Onigiri ! The most common Japanese food of all xxx

Hello to the world ! It’s Mako and Seung A.

Today, I (M) want to share about a very common food in Japan… Onigiri !!!

What is a “Onigiri” !???

It is Japan’s famous “Rice ball “- the seaweed wrapped around the riceball (triangle or circle shaped). Loved among the soul food for the whole population in Japan!

The origin of Onigiri in the Heian period (1987-) and the inspiration was from a food called “Tonjiki” the simple version of the riceball eaten now. In the middle of Edo period it became popular among many citizen, when the rectangular nori(seaweed) became common and people began to wrap it around the riceball and that enabled people to carrying around it and eat it with no messy hands. Thus lend this to convenience and more people to started eating it until present where it is still very popular eaten mostly for lunch.

 Where do we find it ?

It was firstly most commonly eaten as a packed lunch (homemade), however buying them in convenience stores* have become usual. Also, there are still official shops like, rice shops that sell rice balls too.

*Every convenience store has a onigiri corner (shelf) that contain around 10- 20 varieties of onigiri. But the popular tastes are sold out quite soon. And costs are around $1- $2.5.

• 具 = Gu (ingredients)

The diversity of Onigiri is one of the reasons why it is popular. We all tend to have our favorite Onigiri Gu that we either make or buy and eat.

The popular ones are …

Tunamayo (Tuna and mayonnaise), Umeboshi (Japanese salty and sour flavored pickled plum), Sake (salmon), Konbu etc.The unusual? but popular one is Karaage (chicken)!

Additionaly …

Not just the Gu that makes the diversity of Onigiris.There are many types of Onigiris such as

• Yaki onigiri: toasted(Yaki) with soy sauce flavor.
• Nikumaki onigiri: roasted and flavored meat wrapped round the riceball
• Furikake onigiri: rice mixed with Furikake(tasty power of many varieties).

• 海苔 = Nori (seaweed)

As I said in above, the whole aim of the use of nori is to not get messy hands.

However, there is still one more thing to talk about nori which …

Pari Pari nori VS Shittori nori

what’s different? which is better??

So there are basically two types of nori texture,

Pari Pari*crispy or Shittori*dampish(moistened)

Homemade Onigiri tends to become Shittori nori because the nori is wrapped around the hot/ warm rice ball for so long and the heat makes the nori Shittori. And some people love this.

One the other hand,  Pari Pari nori is said to taste better because the crispy texture gives the fresh taste the seaweed itself. This is why convenience store onigiris have a plastic film that separates the nori and riceball until you eat it, and even for homemade ones too, we wrap the seaweed and riceball separately so that we can wrap it before just before eating.

shiitori nori                                       paripari nori

＊Look carefully at the seaweed / nori it’s easy to tell the difference

4 steps for making a “Sankaku Onigiri”

the most common (Sankaku)Triangle shaped Onigiri

1. prepare a bowl containing cold water (colder than the hand temp) and wet your hands so that the rice doesn’t stick

2. Put some salt onto your palms: for the taste and sterilization.
3. Put rice onto your palm *Warm rice

4. Make a hole in the middle for the space of the ingredient, put in the ingredient, and  cover the ingredient from the rice around it and start making the triangle shape*Make a soft “C”shape with both hands and by turning the rice ball around and arranging the shape, 3 or 4 times of repetition will make a soft nice triangle shaped rice ball
   
5. >>> Finished

Onigiri’s Future

These days onigiris have been developed, many companies have been tring to reduce the hardness in making, such processes of making its shape, getting messy hands etc.

E.g.

onigiri cases

• plastic ones … protects the shape ruining

• silicon ones...

• No need of messing up your hands, inside the silicon case you just put in the rice and ingredients and its made!
• Also, you can make a couple and store them by freezing and heat them up when eating.

Also, more and more varieties of onigiris have come out and has given us many surprises and excitement.

E.g.

• Collaboration with instant cup noodle companies (riceball tasting the noodle flavor)

• Character onigiri:

 

Mostly common for children's packed lunches, to entertain their lunches mums make cute characters out of onigiri.

Onigiri has been instrumental in Japan society, and I still want onigiri to be respectively eaten because I feel like it is one traditional food that we don’t pay that much attention in daily life, but is always around us supporting our life.

I am looking forward for the new creative ideas in the future, and I want more people from around the world to know about about the fabulosity of onigiri!

