Five reasons why I love Korea’s Incheon International Airport

by Catherine Bodry on

This long layover is my third at Incheon International Airport, and I couldn’t be happier about it. On my first trip, I emerged bleary-eyed after a 10-hour flight, desperate for a bathroom and bottle of water. Wandering through the sleek white halls, I spotted a sign with an arrow and the words “Rest and Relaxation.” I followed the arrow upstairs to an area with a spa, internet cafe, transit hotel, and several dining options. I was a smitten kitten.

If you’re passing through South Korea on your way to other parts of Asia, consider choosing a flight that passes through Incheon. It truly is a great airport, and here are five reasons why:

1. Rest and Relaxation areas. What more could you want on a layover? Leather cots and lounge chairs make sacking out pleasurable (I’m usually that hobo passed out on a sarong by my gate), and they’re in a quiet area with no TV noise.

2. Free Internet. And not just free wi-fi, though there’s that (I’m using it right now). There’s actually an Internet cafe area, with about a half dozen desktops for folks to use – for free. A sign politely asks users to limit their usage to 30 minutes if there is a wait.

3. Self-cleaning toilets. Not only are the toilet seats in a constant state of pristine thanks to some rotating plastic covers, but there are shelves inside the stalls to put your purse and whatnot. I can’t count the times I’ve entered a stall with no hook and had to either wear all my stuff while trying to hover over a dirty seat, or else place it on the equally nasty floor.4. Art and culture displays. Korean art is showcased throughout the facility, but there are also areas that are set up like miniature museums. They’re great to wander through, and do a good job of enticing me to actually leave the airport someday and visit South Korea.

5. Transit hotel and showers. Since I’m always on a tight budget and the leather cots are perfectly functional, I’ve never actually paid for a room at the transit hotel. Still, it’s there if you need it. I’ve been more tempted by the showers. They’re located in the spa in the Rest and Relaxation area, right next to the spotless restrooms and across from the free Internet cafe.

A taste of Seoul, Korea: Three nights

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Korean food is hot! “Spicy” is probably the most prominent flavor in Korean cooking, but it’s also a sign of the increasing popularity of Korean cuisine. Everywhere you turn these days, it seems like someone is talking about Korean food, from New York’s superstar chef David Chang to the insanely popular Kogi food truck in Los Angeles. But for all the buzz Korean food is getting among eaters, many of us know little beyond the Korean basics of barbecue and Kimchi. What exactly do they like to eat in Korea? And why is everyone so obsessed with the food there?

During my recent visit to Seoul, I decided to investigate. Armed with only my camera and an empty stomach, I dived head-first into the sizzling center of Seoul’s food scene, curious to discover what Koreans liked to eat. But before I started, I needed to find some help. As any local will tell you, eating in Korea is a communal experience, with dishes passed and shared among friends. To help me navigate my way through the bewildering array of Korean food choices, I met up with three of Seoul’s top food experts: Dan from Seoul Eats, Joe of ZenKimchi, and Jennifer from FatManSeoul. Over the course of several meals with my hosts, I began to get a sense of the surprising, subtle and savory flavors that make Korean food so special. Want to get a taste of what Korean food is all about? Join along as we take a big bite of Korean cuisine – click below for more.

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Up All Night in Hongdae
Hongdae, a youthful neighborhood west of Seoul’s main downtown, has become in recent years a hub for all things fun, young and trendy. Stroll down any side street near the Hongik University metro stop and you’ll be assaulted by cozy coffee shops, raucous pubs and of course, plenty of food.

I started my culinary exploration of Seoul here in Hongdae, with Dan Gray, creator of Seoul food website Seoul Eats. The first stop was a spot simply called “RIBS,” specializing in Galbi, or pork short ribs. These tiny bite-size meat morsels make a perfect accompaniment for drinks are flavored with plenty of pepper and spices. Like many young Koreans out on the town, this was to be the first of several more stops, with plenty of drinking and snacking along the way. We headed to Chin Chin, best known for Makgeolli, an unfiltered rice wine. The drink has a milky, tangy taste to it, with a finish not unlike the yeasty taste of good Hefeweiss beer. Patrons can enjoy the drink al fresco, paired with the buzzing throb of Seoul’s plentiful motor scooter traffic jams.

