Sophilicity

Yes... I realise I'm taking forever to complete this series, but let's be honest, 10 weeks is a long time and trying to remember everything is a struggle aha!

This week is definitely one I cannot forget... I mean considering a foodie like me gets to take a cooking class which also allows me to eat- I was living aha!

During this class, we were learning how to make Korean food, otherwise known as Hansik (한식). I was extremely excited to learn about this class but on the other hand... Extremely terrified... I'm not an amazing cook at all, and it honestly didn't help that I actually knew our teacher as well.

Funny story (not really funny let's be honest): So I entered the lecture room at Westminster Kingsway College late... Well... I don't think I was ever on time to be perfectly honest... But I went to sit down. Our teacher, Chef Hyungsoo Yim, was already in position as we were all sitting down, and as Hyungi began introducing the class to our teacher, the chef noticed me from afar and was like oh, Sophia! And Hyungi was rather shocked as to how I knew him. Just to feel you guys in, I worked to serve food at the Korean Embassy dinner a couple weeks before at the Corinthia Hotel with Chef Hyungsoo being the one in charge at the time... So obviously I was thinking "Hahahaha... No pressure..."

Chef Hyungsoo first started introducing us to all the different aspects of Korean cuisine. We learnt about different mannerisms relating for food e.g. You shouldn't stab your chopsticks into your rice because it is a reminder of incense of a passing, or using chopsticks whilst using a spoon at the same time etc. We also learnt about basic components used in food, along with the side dishes which would accompany the mains. Korean is well-known for adding sides to their dishes and at most places these are offered free of charge.

Chef Hyungsoo teaching us the basics in regards to Korean food. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK

We then proceeded to watching Chef Hyungsoo make the sauces we would be using for our dishes later on. He also provided us with kimchi (fermented cabbage) which he made there and then. If you didn't know already, the actual cabbage takes a while to be fermented and can be fermented for years if you wanted to, but the process takes a while. Fortunately, you can do this at home.

You can see how happy we are to be watching Chef Hyungsoo demonstrate the making of Korean food. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Fireeeeeeeee~ *Plays BTS* Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Chef Hyungsoo adding the finishing touches to his dishes. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

The two dishes that we would be making today would be the haemul pajeon (seafood pancake) as well as the dubu salad (tofu salad). Before we started making the dishes, Chef Hyungsoo gave us a demonstration on how we go should go about making the dishes. I was so happy to be able to have a chance to also try out the food for myself - Like I said, free cooked food? Who wouldn't take it to be honest-

We all lined up to have a taster of Chef Hyungsoo's creations! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Week 5 of K-Pop Academy: K-Cuisine! We learnt how to make pajeon (seafood pancake) and dubu (tofu) salad! - For someone who isn't the best at cooking it was good having a chance to try cooking these dishes. I'm probably going to aim to try again and cook better next time 😂 #sophilicityeats

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Oct 22, 2016 at 9:50am PDT

After having a chance to try out all the food, we moved onto the main activity of the day, cooking time! We all picked out partners (I ended up with Charley!) through picking names out of a jar, however there was an odd number of people so I ended up inviting Erica to our group. The first question was... Can you cook? And this is where everyone looks at each other in hopes that they've found a partner who can cook... Unfortunately this didn't work out so much for us ahaha...

There was a lot of pressure since we only had a set amount of time to make the seafood pancake and tofu salad, so we distributed the jobs between the 3 of us. It was indeed... An experience ahaha... Not going to lie... We ended up burning our pancake but tried to play it off by showing the nice side of the pancake and hoping no one would notice RIP.

And this is where it all began...Masterchef times aha! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Michael showing us how the haemul pajeon should be done!~ Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Yi-Ling posing for the camera as she finishes up her pancake mix. Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

We finally got to presentation times, where Chef Hyungsoo began judging our cooking skills... We thought we could get away with it, since he liked the look of our pancake... Till he checked underneath and his face of shock... I can't even describe how embarrassed I felt aha...

