Filipino Restaurant

On a horse.

We don't get to meet up with people as often as we'd like, considering we're all on different, busy schedules, so it'd been a LONG time since we'd seen Ziggy. Naturally, we decided to go full Filipino and headed down to the Filipino restaurant she'd found in Dongincheon a while ago.

I'm used to eating Filipino food like at least once a week at parties, if not more (depending on what mum makes up for us) so I've been pretty deprived recently. Whenever I try to make it, it's always missing...something.

In addition to this, Nick hasn't had as much exposure to it as I would like, so we went for the classics:

Pancit and lechon. Yeeee~!

인천대공원 | Incheon Grand Park

In an attempt to explore the city we live in a little more (considering we keep going into Seoul, ah the joys of being spoilt for choice), Nick took me to Incheon Grand Park, where he'd been on a school trip once or twice before. I didn't realise there was such a huge park just a short bus ride away!

It was still a little chilly (back in mid-March!), but nevertheless, we packed a picnic (by which I mean we bought a load of food from the Paris Baguette by the bus stop while we waited) and stuck it out in true British fashion.

To be fair, despite the overcast sky it wasn't too dreary.

Cute croissant pastry rolls

We wandered around investigating for a while. The park is really lovely, and HUGE, with big sweeping paths and a little lake in the middle. We didn't explore too far, so we didn't see everything, but it was nice to see what looked like a little open-air art gallery in one part, and an arboretum in another!

One building we DID go into was the park's hothouse, which was (as you'd expect) lovely and warm, filled with all kinds of interesting plants. It was really refreshing to see so much green after the dull winter stretching on for seemingly FOREVER.

월미도 | Wolmido: Why Does it Always Rain On Me

We've been to Wolmido a few times now. And for some reason, it's rained pretty much every. Single. Time. Regardless of time of day or season, or the recent weather surrounding it. It's like our own little slice of England on the coast of Incheon. I don't understand.

We wanted to take Mike to Wolmi, as it's always quite unusual and fun, and quite different to home. There's also the 'model village' park that we like to go to. I don't know if it has a proper name, but it's basically lots of little examples of Korean architecture and replicas of historical buildings all in one place. It's really lovely! When the rain holds off.

We managed to have a look around before we got too swamped, but the sandy area around my favourite bit, the hanok displays, had turned to mud and I wasn't willing to ruin my already poor choice of footwear. So we wandered back onto the tarmac and headed towards a building I'd always seen signposted but never actually visited.

I can't remember the  exact name, and I can't actually seem to find any evidence of its existence online either, but it's definitely a real place. Something like the Incheon Food and Culture Centre. Anyway, we wandered in to see what would happen, and at the very least hoping for some respite from the rain.

It actually ended up being incredibly fun!

Seoul Food | 찜닭 Jjimdak

So the other day we were helping Ziggy out with some post-production stuff, and so she treated us to dinner (too kind, too kind!) and shared with us the joys of a meal that I'm pretty sure I'll be going back to a lot in the winter.

Jjimdak is a big chicken dish that reminds me a little bit of chicken adobo, but a little tiny bit spicy and...well. More Korean. Throw in some glass noodles (Japchae noodles? Pancit?) and it's soooo good. Very hearty, warm, and filling.

As usual, the banchan dominates the majority of the table

It's enormous, especially for the price. We could definitely have comfortably had one if not two more people eating with us, but we're pigs.

We had bubble tea afterwards, despite my co-teacher's reprimanding that it's super bad for you and will most likely kill you (maybe a slight exaggeration). I'm sorry. I just can't get enough of that chewy boba.

Bonus photo: Dunkin' Desmond.

차이나타운 | Chinatown: Nick's Birthday

Before we start, I guess TLDR: On the 11th of September, it was Nick's Birthday, and we celebrated by having some great food with a great family.

Nick is friends with his school's IT Technician, and they are the loveliest family, inviting us to dinner after moments of knowing him, and sharing their culture and language with us. We always have a great time together and spend a lot of time laughing, which is always good.

