World Flavor

A little while ago, two out of my five Korean co-teachers recommended the same restaurant to me.

“You should try it,” they said. “It’s in New Songdo. It’s called Pizzeria.”

I asked if they were sure about the name. It seemed a little generic to me, and I couldn’t find it online (not that that’s unusual for Korea). But they seemed pretty sure. So on a recent day off, Jeff and I decided to check out New Songdo, an area of Incheon we hadn’t explored before, and try to find the place.

New Songdo is kind of a ghost town. Most of it is still under construction, and not too many people have moved in yet. But there are plenty of restaurants there now.

I called my co-teacher to ask for directions but she hadn’t walked there.  I called a friend but she’d never heard of it. We ended up trying to find a different pizza place, called What’s Dave or something, and we did find it but they were on a between-dinner-and-lunch break. Some other foreigners managed to help us find ‘Pizzeria’ which is small and a bit difficult to spot. But they were also on a break.

Luckily we had some friends to hang out with until dinnertime, after getting a snack at Kraze Burgers. I’m stubborn, and now I was even more determined to eat at this place.

Finally, we got there and managed to get a table immediately (it’s a small place).

The first thing I noticed about the menu was that it was handwritten in cute, visually pleasing writing with nice pictures.

The second thing I noticed was the delicious looking pizzas – they looked like real Naples-style pizza. The third thing I noticed was the high prices.

There are two-person lunch specials that are a decent deal but of course, we missed getting there at lunch unfortunately. We ordered a pasta and a pizza anyway.

The first thing you get is a big thing of pizza dough, sprinkled with parmesan and served with a dipping sauce of garlic, salt, and oil. The dough was really tasty. I got excited for the pizza.

Our mushroom cream pasta came out next. It was excellent. Very creamy, lots of tasty mushrooms, a nice topping of arugula.

And last we got our four cheese pizza. The four cheeses are mozzarella di bufala, Reggiano, Gorgonzola, and… cream cheese.

Yep, that big lump that looks like ricotta on that slice? Cream cheese. We sort of overlooked this while reading the menu. It was a bit of a shock, since they put a ton of cream cheese on there, and cream cheese has quite a strong flavor. It overwhelmed the other cheeses. I wish they’d done ricotta, or at least but a bit less cream cheese.

However, the crust was great and it was still a tasty pizza. They gave us an incredibly sweet dipping sauce with the pizza which we did not use.

The whole time we were there we were trying to figure out the name of the place. Was it really just Pizzeria? Some evidence suggested yes. But on the way out I noticed this sign:

Aha! I thought. It does have a name. Addio a Napoli.

Overall, we really liked the place. It’s expensive but a nice place for a date night or classy outing with friends. Read the pizza toppings carefully though – most of them are normal, but you may want to avoid a cream cheese surprise!

Details:

• Location: 3-1 Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 032-834-7222. It’s down the street (away from Central Park) from the Coast Guard building, one or two blocks down on the same side of the road. You will pass What’s Dave’s, or whatever it’s called. It’s near A Twosome Place (if you get to A Twosome Place you’ve just passed it). Look for the Pizzeria sign.
• Price: Around 20,000 Won a person.
• Hours: 11:30 AM – 3 PM, 5 PM – 11 PM

This week’s Indie Travel Challenge prompt is a simple one: take a look back at your week one travel resolutions.

So let’s take a look, shall we? Here were my resolutions:

• Travel to Malaysia and Singapore for two weeks in February with only a day pack and my purse (and whatever I can fit in my Scottevest jacket). - Success! Completed February 2012. I bought a camera case along the way so came home with one extra, but small, bag.
• Eat at least 75% of the foods on the exhaustive Malaysian and Singaporean foods list that two Malaysian girls and a Singaporean girl wrote for us. – It depends a little on how you count it, but we were at least almost there. And we sure tried.
• Give the ‘king of fruits’ another chance at the Durian Buffet in KL. – Couldn’t bring ourselves to do a durian buffet, and our KL friend told us not to if we weren’t sure we’d like it, anyway. We had some durian egg creams… I couldn’t take it. So durian and I are still not friends.
• Take inappropriate pictures with the statues at Love Land on Jeju Island. – completed 21 January 2012
• See a performance of Nanta (also known as Cookin).  - completed 7 January 2012
• Eat at a temple food restaurant, preferably the one I found in Insadong. – Hasn’t happened yet. There’s still time though.
• Visit all of Korea’s UNESCO World Heritage listed sites. – Looking good! Eight down, two to go (Haeinsa Temple and the folk villages at Hahoe and Yangdong).
• Learn 10 more students’ names.  - completed 27 March 2012 – I now know 준표 (Junpyo), two 지원s (Jiwon), 예원 (Yewon), 체원 (Chewon), 세연 (Seyeon), 은체 (Eunche), 진희 (Jinhee), 예진 (Yejin), and 민희 (Minhee)
• Send the rest of my postcards, and my Christmas package to my family (late but… oh well). – finally completed May 2012 – sent off the last postcard to my grandparents
• Buy a new camera. – completed 6 January 2012
• Plan and begin a round-the-world journey. – Planning is going great! We have our tickets booked for Mongolia.
• Go to at least one other Southeast Asian country, besides Singapore and Malaysia. – Should arrive in Vietnam in late October.
• Eat at least one new, strange food – I’m thinking I want to do a shot of snake blood… - I suspect that live octopus counts. Ate it in April 2012.
• Book a ticket on the Trans-Siberian railroad (assuming the timing works out right for this year to be the right time to book).  - Not happening as we’ve decided not to take the Trans-Siberian!
• Write a post for all the Indie 2012 prompts (even if it’s late – I’m not bringing a computer on my February trip, for instance). – So far, so good!
• Post at least 3 blog posts per week all year. – Still going strong!

