Summer is officially here! How do I know? Because even when I'm just sitting in my apartment, not moving at all, I start sweating and feeling all sticky. ew. Summer is not my season. So I've been trying to stay cool with lots of ice smoothies and iced lemon-ginger tea. :) I do have AC in my apartment, but I'm trying not to turn it on unless it's absolutely necessary... . you know, save the planet, etc~~
Anyway, the past few days, I've been feeling down in the dumps due to catching a cold and the flu. :( I was feeling pretty crappy with a sore throat, body aches, a stuffy nose, the works. I even went to my neighborhood clinic and got one of those shots on my bum (my poor butt cheek has a bruise now!), but it didn't help much. However thankfully, today, I'm feeling a lot better. Yayyyy! After several days of being cooped up at home, I can finally get out of my house, breathe some fresh air and go grocery shopping- my fridge is in desperate need of fresh fruits and veggies.
I think I got sick because I wasn't getting enough sleep. For the past few weeks, I've been hitting the sack around 1am, and waking up around 6:30am. That's about 5.5 hours. And on top of that, I've been running a lot, going back and forth between Seoul and Cheonan, and I've also joined a night bread-baking class that meets twice a week, all in addition to my full-time job! (More on that baking class later~^^) So I guess it's not too surprising that this sleep deprivation resulted in a weakened immune system. So I'm really gonna try to develop better sleeping habits now. The main problem is that I just lose track of time browsing through all those awesome veg blogs out there, into the wee hours of the night. They are so distracting!
Well, last week, I made a short visit to Cheonan. I didn't do much besides just chill at home, go for a walk with my parents, make some nutty oat bars, and eat some yummy Korean food. Sometimes you just need to relax like that and take things easy.
Check out the banchan-filled vegan table. Quite lavish, eh?
Cool-as-a-cucumber kimchi. Perfect for the summer!
Eggplant banchan
We also went out for lunch to an isolated Korean restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The specialty at this restaurant is their stone-pot cooked rice (돌솟밥). It's quite a delight because your rice comes with a variety of beans, some pieces of sweet potato, and a prune.
Once you scrape out all the rice and transfer it into an empty bowl, you fill the stone pot with hot water. By the time you're done eating your meal, the hot water in the pot has loosened and dissolved all the crusty rice on the bottom, and has turned it into a watery toasted-rice soup. It's quite a mild, refreshing way to end the meal.
Just a few of the banchans that were spread out on our table. Not everything was vegan, but I still filled myself up on the banchans that were, and they were also generous on refills. You gotta love country-side Korean restaurants serving simple, traditional eats.
Hope everyone is staying cool and healthy in this heat!