More Pictures From Icheon

We took a walk around Icheon yesterday evening, here are some pictures of what we saw:













Pictures of tanks in front of some seafood restaurants with the live offerings from their menus.


3 maple trees loaded in a truck






Spiders everywhere!



A restaurant that looks like a ship. At night it really stands out because it is outlined with lights.



This was taken in a park located next to our hotel. The walk is made of some sort of rubber which feels great to walk on.



During our walk through the park we encountered 2 women walking this dog. They were very friendly and seemed pleased that we wanted to take the dog's picture. I wish I'd managed to take a clearer picture, as this was one cute dog with its braids and red shoes and matching leash!



A parking garage that can hold 12 cars on a very small footprint.



View of the walking street in downtown Icheon


Looking in the other direction is one of our favorite restaurants here, the A4, which is located on the 2nd floor and has a great view

Their specialty is a Japanese-style pork cutlet with a spicy tomato sauce served with rice, shredded cabbage with 1000 Island dressing, rice, a pepper, pickles, pickled daikon radish and some kimchee. An incredible bargain at slightly less than $4.00! We love this place.

**if you would like to read about an earlier trip we took to Korea (2005), click here. **

Pictures from Icheon

Here are a few pictures I took this week. We were busy working and didn't have much free time.



Our room at the Miranda Hotel

The bathroom



Our room is on the 9th floor, this picture was taken near the elevators. We'd just returned from a walk into town for supplies for breakfast, we were waiting for the maid to finish in our room. Joe is showing off one of the carbiners he bought at Harbor Freight recently, which have proven their worth on this trip. We brought 4 along and they are so handy for all sorts of tasks such as connecting suitcases for piggyback-pulling and slipping over the room hangers so they can be hung over the shower rod and used to dry laundry. And of course they are great handles for plastic sacks. We've added them to the short list of "must brings" for future trips.

The view from our room's window, of the parking lot for the hotel and the adjacent spa. This was taken on a rainy day, hence the raindrops on the window. Note that most of the cars are backed into their spaces, we've noted this is the norm in Korea. Also note the cars that are double parked. After some observation we've learned that the drivers park them in neutral (most vehicles here have manual transmissions) and when someone needs to get out of a blocked space, they just push the double parked cars out of the way. We'd wondered about this, double parking seems to be common here, the drivers who double park seem to leave their cell numbers displayed on their dash in most places, which probably works fine as most everyone here has a cell phone. But in this lot people are likely to be in the spa and unable to respond immediately to a request to move their cars if they are in the pool or taking a mud bath. A little observation provided the answer, and we even saw a tour bus back into a double parked car, which just rolled back from the collision with no apparent damage because it wasn't in gear. Also interesting is the lack of much variation in the colors or makes of the vehicles, brightly colored or foreign cars are pretty rare.

View of a street near the hotel. The table and chairs are in front of a convenience store we stop into almost daily to purchase bottled water, since it is the closest store to the hotel (and water is heavy). The bus station is located a couple of blocks further down the street.



This view is taken from the same spot as the previous picture, looking in the other direction. The building houses the "Moby Dick," a rather fancy seafood restaurant which seems to specialize in crabs. Around the corner are large tanks filled with (live) crabs and fish which the restaurant's patrons can choose for dinner. These tanks are outside most seafood restaurants, filled with a huge variety of fish, octopi, sea cucumbers, crabs, lobsters and some things that I am unfamiliar with. A few of the restaurants have the tanks inside, but they are in the front windows in easy view of patrons before they enter the establishments. I really like the artwork above this restaurant.



Joe, waiting for his order of fried mozzarellala cheese sticks at Lotteria, a fast food chain.
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**if you would like to read about an earlier trip we took to Korea (2005), click here. **

Pictures from Seoul

These are all pictures we took in Seoul, we haven't taken any in Icheon yet.


This building is the Holiday Inn where we stayed in Seoul, viewed from across the street.


The next two pictures are of the view from our room's window. The hotel is in the Mapo district of Seoul, which is the business district. A very nice part of town, we like it because it is an easy subway ride to just about anywhere and the subway stop is about a block from the hotel.








Joe and I aren't much on visiting "tourist attractions" when we travel, we prefer to spend our time walking around and seeing what everyday life is like for the people who live in the area. This trip we spent quite a bit of time walking around the area surrounding the hotel, on our last visit we didn't do much of that because it was too cold. This trip it has been hot and humid, which kept us from exploring as much as we wanted to, our walks wound up to be a series of short ones so we could get back to the air-conditioned room and cool off!




This is a picture of a gas station we passed on one of our walks, we thought it was interesting the way the fuel is dispensed from overhead. All the stations we have seen here seem to have attendants, one is pictured here in a yellow vest. The colored containers along the back wall are recycle-bins. Gas here is about $4.00 a gallon. Many of the gas stations have big plastic palm trees in front that are red, yellow, green and occasionally blue and are lit up at night. This is the only station we've seen with the overhead pumps, all the others have had standard pumps.





This picture is of an unusual building a few blocks from the hotel. It is a bank and seems to be constructed mostly from concrete. It sits on a steep hill.








We stopped in a small park a few blocks from the hotel that featured 5 pieces of exercise equiptment. We tried them out and managed to get a nice workout despite the heat. The exercisers are all well thought out and easy to use. Wish we had something like this at home!






These pictures were taken on a trip we took to the Nandaemum market area of Seoul. They were taken at the Nandaemum gate, the men in traditional Korean clothing are some sort of ceremonial guards. A sign nearby listed times for changing of the guard ceremonies, but these guys were marching around at a time that wasn't listed so I don't think it was an official change. But it was interesting nonetheless. When we were here last time there were no guards, in fact there were very few people around at all because it was so cold.

On our first visit to the Nandaemum market Joe noticed a very cute kitten at one of the seafood vendor's stalls. He had section of nylon rope fashioned into a leash, and had a styrofoam cooler filled with sand (and cigarette butts) that seemed to be his litter box, and an empty food dish nearby. We made sure to swing by for a second look before we left (the stall is near the subway entrance) and saw the man running the stall playing with the kitten with the other end of his "leash." The kitten is quite young and incredibly cute. Pets are not common in Korea from what we have seen. We have seen 2 cats near the hotel in Icheon, but they are obviously strays. We've also seen a couple of storefront vets in Seoul, but they appear to cater to dogs mostly. Pets may gain in popularity as more people enter the middle class, but for now they seem to be very much a novelty. I don't think we've seen any dogs at all this trip, although we did see a couple (on leashes) last time in Seoul.
When we went back Nandaemum yesterday making sure to swing by the stall where we'd seen the kitten, and sure enough, there he was. Instead of the rope around his neck he had a little homemade collar, and he was sitting on a cooler watching the man running the stall work. Joe took some pictures, but it was raining pretty hard and the market was VERY busy, so he didn't have much luck. This was the only one that turned out:




We stopped back by for another look before we left, but didn't get any other pictures. We will try again when we go back, this is such a cute kitten who obviously likes his new job!