October: China Town in Incheon

Way back in October, we (me, Erin and our friend Fernando) checked out China Town. It's off of the last subway stop on line 1...Incheon. It was the beginning of fall and the cooler weather, with a crisp breeze in the air, yet still sunny enough to not have to wear a jacket during the day.

We walked through the entrance gate and looked around at some of the China trinkets being sold on the street and in small shops. I was kinda hungry, and Erin and Fernando were, um, thirsty, so walked up the road to look for some food. We found these stairs and walked half way up them to chill for a few minutes and check out the scenery.






At the top of the stairs, there was an entrace gate that looked like a palace and more stairs leading up into the nature trail/park, if you will. Looking down the other way we just came from was the street lined with shops and restaurants. I decided I wanted to eat a Chinese restaurant before we started hiking around. Down one set of stairs to the left was a Chinese restaurant with outdoor seating on a balcony.

I ordered some kind of rice/vegetable/noodle dish that was pretty tasty and came with a side of spicy seafood soup. Of course, we were all thirsty by that point and Fernando ordered us a round of Tsing Tao beers, which are huge, so we had a good buzz going on the balcony. And our timing was perfect because while we were enjoying our food and drinks a parade started with dancing dragons and small fire crackers and some kind of royal court.

The dragon dancers were actually kids. There were 2 boys per dragon and when the dragon was at it's tallest you could see the one kid was on the other's shoulders. I'm not sure about the royal court bit, I'm assuming this guy is posing as some kind of royal figure and if I remember right there was a woman be carried on a tented platform...I have a video of the whole thing that is uploading for some reason, but I'm working on it.

When in China Town, do as this old Korean man does, and drink in the streets while enjoying a nice, stumbling, stroll.

After lunch, we grabbed a few more beers for the walk and continued looking around. I bought two "artsy" 3-D pictures of naked women, one for me and one for Erin. We walked around and up the other side to the hill that leads to the same park we wanted to go to earlier. There were speakers playing music in some parts of the park. I'm pretty sure I remember hearing a Micheal Jackson song at some point, it wasn't too long after his death, and it affected Korea a little bit. The nature park was nice though, and went well with our tall cans of Cass, or was it Hite? One of those Korean beers. All in all, a nice outing in China Town was had...