Three Meals a Day in Gochang Ep 2

Three Meals a Day in Gochang Episode 2:

Appa HaeJin has arrived, to complete the family with Chajumma, Hyung HoJun and Baby JooHyuk!

Chajumma leads HaeJin to their home and creeps through the tall grasses and trees, choosing to do so in order to avoid the filming crew at the other entrance, haha. He brags about the fireplace that lights up quickly and the refrigerator that they have. It’s a lot more convenient that in Manjae island, but still, it’s uncomfortable.

They sit for a drink and HaeJin asks about SanChae, their little pet doggie friend that accompanied them in Manjae. Doggy has been sent to China with the New Journey to the West team, having retired from show business, lol. Na PD tells them that their new pets are the chicken and the ducks that haven’t been born yet.

 

Chajumma complains about the chickens, since they woke him up at 5 am, and hates them even more because they don’t lay eggs, HA! HaeJin learns about the ducks and goes, “incubator” in a very English accent, hee.

He checks out the fierce red scooter parked along the road and laughs when he is told that it’s theirs. Chajumma doesn’t know how to ride a bike, and neither do the rest so HaeJin lets out a smug laugh, since he’s the only one who can, meaning that the bike is all his. He even has a license for those huge motorbikes!

He gets on the scooter, taking it for a spin, making the others gape in awe. HoJoon thinks he’s fabulous for not having anything that he can’t do and Chajumma jokes that HaeJin won’t be coming back till tomorrow, making HoJun burst out in laughter.

He gets back to work as the main chef of the house, preparing to make batter. JooHyuk searches around for a pair of scissors and knife for him and then is asked to get the flour and starch. He sits before the cupboard and hesitates, not knowing which of the different types of wheat flour to pick. He settles on the all-purpose flour and is praised by Chef.

 

Meanwhile, HaeJin returns and sighs in satisfaction to hear that it’s savoury pancake for lunch. PaJeon – Spring Onion pancakes and YaChaeJeon – Vegetable pancakes. No meat for lunch? I think HoJun just chopped off half of their entire supply of spring onions.

HaeJin learns from JooHyuk that he can’t cook and asks who he lives with then. JooHyuk lives alone in Seoul though, so he mainly orders in. HaeJin does this very, very lame joke that frankly makes me side eye him.

JooHyuk: “I mainly order (“SiKyeo”) in and eat.”

HaeJin: “Hey, food should be eaten when hot, not cold (“Sikhyeo”)”

Ha, JooHyuk doesn’t even get the joke and just continues with the conversation. It’s only a second later does it then hit him.

Na PD informs them that they will be planting rice today and working to make raspberry wine tomorrow, telling HaeJin that while he wasn’t here, they’d borrowed more than 50 bucks. HaeJin jokingly complains about Chajumma letting the household go to ruins. He can’t rest easy! Already there’s debt! HAHAHA!

HaeJin chides Chajumma and SeungWon blames the kids, saying that they don’t know the scariness of money, hee.

Chajumma calmly continues with his pancake batter, adding ice water to it, in order to bring out its crispiness later when it fries, and salt for seasoning. He asks for more spring onions and JooHyuk automatically goes for them. He chops them long, but Chajumma cuts them into smaller pieces, since they’re for the accompanying sauce, not the pancake.

Appa HaeJin goes to water the plants, and then makes another lame joke, looking at the Kohlrabi (“Cola-bi”) and asking why there isn’t a “cider-bi”.

 

JooHyuk helps him hold up the hose so that it doesn’t get entangled and belatedly tells him that it rained in the morning, hee. All that work for nothing. Chajumma tells him to leave HaeJin alone, since he’d worked so hard and HaeJin just laughs that he suddenly has no energy. JooHyuk ah, you could have just left him ignorantly happy alone.

HaeJin goes to water the plants in the greenhouse and JooHyuk comes to tell him that there are sprinklers in there. Pfft.

The pancake batter goes into the pan and the oil sizzles deliciously, crisping it up.

HoJun notes that it looks delicious and Chajumma tells him that the secret is in the starch. Wheat flour alone wouldn’t bring about this kind of visual.

They talk about JooHyuk’s dietary preferences and Chajumma knows all about them – Beef, pork and sweet stuff.