After a few rounds of Makolli, we were hungry again. Thankfully, Korean food lends itself well to consumption on the street, with literally hundreds of vendors lining the sides of Hongdae’s many alleys. We headed to a Pojangmacha, or tent restaurant to get a taste of late-night Korean snacking, where we enjoyed Gaeran Mari, an omelette-like drinking snack made of eggs, veggies, ham and doused in ketchup.

Roll Up Your Sleeves in Mapo
Hongdae gave me a taste of Seoul’s frenzied late night eating scene. But I was still curious to see what the average Korean might be eating for dinner. To discover more, I met up with Joe McPherson from ZenKimchi, for a mini-food tour of Mapo-Gu, a largely working-class district east of Hongdae. Mapo is also home to Mapo Restaurant Street, a huge cluster of eateries offering traditional Korean specialities like Bulgogi and Bibimbap. They also offer more eclectic fare, including dog meat soup.

We got our hands dirty by starting with a Samgyeopsal eatery, specializing in salt-grilled pork belly. Barbecue is perhaps Korea’s most well-known cuisine. Diners typically gather round a large hole in their tables, filled with glowing red coals, while the meal’s meat is cooked in front of you. Dinner was salt-pork, accompanied by the ever-present Kimchi (pickled cabbage), as well as eggs, which were cooked up using a lip on the edge of our grill and mixed with the Kimchi.

One meal is never enough in Seoul. Like many of my nights there, we moved on to try another Korean speciality, a cold buckwheat noodle soup called Makguksu. This icy-cold dish makes a refreshing contrast to the typical spicy, smoky flavors of most Korean food. We ended our night on a decidedly blue-collar note, stopping by the 7-11 for corn ice cream sandwiches a uniquely Korean frozen novelty.

Taste the Past in Itaewon
I had been snacking till dawn and had a taste of Korean working-class cuisine. But now it was time to get a taste of the past. Korean food has a long and illustrious history, with some unique traditions that set it apart from their nearby Chinese and Japanese neighbors. To get better sense of this, I met up with Jennifer, creator of FatManSeoul and walking encyclopedia of Korean history and culture. We headed to Itaewon, Seoul’s historic district, a throwback neighborhood lined with old-style buildings, traditional Korean handicrafts and tea shops.

Our meal for the evening would be Hanjeongsik, a cornucopia of traditional small plates. No meal goes by in Korea without the ubiquitous banchan, small dishes of pickled vegetables, dried seafood and sauces that are used for dipping and as sides. Hanjeongsik takes banchan to the next level, meant to symbolically reflect five colors (black, yellow, green, red and white), directions, the four seasons and five tastes. Our spread included prawns, tofu soup, fish cakes called odeng, seaweed and plenty of pickled veggies. It’s a decadent and delicious way to sample what traditional Korean eating is all about.

We finished our evening at a tea house nearby. Though many younger Koreans now seem to gravitate towards the ubiquitous coffee shops of Seoul, tea houses will give visitors a taste of the Korea of days gone by. The humbly-named tea house “Second Best in Seoul” in Itaewon takes the traditional Korean tea to the next level. The tea here is less a drink than a dessert, combining fruits like persimmon, nuts and red bean paste into delicious post-meal concoctions. We enjoyed our tea sitting in the shop’s retro 1970’s chairs, digesting our meal. Like so much of the cuisine of Korea, it proved to be a surprising blend of the old and the new, a collection of culinary surprises waiting to be discovered.

Gadling writer Jeremy Kressmann is spending the next few months traveling through (Southeast) Asia. You can read other posts on his adventures “South by Southeast” HERE.

Photo of the Day (11-4-09)

by Jamie Rhein on

A close-up view of a building’s features is one way to show it off its beauty This Buddhist temple’s door is a perfect example. LadyExpat, who took this photo in Daejeon, South Korea, moved in for an intimate look so that the textures and nuances of the blue paint, the worn wood and the metal are a study of contrasts. Plus, think of the story they tell of the people who have passed through these doors over the years.

If you have a photo of contrasts and textures you’d love to show off, send it our way at Gadling’s Flickr photo pool. It may be chosen as a Photo of the Day.

Denver to Singapore (and back) visualized in a five minute time lapse video

by Scott Carmichael on

Denver to Singapore (in 5 minutes) from David DAngelo on Vimeo.

