Tteokbokki Town

Sindangdong Tteokbokki Town 

신당동 떡볶이 타운

I recently went here and felt that I just had to write about it!  This post is to inform people who are in Korea about this delicious area of Seoul, and to inform those outside of Korea about the legendary food that is Tteokbokki.

Tteokbokki  떡볶이

Tteokbokki (pronounced 'tockbocky') is a traditional Korean street food that is also served pretty much anywhere.  The street food version usually tastes better than the restaurants, but not in the case of Ttokbokki town (which I will get to later).  It consists of cylindrical pressed rice cakes which are cooked in a spicy and garlicky sauce alongside 'odeng' (fish cake), egg, onions and various vegetables.  

Now, I love spicy food, but I was so shocked to see kids as young as 5 years old tucking in to this stuff when I first arrived.  I was sitting there blowing my nose every 2 mins, whilst these kids were like 'mmm yummmmyy morrreee!'   Kids back home need to learn a lesson or two!  


Tteokbokki Town


After experiencing some major Tteokbokki cravings, I decided that I needed to give this place a visit.  It is located in Sindang-dong, and is basically a whole street (not town) filled with spicy, yummy tteokbokki restaurants. 

The entrance to 'Tteokbokki Town'

The most popular restaurant is apparently called 'Halmeoni Tteokbokki' which has a big picture of a granny over entrance ('halmeoni' means 'grandma' in Korean) - it opened in 1953 so it's been open a while!!  It seemed more of an older clientele  restaurant though, so we opted for the bigger, more 'hip' (lol, granny joke i'm so funny) restaurant opposite called 'I Love Sindang-dong'.    It was huge!  Apparently back in 2002, seven tteokbokki restaurants merged to form this big mumma of a restaurant.  It is mega-popular with young people and also celebrities (they all had their photos/autographs up by the entrance to entice people in).


Their menu was really varied.  The description of 'tear rice cake' made me laugh; "require of sweat and tears" - I guess it's spicy!??  And when they say spicy  in Korea, hell do they mean it!    

We opted for the cheese filled tteokbokki (and a beer) and it was......amazing!!!  
They brought over the pan and it was filled with SO MUCH FOOD!  There was tteokbokki (obviously) - both regular and mozzarella cheese-filled.  There was a whole pack of ramen, eggs, mandu (dumplings), glass noodles, vegetables etcetc.  

The pan of uncooked food

I love these kinds of restaurants where you cook your own food.  In England we are too health and safety conscious to let people have their own gas cookers on their tables in restaurants, so it makes a really exciting adventure to be able to do it here!!  Not sure letting me in control of a gas hob is wise though, especially after a beer....


Anyway, we got cooking and after about 5 mins of stirring and bubbling we started to eat...

Omnomnomnommmmmm

And to top it off, they even had a DJ and some musical entertainment!  

How to get there:


Leave exit 8 and turn left shortly after the exit.  Keep walking straight and then you will see the above street sign <3

My summery/typhoony holiday to Boracay

I remember getting really excited last year about the prospect of going to Boracay, but because of the pay situation, or rather lack of pay situation, I was gutted that we could not go.   I wanted to go sooo badly, and jumped at the chance to go this year.

One downside of working in a Hagwon in Korea is that you get set holidays; 5 days in the summer and 5 days in the winter.  Unfortunately, my summer break fell right in the middle of the typhoon season for the Philippines (yay...).  I knew this when booking it up, but I'm a bit of a risk-taker so thought 'what the hell, i'm sure a little rain once a day for 10mins won't be a problem.'  How wrong I was, haha.

The Journey


Our flight was at 7.30a.m so had no option but to leave for airport after work on Friday and camp out.  You many remember me mentioning 'jimjilbangs' in a previous post (24hour sauna/bathing houses) and how I've never had the privilege of sleeping in one.  Well, now I have.  I suppose it beats sleeping on the airport floor, but it really wasn't something I'd do again in a hurry.  There is a Jimjilbang located in Incehon airport.  You pay about 20k (£12) to get in and then you get some shorts/t-shirt to change in to.  There are baths if you want, but I think most people just retreat to the 'sleeping' room to get rest before their flight.  In the women's changing room, there are a couple of private rooms with a bed in them.  I say bed, but I mean a hard uncomfortable surface.   I half got to sleep on one of these, when I awoke to a rather angry ajumma banging on the door telling me to leave.  Apparently you have to pay extra for these 'luxury private rooms' so I was sent to the room with snoring men.  At least I got a sleeping mat.  I don't think I got any sleep that night.  Not only were there snoring men, but they also had the air-con on really high - it was freezing!  Still, I got a nice hot shower before my flight and it is better than sleeping in the main airport.  Can you imagine one of these at Heathrow!?

