The culture was noticeable from the minute we left the train station, as a group of Natives were putting on a concert for a small crowd.We immediately felt like we were in a different place. It was a little run down, but in an exciting kind of way. Nobody really looked Korean anymore, and we overheard different accents being spoken all around us.
We crossed the road away from the station and entered the "Asia Town" food street, which stretches for about 5 or 6 blocks and makes for a sizable international district roughly the same size as the "core" district of Itaewon. It seemed like every store on the street was named "World Food" or "Asia Mart". The shops were full of things that I didn't recognize- import items from the Philippines, India, Vietnam and all over Asia- comfort foods for many, I'm sure.
This Asia Mart even had a row of basic-looking long distance phones outside in case ET would like to phone home.
There were a few Halal shops, too.
The majority of shops seemed to be Chinese. In fact, there was one street where there was nothing but Chinese on any of the signs. Even the local Hana Bank sign was in Chinese only. It was about 1000% more Chinese than Incheon's Koreanized Chinatown, which we visited last summer.
An Indonesian restaurant (I counted 3 in total).
A Uzbekistan restaurant.
One of many Vietnamese places.
Cambodian food.
Food from Myanmar.
One of the restaurants with the best reviews online was an Indian place called Kantipur, so we decided to have supper there. It was really good! We ordered a set for 2 people, which came with delicious tandoori chicken, 2 samosas, 2 sweet lassis and...
...a choice of curry with 2 large baskets of naan. At just over $10 each, this was an amazing meal and we were stuffed for the rest of the night.There was a small strip of love motels clustered behind the Chinese street, so we chose to stay in the one with the nicest room pictures displayed outside- Best Motel. For $35 a night and a free upgrade to the nicest class of room, we were optimistic.
When we stuck our key in the power grid, everything in the room turned on, including the TV which was already tuned to a hot porno. You know you're in a nice place when!
The room wasn't bad- we've had much worse- but it was so small and they tried to crowd way too many amenities into the space. For example, the computer desk didn't have space for both the keyboard AND the mouse, a sauna room was stuck into an already-crowded bathroom, and the toilet could not be sat on without pressing your forehead to the wall in front of you. Strangely there was also a phone next to the toilet.
The room also had some usually-rare amenities like free kim and shot glasses, a random basket full of charcoal and a VCR. We wondered who on earth would still be using a VCR, but when we left the next day we realized why. There was a wall full of VHS porno tapes by the elevator. If for some reason the porn provided on your TV wasn't enough.
We walked back down the Chinese street in search of a meal for brunch when we spotted a cluster of used clothing stores. Most of the clothes still had their tags and were brand names! I was pretty pleased to get a nice pair of shorts for $3.50.
It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and the streets were much more colorful and lively than they had been on Friday night. There was many produce stands set up, selling hard to find items like dragonfruit, mangosteen, and mango. Inside, the stores sold lots of different international beers, and I bought a liter bottle of San Miguel (a favorite from our vacation in Spain).
For lunch, we hit up a Thai restaurant called Pad Thai. It was a little hole-in-the-wall with only about 10 items on the menu, but the food was fast and fresh.
Best spring rolls ever!!
A delicious plate of Pad Si Woo. Grand total of around $5 each for our meal.
We rested our legs at a park for a little while. There, this obnoxious sign was displayed by local government near the washrooms: "Your trivial behavior is representative of your country".
This "no spitting" sign was displayed in the park where the older Chinese men were gathered playing mahjong. I'd like to see a sign like this on every street in Korea!! And maybe one over each urinal in every men's washroom. Why do Korean men always need to spit 3 times before urinating? What is going on in their throats?
Before leaving the Asia Town area, we spotted another interesting food item for sale: large cuts of dog meat! It's not that hard to spot dog restaurants in Korea if you can read Hangul, but I'd never seen the meat for sale before. And do the dogs on the box HAVE to look so cute?Next, we decided to spent the afternoon drinking coffees and window shopping in Jungang, Ansan's main commercial district.
I loved the buildings in Jungang! They're so old school Korea, with signs advertising each business on every floor- signs that seem to swallow whole buildings! The signage is so loud and you see so much that you almost take in nothing at all. You almost never see buildings like this in Seoul anymore, but I think they're great. Busy building photos:
The shops in Jungang were mostly just smaller versions of the same stores we see in Seoul all the time (Korean cities are very same-same), but there were some fun independent stores like the one in the above photo- News Total Fashion Shop. The clothes were the same as we usually see at the market in Suwon and since we'd just been there last week we didn't buy much, but if you're in the area I highly recommend this shop for a funny t-shirt or three.
On one street we saw a small poop-shaped bread shop, but sadly, it was closed. Now how am I ever going to get to try poop bread?!
For supper, we found an all you can eat buffet place that was only 6,000Won! Unfortunately, after our excellent meals in Asia Town, this Korean food did not impress, but it was fine. Everything tasted fine. And for the price, it was a real steal. There was soup, bulgogi, sushi, and you could even make yer own bibimbap.
Above: the world's most logical way to serve peach ice tea.
By 7pm, it was time to think about heading back to Gangnam. We'd been dreading it all day because the train to Ansan had been SO busy. On the way there, we had to stand for almost an hour, and we felt so tired. We'd walked around all day on Saturday and our legs were killing us and once again the subway back to Seoul was super crowded. It felt like torture! I would love to go back to Ansan again before we go back to Canada, though I won't be going again until we find a good bus to take us there instead. But what I wouldn't do for some more of those spring rolls right now...
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