Just eat one and you’ll understand what I’m saying ! Hope you try the recipe out !

Thanks for reading xxx

The next post will be about, Korean food … “Pingsu”- Korean shaved ice !

It will be posted next week, so look forward to it !

Delicious Cheeze Galbi !! (Korean food)

Hello to the world :) This is Mako and Seung A !!!

This will be the first post about Korean stuff. Let’s start off with a delicious meal that is really popular. What I’m going to show today is 치즈등갈비.

치즈등갈비 = Cheese Galbi = Cheese ribs

Cheese Galbi  is very famous in Korea nowadays. It is new and recently developed from just Galbi. ‘Galbi’ is ribs in English. This meal  ribs with consists of special spicy sauce, cheese, (pizza cheese, or mozzarella cheese), corn, and some other vegetables based on the restaurant’s ingredients. After finishing Cheese Galbi, you can order Bab (rice). It is also a little spicy but very tasty. It is common in Korea to have Bab after saucy food. We usually mix the leftover sauce and Bab together.

I tried this meal for the first time at my friend’s birthday party. We went to Myeongdong (명동) in Seoul and found a Cheese Galbi restaurant. There was only Cheese Galbi for main meal. The menu had:

Spiciness- not spicy, spicy, very spicy.

Cheese- more cheese, double cheese, triple cheese.

Different types of Bab(rice) -after finishing cheese galbi you mix the leftovers with rice and vegetables. It is usually spicy, but really good.

Then we ordered double cheese and not spicy.

(Right before cheese started to melt)

(mixing and cutting cheese galbi)

(melted cheese with a rib)

‘Not spicy’ was really not spicy enough for me but my Japanese friend said it was spicy.

The Cheese Galbi was really good and tasty, we ordered one more.

(All the mess after we finished eating cheese galbi)

(after cheese galbi, we ate bab)

(mixed bab)

Overall, the Cheese Galbi and Bab were flavourful. My friends and I could not stop eating. I would love to go and eat it again. This is one of the meals I strongly recommend to all of you to try!

:)

The next post will be about Japanese food ! So be tuned xxx

Bye Bye xxx

大人気のチーズカルビ〜！

世界の皆さん〜こんにちは！まことスンアです〜^ ^

今日のブログは、韓国についての初めての記事です！さてさて、今とっても人気なチーズカルビについて！ぜひ楽しんでください〜！

치즈등갈비 =チーズトゥンカルビ＝チーズカルビ

最近　韓国で、人気急上昇の「チーズカルビ」！従来カルビの進化系です。その名の通り、ピリ辛ソースで味付けされたカルビにチーズを巻いて食べます。チーズはピザに使われるようなモッツァレラ伸び〜るチーズで、コーンや唐辛子なども添えてあります。

この料理は今人気でたくさんの所に違う名前のお店で「チーズカルビ」として売られていますが、私たちが行った明洞チーズカルビ店ではメイン料理が「チーズカルビ」で、メニューに書かれていたのは、辛さ（ひかえめ、普通辛、辛め）、チーズ（普通量、多め、もっと多め、それからチャーハンです。

迷いに迷って、チーズが大好きな私たちはチーズ多めの辛さ控えめカルビを頼みました。見た目はこちら↓

一番最初の段階。まだチーズは溶けてない！

熱々の鉄板でチーズを混ぜている様子。

溶けたチーズが巻き付いたカルビ

辛さ控えめ（辛さの最小レベル）は韓国人や辛党の人にしてみてはあまり辛くないです。けど、あまり辛さに強くない人にしてはまだまだ辛いよう。とっても美味しかったので三人で食べたものの四人前頼みました！

チーズカルビを食べた後はお鍋がぐちゃぐちゃ。

チーズカルビを食べ終えた後、ご飯を加えました。

:)

チーズカルビもチャーハンもとっても美味しかったです。私も友達も食べ止むことができないくらい！笑　必ずまた行きたいところの一つです。なので、私たちとってもオススメのこのチーズカルビ是非是非食べに行ってみてください。

ではでは〜^ ^

한일의 문화 차이와 같은 점!!

안녕하세요 !!!^ ^우린 일본과 한국에서 온 마코와 승아예요.

이 블로그를 시작한지 얼마 안 됐지만 저희를 소개 할려고 해요. 그럼, 오늘은 우리가 블로그를 처음 시작한 날 입니다! 준비 돼셨죠? 오늘의 주제는 "일본과 한국의 간단한 정보"에 대한 것 입니다. 이 두나라는 뭐가 같고 다를까요?