The journey to Boracay Island was kind of long-winded.  We had to get a flight to Manila, then a connecting flight to Caticlan, then a boat to Boracay as it is too small to have an airport.  To get around in Boracay, you ride these 'tricycle' things which are basically a side seat attached to a motorbike.  They were pretty scary!!

Here is a video of our journey on a tricycle:

We took this tricycle to our hotel, and after James half-fell out of it, the driver stopped and decided it was too steep to continue (really, you think!?).  So we walked 5 mins down this hill and in that space found a tiny rabies infested kitten, a few stray goats and some cockerels.   I genuinely thought the kitten was a small black plastic bag until it meowed and then walked towards me.  It looked a bit like a zombie kitten, all it's fur was hanging off.  I don't really know how to act around rabies-infested animals so I kind of freaked out at the poor thing.  It must have only been a couple of days old :(  We saw another lost kitten another day so I went to the shop to buy it milk, but the milk just got absorbed by the sand.  Poor ickle thing.

The Arrival
Anyway, we arrived in the early evening so had a stroll down the main strip.  The weather was amazing, the sand was whiter than white and the sea was a beautiful turquoise colour.  We ate food, then sat at this beach bar during Happy Hour (which ironically was 2pm-8pm - that's what I'm talkin about!).  The sky was pretty cloudy, but we got to see a sort-of-sunset whilst sitting under a palm tree and drinking a beer on a tropical island.  Perfection.

The bar was called 'NigiNigiNooNoo'sNooNooNoo'

The First Day

The next day we got up bright and early to go Island Hopping.  The sun was shining and without a doubt, these islands were the most gorgeous places I've ever seen.  One plus about it being off-season was that the islands were pretty deserted.  I've never seen such white sand in my life!

First we went snorkelling.  I did this before in Turkey, so wasn't really expecting to see much.  How wrong was I!?  It was amazing - tropical nemo fish everywhere, colourful corals etcetc.  Such a great experience.

I found Nemo :)

Next we went to a private Island called 'Crystal Cove Island.'  We had fun here exploring caves and looking at the awesome ocean views.

One of the caves

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at 'Puka Shell Beach' my camera battery had died. The boat journey back was pretty scary, the winds were picking up rapidly, and we were quite glad to get home.

Ladyboys <3

That night we took a stroll down the beach and found LADYBOYS!!  They were dancing with fire.  We  I wanted to watch them, so we got BOGOF cocktails.  What we didn't realise when I ordered my Strawberry Margarita, was the the cocktails had to be the same.  Sorry, James!!   So we were sitting there with our pink margaritas watching the show, and it was fabulous.   Here is a video clip of some of them dancing to 'It's Raining Men':

Typhoon 'Nock-Ten'

The rain came down later this night, and it rained.  And rained.  And rained.  The winds were so strong that they were coming in our apartment through the vents in the bathrooms and blowing us during the night.  During the day, if you went outside for just 30seconds in this rain, you would be drenched.  The rain even found it's way in through our windows and made a huge puddle on the floor.  Unfortunately, an island like Boracay shuts down completely when this stuff happens.  The boat trips get cancelled, and the beach is far too windy to sit on.  We did actually go in the sea for a bit during the typhoon, but it was so rough.  Just going in up to your knees gets you pulled under.  So for the next 4 days, we had to just sit around in the bars eating and drinking!  It REALLY sucked, but the holiday was worth it just for that first day.

'White Beach' not looking so white

No lifeguard today then!?

Flooded Streets

Flooded Restaurant

Something Disgusting

One thing I did learn, was that the Philippino's eat something even worse than what you would find in Korea. A friend I met out there tried one and could only describe it as a 'duck abortion'  (Bleughhhh, excuse me whilst I go to puke)...  It is a speciality called a 'Balut' which is bascially a fertilised duck embryo that is boiled alive and eaten in the shell.  Here is a picture which I found on Wikipedia for if you actually want to see what it looks like: Balut Picture

Something Funny


We found a bar called 'The Hobbit House' which only employed midgets little people.  I found this rather hilarious, albeit a bit prejudice.   Here is a picture of the 'hobbits':

Hobbits holding menus.

So if you are reading this and are considering going to the Philippines, then I would strongly advise that you do not go during typhoon season.  We were lucky that we got one great day, but it's a big ole' risk.  Any other time of the year, you will have the most amazing time, like ever.