He suggests going to the mart later and HaeJin balks at that. Chajumma retorts that it can’t be helped and HaeJin nags that if they don’t have something (money) then they should live with it! Chajumma isn’t willing to make JooHyuk suffer though, and HaeJin commands him to eat vegetables with sugar, ha! (Because JooHyuk likes sweet stuff.)

 

Na PD tries to settle the fight by telling them that by working with the rice seedlings and earning $100, they still have enough money to go shopping after clearing their debt of $50.70.

HaeJin’s all for saving money and Chajumma is sure that just going to the mart will change his mind. He even says that there’s a car, so how can they not go, ha!

They enjoy the pajeon that’s soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Hee, HaeJin isn’t letting JooHyuk’s sweet tooth have a rest as he asks him if he needs sugar.

They cook the second round of Pajeon and man… why am I doing this in the middle of the night? This is torture. They just eat, and eat, and eaaaaaaaaaaaaaat…………

HoJun puts on some music, choosing the song that HaeJin was singing earlier and HaeJin gets super happy. They take a rest while the young-uns clean up. HaeJin soaks the rice pot and feeds the chickens with it the rice-waste.

HoJun lets JooHyuk read his comic and even gives him a summary. They don’t read for long because they’re sent to go collect berries, from red ones, to blue ones to black ones.

Chajumma takes a nap in a conservative position while HaeJin sleeps like the world is his. Baby JooHyuk continues reading the comic with Hyung HoJun, but also ends up sleeping.

Two hours later, HoJun wakes them all with a song, and laughs loudly when he sees HaeJin’s bloated face.

They’re up to earn money in the fields and when Na PD tells them that they’ll settle the maths after they’re done, HaeJin scoffs that he wouldn’t have woken up if it was just to repay their debt.

SeungWon fusses with the size of the boots given, complaining that he only accepts those that fit and HoJun helplessly laugh. HaeJin comments that they look like they’re of the newest style and SeungWon refuses anything that doesn’t come from Italy, hee.

 

Those boots come with strings meant to be attached to one’s trousers to that the boots don’t slip off and trendsetter-SeungWon tries to loop them over his own ears. HaeJin poses like a sexy lady, hee, and suddenly it becomes a photoshoot with their flaming hot scooter.

They finally go off, worried that they’ll ruin someone else’s farm.

The seedlings that were carefully grown lay in the paddy waiting for them, after having been carefully cultured from seeds.

The farmer-owner leads them all in sending those seedlings out of the water and HaeJin’s outfit and actions are so similar to his that it might confuse anyone looking from afar.

It’s the 21^st century and planting rice is no longer never fun, because the rice planting machine comes out and makes it super easy. All they have to do is load the seedlings on it and it just plants the seedlings in the ground in two perfect rows in constant intervals.

 

SeungWon gets to work it and does okay, though there are some areas where he veered off too far and created too big a gap between the rows. That’s okay because they can fix it manually, oops. With the farmer-owner by his side, he’s a lot more patient this time and goes at it much longer than in the past when all it took was 10 seconds for him to give up, like when he attempted fishing.

In his solo interview, he reveals that he had wanted to do well, since it was someone else’s field.

HaeJin goes into the paddy to give the machine a try with the farmer-owner by his side like he’d done for SeungWon. He must be doing very well because the farmer-owner leaves him to do it himself.

While HaeJin busies himself with the machine, the others go into SeungWon’s area with little seedlings to cover the gaps, bending over and over to plant them in, one by one. Oof, it looks so painful for the back from here already.

The young kids complain about back-aches since there’re just too many gaps and soon, mommy and daddy join in, moving quick and agile. Sometimes they fall a little too, hee.

Time passes by like that and it’s soon time for lunch. The food seems especially delicious after a long day of work and rice suddenly feels so precious and worthy of gratefulness.

They head back to work, with new-found appreciation for the hard work that goes into the rice that takes one whole year to grow and mature.

Sometime later, they emerge, thinking they were done, but the farmer-owner sends them to the end of the field where they hadn’t planted the rice. Again, it’s back to bending over and planting those seedlings one by one.

They return once more, expecting to be praised but the farmer-owner points out yet another area that they’d left out.

In his solo-interview, JooHyuk marvels at his perfectionist and detailed character and then gets a little intimidated when it’s pointed out that the farmer-owner is sitting just nearby.

 

Chajumma takes a break and requests for grilled meat. He declares that he’s fine but is sure JooHyuk won’t be, if it continues like this. He goes off with HoJun to the market, and gets confused when he meets a fork in the road, having forgotten how to go home, hah!

