Well the culinary delight of my stay so far has to be last Friday night when Emily and her friends took me to ‘Oh my chicken’. After being turned away from numerous Korean restaurants (mainly of the Chinese or Italian variety!) we went to Oh my chicken sat on the street, ate copious amounts of chicken and drank Hite (the local larger). I have to say this was possibly the best fried chicken I have ever tasted!!!! Maybe that’s just because I’m craving western food so badly or it could possibly have been the beer!?

Before we went back to Emily’s area to get food I snapped the photo below of a dancing Soju bottle. But first a bit of information about Soju which is a really popular alcoholic drink in Korea (I haven’t tried it yet but Emily says it’s good!). I found this information on a website about Korean liquors.

Korea has its popular own alcoholic beverages which are quite different from whisky, brandy and vodka. They are ‘So-ju’, ‘Makkoli’, and ‘Chung-ju’. ‘So-ju’ is a distilled hard spirit; ‘Makkoli’ is a unrefined liquor; ‘Chung-ju’ is clear strained rice wine.

So-ju has 25 per cent to 35 per cent alcohol concentration. It has no colour and is transparent. So-ju tastes very bitter and has almost no smell. It is nearly pure alcohol.

‘So-ju’ means that it is made by burning something. It is known as distilled-liquor. Soju was introduced from China the late 13th century during the Koryo dynasty. It had been exceedingly loved by the kings and nobles of the period. Today, So-ju is very popular among general public because it is mass produced cheaply. So-ju also does not spoil because of its high alcohol concentration.

In Korea Soju is everywhere and is massively popular as can be seen by the photo.

Whilst eating chicken on the street we were introduced to a Korean guy who knew one of Emily’s friends. His name was JJ and he came a joined us for a few beers back at one of the lads flats. He had really good English but a tendency to speak really quickly making him quite difficult to understand. Unlike most Koreans he had traveled extensively to America, the UK and Europe, which would explain why his English was soooo good. He is also a journalist working for a Korean newspaper called the Daily Sport (I think!). A bit different from the English sport, it actually contains some news and sport rather than just semi-naked women. Not that I could read a word of it because it is all in Korean!

After drinking far more Hite than was good for me I finally retired to be at around 4am. Much later than intended as Saturday we went and walked up the most amazing hill/mountain I have ever seen. Watch out for more information in a later post.

j150vsc – Mon, 2006 – 09 – 18 12:49