자 그럼 시작하기 전에 한가지를 확실히하고 갈께요. 많은 사람들은 아시아인들(중국, 한국, 일본)은 대부분 다 같다고 생각하지만 그건 아주 큰 착각이에요! 왜냐하면 아시아는 굉장히 넓고 이 세 나라가 붙어 있기 때문인데 문화나 정통이 많이 달라요. 비슷한 점과 다른점을 보여드릴께요.

일단 저희는 서로에게 갖고 있는 인상을 보여 줄려고 해요.

보통 일본인에게 보이는 한국인은 한국인은 귀엽고 팝을 좋아하며 김치를 먹고 핫한 케이팝 스타들이 많고 한국에서 쇼핑하면 싸다고 합니다.

한국인들이 보기엔 일본는 많은 온천에 야생 원숭이도 많고 인본인들은 스시나 라면을 자주 먹는다는 것입니다.

1. 교통수단: 한국 어디나 교통수단으로 복잡한 것은 아니에요. 한국은 세계에서 손꼽힐 정도로 교통수산이 유명해요( 아마 일본도 그럴거에요). 특히 서울엔 버스나 택시, 지하철 같은 것들이 많아요. 버스나 지하철은 대부분 5분에 한 번씩 오기 때문에 (특히 수도권에서) 정해저 있는 시간은 없지만 일본은 오는 시간이 정해저 있고 거의 제시간에 도착을 해요. 하지만 한국에도 핸드폰 앱과 인터넷에서 버스나 지하철이 어디쯤 왔는지 아니면 언제쯤 도착하는지 다 적혀 있어서 시간은 걱정 안 하셔도 돼요. 게다가 지하철이나 버스 정류소엔 무료 와이파이로 인터넷을 할 수 있고 핸드폰 충전할 곳도 있어 매우 편리합니다.

2. 윗사람을 존중: 한국과 일본에서는 윗사람을 존중하는 것이 매우 중요합니다. 미국이나 서부에서와는 달리 윗사람을 존중해주는 말투와 호칭이 있습니다. 특히 한국은 일제 강점기때 일본의 문화를 따르게 되었습니다. 일제 감점기 이후에도 한국은 매우 약했고 다른 문화들이 한국에쉽게 들어 오게 되었습니다. 윗사람을 신과 같이 존중하는 관습도 이중에 하나이고 이런 관습은 계속 이뤄지게 될것 같습니다.  

3. 성격: 당연히 사람마다 성격은 다르겠죠. 하지만 일본에는 한국의 이미지에서 고정관념을 갖게 되고 그 반대로 한국이 일본인들의 성격에 관한 고정관념을 갖고 있습니다. 일본인들은 한국인은 강하고 성질이 급하고 시끄럽다고 생각하지만 정반대로 한국인들은 일본인이 예의 바르고 조용하고 잘 놀라는 사람들이라고 생각합니다.

4. 날씨: 몇몇의 장소들을 빼면 한국과 일본의 날씨는 매우 비슷합니다. 사계절 모두 있습니다 (겨울, 가을, 여름, 봄). 하지만 한국의 봄은 공기가 중국에서 온 대기 오염 (중국에서 바람타고 오는 황사 등) 때문에 매우 안 좋지만 가을에는 오히려 공기가 가장 좋습니다.

5. 옷: 일본과 한국 둘다 비슷한 옷을 입고 비슷한 유행이나 화장을 해요. 일본보다는 한국의 옷 값이 더 싸다고도 해요.

6. 교육: 아주 비슷한 교육이나 학교 시스템으로 이루어져 있어요. 초등학교 1-6학년 부터, 중학교 1-3학년, 고등학교 1-3학년까지 있어요. 일본과 학국 둘다 학교 성적이나 등수를 중요시 하기 때문에 학원이나 학교에서 야자가 많이 있고 좋은 대학에 가는 것은 매우 힘들 거든요.

7. 음악: 케이팝 vs. 제이팝. 케이팝은 대부분 미국 힙합과 1990년대의 제이팝에서 많은 영향을 받았어요. 제이팝은 락이나 비틀즈의 포크 댄스의 영향을 많이 받았지요. 일본은 잘 모르겠지만 한국은 이제 자기들의 음악을 만들고 세계 많은 사람들이 좋아해요. 하지만 아직도 한국의 전통 음악이 있고 어르신들에겐 인기가 많습니다.