Aside from that, there's not much to say, really. We went to Chinatown, near Wolmido, and had a ton of incredible food - including 탕수육 (tangsuyuk), basically battered pork in a sweet yet very sour sauce - and went for a walk with the children. (I'll refer to them as T and H for a bit of safety)

They surprised Nick with a really great birthday cake, complete with 23 candles. Okay, 5, but that's because in Korea they're a lot more sensible with candle distribution on cakes. They have long ones to represent tens, and short ones to represent units. So much better than a cake collapsing under the combined weight of the crippling passage of time.

Or something.

Anyway, as is always the case with children and birthday cakes, there was some disagreement as to who should be blowing out the candles. I think T won several times.

N: "But it's MY cake!" T: "I don't care. I'm adorable."

The rivalry crackling behind those smiles is pretty intense.

We had a whole group photo afterwards, which I feel we don't get enough of at these events, and I ruined this wonderful one by blinking:

So here's one that's just as nice.

After eating enough to feed a small country we decided to walk it off. Nearby there's a famous little photo spot with some giant Chinese food you can take photos with.

The most aegyo siopao bun you've ever seen.

The walk got a little more intense because we decided to climb a mountain. I'm not sure it was the best idea but it was pretty at the time and we didn't have much choice once T had run about 2 miles ahead of us. Where does he get all that energy from??

King T, looking very much at home on his makeshift throne. (Or, as I've just noticed, floating a few feet above it.)

Understandably, the decorations in this area are all very distinctly Chinese style, and it's interesting to see the differences in architecture and decoration.

We stumbled upon a little performance going on, with a little girl singing Trot songs, some magicians, and a troupe of young Taekwondo students. It was all very fun (so much that I forgot to take any more photos) until H started trying to play with a dog that wasn't having any of this 'petting' lark, and a man looked like he was trying to steal him Pied Piper-like with his harmonica. Erm.

ANYWAY. Thank you very much 진호씨 and family. It's always a pleasure~

Chuseok | Osaka Day 5

This is going to be a pretty short post, but it's a nice way to tie up the Chuseok posts, right?

On day 5, there wasn't really much time to do anything other than head to the airport and head home. Unlike the UK though, you don't have to turn up a million hours before your scheduled flight, so we still had the slight luxury of a lie in and a relaxed check of all our bags.

We bought breakfast while waiting for the airport train and I had to take a photo because it so perfectly captures mine and Nick's different ideas of how a good breakfast should be. (For clarity, his is sausage and egg on white bread, while mine is a chocolate waffle encasing chocolate mousse and a sort of chocolate jelly.)

I spotted this really cool work of art, made of old Osaka rail ticket stubs. It was taller than me, so it's a pretty impressive exhibit, as there were 3 or 4 different images there to look at.

Incheon from above. Really pretty!

Aha. Before leaving, we'd been told "get to the airport early! It's crazy during chuseok, you'll be queuing for hours!". When we arrived, we'd scoffed. Queues? What queues? Arriving in Japan, we had the same reaction. Leaving? Same again.

Then we arrived back in Incheon.

The immigration queues.

As Nick said when we got home, I think we were actually queuing at immigration for longer than we were on the plane to GET to Korea.

Small side note before I end this post, to any new or aspiring GETs (why are you reading this?), you don't need a multi-entry visa. Don't waste your money. Once you've been in Korea for something like 2 months, as long as you have your ARC with you (which you should) you can pass through immigration totally fine on a single-entry. We were so worried, but plenty of people said they only use a single-entry E-2, and they were right. Woohoo!

Seoul Food | CoffeeBay

I just wanted to dedicate a little post to CoffeeBay, a little cafe down the road from us. It's a small chain with several stores in a few different countries in Southeast Asia, but it's the service that makes me want to go there rather than the Starbucks or Angel-in-Us or Paris Baguette, all of which are actually a lot closer to our apartment.

The prices aren't much different to 'Bux et al, around 3-4000 won for a coffee in a variety of flavours, some cakes and sandwiches for 2-3000 each. Maybe a little cheaper, but hey. The food and drink itself is pretty nice. Nick and I usually go for a Chicken Focaccia where the chicken is a lot like Coronation Chicken. So good. They also have a squid-ink sandwich, and it's great. The portions are pretty good too, we tend to take a much more Korean style here and get one thing to share.

