Pork Hock – Where to, Gumshoe?

Seoul (Day 33): Dancing in Hongdae

April 2, 2016

After a long day yesterday, we slept really well last night. Our plan for today was to hang out in the university areas: Ewha Womans University and Hongik University’s Hongdae area. It was another nice and sunny day in Seoul – around 18 degrees Celsius!

Since it was a nice day, we decided to walk to Ewha Women’s University, which took around 30 minutes. On the way to there, we passed by a wedding dress street (reminded me a bit of New Westminster) and a furniture area. Seoul is hilly compared to Taipei, so walking around was more of a workout than walking around was in Taipei. The street leading up to the main gate of the Ewha Womans University was full of vendors, mostly food and sock vendors. Chicken galbi skewers are popular in this area (and were also recommended by a friend) so we decided to try a couple. The prices around this area were cheaper than the Myeondong food vendors.

Ewha Womans University area was a neat area that had a lot of shopping leading up to the university grounds. We would probably go back if we have time to eat as it seemed like restaurants and food stalls were priced more for students rather than tourists (unlike in Myeongdong).

Close to the university is another street of interest called, Sinchon Street. This area is also full of shops and is full of lots of young locals shopping on a Saturday afternoon. Comparing the areas we went to today to Myeongdong, there are definitely more locals rather than (Mainland) tourists.

There’s literally the same beauty/cosmetic stores in every area you go to Seoul. I think Myeongdong has about 2-3 Etude Houses within a few blocks of each other. When people go to Korea, they always bring back face masks and stock up on creams and cosmetics. Today, I was feeling really overwhelmed with the shopping streets in Seoul. I’m going to have to do research on which store is the “best” and if there’s any “must buys” from them, since they basically all look the same to me. (Tim: and perhaps they are pretty much all the same?)

After Sinchon, we made our way towards Hongik University. The area around it is called Hongdae. It is a popular area for young people, and has a lot of restaurants, clubs, and cafes. The street also has a lot of street performers, which I have a lot of pictures and videos of. This was probably the most fascinating part of Hongdae (to us at least). Our friend, Sabine, said she liked to hang out in Hongdae and I can see why!

We spent most of the afternoon and early evening in Hongdae walking up and down the streets and watching all the street performers. Our favourites were the groups of boys dancing in front of mobs of screaming girl groupies. (Tim: Imagine groups of guys casually doing dance routines from boy band music videos)

After walking around Hongdae for a while, we decided to eat an early dinner in the area. We passed by some places during lunch that were pretty busy so we went back to one that served pork hock. The restaurant is called “Myth Jokbal”. It has two seating areas and considering it was only about 5pm, it was almost full. We decided to order the pork hock and a salad (which looked pretty good and we hadn’t had a salad in a while). When we ordered, the waiter said the pork hock comes with the salad and a kimchi type hot pot soup with noodles. The food came and the portions were huge. I think Seoul would be best if we came with other people or if their portions were half the size and half the price.

Everything was very tasty – I really enjoyed the salad. It felt good to eat fresh vegetables like that as it’s been a while. The pork was very good, but for pork hock I actually don’t enjoy all the fat so I stuck to more of the meaty pieces and Tim ate more of the fat. I was surprised at how many tables were all women sharing such a large portion. The ladies beside us ordered the same thing but had two bottles of beer and ordered soju while taking their time eating the pork.

After dinner we planned to head to the Dongdaemun area, which is an area that is famous for being open very late and some malls are even 24 hours! But before we left Hongdae, we were mesmerized while watching some of the dancers – especially the group that seemed to have the most groupies. Young girls were going crazy for them and even boys in the audience were dancing along and singing.

We finally left the area around 8pm and took the subway to Dongdaemun (History & Culture Park station). When we got out of the station, it felt like we were transported to the future. Dongdaemun area is extremely modern and with all the tall buildings and bright lights it was a totally different scene from the university area, which was a lot older.

After the DDP, we walked down to Seoul’s Eastern gate. We are staying close to the Southern gate. There is also a part of the Seoul city wall across the street from this gate which you’re allowed to climb up and touch.

