an international school children’s painting exhibition, a world food court, a traditional folk art exhibition, street events, diverse performances, and much more.

• Date: 12:00, Sat, May 7 ~ 18:00, Sun, May 8, 2011

• Location: The Seoul Plaza, Mugyodong-gil and the surrounding area

• Host: Seoul Metropolitan Government

• Target: Seoul citizens, international visitors and residents

• Theme: Meeting and Sharing of the World, and Unity

• Website: www.seoulfriendshipfair.org

• Event schedule

          Opening event: 17:00~20:30, Sat. May 7, 2011

          Closing event: 17:00~18:00, Sun, May 8, 2011

          Performances and auxiliary events: 12:00~18:00, Sat, May 7 – Sun, May 8

[Event Introduction]

Performances by Performing Troupes from Foreign Cities

• This event has been organized by inviting performing troupes from foreign cities in a sisterhood relationship with Seoul, and will allow visitors to watch and hear live a wide variety of traditional dances, songs, and performances from many different countries.

World Food Court and Traditional Folk Art Exhibition

• This event offers unique experience-oriented booths where visitors can view clothing and souvenirs donated by foreign embassies of countries around the world. Visitors can have a special chance to experience many different countries and their traditional folk art all at once. By inviting participants to vote for food of their choice and favorite traditional folk art, the organizers will select and present prizes to the most popular booths.

International School Children’s Painting Exhibition and Awarding of Prizes

• This exhibition will display pictures created by students at foreign schools in the city. These pictures depict the images of Seoul to show how children from foreign cultures see the city of Seoul.

World Costumes Experience

• This exhibition will allow visitors to try on various traditional costumes from many countries worldwide, take photos, and keep good memories. The most sought after experience-oriented event organized by Seoul City is the Korean ‘hanbok’ experience session, while visitors are invited to try on traditional foreign costumes.

Pinwheel Photo Zone

• A Photo Zone of a world map comprised of pinwheels will be operated at the Seoul Plaza to convey the message that people of the world with different cultures and colors form unity and become one. People are invited to take beautiful photos with family members and friends here.

Writing Messages of Hope for the World

• This letter-writing event invites people to write letters to convey wishes for unity and peace of the world’s people in the hopes to creating a peaceful and beautiful world.

Music Cafe 

 • This place, located at the center of Mugyo-dong, will offer a space of comfort and relaxation, which will present a wide variety of performances and events, separately from the main stage.

Street Art Exhibition

• Street performers, including clowns and various character dolls, will laugh, play tricks and have fun together with the public at many locations around the event site, allowing visitors to enjoy more fun and excitement of the festival.

 Grand Unity Gathering

• This is a dynamic gathering where people of the world become one through the festival. People from all over the world will pack the Seoul Plaza and sing together to unite to celebrate the festival’s grand finale.

Information Fair

• The Information Fair is a venue where organizations and companies that provide services and business information to foreign residents get together in order to provide an opportunity for participants and companies to engage in practical exchange.

The Itaewon-Hannam Global Village Center will be going to the National Folk Museum for a free kimchi making class. Kimchi is widely regarded as the most representative Korean food and it is known to be a very healthy food to eat regularly. This is your chance to learn how it’s made. Participants will have a chance to make baechu kimchi (made from heads of cabbage) and take some home too.

DATE: Thursday 21 October 2010
TIME: 10am to 12pm
COST: Free
VENUE: Itaewon-Hannam Global Village Center

DIRECTIONS: Take line #6 and get off of Itaewon Station (STN 630) and go out exit #2. Walk straight for 5-7 minutes and you will see the “Buy the Way” convenience store on the first floor of our green building. Come up to the 5th floor.

Spaces are limited so contact us soon to get your spot in the class. You can register in person, or by telephone or email. You do not need to bring anything with you when you go as everything will be provided including bags to carry your kimchi in.

Please visit: http://global.seoul.go.kr/itaewon/

Info: 02)796-2459~60  or itaewon@sba.seoul.kr

Itaewon Festival and Yongsan Citizen’s Day, 12-17 Oct 2010, Itaewon

DATE: 12 thru 17 October 2010
TIME: varies – see below
COST: most events free of charge – food prices vary
VENUE: Itaewon and near Samgakji Station

From the 14th to 16th: a Street Festival and an Art Market in the Samgakji Station area

On Tuesday October 12th at 10am the film Mama Mia will be shown free of charge.
On Wednesday October 13th at 10am you can check out Slumdog Millionaire for free as well. 

On Saturday the 16th at 6pm there will be a free creative traditional dance performance called Hayan Seoninjang.

In the season of great harvest, the Seoul Global Center will be holding a special event full of activities including songpyeon making and performances, marking this year’s Chuseok holiday.

Chuseok is the day when families get together, express thanks to ancestors for a plentiful harvest and wish for another good year. In this spirit, the Seoul Global Center prepares an opportunity for foreigners in Seoul to gather together enjoying the holiday festivities.

We look forward to seeing all of you here.

Date & Time: September 18th (Sat.) 13:00-17:00 p.m.

Venue: Seoul Global Center , 3^rd floor of Seoul Press Center

Direction:  Exit 4 City Hall Station (Subway Line 1 or 2) / Exit 5 Gwanghwamun Station (Line 5)

Participants: any international residents in Seoul

Seats available: 70 persons

Activities: various hands-on cultural activities including making Songpyeon (traditional     Chuseok    rice cake), Charye (ancestor memorial service) table setting on Chuseok , etc

For more information, please contact the Seoul Global Center at (02) 2075-4130~1 or email to hotline@seoul.go.kr

I guess lots of foreigners who have lived in Korea for a long time have tried ‘Samgyetang’ before and it’s one of the more popular Korean cuisines that foreigners enjoy, along with Bulgogi and Bibimbab. It’s not only mild and good to enjoy, but it’s simple to make. So, anyone can cook and enjoy it by themselves.