Final presentation of our haemul pajeon and dubu salad! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Chef Hyungsoo judging our dishes... Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Week 5 of K-Pop Academy: K-Cuisine! We learnt how to make pajeon (seafood pancake) and dubu (tofu) salad! - For someone who isn't the best at cooking it was good having a chance to try cooking these dishes. I'm probably going to aim to try again and cook better next time 😂 #sophilicityeats

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Oct 22, 2016 at 9:50am PDT

But after the winners were announced, we all got to eat each other's dishes, I was so happy to be eating ahaha - as per usual! The winners got free products, ranging from the chef's very own tofu, to key Korean condiments. Congratulations to the winners. especially to our first place pair, Giulia and Ethel, who were interviewed later by the staff aha!

Chef Hyungsoo's picture with the winning pair! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

The interview with Giulia and Ethel, the masterchefs of the 10th K-Pop Academy! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

The overall experience was really fun! I'm glad I had the opportunity to be able to learn to cook some Korean dishes, which I hope to attempt again in the future - Hopefully they'll be more successful this time aha... But of course, we had to take a final group picture with the one and only, Chef Hyungsoo Yim! Thank you again for opening our eyes to Korean food (Hansik) and teaching us these dishes!

The group picture of the week with Chef Hyungsoo Yim! Cr. Korean Cultural Centre UK.

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Homework of the Week!

For this week, I decided to choose the homework which allowed me to create a menu based off of Korean dishes of my choice to present. I had quite a few dishes in mind because I've eaten quite a few Korean dishes myself... But I got a bit carried away though because there was so much to choose from... Oops. Check out my final menu below:




Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed my K-Pop Academy post for this week! I'm finally half way through this blog series (this shouldn't have taken me this long...) and I hope you guys tune into my next post! Thanks for reading~

If you didn't know already, last December I decided to take a trip to Seoul for 2 weeks. I thought I would take this opportunity to share with some stories and tips regarding my trip!

Purchase a T-Money card!

(You can also alternatively purchase other types of transportation cards e.g. Cash Bee or MPASS (a transportation card specifically targeted at international tourists) etc.)

For those who live in London, the concept of a T-Money card is similar to the use of an Oyster card. At each subway station you can scan your T-Money card and top it up as you go along. A basic journey costs about 1250 won for up to 10KM. However, there are potential additional fares depending on how many additional KM you travelled in a journey. You can purchase the T-Money card from several places e.g. convenience stores which display the T-Money logo. In my personal experience, I purchased a T-Money card at Incheon Airport (picture displayed above). You can purchase T-Money cards from 2500 won, but I paid a bit more because I specifically chose a special design. Some of you may recognise my design if you know of the LINE characters.

Download Citymapper!

(Or you could opt for alternative travel apps which display the Metro system.)

Trust me, these apps will save your life. The one thing I did really appreciate about the subway system was the fact that announcements on the subway were made in 4 different languages: Korean, Japanese, Chinese and English - seriously, London needs to get on their level!! The reason I suggest downloading these apps is because it can be quite difficult trying to find your way round, so the use of Citymapper (which you can use in various locations such as London and Seoul), can help route yourself to an area. From research, I have also found that the popular app "지하철" which alternatively on the UK iTunes store is called Subway Korea, is known to be a useful tool! Not only will this app map you around Seoul it will map around various other cities such as Daegu, Busan, Daejeon and Gwangju. The app offers you 3 different language settings: English, Korean and Japanese. Best of all, these apps are free to use! No payment required!~ Both are available on iPhone and Android.

Learn Hangul!

(Personally, this is solidly up to you, but I believe this is a useful tool to get by.)

I regret not properly learning Hangul beforehand. Although, many foreigners have managed to get by without doing so, there are a lot of Korean restaurants which only offer the menu in Korean. I remember one time I entered a Korean restaurant and they handed me and my friends a foreigner's menu.

Learning the basics of Hangul is actually really easy when you get to it. Certain characters can be determined by connecting characters to images. For example: The character "ㄴ" I recognise as the "n" in Korean because the shape of the character reminds me of a nose. This works for quite a few characters, and is a good way of remembering and recognising characters. Just learning the basics of Hangul to be able to read menus and more, can be very useful when travelling around Korea. If you know a lot about Korean food already that's great, otherwise you can have a look here, to see the different dishes with the Korean Hangul defined.

