Shot all on mobile phones, Seoul Mate is a romantic comedy about a jaded and disgruntled English teacher who falls in love with a dude and in the process of falling in love with him starts to fall back in love with Seoul too!

It’s a journey that started in February, when my friend called me and asked if I had anything written, and it took me from writing to producing and directing to starring in my first, serious short film! Although there were miscommunications, car accidents, lost footage, broken elevators, sold off filming locations, and even technical difficulties at the premier, I can now present to the world my short film: Seoul Mate! How exciting ^_^

Living in Korea, Japan is the cheapest foreign country to travel to. Naturally, that makes it attractive for tourism, visa runs, and brief jots away from Korea if you’re ever in the mood for something different, hehe. I’ve been there twice now and loved it both times.

If you’re flying from Seoul to Fukuoka, I totally recommend taking Jeju Air (제주항공).  The attendants have always been super sweet to me and they serve super-tasty nuts during the flight + juice from the type of citrus that’s popular on Jeju, 귤. Plus, the flight is pretty affordable at around $200 for a round trip ticket ^^

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I would love to share with you all of the interesting, historically important sites, but I tend to get easily distracted by the culinary and consumeristic aspects of travel, so I’ll just write about the amazing food for now

Let me tell you, if you’re in Japan for any amount of time, you gotta try Yakitori (焼き鳥) ~ it’s this skewered, grilled chicken that is to-die-for-delicious! You order a bunch of different kinds of skewers and maybe a chicken and rice dish and you are set to enjoy your night! I had the pictured dishes with my friend and her boyfriend. Afterwards we were full and ready to burst ^_^

 Looks delicious, riiiiiiiiiiiiight?

You’re probably thinking, “Dang, Vickie, it couldn’t get any tastier than that right there.” And, in that case, you’d be wrong! Unless you’re allergic to green tea AMAZINGNESS as presented in shaved ice form! In Korea, they call the following 그린티빙수. I have no idea what they call it in Japan. In English, I’ll just call it “the tower of green tea amazingness + ice + ice cream + rice cake + omg u’ll love it”. I think the name is pretty catchy.

This time when I was in Fukuoka I also tried a crazy-delicious Italian dish called bagna càuda. It’s basically vegetable fondue. I LOVED it. Absolutely, hardcore, totally gonna have it again as soon as possible – loved it!

It’s interesting because it seems to me that the Japanese conserve the authentic taste of whatever dish they import, but Koreans love to either create fusion dishes or tweak the recipe to Korean taste. For example, even with a food like pizza, the typical pizza place in Korea will serve the pie with sweet pickles!

Since it’s nearing Christmas, there were a bunch of pretty lights up around Hakata Station, the main railway station in Fukuoka City.

I wish I’d had more time, but I guess I’ll just have to go back! Especially to get the eel! Have you ever tried the sweet Japanese eel over rice dish? If not, you are missing out! They make it faaaaaaabuously in Fukuoka! So, you should try it

I’m ready to take the plane back now! ^_^

A couple of days ago, a reporter from Arirang Radio, Jennifer Lee, visited my improv troupe (Seoul City Improv) in search of people to interview for a program called “Travel Bug” with DJ Lisa Kelley. I gladly volunteered to chat with her about my experiences traveling in Korea and eating all sorts of bizarre foods (from an American perspective). We chatted about my recent trip to Chunchon, jade, eel soup, live octopus, and all sorts of other stuff

The interview is going to be aired this Thursday ( 12/13 tomorrow) around 9:20am – 9:35am.

You can tune in a couple of ways:

So if you have time, feel free to have a listen

In all that time, when I’ve been told I’m going to be doing background acting, I had never once received a line until the other week while filming “Missing You”/보고싶다~!

Usually when doing background acting, the name of the game is keeping yourself amused during long periods of waiting and, when given stage direction, to infuse your given character with as rich of an inner life as possible. Most extras don’t bother with the second part of that sentence, but I certainly do! Every time I’m an extra, I enjoy giving myself an amazing background story – something to really draw from.

Background action involves long periods of waiting followed by the short lived excitement of receiving a role ^_^

For instance, during the filming of 보고싶다 we were at a fashion show, so I chose to be a girl originally from France, Marie. My father had been a baker, and my mother a failed tailor. My mother pushed me towards fashion, as she was haunted by her own personal demons and wanted to succede vicariously through her daughter. I then also failed and ended up as mere event staff at fashion shows. As Marie, I took comfort in the fact that I did my work well, and without me, the show could not go on. My American accent was a result of an addiction to American television, which I picked up from my father. During one take, I really hit the crossing spot on, and my purposeful, harried rush past the stage was noted by someone from production who told me a did a good job. Really, that’s about as good as it gets being an extra. Someone noticing that you’re actually doing your job. Hahahaha *cries*.

