Meheartseoul | ~sweet memories~: April 2020

Monday, 27 April 2020

[Incheon] - Chinatown (인천 차이나타운)

Incheon's Chinatown is Korea's only official Chinatown. It became an international port in 1883 and it's designation as an extraterritoriality of the Ching Dynasty in the following year.

Outstanding 11-meter high Chinese-style gateway (paifang),

the entrance to Chinatown.

Although over 100 years old, you can still find unique and old buildings hiding

in Incheon, while it's a metropolitan city that established as a major

transportation hub with the Incheon International Airport and Incheon Port.

Diversified culture can be seen here as the residents are mostly

2nd or 3rd generation descendants of the early Chinese settlers.

A Korean Odyssey (화유기 / Hwayugi) was filmed at this busy alley in Chinatown.

Ok, let's go to explore more...

Add: 14, Chinatown-ro 52beon-gil, Jung-gu, Incheon

인천광역시 중구 차이나타운로52번길 14 (북성동2가).

Jjajangmyeon Museum (짜장면박물관)

Serious? A museum for Jjajangmyeon?!! Interesting!

Admission is KRW 3,400 for 5 museums.

In fact Chinatown was the birthplace of Jajangmyeon (자장면 = black soybean noodles).

Here was the kitchen of Gongwhachun in 1960.

Jjajangmyeon was originally from China but evolved and adjusted to Korean taste.
And after that, it became one of Korea's most beloved dishes.

In Korea, singles celebrate Black day (블랙데이) by dressing in all black
and eating Jajangmyeon because it's covered in black bean paste.

You can find the restaurant's old and new signages.

This museum has a collection of all Jjajangmyeon related items from price list,

the delivery container (cheolgabang), and also different instant Jajangmyeon

available in the market.

Thanks to Jo Chang Gyeong, the museum staff who guided and explained

to us the history of Jjajangmyeon.

Jjajangmyeon museum was filming site for K-dramas Hwayugi (화유기) and Suits (슈츠).

She also introduced us to 泰臨鳳 (태림봉), an authentic Korean Chinese Restaurant.

She also personally came to the restaurant to help us order the food.

Of course, Jjajangmyeon was not to miss since we're in Incheon. We also ordered Jjamppong (Spicy seafood noodle soup), which is another popular Korean Chinese cuisine.

Wow, can you see the big bowl of pork in black bean sauce?

Amazing, they are very delicious with thick flavours and the price is very reasonable.

泰臨鳳 (태림봉)
Add: 인천 중구 선린동 6

6, Seonlin-dong, Jung-gu, Incheon.

She cordially strolled with us to enjoy a beautiful evening in Incheon city after work.

We had delicious Budaejjigae at Hyundai Premium Outlet near Songdo.

We chatted a lot as if we knew each other for years. You wouldn't be able to tell that she's only learned the Chinese language for one year, because of her fluency, she even understood some of the words that I seldom used or didn't know! You're the best~!^^

Writing this made me miss her a lot... will text her soon. Hope she's doing fine...

Related Post:

Incheon - Soraepogu Fish Market (소래포구 어시장)

Thursday, 16 April 2020

[Pocheon] - Herb Island (허브아일랜드)

We left Pocheon Art Valley at 16:30 as it was the last bus from there to Pocheon City.

Bus 73 stops at the entrance to Pocheon Art Valley.

A "Wanted" Kind Samaritan.

We reached Pocheon City Hall at 17:00 pm and waited for Bus 57-1 to bring us to Herb Island. When we saw the bus, we started waving but it didn't stop.

We were so confused when suddenly a kind samaritan saw this and approached us. He even used Naver to translate his Korean and simple English to Mandarin in case we didn't understand him. He told us the bus doesn't stop at that time, and that the next bus will be at about 1.5 hours later.

When he heard me telling my hubby to take a taxi to Herb Island, he suggested to follow him to take bus number 62 to a nearer bus stop. According to him, the taxi fare from the bus stop we were at would've cost about KRW 30,000, but from another bus stop, it'll only cost KRW 10,000.

He even called a taxi for us, then told the taxi driver that we're foreigners and asked the driver to safely get us to our destination. We didn't know his name, but we managed to take a photo of him from the moving taxi. Your kind help was much appreciated and may God bless you always~!

We had a really challenging and tiring day going to Art Valley and Herb Island.

However, we didn't regret it because of these views! It's just worth it although

it was like navigating through a maze just to reach the destinations!

It looks like a colourful Venitian Village~! Love it...

These are pictures of Herb Island's views at around 5:30 pm.

It resembles the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy.

We didn't eat much for lunch and our stomachs were complaining...
so we quickly searched for a restaurant dine at after taking the photos above.

Herb Island Athenae Hall is where the breakfast buffet is provided for pension guests.

This restaurant serves fresh vegetables and healing herbal food.

Tonkatsu and fries with salad?

After finishing our dinner, we started to roam around the island.

We visited this gift shop which has everything made from herbs such as teas,
aromatherapy products, bath products, potpourri, candies and more...

I bought Rosemary tea as I'm a tea-lover and various herbs candies for the kiddos.

You'd definitely scream when you open the door to the only

specialized Herb and Plant Museum in Korea with 180 different herbs!

The smell of the plants especially lavender and rosemary were so intense that it'll transport you to a relaxing state of mind! You wouldn't even need to buy any aromatherapy products. I really wish that I could grow bushes of rosemary and lavender without killing them.