Overall I’m very happy with my progress! I can check off 9 of 16 resolutions, so I’ve completed just over half of them – appropriate since half the year is now gone! Only one will definitely fail, the Trans-Siberian railroad one. The other six will almost certainly be done.

I’m happy to see that if I set my mind to something, I can do it. I did it with my 100 book challenge last year and I’m doing it this year with these resolutions. Of course, I sort of made them purposefully easy for me as they coincide with things I’m already planning. In case you were wondering, this year’s book count stands at 25. Perhaps I’ll read 50 books, which will be half as many as last year… but a much more reasonable number!

How are your New Year’s resolutions going?

Curry Vegetable and Garlic Parmesan fish from No Fish Go Fish in Portland, Oregon.

If you’re like me, you are totally obsessed with TV. My all time favorite shows are Buffy and Doctor Who. The shows I was watching when they were on are Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother, Glee, Parks and Recreation, Community, and the Vampire Diaries (also Fringe, but I’m not caught up). Later in the year, I’ll watch True Blood, Misfits, and Doctor Who.

So how do I keep up with all that? Part of it is just a time issue. Since I’m working a regular job and only traveling on the weekends, it’s pretty easy. I watch an episode of something almost every night. Again, like I said, I’m obsessed. I expect to fall behind more when I’m actually traveling, although I will have a lot of time on buses and trains.

You almost certainly won’t have access to a TV most of the time when traveling, and even if you do, it probably won’t be playing the shows you want (plus, other countries tend to broadcast behind the US or UK schedule). So how can you keep watching? Here are some ideas.

• Check the network’s website. ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, the CW, PBS, and HBO generally offer the latest 2 or 3 episodes of their current shows. However, they are typically only available in the US (similarly, BBC’s iPlayer has the last 7 days of programming, but is only available in the UK). Here’s a LifeHacker article on running a free proxy, and another one on various ways to get access to blocked stuff on the web, including country-locked shows. This is not a good option if you’re way behind on the show, by the way.
• Check Hulu. Hulu is US only, too, so see the link above to use it. Again, it’s mostly new stuff. Same goes for Netflix Instant Streaming.
• Download the show from iTunes or Amazon Instant Video. You can find basically anything you want here, new or old, but it will cost you money ($1.99 an episode).
• Look on TV Links. TV Links catalogs links to each episode of almost every show. Click on the episode title you want. Click “all search results” for a full list of availability. Note: many of the links are of questionable legality and have the potential to harm your computer. Use this option with caution.
• Use BitTorrents. Note: BitTorrents are usually not legal and have a high potential for harming your computer. If you still want to use this option (basically, you would be downloading shows to your computer), here is a LifeHacker article on a beginner’s guide to BitTorrent, one on the best torrent trackers, and one about the best torrent applications.

There you have it, the sum of my knowledge on ways to keep up your favorite shows. If you’re not away for long, it’s easiest to just wait until you’re back to catch up. But if you’re traveling long-term, or you really need to see the show when it comes out (no judgement here), these methods may help.

Do you have any other ways to keep up with shows when you’re away from the TV?

Looking out at some cliffs on Udo Island, a small island next to Jeju Island in South Korea.

We recently read Migrationology’s post about some awesome mandu in Insadong and were inspired to put it to the test against our own favorite: Another little Insadong hole-in-the-wall no more than a few blocks distant. So we packed our day bags and met up with my (currently visiting) parents for a little Seoul dumpling tour.

Our old favorite is called JSP Wangmandu and the new one is Bukchon Son Mandu (Son means Handmade), but let’s refer to them as the champion and the challenger.

The Champion

The strength of this place definitely lies in their wrapping. For most dumplings, the noodle is no more than a vehicle for the meaty interior. In this dumpling though, you can taste the quality of the noodle and it supports and enhances the flavor of the filling. In addition to the standard meat mandu, you also have the option of kimchi mandu. If it were only a matter of comparing steamed meat dumplings, The Champion would remain the clear winner. This isn’t a fair fight though, The Challenger offers fried mandu as well.