Meanwhile Baby works with Appa to complete the work. After a long time later, they trudge home and walk past the raspberry farm.

They hear the menu for dinner and HaeJin gets their pay. He takes out what they owe and tells SeungWon that that it’s okay to use the rest. Just… don’t over do it! SeungWon deadpans, “when I’m already like this now, do you think I’ll (even dare) to overdo it?” HAHA.

He and HoJun head off… to pluck the lettuce and almost go to wash it when HaeJin comes along and takes over, declaring that he took can pluck vegetables too, thank you very much. He chases them off and HoJun goes to HaeJin for the money. HaeJin points out to SeungWon, saying that he’s already given it to him, and then complains that after coming here, all they talk about is money. At Manjae Island, there was no money to talk about!

 

Chajumma heads off to the mart with HoJun and is excited.

He goes to the butchers and rattles in detail how he’d like his pork belly without stop. The resulting price is a little too expensive for them to accept and so they hanker back and forth about just how much to buy.

They continue to buy some snacks as per HaeJin’s request and SeungWon pays special attention to what JooHyuk would possibly like. He refuses a drink just for himself and chooses something that the whole group can share.

Back at the house, HaeJin goes to pick more vegetables other than lettuce, like kale. Huh, I’ve never eaten pork belly like that.

JooHyuk prepares the side dishes, exactly according to SeungWon’s instructions, like he’s right beside him there. He puts the radish kimchi in the fridge and steals a berry for a snack, hee.

SeungWon returns and asks about the lettuce. It’s not washed yet, but fire to boil the rice burns strong and HaeJin stops in his tracks when he learns that there isn’t enough for tomorrow’s breakfast. He goes to add more rice and Chajumma comes along to correct the amount of water needed. He in turn tells JooHyuk to take some fire wood out since the fire’s a bit too strong.

He steals some of the snack SeungWon and HoJun bought and then HoJun goes to wash a whole cabbage just like that. Hee, it takes a moment for him to realise that he should have cut it first.

When he returns, the tap is being used, so he runs to the toilet to wash it there but is interrupted by SeungWon calling out for 10 non-spicy peppers.

Hee, he runs off to get those and eats one… and freezes when he realises that there are no more on the plants. Oh no! He only has 9 now! It takes Na PD telling him that there’s more further inside the garden for him to unfreeze.

 

The preparation for dinner continues fiercely underway and JuHyeok needs SeungWon to repeat a word 8 times just to understand his pronunciation of “wrap”.

While the rice and cabbage soup boil, HoJun challenges making the accompanying sauce at SeungWon’s suggestion. He flitters around and gets nervous when he can’t find the minced garlic, so he minces a clove himself, cutting it tissue-paper thin.

SeungWon asks for a glove and JooHyuk and HoJun’s comfortable tandem makes HaeJin feel a little left out even though he’d just missed a day.

HoJun makes his sauce and after a little red pepper powder from SeungWon, it’s deliciously ready. So delicious that JooHyuk can’t leave it.

The pork belly is laid on SeungWon’s portable stove and the sizzling sound it makes is mesmerising. No one looks like they can wait for it to be ready and the pork tortures them with how long it takes just to cook one serving.

 

Finally, it’s done and dinner is served. This is a much bigger feast than SeoJin and TaecYeon ever prepared in all their seasons and it’s only these guys’ second dinner here.

The second round of pork is cooked and speedily, the pork on the dining table disappears, hidden in lettuce wraps and going into hungry mouths. It’s just uhm! Umm.. Umh.

HaeJin forces SeungWon to relinquish his seat so that he can take over pork-cooking duties.

The night deepens and they keep eating. SeungWon remarks that he feels twice as tired here than when he was at Manjae and HaeJin agrees, finding it funny since there’s more convenience here, with their car and scooter.

The crickets sing and their doggie-friend lay down for a nap.

JooHyuk hilariously rubs his full tummy repeatedly after dinner and all HoJun can focus on is the eight-packs that he has. He lifts his shirt to show them and Na PD jealously says that muscles like that don’t look like they belong to someone with his body type, lol.

JooHyuk explains that when he was in his high school’s basketball team, he had to train with weights and HaeJin makes another joke with “weight” and “wait”. JooHyuk sprays the mosquito repellent on him and he mutters that it’s bad… for the mosquitoes. Lol.