Chicken Focaccia

We first went with Nick's parents and probably were quite a nuisance. They don't speak much English and we can't speak much Korean (at the very least, our pronunciation leaves much to be desired), but they tried their hardest. From staff members coming round to our side of the counter so we could point to adverts and foods in the cooler, to people writing messages to us in Google Translate, they did their best to give us the best service they could.

After we'd had our feast, they brought over 4 boxes with no more explanation than a slightly embarrassed nod, smile and the word "service". This was before we found out that "service" is basically the Korean/Konglish term for a free gift or bonus as a thank you for shopping with a certain company or eatery. In the boxes were 4 lovely mugs that I could actually see up for sale and...well they weren't cheap! How lovely~

Red Velvet cake and Red Velvet lattes to share

Thanks to the lovely service that one time, we went back again a few weeks later for an after-school treat. The service was, again, great, but less fiddly now that we knew what to do and what we wanted.

They had a little whiteboard up which had a Facebook logo drawn onto it, so I looked up the suggested page and of course I liked it.

About 10 minutes later, this turned up:

A mini honey bread with whipped cream and salted caramel sauce. Whaaaat.

The owner basically tried to explain that it was a thanks for liking their page. How cute~
I'm sure there's other small cafes nearby that are similarly wonderful or cute, but this place has kind of stolen my heart. The music is good, the decor is clean and modern, and the atmosphere is very relaxing. Definitely a favourite. So there you go, good service and free gifts are the way to a customer's heart, apparently :p

강화도 | Gangwha Whistle-Stop Tour

It's vacation time! \o/ We have two weeks off school for summer vacation, and after the stress and pain of Summer Camp week (my body picks the best times to mess up) I was very ready to just kick back and get on with some good old-fashioned exploring.

Nick's parents visited for the first week of the holiday, so we packed in a LOT. Day 1 was a tour of Gangwha, an island near Incheon and the place where one of Nick's co-teachers grew up. He picked us up bright and early and very kindly drove us around. A personal tour! It was so wonderful and we probably learnt a lot more than if we'd just tried to go out there ourselves (although we probably would never have even thought to go). It's a wonderful island, so different from the packed streets of Incheon and Seoul that we've seen so far. It's much more similar to the countryside I'm familiar with at home.

It's got a long, sad, hardworking history, like much of Korea, and definitely a great place to visit if you have the chance, and are interested in gorgeous scenery and extensive history.

First stop on the tour was , an old fortress that saw a terrible battle with some American troops in 1871. For a military area, it's strangely beautiful.

Forever finding doorways that are too small.

Seoul Food | Sushi in Sushi

So a couple of times now, we've walked down one of the main roads in Bupyeong and I've spotted a sushi restaurant on one of the upper floors of a building, descriptively named "Sushi in Sushi". It turns out that it's an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet, and for a weekday dinnertime meal, it'll cost you 14,900₩ per person. That's about £9 per person, and on a busy day you have an hour and a half to stuff your face with as much food as you like.

We just went in, asked for a table for two (and by asked, I mean they made a face that said "how many?" and we held up two fingers), and were seated in seconds. A few moments later, one of the assistants appeared with a little green card.

Too cute!

But yeah, there's a machine for coffee and water on one side, and a fridge and soda machine on the other (we didn't spot this until we were leaving, sadly.)

There's a great range of traditional and creative nigiri and maki creations, and it all tastes a darn sight better than any of the stuff I've had in restaurants (or god forbid supermarkets) at home. It's not a patch on the fresh and expensive stuff I had in Australia, but then again, look at that price.

In addition to the rows of sushi, there's also a nice salad bar (overlooked by a cute little bowl housing two tiny terrapins), and some hot food including the best potato wedges I've had since moving here, and some very spicy chicken. All of it is constantly being replenished by a pair of chefs in an open kitchen area in the middle, in small batches so it's never been sat out for too long.

To top it all off, there's a waffle station at the back, and a row of wonderfully soft and fluffy cakes, and ripe fruit for dessert.

I'm definitely going back again!

The Obligatory "Room Tour"

Two blog posts in one day? Crazy talk! Sorry about that though.
I said I'd give a little photo-tour of our officetel at some point, so while I was testing out my new phone I thought I'd combine the two.

Firstly, the living room:

Look at that giant window. Aw yeah. So really this place is pretty much open-plan. It makes 20-30sq.ft. feel that bit bigger. Every little bit of space gets used, so that wardrobe is pretty big, and each segment under the stairs is actually a cupboard.