Check out this cool video showing a trip from Denver to Singapore via Chicago, Los Angeles and Tokyo (and back). The creator put a ton of effort into filming as much of his trip as possible, and included some highlights like the automatic beer machine at the Tokyo lounge (at 3 minutes 50 seconds).

The whole thing is quite dizzying, but it is a great way to show a long trip in just five minutes!

Dim Sum Dialogues: Kowloon Walled City

by Stephen Greenwood on

Today, it’s one of the most peaceful locations in the city. The gardens are beautifully landscaped and connected by long, low archways that are remnant of the Qing Dynasty’s architecture. There are ponds, waterfalls, dragonflies; everything you might associate with traditional Chinese gardens.

But just less than two decades ago, the same soil was the foundation to a very different environment; a lawless territory that was born out of Hong Kong’s identity crisis and foreign occupation. A 6.5 acre plot of land that was home to nearly 33,000 people and a collection of brothels, opium dens, casinos, cocaine parlors, and secret factories. Kowloon Walled City, or Hak Nam…the City of Darkness.

At the peak of the Walled City’s existence in the 1980’s, the streets were lit by fluorescent bulbs 24 hours a day. The ground level rarely received full sunlight because of the density and height of the buildings that were haphazardly constructed without formal building permits. There were only two guidelines for construction in the city: the height of apartment structures could not exceed 14 stories because of its presence on Kai Tak’s flight path, and apartments had to be wired with electricity, to prevent the use of open flames.

Beyond that, there was no governing body or police force; it was run by drug lords, organized crime syndicates, and unlicensed dentists that held practice in cramped apartment spaces.

The city started as a fort in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), to help defend against pirates and protect locally produced salt. The fort played a minor role in Hong Kong’s existence until additional land in Hong Kong was handed to Britain in 1898. The Chinese excluded the Walled City from the treaty, with the intention to keep troops stationed in the fort.

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However, when the British attacked the fort a year later, they found that the Chinese soldiers had deserted the fort, and thus claimed ownership of the land. The British left the city mostly intact until 1933, when they demolished nearly all of the buildings and compensated the 436 squatters that were evicted by giving them new homes.

With the events of World War II, and Japan’s 3 year and eight month occupation of Hong Kong, Japanese immigrants began to occupy the Walled City. Even after Japan’s surrender, the new residents resisted attempts by Britain to reclaim the city. Because of the 1898 treaty, the Hong Kong Police had no right to enter the grounds, and mainland China denied any responsibility to the area.

With both governments avoiding sovereignty of the area, an organized crime syndicate known as the Triads stepped in to rule the tract. As the Triads were overthrown from the city by a series of 3,000 police raids, the city plunged into lawlessness. It began to grown into a monolithic web of illegal activity, because it could go unregulated and unchecked. Slowly, modifications to the buildings were made by inexperienced construction workers, with no supervision from architects or engineers – further complicating the dense network of dwellings.

The Hong Kong government supplied basic services such as mail delivery and water piping, but applied a “hands off” policy to the rest of the dealings in the city. Oddly enough, the reported crime rate was lower than that of the rest of Hong Kong. However, the sanitary conditions were far inferior and poor living conditions eventually led to the Chinese and British governments agreeing to demolish the city and construct a park in its place.

The government spent 2.7 billion HKD to compensate nearly 33,000 residents and business that were located in the city. Evictions took place from 1991 to 1992, and in 1993, the city was demolished. The construction of the park began soon after, and was opened to the public in 1995.

Today, the center of the park is occupied by a beautiful restoration of the city’s Yamen, where the main bureaucrat would live and work in ancient Chinese towns. There are several interactive pieces about the history of the City, and preservations of the original wall & South Gate.

As I walk the carefully pebbled paths through the gardens, I’m struck by how easily the chaos and lawlessness of the Walled City have been erased from the face of Hong Kong. I can’t help but think of the Chungking Mansions, and its similar reputation for unlawful activity. I fear that a hub of culture and diversity like the Mansions might suffer the same fate as the Walled City in an effort to “clean up” and develop the Tsim Sha Tsui shore.

With that thought, I exit the park and hop on the MTR, destined for the Chungking Mansions to get my weekly fix of vindaloo curry.