In his solo interview, JooHyuk shares that he really likes such kinds of gags. They even make him even laugh randomly while showering when he thinks of them. In the present, he becomes HaeJin’s personal back scratcher. In the solo interview again, he takes delight in the fact that he got to give his esteemed senior a back scratch, because of mosquitoes. Nice mosquitoes, haha.

HaeJin in his solo interview says that he’s never once felt that JooHyuk was felt unfamiliar. It’s the opposite, and that’s good for him. Except… he complains that JooHyuk really has the taste buds of a kindergarten kid, hee.

The youngsters lament that time passes by so fast here and they get along so well that HaeJin marvels that they’re so far apart in age. HoJun sighs that he’s much older than HaeJin thinks he is and Na PD reveals that he really can torment people in his sleep. Ha, HoJun just rolls with it, saying that he needs someplace to vent his anger.

 

The real old guy, Cha SeungWon, is in his room, text messaging on his phone.

The younger guys go back to their room and even there, they bond over music. The lyrics super aptly describe their day and towards the end, while they complain about back pain, the song goes, “more than yesterday, it’s more painful today.” HAA. It was a love song though.

Meanwhile, SeungWon and HaeJin bond with the farmer-owner outside.

The four gather again for drinks and suddenly they’re talking about each other’s popularity. JooHyuk’s popular among the younger kids, like middle aged kids, while HoJun jokes that he’s popular among his own friends, hee.

HaeJin tries tricking JooHyuk into believing that he was once a model like him and heh, baby bird actually almost falls for it. Chajumma plays along with HaeJin’s lie, saying that while he was from the 18^th (“entering”) class, HaeJin was from the 17.5^th class. JooHyuk now gets that it’s a joke and he asks if that means that HaeJin graduated from “summer school”, haha.

 

SeungWon is brutal as he calls that the dark period for models and HaeJin corrects “summer school” to “quick-graduating class”. Their jokes are losing me now.

SeungWon asks JooHuk if he’s tired and of course JooHyuk admits that he is. HaeJin blames it all on his seniors, from “faraway” Cha SeungWon, to “far” HoJun to “cold” HaeJin. As you expected, it’s yet another nonsensical play on words. Then he calls SeungWon the big senior, calls HoJun the real senior and him just senior. Uh…

HoJun shares that he’d actually seen JooHyuk before in the past, and HaeJin asks if he didn’t see JooHyuk’s back too. JooHyuk adds, “side view!” Oh dear… I don’t even know how to explain these!

In his solo interview, JooHyuk says that he welcomes these gags, and anticipates the day when he can do a repartee with them. For now, he just marvels at how quick witted they are.

HaeJin checks the eggs in the incubator that SeungWon calls a nest and HaeJin jokes that one day he’s going to fry them all. Leave the cuteness alone!

HaeJin understands that it’ll be a little hard for JooHyuk for a while since he’s new and unfamiliar with them while HoJun and SeungWon have had such a long time to get used to each other. They suddenly change topics and are glad that people like Three Meals a Day. HaeJin remarks that there was such a saying before: “Three Meals a Day”. Huh? That’s it. I don’t get it.

HoJun follows it up with more nonsense, saying that the great seniors from the past are never wrong: “If you drink a lot, you’ll get drunk.”

“Places that serve really good food have really good food,” goes HaeJin.

 

Finally, they save me by doing a drink cheer and moving on to talking about music. JooHyuk fits right in because he likes all those old songs too and can follow along… and they go weird.

I think… I think I spoke too fast… someone save me from the crazies.

Finally, they get out of the room and HaeJin shares that he has to go back to Ulsan tomorrow. He doesn’t regret anything and agrees with SeungWon that he has to be grateful.

They attempt to take a photo of themselves, setting the phone up some distance away but give up when the phone won’t balance itself on a stone. So they just take a we-fie that turns out looking funny and so they take another one. Soon after, it’s lights out.

Morning comes and the rice plants that they’ve painfully planted are still standing tall and proud. The bees have gotten to work, flitting from flower to flower and peace reigns in Gochang.

Everyone’s asleep still, but HaeJin is not in his own bed. At 4 am, he’d woken up, broken a door and ended up sleeping in JooHyuk and HoJun’s room. Even then, he’s the first to wake up.

