안녕! It’s Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder 🎉 Today’s newsletter is about an instant ramen recipe, a song for beginner Korean learners, and kimchi that I made. Let’s start!
This Ramen Will Warm You
It’s December! Winter has officially started in South Korea. Seoul had its first snow So I prepared a food that will make you warm and that is super easy to make: instant ramen. Actually, I found this recipe from a Japanese food recipe Twitter account. So it’s Japanese but also very Korean with ingredients like gochujang (red pepper paste) and kimchi. Instant ramens are not healthy but with this recipe, you can enjoy it in a healthier and yummier way. Korean instant ramens are mostly fried noodles so they are high-calorie. To enjoy them in a healthier way, you can add chopped onion when cooking which absorbs oil from the noodles. I do this all the time. It really works! Or you can buy non-frying noodles. These days, many Korean instant ramen makers are making non-frying or dried noodle ramens which are a bit pricier but better for health.
Old Korean Song Whose Lyrics Are So Easy That Even Beginner Korean Learners Can Understand
Before starting, how was the title? 🤔 I tried Buzzfeed-style long title. Hope it made sense. This could be the beginning of a new series of articles where I recommend you some old Korean songs with related fun or spooky stories and lyrics analysis. The first song is Hawaiian Couple sung by Humming Urban Stereo (2006). I picked this song for its easy and cute lyrics. The song is sung by a man and a woman. In the song, they’re a couple and they’re talking to each other. It’s like they’re competing against each other to make the counterpart cringe. Some of the lyrics are, “I’m scared, I’m scared that I might fall into your eyes so I learn swimming these days,” “Pretty, pretty, your voice (is pretty), I want to make it as my ringtone.” 😱 Most of the lyrics are repetitive and words are easy. Also lyrics are 100% Korean. It’s a great song for beginner Korean learners to sing along.
Watch the lyrics video👆 But I don’t recommend reading translations in the vid since many of them are far from accurate. Just read Korean lyrics.
I Made Kimchi This Week
My family and I made kimchi this week! We spent three days salting cabbages and then washing and draining them, and lastly, seasoning them with red and spicy sauce made with over a dozen ingredients like pepper powder and garlics. After seasoning, we put kimchi in big fridge boxes 👆 and store them in kimchi refrigerators. We have 5 kimchi refrigerators at home meaning we make A LOT of kimchi and I’m really tired 🙃 We were supposed to make kimchi this weekend but the weather forecast said the country will get really cold later this week so we brought forward the making. because we need to salt and drain cabbages outside Since I’ve been busy making kimchi this week, I couldn’t upload a Korean mission ㅠㅠ Sorry for keeping you waiting. It’ll start next week on TikTok.
One last thing for today’s newsletter is a viral tweet from a Ghanaian. After Ghana beat South Korea 3-2 in a World Cup Group H tournament on Monday 😢, a Korean tweeted saying “Ghana! Congratulations for winning. Let me give you our president as a gift.” But a wise Ghanaian replied, “No, We don’t want him. Thank you 😂” Koreans are surprised that how a Ghanaian who lives very far from Korea knows very well about their deeply unpopular president whose recent approval ratings is only 16%. Another viral tweet about a recent K-Pop idol couple break-up also confirms how much Koreans hate their president.
Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, like, share, or leave a tip 👇 to support my work. It’ll help me a lot to keep creating 😘 See you next week, 안녕!