Building Bridges.....

  Salty, sweet, spicy, hot, well the Korean food has it all. Many tourists coming to Korea tasting the food for the first time say the food is Hot, red and lots of garlic! The red tone in the food is from the red pepper. Red pepper is a very common ingredience in Korean cuisine but it is not originated from Korea. It was the Portuguese who took it to China and Korea during the 1500 and 1600 and it is in Korea to stay! The garlic though is much older and no one really knows why the Koreans eat that much garlic. The Japanese usually call the Koreans “garlic eater”, they use that name in disrespect, but I personally salute the Koreans using that much garlic. A typical Korean meal contains three main ingredience, Rice (pap), soup (guk) and Kimchi. Everything else you see at the table is named Panchan, side dishes, and they are placed in small nice plates all over the table. The more of these panchan you get, the better it is. Kimchi, what’s they? Well it is perhaps the most typical Kor...

  Around 400 BC different tribes came together in the north part of the peninsula and created the kingdom named “Choson”. Choson is a Chinese word that means “The land of the morning calm” Around 200 years after this Choson was divided into three kingdoms. It was Koguryo in the north, Silla in the southeast and Paeche in the southwest. China was influencing them all and because of this powerful influence it was hard to develop in its own way. Koguryo tried to break free from China and war broke out. They won against China in the year 313, but pretty soon China took over again. During these wars against Koguryo and China, Paeche had the possibility to strengthen just as Silla had. Buddhism came from China to Koguryo in the year 372 and in the year 384 Buddhism came to Paeche. In order for Buddhism to reach the Kingdom of Silla it took almost 150 years more. In the year 528 Buddhism came to Silla and the three kingdoms now developed in to strong and powerful kingdoms. They competed a...