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Download the Visit Korea app!

(You can also check out their main site here - available in various languages.)

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Be prepared to purchase lots of water!

(This one seems completely random in comparison but you'll understand why...)

When I went to visit my nurse before my trip (I went to get some holiday vaccinations), she suggested me quite a few things. She stated that I should avoid stroking stray animals (this was sort of a given though...) as well as making sure I don't drink from the tap. In England, it's very easily to drink from the tap since the water is cleaned and filtered whilst in Korea not so much. This is why when I entered my accommodation there were lots of bottles of water distributed, but we had to buy more. Alternatively, you can boil the tap water to drink. A lot of Korean restaurants would have cups which had been sanitised and filtered water prepared from water dispensers - a self service routine.

[UPDATE] Tap water is actually safe to drink in South Korea, but most people opt to drink bottled water as it is inexpensive (although funnily enough, Korean soju is super cheap too lol).

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Pay at the counter of restaurants!

(This can be confusing as the concept is different in England...)

What I found from Korea is that unlike London, you don't tip for your service. The staff deem this as unnecessary, and furthermore you don't call for a bill - However it may be different for more westernised restaurants in Korea. When you've finished with a meal, you would usually proceed to the counter to pay for the bill. The counters are usually by the door in a lot of cases, and I have been asked whether I wanted to pay all together or separately. 

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Transfer money in the city!
(This applies if you haven't transferred your money into South Korean won yet.)

I found that from research, a lot of people seem to like to transfer their money into South Korean won at the airport as there are many opportunities to do so. However, you can actually find better rates for transfer around the city. I remember going to Myeongdong with a friend and he got his money transferred from British Pounds and Euros to South Korean Won and they were really good rates! Unfortunately I don't remember the name of the place, but I'm sure with a bit of research you can find many exchange places which will provide you better rates than the one's given in the airport.

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Connect yourself to Wi-Fi!
(I mean come on... Who wouldn't want Wi-Fi???)




There's a lot of opportunities to connect to free Wi-Fi around South Korea. When I was in Seoul, I found myself connecting to Wi-Fi even at the subway station. I believe I connected to T-Zone Free Wi-Fi but to be honest, it's better to get yourself a pre-paid sim and you can pretty much connect to their services anywhere. Alternatively, you can rent a Wi-Fi Egg - available from places such as KT Olleh and SKT Telecom etc.) For foreigners, the easiest way to get them is from the airport as you arrive. If you do a bit of research you can find out the rates - It's actually not too expensive! However, I suggest that you should only get the Wi-Fi egg if you intend to travel outside of Seoul, as Seoul itself is pretty good with Wi-Fi access otherwise.

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I've actually ran out of tips and essentials to share with you guys, but if I remember anymore, I'll be sure to update this blog! Funnily enough, I'll be going to South Korea once again this summer from July-August so hopefully I'll have some more exciting experiences to share with you! Thank you for reading, and I hope to hear from you guys soon!

I completely went on a hiatus over these past couple of months, but I didn't think it would be right to leave my blog forever... I was planning to go straight back into blogging but it's been so long I didn't know how to throw myself back again! But don't worry I actually have so many posts coming for you! I promise you I haven't died guys - Well not just yet... OTL

(I mean if this guy hasn't probably tried to kill me everyday - Yeah ready to expose myself, I am a BIG fan of Jungkook from BTS (-cough- T R A S H -cough-) - RIP when he performed Rainism for the End of Year shows :))) Why is life so hard... If you haven't seen the performance imma link it here because I appreciate... and when I say appreciate, I mean APPRECIATE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WOxFTrFw70)

Anyways... My last blog post was late October... Jesus it's been at least 5 months- But I think I'm going to go back to being more personal so my writing style might change a tad bit for you guys to get more personal with me and my life!

How about a little insert of my life from me to you?

I'll try to keep this short as I can because I don't want to spoil too much of the content for my upcoming posts aha!! (By the way, I say short, but my short is on another level...)

OCTOBER

If any of you guys have been reading, I was attending the K-Pop Academy at the Korean Cultural Centre in London (Damn I seriously need to catch up with that blog series... Got a bit lazy there didn't I-- RIP - Seriously, they've already started the 11th K-Pop Academy and here I am...). 