The Challenger

Though it lacks kimchi mandu, Bukchon Son Mandu serves up some delicious fried dumplings. In terms of filling quality, both places are on par with each other. The challenger even offers little balls of pure filling. So, does it match up to The Champion? Prices are relatively equivalent, so that doesn’t resolve anything. The challenger offers fewer dumplings per order, but they are much larger. So it really all depends on what you’re in the mood for. If you want fried, choose challenger, if you want steamed, champion is your best bet. Or better yet, go to both like we did! They are only a few blocks from each other.

Directions

JSP Wangmandu- Take exit 5 from Jongno 3(sam)-ga. Take the left turn that is almost immediately in front of you. It is one of the first stores on your left.

Bukchon Son Mandu- Go to the intersection of Insadong-ro and Insadong-9-gil. Go into the alleyway behind the pharmacy. For more detailed directions with a map, check here.

This week’s Indie Travel Challenge prompt asks if you could go back in time, where and when would you go? This is a cool prompt because I find the concept of time travel really fascinating. I love watching Doctor Who and reading time travel romance novels, among other things. There’s a few places I would be interested in going to. First, I’m really curious about the dinosaurs, so I would go back to the Jurassic period (anywhere really) to look at some dinosaurs.

Like this, but with more skin.

I just finished reading Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, which Jeff reviewed before. I would be really interested to go to Mongolia or China or the cities of Central Asia at the height of the Mongol empire, and see what it was like. It seems fascinating.

Did the horses they rode look more like the takhi or Przewalski’s horse?

Finally, as a Classical Civilization major, I would absolutely love to go see ancient Greece and Rome at the height of their glory. I want to know if the things I’ve studied were accurate! And they’re both just such interesting places.

I can ask the owners of the ‘Villa of the Mysteries’ in Pompeii why they really painted room 5 like they did! Then I can see if my final paper for my Pompeii and Herculaneum class was full of crap or not.

I’d need to make sure, of course, that I didn’t interfere with anything and then create a paradox or change history. I’m totally ready to go on these trips, though. Who’s got a time machine?

Where would you go if you could go back in time?

Death by Chocolate at the Trellis in Williamsburg, Virginia. One of the most decadent and delicious desserts I have eaten.

Last semester, I had a coteacher who was engaged. In January, she got married in Suwon. I was invited, and Jeff and I went both because I was friends with my coteacher, and because we were very curious about modern Korean weddings.

It was a pretty typical wedding except that since the couple was Christian, there was a short prayer during the service. Other than that, this could have been any wedding in Korea.

The popular place to have your wedding in Korea is at a wedding hall. These are large buildings often clustered together in certain areas of the city which could be called ‘wedding factories.’ The typical wedding hall seems to have at least 3 rooms in which to get married and holds a wedding an hour in each room. Saturday is the day to get married – so on any given Saturday, a wedding hall likely hosts 9-18 weddings. The bride told me Suwon is a popular place for weddings, though I’m not sure why.

The modern Korean wedding is crowded. The room is fairly large, with a stage in front and a raised walkway. There was also a projector showing a closer video of the ceremony. There were some tables at the front where you could sit and get tea, mostly occupied by family. The rest of us stood crammed in the back. When you get married in Korea you apparently invite everyone you know, more or less. This wedding was attended by three or four hundred people.

The ceremony itself is short. It has to be since you only get about 40 minutes maximum in the room – they need to clean up for the next wedding. There was a part where the couple bowed deeply to each set of parents, who sat on the stage. There was a band that played a blend of a Jason Mraz song and a Korean song. The bride and groom sang a song. And then it was done. Photos were taken of everyone who came to the wedding – several groupings of family, then friends and coworkers.

After the ceremony there is a reception of sorts. In other words, you go into the massive buffet room. Instead of gifts, you bring an envelope of money, which I was told is basically to pay for the buffet. You give this at a counter before entering the wedding and they count it and give you a buffet ticket.

The buffet room has to be pretty huge because it is not just one wedding’s guests eating there. Anyone from any of that day’s weddings might be eating there. This means the couple doesn’t get to pick a menu (there’s always a huge variety though) and you will probably have to sit with someone you don’t know. It seemed common for people to skip standing in the wedding room and go straight to the buffet – there was even a large screen showing the current wedding to accommodate this.

This wedding hall wedding differed a lot from weddings in my culture. In America, weddings vary but few of them are this large or rushed. Also, the reception is always personalized.

Korean weddings feel a bit impersonal to me. I commented to Jeff that if you were Korean, you could very easily crash a wedding (not so easy if you’re foreign). I can’t say I would prefer to have a Korean-style wedding, but it was certainly interesting to investigate a different wedding culture.

Have you ever been to a wedding in a different culture? What did you think?

The sun sets over Green Lake in Seattle, Washington.