Day 16: Incheon

Incheon city is just an hour away by subway from downtown Seoul. We took the subway in the morning and alighted at Dongincheon station. From here, we walked up the hill to Jayu Park.

Jayu Park (Freedom Park)


Statue of General Mac Arthur


Although he's an American, he is still a hero of South Korean people.


Rose garden


Colorful roses in bloom










Campaign of Visit Incheon 2009


Cute mascot




The campaign staff distributed some rice crackers to all the park goers. So nice!!


View of Incheon Port from the park




Korea - USA Centennial Monument


Picnic under the fake cherry blossom trees hehehe...


Scary faces around the park





From here we walked to Chinatown for our lunch.


If you come from Incheon station, then you need to walk up these stairs. Since we came from Dongincheon, we just walked down the stairs. These are not the only stairs, there are more ahead.


Park entrance near Chinatown.

Chinatown


A bustling Chinatown


Red lanterns


You tiao


Oriental shoes


Bought hu jiao bing for snacks

The hu jiao bing was not as nice as those in Taiwan, here the skin was too thick.


Oven to bake hu jiao bing

The Chinatown here is famous for jajangmyeon (zha jiang mian in Chinese) so we had this for lunch in one of the restaurants.


This restaurant was featured on TV.


Nice decor


Jajangmyeon without mince pork!

When it first came, I was very surprised to see the amount of black bean sauce and onions. I love to eat zha jiang mian, but this one is such a big disappointment.


Seafood hor fun

We learn a lesson, don't eat Chinese food in Korea. It sucks!


Chinatown entrance

Opposite the Chinatown entrance is the Incheon Station. We took the downtown city tour bus from here to our next stop, Wolmido Island. The bus ride only cost 1,500 per person for the whole day and it goes to all main attractions in Incheon.

Wolmido Island


A street vendor


Many ways to prepare octopus




Very long tentacles!!

Wolmido Amusement Park








Isn't she cute?


Left to right: excited to scared faces. The cute girl on the right cried not long after.

Wolmido Waterfront








Saw many seagulls here




Not sure what they were looking for.

From Wolmido, we took the tour bus again. Next destination was Incheon Port.

Incheon Port
The tour bus brought us touring INSIDE the port. Love this part of the tour, because both of us never been to a port before. I don't think we could enter the port if we didn't took this bus. :D

The port is so huge that you could build a town here. I'm wondering how big the Singapore port is.








Huge vessel

We saw thousands of cars lining up at the port. It's amazing!!



The bus was heading towards Songdo, a new town that is built on a reclaimed land.




Incheon Grand Bridge

This is the only nicer photo that I have for Songdo.


Songdo skyscrapers


Memorial of Incheon Landing Operation

We alighted at Incheon Station after about 1.5 hour tour of the city. This tour bus is highly recommended!!

Then we took a local bus to Yeonan Fish Market. Our tour bus actually passed this market earlier but we didn't alight here because it was still too early for dinner.

Yeonan Fish Market


Stingrays


It looks pretty scarry, I don't know what this is.


All kind of clams


Alaskan crabs


First time I saw garlic with roots :P

We had our dinner at the third floor of this building. It's just behind the fish market.




That's our Alaskan crab, it's 70,000 won per kg.


The porridge wasn't nice.


Side dishes

Suddenly a waiter came and gave us this big plate of complimentary raw dishes. We are surprised!



This turned out to be the most memorable dining experience we ever had. Never would I think that I would eat one of those wiggling creatures! Knew about this local delicacy long before we came to Korea but we just don't dare to order it. Since it's in front of us, we might as well try it out hehehe...



The octopus was so fresh and chewy and it tasted pretty nice with wasabi and soya sauce. We are converted hahaha... Other than the scallops and prawns, the rest I didn't really like.

Here comes our main dish, the steamed alaskan crab.



I thought it would be easy to eat this crab, but I didn't realise that the shells are thorny. It took me so much longer to dig this than the Srilankan crab. Taste wise, I also prefer the Srilankan crab.

Our dinner took almost three hours, by the time we reached Seoul it's already 10.30pm. The octopus made our day!!

Day 22>>