Moving on... I also had a chance to attend the Sik-K concert in London ran by Beatcraze. I went as press and managed to get some pretty cool footage - So hopefully you'll be seeing a blog post about that soon!!

I'd also managed to attend a dance show ran by DGC! I was working as a photographer at the time and it was a pretty lively experience - I'd actually never been to one of their dance shows before but the talent shown, there were some phenomenal performances! You can check out my FB album with all the photos I took from the show - just click the link below:

DGC Dance Show Photography

Did you also know, that there have been numerous K-Pop/K-Hip Hop nights going around in London. I managed to attend my first one in October located in Surya! Hosted by Arpeggios Entertainment (the company who brought MYNAME and HISTORY to London!). It's been amazing so far, to subscribe to more of these nights (unfortunately you've got to be 18+ - Sorry young ones!), check out the links below to find out more~

Young Bros Facebook Page

Asian Nights London Facebook Page

And of course, I took the opportunity to go to Comic Con in October. There's not much I can say about it since I've attended lots of times, but it never fails to be filled with numerous cosplays and many attendees aha~

NOVEMBER

If I'm honest, I spent majority of this month just working as I was preparing to leave to South Korea at the end of the month, however I did manage to do a couple of things this month... I mean other than eating-

Remember K-Pop Academy? Well, I actually graduated from the academy in this month but along with the graduation I also got to attend the K-Pop Friends Reunion hosted by the KCC. (I will take the chance to explain more when I get round to finishing my K-Pop Academy blog series... Eventually...)

2 days before D-Day (aka. my flight to Korea) I actually got to attend a concert in London! I think this actually had to be the first concert... Which I actually paid for... LOL. But I got to see CRUSH live! Unfortunately it was the second date - I cry, I heard DEAN and Miso etc. attended the first concert but I got the second date... Sad that the set was so short, but I got to appreciate CRUSH's voice - I was totally singing the entirety of "Don't Forget ft. Taeyeon", like CRUSH pass me the mic because I will sing the Taeyeon part for you :') I ended up on a binge of CRUSH songs after the concert aha...

Other than that, I actually left for South Korea for 2 weeks from the 30th of November - I was planning to excite you guys with a vlog but it failed after landing in Korea... However, I do have quite a few things to say and share with you regarding my trip to Korea - And thus another few blog posts to share with you guys~ But I'm gonna leave you with a little hint below regarding my Korea stories... Huehuehue...

DECEMBER

Let's be honest, I pretty much spent about 2 weeks of the first half of December in Korea - and do I regret it... Nah. It was lit, but more information soon...

Otherwise... I didn't actually do much in December without spoiling my trip to Korea-- But it was amazing either way... From drinking times to clubbing times to much food - Food is love, food is life.

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JANUARY

And thus after my trip from Korea... Did I become quite a party animal... I had the chance to check out the clubbing scene quite a bit around London, varying from Ministry of Sound to even clubs near home... Such as PRYZM.

OH! But I can say for one thing, later than ever, but HAPPY BELATED CHINESE/VIETNAMESE/LUNAR NEW YEAR! If you didn't know already, I'm actually half Vietnamese and half Chinese, so we celebrated the new Lunar New Year on the 28th of January - How did I spend it? I actually spent it Asian clubbing at a PlayKrown event-

The work life has been pretty hectic otherwise so that's probably my only excuse to my long hiatus for the lacking of blogging...

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FEBRUARY

I've actually had some pretty exciting opportunities during this month. And I can definitely say I've eaten pretty luxuriously as well - To think I finally managed to tick off another one of my food bucket list places, Duck and Waffle!