Typically, Koreans usually have ‘Samgyetang’ at least three certain times in the summer: Cho-bok, Jung-bok and Mal-bok are the times. The Eastern lunar calendar has three big heats in summer, the first is Cho-bok (first heat), and the second is Jung-bok (second heat) that follows ten days after Cho-bok, and the last is Mal-bok (last heat) which also begins ten days following Jung-bok.

Why do Koreans enjoy ‘Samgyetang,’ a warm dish, especially in the summertime? According to oriental medicine, the external (skin) temperature gets heated and sweats as the temperature goes up, however the internal (organ) gets cold on the contrary. So, if people have only cold food, it can cause an imbalance of the circulation of the body and negatively affect one’s health. Therefore, according to oriental medicine, it is important to make sure your body circulation is balanced and warm through having warm foods, when your external temperature is high. In that sense, chicken and Ginseng are granted to have warm feature and they are relatively cheap to buy and easy to cook, compared with other foods for health. That’s why ‘Samgyetang’ is the most desirable in summer.

The Cho-bok is July 19th of solar year this time. So try cooking Korea’s most popular summer nutritional food, Samgyetang!

Here’s the recipe:
▶  Ingredients: 1 (small) chicken, 1 root of ginseng, 2 jujubes, 2 pieces of peeled garlic, 2 full spoonfuls of soaked sticky rice, water, 1 thin wooden skewer
※ You can add peeled chestnuts, if you want.

▶  How to cook
1. Wash the chicken, ginseng, jujube, and garlic clean.
2. Soak the sticky rice in water in advance for 3 hours at least after washing
3. Fill the chicken with sticky rice, Ginseng, jujube and garlic through the bottom of the chicken.
4. When filled, close up the bottom with a wooden skewer and make a slit on the end of one leg and cross the other leg over it.
※ You can also fasten the two legs with a cotton thread with two legs crossed instead.
5. Put the stuffed chicken in the pot and pour water up to the top of the chicken.
6. Boil it for about 1 hour.
7. When you eat it, salt and pepper the broth to your preference. It’s also customary for people to dip their chicken meat into a small dish of salt and pepper before eating.
8. Enjoy!

Photos by Fielding Hong

Most people know Dongdaemun as the pulsing, round-the-clock fashion and shopping mecca that never sleeps. Clothes, shoes, handbags, accessories – you name it, you can find it in Dongdaemun. Huge shopping complexes like Migliore and Doota are packed wall-to-wall, nine stories high, with stalls of vendors selling any and all of your fashion needs. And the buildings are open until the wee hours of the morning for those occasions when you need a new top at 3 a.m.

But what many may not know about Dongdaemun is that its many markets offer more than your everyday shopping experience. In the alleys and areas around the main shopping drag, smaller markets or shopping clusters offer some of the city’s most unique, one-stop shopping destinations for all of your hobby supplies.

Since the shopping areas are within easy walking distance of each other, you could easily spend a day wandering through them, choosing your next do-it-yourself hobby.

Bangsan Baker’s Market

	Photo by Fielding Hong

For those of you who like to make your own homemade confections and goodies, you were probably disappointed the first time you went to your local grocery store or even large supermarket and walked down the baking supplies aisle. If there are any at all, the supplies are few and often limited to standard flour, sugar, step-by-step cookie mix boxes, miniature cake pans and tiny pouches of uninspiring chocolate chips and sprinkles. No vanilla, no coconut, no bricks of bittersweet baker’s chocolate, none of the stuff that gives a baker’s sweets their own personal touch.

Enter Bangsan Baker’s Market. The market – just a street really – is in a hidden corner of the larger Bangsan Market and contains everything you need to bake just about anything you can imagine. The stores sell many ingredients that are hard to find in other places, such as dried fruits, assortments of nuts, molasses and fruit glazes, rye and wheat flour, along with various purees and extracts. You can find all of the other baking accoutrements you need for baking cookies, cakes, breads, muffins, brownies, tarts, tortes and pies. Baking equipment and tools are sold here, too, such as electric mixers (for serious bakers, you can even find KitchenAid mixers), cookie cutters, cake pans and baking utensils that aren’t commonly found in other kitchen supply stores or markets. Finally, the stores also offer the cutest decorative boxes, cellophane, ribbons and stickers so that you can wrap up your treats to look as sweet as they taste when you share them with your family or friends.

Not only is the variety of baking products vast, the prices are competitive, even for common ingredients such as sugar, flour and butter. As with most markets in Korea, vendors are sometimes willing to negotiate, especially if you are buying large quantities or are purchasing some more expensive items.

There are a couple of ways to get to Bangsan Baker’s Market. From Jongno 5-ga Station (line No. 1), go out exit 7 and cross over the Cheonggye Stream. From there, you’ll see the arch for the Bangsan Market entrance. From Euljiro 4-ga Station (line No. 2 or 5), go out exit 4 and turn right at the first intersection. From there, you’ll walk until you see the sign for Bangsan Market and turn right into the market, where you’ll find 20 to 30 baking supplies shops clustered together.

Read more »