sweet persimmon spiced hazelnut cake with white chocolate ganache

just the other day i sent ryan to the grocery store to pick up some tomatoes for the cilantro lime chicken soup i was going to make.  he came back with a bag full of "tomatoes" that were orange and soft and lacked the squeeky feel of tomatoes.  it turned out they weren't tomatoes, they were persimmons.

so here i was in a tiny kitchen, preparing a pot of soup with persimmons at my side.  i had never worked with persimmons before, but i assumed they were often used in dessert-like dishes.  the only reason i assumed that is because i have owned candles that had the word persimmon in the flavor description.

i decided to whip together a sweet persimmon spiced hazelnut cake with a white chocolate ganache.  it turned out lovely.

screen golf

screen golf has become our new hobby.  when it is cold outside and we can't play frisbee or badminton, our friends and us often opt to go play screen golf.

it is impressive how much like real golf it is.  first we usually hit around at the driving range for 10-30 minutes.  there are a set of pretty nice golf clubs in the room to choose from.  often times they will even have the option of choosing lady clubs.

after we warm up on the driving range, we get to pick a digital golf course to play.  we usually pick the golf course that is located on jeju island because of how pretty it is and it's low difficulty rating.  (we would love to play the real course in jeju island one day.)

the platform that we stand on to hit the ball will tilt forward, backward, left or right depending if the ball lands on a hill on the golf course.  there are sensors surrounding the platform that gage how hard we hit the ball, in what direction and how high.

the best part for me is that it only takes ryan and i about 45 minutes to play 9 holes and 1.5 hours to play 18.  this is good for me because i usually get bored playing real golf after hole 5.

it only cost 10 USD to play 9 holes and about 15 USD to play 18 holes.

this was our best version of our "game faces".

ryan needed assistance with his putting.

skiing

we went skiing a few weeks ago.  the weather was beautiful; the snow was glimmering in the sun, sweat was glistening on our brow, and the cool breeze rubbed up against our faces as we (not me), gracefully glided down the slopes.  my skiing looked a little less graceful than ryan's.

i must say that skiing in south korea is a little different than in the states.  since this entire country is crowded, you can only imagine that the slopes were packed shoulder-to-shoulder, ski-to-ski and snowboard-to-snowboard.  it was a little terrifying for me to make my way down the slopes with so many people fighting their way through the clusters of children and adults alike using a slope that is too difficult for them.  every time i made it to the bottom of the slope i would be shaking and on the verge of tears just because i was so happy to have made it down without being knocked out.

the good thing was that it is way cheaper to ski in south korea than it is in colorado, (my roots).  and we were able to rent snow pants and a ski jacket while we were there.  the total cost for our trip was $110 for two of us to ski for six hours, rent clothes, a board, and skis.  you just can't beat that.