The Korean influencer who has put Almeria on the map

Tourism

Kurum, known on social media as tomatetomato, has been posting videos of her stay in the Andalusian city, which have reached her hundreds of thousands of followers and attracted the attention of locals

E. Gabriel Llanderas

Almería

The visit of Kurum, a young Korean content creator known on social networks as tomatetomato, to the Andalusian province of Almeria, has attracted hundreds of ... thousands of her followers. For a few days now, the influencer has been publishing a series of videos of her stay in the Almeria city which are generating thousands of reactions thanks to her fun and spontaneous vision of Almería.

It all started with a visit to the Alcazaba. Kurum introduces herself to her followers with an enthusiastic "Holiiii. Get on my Spanish rollercoaster!" Hundreds of thousands of fans have watched her improvised, chaotic and humour-filled videos.

"My impression of the Alcazaba of Almeria. I wanted an aesthetic video... hahaha," she wrote next to some images in which the real protagonist was not the fortress but the strong winds that hit the city that day. With her hair blowing everywhere and gusts that at times looked like they might blow her straight into the nearby harbour, Kurum turned the visit into a comedy.

The content creator used Spanish phrases with a well-known song by Kiko Veneno and Camarón: "Ayudadme" (help me); "Volando voy, volando vengo, volando loca loca loca" (I go flying, I come flying, going crazy, crazy, crazy) and "un nuevo despertar mental" (a new mental awakening). She also posted that the only people that looked cool in Almeria are those who are bald, as her her flew in all directions.

Related story

• Travel

  • Why a weekend break in Andalucía might surprise you with the choices on offer

  Antonio Távora

She also found time for a well-reasoned meteorological theory: "A little dog here would fly away". The video ended with her taking refuge in an old entrance to the fortress, trying to escape the gusts and making her definitive diagnosis: "The wind never stops here".

Americano de Almería

Far away from the chaos of the Alcazaba, Kurum published a second video from the Paseo Marítimo de Almería (Almeria promenade), by which time the wind had dropped. Kurum's publications have unleashed an avalanche of comments among her followers and among locals, who have recognised in his videos a fairly faithful X-ray of their city. "Welcome to Almería, where there is sun spends its winter and the wind all year round," wrote one local, while another pointed out that "being bald in Almeria is an advantage". Someone else commented: "Almeria without wind would not be Almeria."

Part of his charm, beyond the absurd situations in which she often ends up, lies in his unhurried and completely natural way of communicating in Spanish, a language she is still learning, which is precisely why her videos are even more endearing.

With titles such as "My first time watching Real Betis" or "My first time getting a massage," Almeria already has her own chapter in this particular Spanish roller coaster that she invites everyone to ride.

And if the wind was the great revelation of the Alcazaba, the visit to the Kiosco Amalia has brought another one. Kurum has also published her reactions to tasting for the first time the famous Americano de Almería, that refreshing drink with a history that has been a hallmark of the city for decades. The verdict? "It's very good" and "it's very sweet". What she didn't expect was to discover that it has some alcohol in it, a detail that left her visibly surprised because, as she herself admitted, she hadn't noticed it at all.