Korean TV and Other Things.

So Korean television is primarily nonsense, just as in England.  This is compounded by the (seeming) relative lack of funding their television programs receive.

A typical show in England will be a talent show, in which all entrants are welcome.  They host the show in a big studio, with a respectable budget pushing proceedinngs.

The Korean equivalent will be hosted in a shed, by a washed up celebrity paid in his or her addiction of choice.

There is however, one shining light in the cesspit of television.

That shining light adheres to the same monetary constraints as other shows; but overcomes their weaknesses with bags of charm.

Hosted by a jolly man who goes  by the name Kang Ho Dong, this show follows the single simplest format I've ever seen.

The show is called Two Days, One Night.  The premise is this:  A group of comedians and celebrities, (around six or seven of them) travel to a predetermined location, and compete to earn their dinner.  If they fail in a task, they go hungry, or have some unknown forfeit.  One forfeit, for example, was having to eat their entire dinner in under a minute.  After the minute the food was (in some cases) forcibly taken from them.

They then stay the night in a famous  location within Korea (or somewhere particularly hospitable - hence why they've never been to Geoje) and compete in a challenge the next morning for their breakfast.

They usually compete to decide where they sleep too.  During one episode they failed to complete a challenge and were woken up every hour, driven to a bizarre location and forced to sleep there.  (Of course you can't force someone to sleep, but a couple of  days with no sleep will render most people comatose, so it worked surprisingly well).

This particular forfeit resulted in them sleeping in a side-street at the crack of dawn, as many people meandered past beginning their daily routines.

Priceless.

To show the simplicity of this program, here is one final example.  In order to obtain dinner during one show; they had to push a car that was in neutral, with no brakes, to a spot marked on the ground.  Imagine curling, but with a car.

I don't know why I love this show, but it's amazing.

In other news, I tried a couple of new cakes over the weekend.

 The panda seemed to enjoy this one.

Out of ten, I would rank this cake nine.  The extremely high score is attributable to the entirely chocolate bow on top.  It was a delicious addition, and was clearly not american chocolate.

I think this is the first time in a while that I've had chocolate that's not american in nature, and it was good.

 This is a close-up to show the exquisite decoration around the side of the cake.  Most, if not all of the cakes I purchase have this decoration, and this particular brand of chocolate flavouring  is delectable.

 This is the second dessert I partook of this weekend.  Not technically a cake, but close enough that I don't mind being incorrect on this particular matter.

 

 The ice-cream/cake pictured is an extremely fatty blend of cream, chocolate chip ice-cream and toffee with peanuts.

Obviously the peanuts detracted from what would otherwise be a perfectly acceptable combination, but such was my ice-cream deficiency at the time, that I couldn't have cared less.  In hindsight I should have opted for something without any fruits or vegetables.

This alternative view highlights the toffee cylinder of ice-cream.

There was a copious amount of chocolate sauce in the pictured chocolate cup; fantastic.

 Just to prove that it was, in fact, less healthy than I've previously tried to convey - here is a side shot of the chocolate sauce drizzled on straight cream, with the chocolate cup filled with chocolate sauce in the background.

This was enough for two days, believe it or not!

 Even though it looks small, it packs a chocolatey punch.

Take it from someone who can (and regularly does) eat his own bodyweight in chocolatey desserts; this thing is not to be trifled with (sic).

It looks like a few bites in, but this is no ordinary dessert.

It's the dessert that keeps on giving!