8. 언어: 한국과 일본은 매우 다르지만 비슷한 부분도 많이 있어요. 문법 같은 경우는 매우 비슷하고 일본에서 온 단어들이 많아 발음이 비슷하거나 똑같은 단어들이 있어요. 좋은 것은 서로 이해하기 쉽다는 점이에요. 일본에서는 3개의 다른 문자가 있어요. 히라가나, 카타가나, 그리고 칸지 (또는 한자)로 되어 있지만 한국은 한글이 있어요. 일본과 한국 둘다 중국이 영향이 크지만 두 나라 모두 자기만의 문자를 만들었지요. 한국의 초등학교에서는 한자라는 중국 문자와 굉장히 비슷한 문자를 가르치지만 한자는 쓸때 자주 안 씁니다. 하지만 라틴어가 영어에 아주 중요하듯이 한자도 한글에 매우 중요한 역할을 합니다.

9. 음식: 두 나라 모두 밥으로 쌀과 반찬을 먹는데 조금 달라요. 한국은 주로 반찬으로 김치를 아침 점심 저녁 모두 먹고 매운 반찬도 많지만 다양한 국도 만만치 않게 많아요. "김치 없으면 삶도 없다!"는 맞는 말이지만 '김치'라기 보다는 느끼한 것을 없애주는 '매운 것'이라고 해야 맞는 말인거 같네요. 일본과 한국 모두 계절별로 다양한 반찬이 나오고 대부분 아주 비슷하답니다.

10. 이벤트: 어린이 날 같이 비슷한 공유일이 많아요. 하지만 새해를 맞이하는 날은 한국에서는 설날이라고 하지만 일본에서는 그냥 1월 1일이 새해를 맞이 하는 날이에요. 그리고 한국에서는 '한글날' 이라고 새로운 공유일이 생겼답니다.

좀 길어서 지루하셨을 지도 모르지만 이 블로그를 통해서 많은 정보를 얻어 가셨다면 좋겠네요. 더 궁금하시다거나 질문이 있으시면 댓글을 달아주세요. 최대한 많은 도움을 드리겠습니다.

감사합니다.

“Japan and Korea: Culture similarities and differences” Blog #1

Hello to the world !

We are Mako and Seung A, two girls from Japan and Korea.

We have only just started our blog and few want to introduce ourselves briefly. So, today is the actual start of the blog! Get ready... Today’s topic will be on “Basic knowledge about Japan and Korea”  How similar and different are these two countries?

To begin we want to make one thing clear. Many people think all Asians are the same (Chinese, Korean, Japanese) which is of course a really big mistake, because Asia is huge and although each country is close to one another they are very different in their traditions, and culture. However, we of course have many similarities, so we will share the similarities and differences of Japan and Korea.b

We each want to share the impressions that we have on each country. Korea’s image from a typical Japanese point of view is that Koreans are cute, they have hot k-pop stars, and eat Kimchi, shopping is cheap in Korea.  

A typical Korean thinks that Japan has many hot springs　and they have wild monkeys in it, they eat sushi, ramen.  These impressions are actually right.

10 basic facts!!!

1. Transportation: Not everywhere around Korea is full of transportation. And, Korea has one of the best transportation system around the world (maybe Japan too). Especially in Seoul, there are buses, taxi, subway, etc. Buses and subways, not have exact time when they come since they come almost every 5 minutes or even less sometimes, where Japan has exact time. However, there are apps and on internet or on phones that show where and when a certain bus is coming, so you do not have to worry about time. At some bus stops, there is free wifi and most all in subways too. Also there are places for phone charging plug on each bus.

2. Respect to elders: This is very important in both Korea and Japan. Unlike America and other western countries, we have a different, more respecting ways to talk to the elders. In Korea, at the Japanese colonial, Korean culture changed a lot and since Korea was very weak after the invasion, culture from Japan and new cultures were inherited to Korea. Respecting elders like respecting gods have been one of it and is still going on.

3.Personalities: Of course, personalities differ from each people. However, Japanese get stereotyped image of Koreans, and Koreans have stereotypes for Japanese too. Japanese have images of Koreans as strong, short-tempered, and loud, where Koreans think the opposite of Japanese. Polite and quite. I personally believe that this is true in somewhat way. However, this maybe has came from the history where Koreans had to fight one another to survive after the invasion.