Throwback to Sunny's birthday celebration at Duck and Waffle ❤️ - The traditional Duck and Waffle dish is definitely a recommendation at £17 per portion. - #sophilicityeats

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Feb 21, 2017 at 11:38am PST

I actually spent about 2 days working with some Korean artists who came all the way from South Korea, and it was an exciting experience which I hope to share more to you in the future~ I will definitely be sharing with you the music videos I helped create with an amazing team - Shoutout to Maisie and Michael especially! More information soon~ Hint: One of the artists has been compared as a mixture of DEAN and Heize! (Thus I feel I need to insert a song from them because their collabs are lit tbh-)

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MARCH

And here we are, hello March! I hope this can be the month were I will share with you all my experiences - Hopefully some of them can be exciting for you guys to read~

Thus... I will attempt to be more productive this month with my blogging and I hope you guys reading can deal with me a tad bit longer aha!~

How should I end it? How about something that you rarely see ever? A selfie -coughs- Instagram promotion -coughs- You should follow me tbh, I post lots of food -coughs-

A post shared by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Mar 2, 2017 at 3:48am PST

Oh my, it's actually been a week since I attended this meetup, yet it feels like it was just yesterday where everyone was jamming to Korean songs, freestyle and whatnot.

Where do I even start? To be honest, there's been quite a few events going on this month, so I've been contemplating which events to attend and which to give a miss. It doesn't help now that I technically have two jobs... Oh my... But anyways, I was deciding between two events for this day. One being the Ice Cream Festival located at Lumpy Hill Adventure Playground, and the other being the Inspire Me Korea Summer Meetup. In the end, I decided on the Inspire Me Korea Summer Meetup - And I definitely don't regret it!

So the day started off with some Korean BBQ. I went to grab some lunch at Super KBBQ with John (you might recognise him from FUSI8N). 

As for us two, well whenever we meet (which is rarely) we end up always sharing our meals - Cheap Asian life... And what's better, because we were attending the Inspire Me Korea event, we managed to get a 20% off discount between 12-2PM for food. So we decided to order a Korean BBQ lunch. The BBQ lunch costs 14.50 for a choice of one type of meat, however if you want an additional choice then you can pay an extra £5 for another. We chose to get an additional type, picking the Samyeopsal (Pork Belly) and Beef Bulgogi. In total that costed us £19.50, and due to the 20% off discount, we only paid £7.80 each.

Personally, I didn't feel very full after the meal although the meat was good. They provide you with salad and a rice bowl with the meal, but I didn't think there was enough meat in comparison to other KBBQ places I've been to which offer more for the same price. It was interesting to be able to cook our meat though, everyone including us was very lost on how long we had to cook it so we didn't get food poisoning... Oh dear.. We survived though!

I wish I bought more to be honest, but I want to try other foods too if I have a chance to come again! The atmosphere is really good, and as the restaurant recently just opened in St Giles (located near Tottenham Court Road) the aesthetic was very modernised. You guys can check out the Lunch Menu here, as well as the rest of their website.



Moving onto the actual Inspire Me Korea Summer Meetup. We entered the basement where we collected our own Inspire Me Korea sticker, along with a raffle for later. I got the number "11" for my raffle ticket. We began to sit down, and I went to socialise with some old friends as well as some new ones just from discussing Karaoke songs. It was quite difficult to find songs without knowing any hangul, so we didn't get a chance to sing much - Everyone basically sang the English lyrics which came up during a K-Pop song aha... And I remember the GOT7 marathon of songs - Oh my...



We then proceeded to turn out attention to our hosts of the event, Diana (the founder of Inspire Me Korea) and her sister, Alice. We started off the afternoon with an ice breaker activity, where we were given a sheet with boxes on it, where you were required to talk to different people and put down their name if they did any of the things stated in the boxes. You weren't allowed to put the same name twice. I started off by talking to those around me before proceeding to get up and talk to others around me.



 ... The winner of the round, was Nicole! She is also a dancer for the group, Ujjn. Check them out! She did a great job, and received the most cheers from the audience, winning PSY's 7th album.

All the prizes I won from yesterday's Inspire Me Korea Summer Meetup event 💕 Thank you so much @inspiremekorea for hosting an amazing event! I had lots of fun ☺️ 1. Won the Dress Code Blue face mask for a drawing game with my Team, GOT7 😂 2. Won the MBLAQ album with my singing rendition of That XX - aye G-Dragon! 3. Won the beauty pack, sponsored by @MsDevada, through my winning raffle ticket, No. 11 ✨

A photo posted by Sophia Tang 🐼 (@sophilicity) on Jul 17, 2016 at 1:46am PDT