Seoul weekend. Pt.1 - Saturday

This weekend, being almost Bobby's birthday and a while since I got out of Daegu, I opted to head up to Seoul the visit Bobby and hang out. . I got up at 730 to be on the subway by 845 to get to Dong Daegu station, pick up my tickets and get on the 950 KTX to Seoul. 2 hours at 300kph later I met Bobby at Seoul station and we began the 80 minute subway ride out to Incheon to visit their Chinatown and see the ocean.

I haven't been to Incheon since before I started this blog despite it being one of my favourite places in Korea as it's a few hours to get to, even with the KTX and the connection via the subway. It's a great port city with a history as a place for immigrants to Korea. Before the 1980's these immigrants were almost exclusively Chinese, who have actually been living and working in Incheon for many years and the Chinatown there, while not as big as ones I've seen in Malaysia or Canada, is really cool and has very authentic Chinese foods, authentic Chinese ceramics

and authentic Chinese moonshine.

We ducked in to a rather nice Chinese restaurant for lunch but found the best part of the food to be the Tsingtao beer. I mean not to be too harsh, But Woon Lee Inn in North Van makes better Sweet and Sour pork and our mandu was the stuff I buy at Homeplus for $7 a bag. While the food was disappointing the rest of Chinatown was anything but. I managed to buy some Taiwanese Kiaoshung, a clear liquor which I had last seen in Taiwan but had never tried. It was a $4 tester bottle which gave Bobby and me just a shot each, which was good because it was god awful. However, I think we were both glad to try something new. Needless to say when I want Taiwanese alcohol I'll get some of their beer (which is actually really good). I also got some very pricey imported green tea (which upon tasting it I think is jasmine tea). The woman there was also amazing, she was Chinese but spoke fluent Korean and passable English. It's imported directly from mainland China and is amazing. 

We then headed to Wolmi do, an "island" (what they mean is that Wolmi island is actually a peninsula) next to the Incheon port. It's about 2k to walk, and the walk takes you around the port of Incheon, which is impressive to see in its own right, even if it's not all that photogenic. When we got to the waterfront (via Wolmi park) it was beautiful....... but the wind was howling

the sea was angry that day my friends

so we ducked in to a nice coffee/smoothie place that by a coincidence was the same one I had visited when I was in Incheon in 2009. We had a window view in the sun and enjoyed the beautiful ocean side with a view of  Yeongjong island (where Incheon airport is located) .

our view, we must have watched 10 planes land 

in the 40 or so minutes we stayed there.

While we were having a great time the wind outside was howling and we were looking at a good 2-3 hour transit back to Ilsan, where Bobby lives. With that in mind we walked back to Incheon station and hopped on the subway at 545. After two transfers and 2 hours made it to Gimpo airport (where I had not been since the day I arrived in Korea way back in late 2008) and caught a bus to Ilsan and got in to Bobby's place by 8. Having spent close to seven hours on the subway, train and a bus I was ready to settle down so we dropped our stuff off and headed out to see his neighbourhood.

Ilsan is a great area of Seoul. It's in the far, far far far northwest of the city (90 minutes on the subway to Seoul station) so it has a bit of a town vibe while still feeling like part of Seoul. It also blows my mind that where we were is only about 20kms from the DMZ and yet there it was neon lights and meat restaurants as far as the eye could see. We tried a BBQ place which had some great sam gyeop sal (fried pork) before moving on to a solid makgeolli jip. It'll do as Bobby's local place, but I'd like to see if we can find him a better one. the crowd was young and the place was cool, but the food and drink were so so. We were there for a bit and being that neither of us have really been drinking much at all these days (I'm gym and slimming down and he's training for a bike marathon) we've both become light weights. Actually that was a nice thing as I had a great time but was able to get up at 8 the next day. We then headed back to his place, set up some video game emulators and managed some Mario Kart 64 and some Super Mario 3. Bobby also tried to teach me all about F1 racing, which I've learned is way more of a skill than I had given it credit for being and way less redneck than NASCAR. I also learned why it is that smart racing fans watch F1 and guys who marry their cousins and think of the dentist as communism watch NASCAR. Very interesting actually. We turned in around 2 with the alarm set for 8am.