Category Archives: Korean Differences

Do You Deli Manjoo?

2011_04_09 Deli Manjoo at Rest Stop with Doris on way to Cherry B Fest

I have to share my newly found love here in South Korea with you all! Ready for this…. it’s called Deli Manjoo. Deli Manjoo is baked little cake (texture similar to a Twinkie?) with the imprint of a corn cob and filled with some form of custard cream (Almost like Dunkin Donuts barbarian cream filling). The name comes from the word “deli” from delicious and “manjoo” from the Korean word for “dim sum”.

Do not be fooled there in nothing corn tasting about these awesome little treats. I wondered at first because it seems like Korean’s sweets just are not as sweet as we are used to in the US. Oh, yes, not to mention it seems that Korean’s put corn in some odd dishes such as pizza or corn ice-cream.

Nevertheless the faint smell of these delectable little treats is normally creeping through the train station platforms or often found being sold by street vendors – it smells of vanilla and egg.

This delicious mini-cake is baked instantly right in front of you with an automatic patented corn shaped plated machine. In doing some research I found that this treat has made it over to the US. So if you are near a vendor or come across it on your adventures do yourself and favor and PICK SOME UP! You will not be disappointed!

Our Korean Front Door

We have been answering many questions from friends, family, and my one best friends grade school class. One thing that continues to come up is the interest in our apartment. People are very intrigued to know what the place looks like and what unique features the apartment has in comparison to those located in the states.

We decided to showcase our front door. I know what you are thinking “WOW” a door! Well, we were pretty impressed with the technology behind these doors! One, no more having to carry around a million and one keys, you can carry a simple lightweight key fob. Two, if you completely forget your key fob inside and the door shuts behind you… no need to fret… you simply enter in your personal code to get back in!

At the end of the short clip you see that we show the little camera that is off to the right hand side of the door. This camera is used for if you have a visitor or take out delivery person “ring your doorbell”. They press the button the camera comes on and we can view from inside the apartment who it is before even going to the door. If we know who it is and we just want to let them right in we also have the option of just pressing a button and it unlocks the door without making you have to go over to the door and open it for them.

Again, what a NEAT concept!

The Korean Washer/Dryer Combo!

I was able to Skype with my mom this morning! She like others have been asking and are curious to know about the Korean appliances. I decided I would specifically blog about our washer/ dryer combo. . . (I KNOW HOW EXCITING!)

We have a washer/ dryer combo, it’s a little machine that does both all in one. How fantastic, right?! Yeahhhh… that’s exactly what I thought too. I think the concept is a great one but overall it doesn’t quite work out the way we would like it to. Typically for our household of two we in the states we would do maybe two or three loads of laundry a week. Plus I am sort of impatient and would shove a ton into the washer and dyer hoping and thinking it would help speed up my laundry chore.

Typically Korean’s do not have dryers at all. I am told this is due to the high electricity cost to run it. We are lucky that the place we have came furnished with one! The machine is smaller in size so than what we owned in the states. Obviously, we cannot cram what we might have into a load back in the states too. If you do decide to cram in a bunch of stuff it doesn’t get washed properly and to dry everything takes even longer only adding to the three hour process it already has! Also, the lint… that is another issue in itself! The lint ends up on most of your dark clothing creating more work in the end as well.

So how do the Koreans dry clothing? I have included some pictures below that you can check out. Clothing is hung to dry. Alot of apartments feature an enclosed balcony, or what Koreans call a veranda (pronounced “beh-lan-da”). This is and area where they hang clothing, gain extra storage, or where people do miscellaneous chores.

This is what the enclosed balconies look like from the outside. You can see there are clothing hanging to dry (Shown below).

Our veranda can be accessed through a sliding glass door acting as a window/ wall in a bedroom ( Shown below).

This is what our veranda looks like once you open the two glass doors. Right now we are using it as storage for some of our larger items (Shown below).

Thanks for baring with us as we take you buzz you through the excitement of the Korean washer/ dryer combo!