Or, at least, I thought that was as good as it gets until while filming 보고싶다, at a point past midnight, we were filming the last scene of the day and I got what is equivalent to finding the holy grail in the background acting world: I got a line! It was a scene that involved a fight between the main actress윤은혜 and some other girl. Of course, fight scenes always take a long time to film because they necessitate shots taken from so many different camera angles. As a result, the last scene took like 4 or so hours to film. And we were all tired and sick of having clothes thrown at us by one of the actresses. However, when my chance came, I took it and I jumped in with a line! “Joy, did you lose something?” I think that’s what I said. I haven’t watched it yet. My friend sent me a screenshot. At any rate, I said my line and so it is in perpetuity! Yay!

My friend’s screen capture of my line in 보고싶다

Unfortunately, my appearances as a background actress up until that point had all involved around 2 seconds of screen time, so I decided to be lazy that day and not bother with really combing my hair or putting on much make up. It’s like Murphy’s Law or something that when you’re least prepared, you’ll actually get an opportunity to do something. Maybe I should start not preparing and putting in less effort to everything. It seems to go better when I live life on the improvised edge, kekeke.

Jade is traditionally a really highly respected stone in the east. In Korea, it’s the symbol of royal authority and it was used for the royal seal. It’s supposed to help in bringing about a long, disease free life and so it has nicknames like the divine stone （紳石）and the spiritual stone（靈石）.

The picture below is of my friend Maha and I totally being super models in the jade cave ^^

The next picture is of Maha and I attempting to soak up the energy (기운) from the jade!

I know I’m getting all new age-y on you here, but I could really feel the 기 energy when I was in that cave. I swear I’m not being that crazy person who goes on about all of her crystals and stones and the positive vibes! After an hour or so surrounded by all of that regal stone, my head was really fuzzy and I felt kind of overwhelmed. Scientifically, it’s supposed to have something to do with all of the negative ions that jade emits. Traditionally, in eastern medicine, jade is credited with all sorts of health benefits, like helping you get a sound sleep and being great for your heart if it’s near your chest. I don’t know if it’s true, but like I said, I was certainly feeling an effect in that cave.

Either way, when we left the cave, I decided to take a look at some of the jewelry that was for sale and I found a beautiful necklace that I fell in love with and had to have!

It’s gorgeous, right?  I love that I have a beautifully carved jade flower around my neck! Now that I have jade near my heart I can live forever! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

They were also kind enough to gift us with jade bracelets ^_^

Oh, happy day!

If you’re in Chunchon, I recommend checking out OK-SAN-GA (玉山家）Jade.

I am hiding in Starbucks, sipping a green tea latte

I somewhat regularly host a travel show in Korea that’s called Go Go Korea ( 고고코리아 황금발) and one of the perks of hosting it is that I get to travel around the country and visit places at the optimal time to tour!

This past weekend we went to Naejangsan National Park in Jeollabuk-do to film the fall foliage festival (내장산 단풍축제). It was absolutely spectacular! The leaves were beautiful and so colorful. They covered the mountains in a gorgeous tapestry of autumn colors.

Now, Koreans love hiking. I don’t think I can understate this. Koreans LOVE hiking. If you walk around Seoul, you’ll see that it seems to be a requirement that all Koreans of a certain age own professional outdoors gear to outfit themselves for hiking trips. Of course, true to Korean culture, when it comes to events, festivals, restaurants, hot cafes and bars, everyone and their brother needs to go to the best place at the best time. As a result, Naejangsan was swarming with people during the festival. Walking through the street at the bottom of the mountain was like walking through Gangnam on a normal day.

Nevertheless, I would highly recommend checking out the festival. There’s a reason the base of the mountain could give a person claustrophobia; the views were great!

I love this shot of the light coming through the leaves of the tree. It’s like something that you would see in a Renaissance painting!

