Aug 142019
 

Hello. This is still the second day. My recaps are tedious and ridiculous.

Every time I would start to get sad that it was raining, I would remind myself that it was STILL BETTER THAN BEING IN PITTSBURGH.

Honestly, when I started planning this trip, I knew it was Korea’s rain season but I was adamant on being here for my birthday – who knew my birthday was in Asia’s monsoon season? Coincidentally, all the rain really helped with the air quality and there were no yellow dust advisories the whole time we were there, as opposed to our last visit in spring when everyone was wearing medical masks the whole time.

Give and take, I guess.

Anyway, it was fine that it started to rain because we were ready to get Our jjajangmyeon on anyway. I guess now is where I tell you that jjajangmyeon is a noodle dish with a really thick and rich black bean sauce. It’s served with danmuji (pickled yellow radish) and lemme tell you what, it is such a satisfying dish.

Interestingly, it’s a Koreanized version of a Chinese dish, much like how America has its own versions of Chinese food that is most likely not served in China. Incheon’s Chinatown is allegedly the birthplace of this dish (there’s even a museum there for it) so naturally, this is what we had to have for lunch!

There are numerous places that serve this, clearly, but we chose a place that one of our favorite Korean YouTubers recommended, and it has the “a k-drama was filmed here” claim to fame. When we walked in, there were several tables occupied by old men, which is always a good sign.

I think our waitress freaking hated us though. She just gave off “trespassers!” vibes even though this was like a major tourist area.

But we still happily ate our jjajangmyeon. (Chooch did too even though he was being a bitch about it when we were looking at the menu—he and I both have massive food/mood swings.)

Actually, we ate so happily that I failed to even take a picture of the jjajangmyeon after all this hype about the jjajangmyeon but honestly, it’s not a very attractive dish. It’s literally a bowl of noodles with a wet crowd of dark gravy-like gloop.

Fun fact: there is a holiday in Korea called Black Day where single people gather to eat jjajangmyeon in an effort to dull the pain of not having a Valentine, I guess.

I got this picture from the Internet but you can just pretend like it was my bowl before I bibim’d that shit up into a chunky nest of black bean ooze.

(OMG as I’m writing this a video about kimchi jjigae is playing on my TV in the background and I just realized that I never ate any of that this time around and it’s one of my favorite Korean dishes, ugh guess I have to GO BACK AGAIN.)

Our lunch was so delicious but I definitely had regertz afterward because there was this one restaurant we walked by earlier, and also after lunch, where an older woman was standing in the doorway cheerfully saying hello to passersby in an attempt to lure them inside and I wished so deeply that we had chosen her noodle house instead.

Le sigh.

Look at the little chairs on the windowsill!

We strolled around some other areas of Chinatown after lunch. I ended up not gaining any weight the entire time we were away even though I ate so much and it’s definitely because we did so much walking. It’s the best way to digest, you guys.

I don’t know if it really is or not.

I was scared walking up these steps because they were so wet and shiny.

But there was a reward at the top! Look at how beautiful that is. There were steps on the other side of that Chinese gate, which led us into a forest/park-type area which also was home to a Korea-US Centennial Monument, so that was pretty cool.

There was also a General MacArthur statue, which Henry correctly guessed from many yards away because he knows more history stuffs than me but also he probably saw this on the map that we were looking at next to the entrance of Chinatown.

Chooch and that damn umbrella that I had to carry through four airports on the way home, ugh.

That MacArthur guy. Maybe I should look him up sometime.

CAT!!

Oh shit you guys, we got some Mooncakes from this vendor that I read can have lines up to 90 minutes long so it was another reminder to thank the rain for keeping away the crowds. Mine had a green tea filling, Chooch’s was super-messy chocolate, and of course Henry got red bean. These were way better than the buns we had earlier that day, and also fresher. Plus, the vendor was so much nicer and personable and happy to sell us his Mooncakes.

I dunno, these alone might have been worth the excursion away from Seoul!

Before we could say goodbye to Chinatown, Chooch had to waste more of our precious coins in the claw machine arcade.

I think that I will definitely visit C-town again if I ever return to Korea. There are so many different things to eat there and my stomach is just not as big as it feels when I’m watching food vlogs.

Before we left Incheon, we had more place to go: Wolmi Island. SEE YOU IN THE NEXT POST!

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