There's two fairly confusing and intimidating things on the wall, one for the hot water and underfloor heating, and the other is our doorbell. It's meant to have a digital peephole for the front door, but it's seemingly broken except for the intercom, and occasionally the whole thing just decides to yell at us. I can only assume they're party political broadcasts, urgent news, and building maintenance updates.

There's also two big sofas (with throws on, for comfort, because nobody likes a sticky leather seat in 30C+ weather) and a table that I assume should be our dining table but instead gets used to hold most of the kitchen appliances.

월미도 | A Trip to Wolmido

Selfie Faux Pas Prevention Tip #1: Make sure you're zoomed out first.

Hello! Sorry for the ridiculous lack of posts about Korea! We don't have any internet set up in our officetel yet, so I can only get online at school, whereupon I'm usually (surprise surprise) working.

But here's a little post about one of the places we went to last week, to celebrate the final day of our 5 day weekend! You read that right. We were in school for 2 days, then it was Election Day so no work, then Founder's Day at my school (so I got the day off, alas Nick still had to work. I was very exciting and did housewife duties.) Finally it was Labour Day followed by the usual weekend, so that was a pretty great way to start our year in South Korea ;)

We decided to go to Wolmido, an island that is technically not an island, and home to Incheon Harbour. We got the subway there, which was just like any other subway, apart from the fact there's a lot more room, better aircon and ventilation, and better signage. Oh, and, it cost us about £1.50 return.

We'd already had a brief tour of Wolmi Island thanks to Nick's co-teachers, which is why we opted for it over the slightly more intimidating original plan of Seoul.

It's quite a walk from the station to the harbour, which is probably why most places suggest you get off a stop early and grab the bus the rest of the way. Although getting a bit lost probably didn't help us out much.

There's a lot of cute art on the walls in the area, all with lovely, deep, and sometimes just odd messages on them. It's a nice way of brightening up an area, as well as a good community project. I wish more places would do it!

We finally made it to where we were going (we had to skip past a park which I can only assume had deer inside, so we're definitely going back!) and the first thing we encountered was a pretty lively funfair! On one side were loads of rides, mostly overshadowed by the two huge, dangerous-looking and apparently famous pirate ship rides.

While on the other side were dozens of street food vendors, selling all kinds of weird and wonderful foods, from your standard sweets and ice cream all the way to, erm, dried and fried fish and seafood? I swear I saw just a giant tentacle hanging around in one stall.

Arriving in Korea!

So, the morning of May 26th arrived, and I was terrified. So many things had already been delayed and rejected, what if we fell at the final hurdle?

It was fine.

We arrived early, and thanks to our recruiter and the people at IMOE we were allowed to pick up in the morning rather than the afternoon. The lady behind the desk had our passports ready WITH VISAS as soon as we walked through the doors and I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I had to excuse myself to the bathroom before my makeup got wrecked.

Anyway, it was then a mad dash back to the subway, back to the airport, onto a plane, and off to Incheon. There was some faff with baggage (of course it was my suitcase that had to be searched) and with immigration (of course I wouldn't have the right information on my entry form) but THEN we found the man with a little sign saying "Nick and Marichelle" and we were off over the giant bridge, finally in Korea.

We were taken right to the Incheon City Hall and met Sarah from IMOE and got right down to signing contracts and setting up our bank accounts, which was a big relief considering we'd thought we'd have to set them up ourselves.

Embarrassingly, it took us far too long to realise that the people sat opposite us were in fact our head co-teachers.

Then, our co-teachers drove us straight to our new home! It's an officetel in Bupyeong, and it's wonderful. They kept apologising for it being so small but it's far bigger than I'd expected! It has a MEZZANINE!

It needed quite a bit of tidying and cleaning, and it took a while to get used to where everything was, how things worked and finding all the hidden cupboards, but it feels like ours now. There's aircon and a fan for the hot, hot summer, and an electric blanket and ondol (underfloor heating!) for the winter. A huge window with a lively view, and, most importantly...

A rice cooker.

I'll take some photos and do an officetel tour in another post. Just thought I'd put a little update and end to the Fukuoka blogs until then o/