4.Temperature/ weathers: Usually, the temperature is about the same except for some parts of Korea and Japan. We all have all four seasons: Winter, Autumn, Summer, Spring. However, Korea’s air on Spring is very bad due to air pollution from China (air pollution of factories in China come to Korea by wind). But air in autumn is really good.

5.Clothes: We usually wear similar clothes. We have a similar trend !! Korean clothes are cheap compared to Japan.

6.Education: We have a simular schooling system, we have primary school (G1-G6 compulsory education), middle school (G7-G9 compulsory education), high school(G10-G12) > university/ college. academic success is a important thing! many academies(cram school) to study after school and prepare for exams etc. Because getting into a good university is the key to get into a well known company with good salaries.

7.Music: k-pop vs. j-pop (we cannot say which is good nor bad) but k-pop came from American hip-hop dance music and the influence of  j-pop in the 1990’s (Amuro Namie). On the other hand,  j-pop came from the rock music and folk dance music influenced first by the beatles. Korea is making their own music and many young people around the world loves them and some are very popular. Also, there are a lot of Korean and Japanese traditional music and which are still popular for especially old people.

8.Language/ letters: We have different languages however the grammar is really similar and some words come from Japan so some are the same. It is easy for both of us to understand each language which is a good thing! For letters, Japan has three types of letters, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji(Chinese letters), wheres Korea only had Hangul. Both of our countries have great influence of language and letters from China, however both countries made their own letters too. In the primary schools in Korea, they learn basic Chinese letters called Hanul but is barely used to write. However, Hanja is used mostly on meanings of words just like how Latin is used in English.

9.Food: Both countries we eat rice for every meal and no meal can be thought without rice. However, we do have different types of rice (which we will not discuss in depth right now).  Korea of course eats kimchi throughout their entire day, and they tend to make many things spicy(the red color). There are also a lot of different types of food in Korea such as with soups. So it is actually true that, “no kimchi for Korean’s is no life!!!” Japan and Korea both have seasonal foods, vegetables, side dishes etc. And some are quite similar, for example both of us eat miso soup.

10.Events: Some traditional days such as the Children’s day is the same, however the new years celebration for example is different. In Japan the new year celebration is from Dec 31st- Jan 1st (and that week), however Korea has a moon lunar year celebration called ‘Chuseok’ were they celebrate the new year. Also, in Korea there is Hangul Day which is not very old. (Korea decided to celebrate it as holiday and the decision was made about few years ago. )

I know it was quite long but I hope you were able to find something interesting, or something that you want to know more about which was not on the 10 facts. So PLEASE leave us any comments and we will discuss that on our further blogs.

Hope this was fun and that you got the general idea of both countries and the distinguishments xxx

BaiBai!(J) Anyon!(K)= Bye!

Hello to the world !!! :D

We are Mako and Seung A, two girls from Japan and Korea.

This blog will be about daily life and events that are happening in each country.

There will also be information about: language, culture, famous places, foods, tv shows(dramas), k-pop, j-pop(music),  etc. 

We will be writing this in English, Japanese and Korean so you feel free to ask us anything your interested in about our countries! We can also help with translating too :)

Look forward to our first blog :D

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こんにちは! (◍•ᴗ•◍)

私たちは、まことスンア(日本と韓国)です。

このブログは日常生活から、イベントまでお互いの国で起こっていること、言語、イベント、文化、有名な場所、食べ物、ドラマ、K-pop, J-popなどなど いろんな分野について書きたいと思っています。

英語、日本語、韓国語で書くので、もし知りたいことがあればコメント欄かメールで聞いてください。例えば, 韓国で流行っている食べ物は？でもいいし、... 何でもオッケー!

それから、通訳もお手伝いしますよ♪

ではでは、次回からブログ開始 お楽しみー！！！(◍•ᴗ•◍)

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안녕하세요 :)

우리는 일본과 한국에서 온 마코와 승아입니다

이 블로그는 각 나라의 일상생활이나 이벤트를 영어, 일본어, 한국어로 쓸것이고

주로 각 나라의 언어, 이벤트, 유명한 장소, 음식, 티비 프로그램, K-pop, J-pop, 등등에 대한 것이 있겠습니다.

번역도 가능하니 모르는게 있으시다면 많이 많이 물어봐 주세요 최대한 많은 도움을 드리겠습니다 :)

댓글이나 이메일로 물어봐 주세요.