Okay backdated again... as mentioned in my post for Akaraka that I had participated in the pre-Akaraka event -Yonsei International Cooking Festival (yah not as though I am a great cook or wat just was kind of "cheated" to join hhahaha)
So this is a pre-event of the Akaraka organised by the International Yonsei Community-IYC presenting the different local delicancies of the different countries that were represented. Why i said that I was kind of cheated to join becos the members frm IYC said it's going to be fun so we should join.... bt ok fine its fun at a point bt i think its becos we dun speak korean and cant understand it well so we felt rather outcasted....
So basically its like this, they will have booth representing the different countries. Countries that were represented were Japan (OF COS), China (SURELY one lor), America, Canada. And if you want you can sign up with your new country.... Initially me and tiff wanted to have our Singapore booth. We have even thought of doing Rojak or Kaya toast etc.... bt we gave up the idea becos its difficult to get the ingredients here in Korea.... and the members from IYC didnt even knw wat we have during the day for cooking nor where we get the fund to buy the igredients.... >_ <
so wif the salesman tectic of one of the member, we joined Finland. Yeah u mus be wondering wat the hell do Finland has?!... okay here's a hint (Hint: SANTA claus came from Finland... hahaa)
okay we went for the pre-meeting and met our grp members. In total, we have 5 koreans and 4 international students namely frm Japan, Singapore and Finland. So basically we discussed and main focus was on the Finland gal as she was the only one who knws abt Finland. All of us knw nothing NOTHING abt finland except tat Santa Claus came frm Finland... So waitin for tat Finnish gal to give some suggestions... Yah noticed that the suggestions were italic? cos her suggestions were really of no use... cos all the food she mentioned its TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE to do....!!! Baking ... hw to bake without an oven?
At tat very pt, i wanna give up and even thought i shld jus do my singapore booth...She didnt even think of anything n kept sayin its difficult to do any food since you guys do not have an oven.... So me n tiff have no choice bt to prompt her wif alternatives western food... (cos we are totally clueless wat finnish food are?!), no choice she finally said mayb we can do blueberry milkshake, mashed potatoes and meat balls......... me n tiff was like HUH these r finnish food?!!! anyway, just purely statin these food we already knw tat we cant find blue berry here in korea even if we can it's gonna b SKY HIGH price! (FYI, fruits here are like precious stones.... so expensive n difficult to find!) So at tat pt, we asked the finnish gal if we can replace it wif strawberries (cos its in season n cheaper) and she said NO! Strawberries milkshake not finnish food.......... haiz........ So our meeting ended wif our next meeting to shop for igredients and experimentin the cookin of the food at someone's house....
So on the day we met for shopping. We went shoppin for the igredients... as we expected no blueberries...... the Korean students started to panick... so Tiff told them they can replace it wif Blueberry jam instead.... n guess wat the next ting is we CANT find vanilla icecream?! went to 2 big supermarkets and they dun sell vanilla ICECREAM! can u imagine that?! i cant.... so i asked one of the korean gal if vanilla ice cream is nt common in kr? She said that no bt she also didnt knw why the supermarkets ard our sch doesnt have pure vanilla ice cream!?
So after shopping we went on to a Korean's studio apartment to do the cooking... Wow its our 1st time visitin a Korean hse furthermore a studio apartment! He lived on the 13th storey... the building jus look jus like our HDB flats... at tat very moment I miss SINGAPORE!!!!!!! the HDB n so....... the house is small, neat bt well equipped. We tested out the cooking... its really funny cos we tot mashed potatoes n milkshakes r common food and easy to make so they (as in the koreans) shld have knwn hw to do it bt to our surprise they dun....
so we told them wat to add n they started to make... Afterthat all of us tried the food.... Yummy to me bt the mashed potatoes need more butter...!! bt the milk shake is totally too SWEET!! then we realise tat koreans r sweet tooth... they tend to like sweet food hence they all really love the milkshake which i deem as too sweet!! n they even have thoughts of addin sugar into the mashed potatoes... haha (can u imagine that all these r done wif our limited korean n their limited english?!! ducks n chickens conversatioñ!!) Everything done but i tink we still needs to improve the food, pricing, booth decorations etc...
However, its really difficult to communicate, hence the Koreans then told us "Dun worry leave all the things to us the KOREans, you guys jus need to b at the booth on the day. We will make sure everything is done!!" hahaha.... telling us to leave politely ah.... so off we went hm..... its kind of bad we both feel cause its like we didnt contribute much... left while the koreans stayed on to do the other tings...
Out of this whole experience, i knw its bad bt i really feel that the finnish gal is really of nt much of use.... she came late cos she has lessons and when she came she didnt help much in tellin them hw to cook n instead she jus keep munchin on the food...... n said it taste like hm... when me n tiff was like pls lor..... these r jus WESTERN food......
We have wanted to make the sauce to go wif the mashed potatoes bt didnt knw hw to do... she went online to search for the receipe and came back to the kitchen sayin "oh... its too complicated to do... i tink we better give up the idea of doing it?!!!" I really cant stand it and her way she put it thru........ Luckily i dun have to work wif her nor do project wif her if nt i would have strangle her to death...!! hahhaa... *those who have worked wif me would have knw wat i would have done....我不可以接受我的组里面有不可以贡献的组员*
Both me n tiff felt that the koreans asked us to leave *politely* becos they knw its gettin no where... the food r nt nice nor presenting n the finnish gal is nt helping... furthermore when me n tiff suggested and the koreans agreed, the finnish gal will object to it violently... *dun ask us y cos we wanna knw too...* Hence in the end, we totally gave up... We also could sense that the koreans jus felt that the gal is nt helping and she keeps eating... n at times they gave us this feelin that they wanna change something bt were worried abt hw the finnish gal would feel...
luckily we were not representing Singapore if nt i would have felt so disgrace bt at a second thought if we were to represent Singapore i am sure we wont b like tat finnish gal! at least we tot of more practical food!....so when we left the korean house, me n tiff had this tinking- "let's wait till mon to see how the koreans invention to the food will surprise us...!! haha”
Wow, i didnt knw i could bitch so much... so decided to break this post into 2... part 2 coming up soon.... heheh....
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