 

No wait, SeungWon’s the first to awake and he catches him coming out from another door. He questions why he’s coming out of there when he was supposed to be sleeping in another room and puffy-faced HaeJin can’t answer because he doesn’t know. Really.

He goes to check if the chickens have laid any eggs but see nothing. So, he goes off to take a walk up the large hill behind the house. I love the wild nature here! It’s still early in the morning so the dew still clings onto the plants. I imagine that the air must be wonderful.

The kids wake up too and Chajumma asks them why HaeJin came out of their door yet again.

While they think of what to eat for breakfast, HaeJin jogs in the forest and comments about the smells. See! I was right! Forests and nature always smell lovely.

There are leaves that look like perilla leaves, yellow flowers, purple flowers, and even an Indian [mock]berry.

Back at home it is fire making time again. AGAIN. Sigh.

HoJun and JooHyuk get it going strong in no time while SeungWon cleans himself up.

It rains yet again but it doesn’t stop HaeJin from going for a short run that lasts 10 minutes. He comes to a fork in the road and has fun while deciding which road to take.

He checks a map and ends up stuck in heavy rain… and in the forest because he’s lost, haha!

The fellas at home know nothing about his struggles and are busy making breakfast. SeungWon fries some eggs and is so particular about the heat that even HoJun is transfixed by him cooking and stares as he cooks those eggs.

The food is soon ready but HaeJin is nowhere to be found. SeungWon grumbles and as he does, HaeJin finally comes striding down the steps, completely drenched in both rain and perspiration, rambling about a snake. He sighs that the walk was really nice and Chajumma suddenly asks if he prefers the walk or him.

 

HaeJin: “The walk.”

SeungWon: “Get out.”

HAAAAA! HaeJin defends himself, insisting that he did take a moment to think through that question!

HaeJin complains about his camera not having a zoom function and having to stick his hand close to the snake in order to capture a video of it. Turns out, he’d pressed the wrong button and activated the fish-eye effect, which is why we can make no head or tails of his video.

SeungWon sighs that it’s starting again and HaeJin laughs that they can only start their day like this, being ridiculous.

They get to breakfast and again, it’s a feast. It’s always a feast when Chajumma is around… but they can’t eat again because HaeJin is missing from the table, having gone to the toilet.

Finally, finally, finally, finally, they get to eat breakfast, which consists of last night’s cabbage soup, rice, radish kimchi and even the chicken stew from the night before.

 

HoJun brings up HaeJin’s night-time escapade and HaeJin admits that he had ended up in the wrong room while he was in a daze. He even wondered why there were others sleeping in his room, ahahhaha! He hadn’t even realised that it was HoJun and JooHyuk in the room!

SeungWon also shares that when he visited the bathroom last night, he saw HaeJin’s familiar face under the door and was so perplexed since he was sure that HaeJin had slept in the other room. He had assumed then that they’d switched rooms, but then got confused again when he saw the kids in their original room.

HAHAHAHA, HaeJIn really didn’t realise it even when SeungWon asked him that morning why he was sleeping in the kids’ room. He thought it was an of course that he’d slept there! It totally took him a minute to realise that something was wrong.

After eating the fried eggs in one mouthful, breakfast comes to an end.

HaeJin asks when the ducklings will hatch and gets told that they’ll be out between the 27^th and the 29^th.

HoJun objects to the 27^th, because that’s his birthday.

The seniors tell him to just celebrate it with the ducklings, along with a cake. Nope, he doesn’t like the idea! It’s feels weird. And now the adults are insistent that the eggs hatch on the 27^th. HAA.

Because ducklings are impressionable creatures, SeungWon plans it so that the first thing they see is HoJun, already prepared to wear masks and everything so that they can only see HoJun. HaeJin is determined to make Sohn HoJun the duckling’s mom and has already decided that he shall be called Sohn Duck.

 

A few days later, on June 27 2016, Monday, 6:31 am, the eggs start to crack, and one by one the yellow balls of cuteness pop out of their shells, all eleven of them.

HoJun comes along for a visit and is stunned when told that that they were born on his birthday. He jokes that they have to blow candles together, even though they can’t carry out a birthday party.

He creeps into their room and strokes one. He laughs like a dad when one of the ducklings can’t get through a hole in the box because of its large backside and roars in laughter when another one wiggles, legs in the air.

He gets down to making them a house with the materials behind the house and guides them towards it.

 

 

 

Next Week!

Raspberry time!