Getting Better Through 43 Ways

I read an interseting article in LifeHack about personal development. This is about starting a habit that could make you being a better person everyday. You should read about it because all of them are right, couldn't agree more about that. Some of them would make your life more interesting, prevent you to fall into a boring life.

Beside all of 42 habits above, I want to add one more habit. TRAVEL to another country at least one time a year. Travel will open your mind beside could be an alternative way of refreshing your mind out of daily routine. You shouldn't travel to famous destination among the world but try the unique instead. Maybe you could go to Kashmir and the sorroundings. You could get a once in a lifetime experience there, I am very sure. (Actually I haven't been there yet but I have a dream to go there several years later). 

So, let's do the 42 + 1 ways of getting yourself better. Hehe. 

Korean Noodle!

I'm a fan of noodle, specially instant noodle or usually named ramyeon or ramen. During my stay in Korea, I tried to taste as much kind of noodles here. Yeah, they have a lot of different noodle name and variative way of serving. Some served with gochujang while the other served with no sauce but only soup. Two weeks living in Pohang, at least I have eaten about five differents type of noodles. At first I was kinda skeptical for korean's variative noodle. I thought that they will tasted the same each other. After several tasting.... Yeah I founded that they are very different, even for first time people surely can know the difference of that. So if you wanna know about Korean noodle or maybe planning to taste some of them, I have a recommendation of noodle that you should eat:

1. 칼국수 (Kalguksu) or the knife noodle.
Called by knife noodle because of its preparation process uses knife to cut the wheat into 'noodles like' form. No wonder you will found the noodle's size is kinda wide. Usually served with soup and other additional ingredients like seafood (clamp, prawn, fish, etc) or beef/pork. I tasted the haemul or the seafood kalguksu. 
First tought: the texture is very addicting, makes me wanna eat more and more. I like noodles which has chewy and soft texture and this one has it. Actually kalguksu is a kind of summer food but still worth to try in the winter. This food gives refreshing taste after eat and of course the full taste because it containts much wheat. 

2. 냉면 (naengmyeon) or the cold noodle.
I am not kidding, this kind of food really served cold. Actually it's a winter food but I don't feel very good when tasting this cold. I prefer hot noodle to the cold one, yeah noodle should served hot no matter what (Just my opinion). So my first impression is not good with this one. But still worth to try because it's very popular even they make a song of this noodle. Jessica from Girl's Generation sings about this noodle! Haha. Maybe it's kind of promotion, I don't know the exact meaning of the song. And yeah, it usually eaten with dumplings (you can choose for the fried or steamed one). Dumplings called Mandu in Korean.

3. Chinese noodle - the Korean version
I went to Chinese restaurant last Friday and they served two kind of noodle as their speciality. Yeah, one is my favorite and the most famous one: 짜장면 (jajangmyeon)! The noodle with black sauce! And the other is jjamppong (짬뽕). I think jjamppong is not very special so let's just skip it. Unfortunately I haven't try the jajangmyeon with black sauce because I ordered the restaurant's modified jajangmyeon because it's their speciality. I felt dissapointed of my choice because actually which I oredered was a spicy sauce noodle. Right now I am still curious about the black one, yet still I have tasted the instant noodle version (Jajangmyeon made by Paldo). Just by the look I can feel that jajangmyeon is very yummy, no wonder I always looked at other people's bowl while they ordered a jajangmyeon. 
Look how jajangmyeon looks like:

Yet I still have tasted the instant noodle version:

4. Ramyeon!
This one is actually an instant noodle but some restaurant also served this as a menu. Yet I still try this at one restaurant, of course with some variation not just the plain ramyeon because that is actually an instant noodle. Several popular variation of ramyeon are cheese-ramyeon, ham-ramyeon, bulgogi-ramyeon, kimchi-ramyeon, and tteokbokki-ramyeon. I tasted the latter, which is a mix between ramyeon and tteokbokki (spicy fish cake). Tteokbokki is a very famous snack food in korea. Nothing special about this because basically you can easly found these two food so when you are going to ordering ramyeon, avoid to order these ramyeon. Order a cheese or unique one instead! Hehehe.

First Winter in the City of Steel

안녕하세요!

Finally one more list in my bucket list is checked, which is having a winter season in foreign country. Yes, right now I am in the Ginseng country called Daehanmingug. Not like other visitor, I am a C-4 visa holder which means I am coming to Korea for a paid job. I am doing my winter internship program in Pohang University of Science and Technology located in Pohang City, a seaside city near Daegu and Busan. POSTECH is one of the top college for engineering degree, especially the Ferrous technology graduate school which named GIFT (Graduate Institute of Ferrous Technology). POSCO has good academic-industrial relationship with POSTECH which make it as the best graduate school for material study specially steel. I will talk about the research about steel later..

Pohang is an industrial city, only ranked 10th of most populated city in South Korea. The atmoshphere is kind of peaceful, calm, pleasant, and cozy. You won't met many people that talked in english except people around university. It's a must to bring your Korean friend along to buy or eat something at the restaurant. It is not valid if you can read Hangul though! You can try to read hangul because it's very easy to recognize the character, the hardest part is to know the meaning! By the way I found that Korean food (한식) is very nice. I have tasted some unique food and they all tasted good. Almost 5 days I have been here and these are the food that came to my tongue:
1. Sundae (순대)
Illustration:

Actually I tasted the soup version (Sundae gug) but I think the sausage is tasted the same. It made from pork's intestine which filled by mixed vegetable, pork blood, pork meat in the inside. It is called pork sausage. Tasted very good even for me who are not the kind of pork meat lover. It's a must try if you are coming to Korea. The price (soup) is about 6000 won with rice (bab).

2. Bibimbab (비빔밥)

This kind of food is the most common food everywhere, even in Indonesia I have tasted it before. I have no special thing about bibimbab but it's a good food to eat when you are hungry. Price : 5000 won (vary with restaurant).

3. Bulgogi

Korean's version of beef teriyaki with more tender beef. But the taste is not strong and I prefer beef teriyaki to bulgogi. But still, it's worth to try because bulgogi is very famous Korean food!

4. A lot of Korean food: fried mackerel fish, many kind of korean soup, a ton of kimchi (yeah, i like kimchi very much, its addicting!), pork cutlet, pork spicy soup (I forgot the name), Korean bread (no special taste), many kind of vegetables that I don't know the name, beef spicy soup. All food don't dissapoint me because they are very nice.

To be continued, more about the city, more about the people, more about the campus. Yeah, a lot of interesting things are here.