I went with my friend Maha, who is from Morocco! She had never seen the fall leaves like this before, so it was especially great for her ^^

And, of course, we had to sample some of the local delicacies while we were in the area. What travel show would be complete without FOOD? Hahaha. Apparently Jeongup (정읍시) is quite well known for its beef galbi, so we got ourselves some tasty bbq ^^

Another thing the region is famous for is a medicinal drink that’s good to try if you’ve got a cold. It’s called Ssanghwatang (쌍화탕) and it’s a traditional oriental medicine drink. Although the drink is naturally bitter, chestnuts, dates, and pine nuts are added to it in order to give it a delicious, soothing flavor.

I took an astronomy class during college and really enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll pursue my interest in astronomy more, find a new planet, and set off to colonize a new world in a spaceship full of ramen and cookies! YESSSSS!!!! ^^

Thanks to the awesome people at Star King’s “Cooking King” (스타킹 요리킹) I had my recipe for kimchi stew (단무지 김치찌개) published in a compilation from the official cookbook for the kimchi stew competition.

When it comes to cooking and dining, I like to consider myself a woman of rather superior taste. However, I’m not above using common ingredients. The judges seemed slightly horrified that I could purchase all the ingredients for my recipe at the convenience store, so maybe next time I’ll lie and say the kimchi was made by my grandmother who lives in the Korean countryside, about 10 days walk from Seoul. That’s right, judges, I walked the kimchi to Seoul. It has the taste of sweet hardship clinging to it. Enjoy. It also may have fallen on the ground a couple of times… the hardship may just be mud…

Hehehehehe…

You can check out a news article on it here (only available in Korean)

Anyway, I enjoyed the competition ^^ I joined some of the other contestants who were starving during the couple hours of filming and we cooked some stir fry, drank a bunch of makkoli, and one guy even pulled out his guitar to sing about kimchi jjigae  ^^ It was pretty chill.

I enjoy the comedic things in life. Some, in fact, might call me an aficionado of comedy. I wouldn’t necessarily encourage it, but if presented with free t-shirts and other swag, I think it’s fair to say that I might do a little research into legally adding a title to my name… Perhaps something to the effect of “Vickie, aficionado of comedy”- pretty sexy, eh?

So, you see, I’m a person. I have hopes… I have dreams… In the end, they’re not all that much different from Dr. Martin Luther King’s. I would like to entertain people. Regardless of their ethnic background and how they like to eat their hot dogs, I would like to help them laugh. It’s not just some sort of power- tripping, megalomaniac desire to derive pleasure from causing others to laugh. I would even go so far as to call it altruism. Comedy is the ultimate sacrifice.

At any rate, much as a young shepherdess is wont to spend uncountable hours laying in the hay of the barn, dreaming of becoming princess of the realm (this is, of course, before being accosted by Fernando the goat boy and ending up on MTV’s critically acclaimed show 16 and Preggers), I too once had dreams of becoming a comedienne in Korea: a gagwoman (개그우먼). Cradling such dreams close to my bosom, my sufficiently ample bosom, I auditioned for Gag King (개그킹), a special edition of Star King (스타킹) with my friend, Nevada, and was given the opportunity to join a ragtag group of gagmen hopefuls, performing short, individual acts.

Together, we were 딸랑개그팀. Swathed in aluminum foil, I was Lady Gaga ~ 레이디가가!

In the original audition, my friend was a translator, and I was Lady Gaga, who upon visiting Korea, found fashion inspiration at a galbi restaurant. After waxing poetic on the beauty to be found at the intersection of galbi and fashion, I proceeded to dump leaves, garlic and kimchi all over my aluminum-foiled self. Perhaps this was too daring – too avant-garde! Mayhaps the thought of a galbi dress was too scandalously risqué and  ahead of its time for present-day Korean tv. In any event, the writers deemed it best that for my impression on the show, I should restrict my performance to a couple of dance moves. Then, during rehearsal, the dance moves were downgraded to walking across the stage, which, I’m not gonna lie, ain’t my forte. I shall not be adding “walking across the stage” to the skills section of my acting resume next to the other skills I proudly lay claim to a godlike mastery of, such as “bear handed shark wrestling” and “flammable gymnastics”.

“Oh well”, I thought to myself after the downgrade of my performance, “At the very least, I can still be funny and witty within the parameters of the self introduction and interview! Life does not always take the course one expects, but in a very daoist fashion the water runs as the water runs and the man floats in a boat to the opposing shore”.

WRONG. It got cut! Just like in prison! I’ve never been to prison, but I know what it’s like now! It’s shank or be shanked out there! My glorious couple of minutes in the recording studio got sliced down to a mere couple of seconds. Excuse me while I go drown my frustration in green tea flavored ice cream!