The main reason why most people go to Dongdaemun is to go shopping late at night. We decided to check out the mall, Doota, because I read that it has more unique Korean brands that you don’t usually see on the street or in other malls. It was 7 floors of small shops on each floor – the mall was really warm inside which made for an uncomfortable shopping/browsing experience.

We were feeling really tired after another long day and took the train back to our hotel at 10:30pm. We passed by the street where we had fried chicken last night and it was pretty dead. We have come to the conclusion that this area is only really busy during weekday nights when the businessmen are out.

Tomorrow we’re planning to go to check out another neighbourhood in Seoul, the island of Yeouido. They host the cherry blossom festival here in April, hopefully some have bloomed already.

Total steps today: 32,000

Hualien (Day 11): Day of Semi-Rest

March 11, 2016:

Today was our last morning in Taitung. We bought tickets for the train to Hualien at 9:39am . Tim’s aunt picked us up from our hotel at 8:30am and dropped us off at the train station. She made sure we collected our tickets from the ticket counter, since this was the first time we bought tickets online. We said our goodbyes and said we’ll be back soon.

While waiting for our train to arrive, we grabbed some breakfast from 7-Eleven. I decided to try a tea egg and a pudding (which is a popular snack in Taiwan, probably not a very good breakfast choice, but a delicious snack choice!).

The train ride to Hualien was 2 hours long. I finished up my blog from yesterday but after writing for a half an hour, I felt a bit train sick. I fell asleep for the rest of the train ride (I’ve been pretty good at sleeping most of the way), so I missed all the mountainous terrain on the way towards Hualien.

When we got to Hualien’s train station, we wanted to go to the ticket counter to get tickets for Sunday back to Taipei. Tim’s aunt warned us that the train is usually booked up from Hualien to Taipei, but we didn’t realize how crazy it would be. Once we got to Hualien, the train station was a gong show and we thought, uh oh, we’re in trouble. We had searched for tickets quickly while waiting at Taitung’s train station and couldn’t find any trains at a decent hour that were available.

The hotel in Hualien has a free shuttle service to and from the train station, so there was a van waiting for us when we arrived. Trip Advisor’s reviews were right, East Town 26’s service was really good so far. We were welcomed by the front desk girl and we were able to check in early (their check in time is 3:30, we arrived around noon). We got to our room and it was nice and clean and more modern than the last hotel we stayed in. The cheapest room (Tim: and only ones available) were single beds, so we just go that (we’re roomies!).

Once we got to our room, we both got on to our laptops and tried to search for train tickets back to Taipei. We weren’t having any luck, the website kept saying everything was full or that we’ve tried too many times for the same search. After about half an hour of trying we decided to go to 7-Eleven to buy the tickets. Most convenience stores in Taiwan sell rail tickets (at a premium, extra 8 NT = $0.30).

When we got to 7-Eleven, we took a look at the kiosk and realized that we weren’t going to be able to buy tickets because it was all in Chinese with no English option. Feeling a bit defeated we turned to the lady behind us and Tim asked if she could help us translate it. She asked us where we wanted to go and she pulled out an app on her phone. We sat down with her and she reserved the tickets on her phone (super quickly) and she pulled up the tickets on the kiosk we were just at with a confirmation code. The kiosk then printed out a receipt that we used to pay at the
7-Eleven counter. Tim asked her if we could get a drink or anything for her because she helped us out, but she said she didn’t need anything, she was just happy she was able to help us.

Unfortunately, the only time we could get that would get us back into Taipei before 3pm (we’re checking into our Airbnb on Sunday) was if we left Hualien at 6:07am (not looking forward to Sunday morning, but beggars can’t be choosers). We’ve learned our lesson about train tickets (especially the Hualien to Taipei route). We also learned that with that app, locals can reserve train tickets without paying for them right away.

With that out of the way, we decided to find something to eat. The lady at the front desk suggested a few restaurants she likes to go to. We stopped by one that looked pretty busy and promising. It looked like they specialized in steamed juicy buns. We got a seat and they handed us an order form in Chinese. Tim told the waitress that he couldn’t read and that we’ll just order 10 buns and hot and sour soup. We literally just looked at what others were eating and copied them.

There isn’t much in Hualien in the city itself in terms of “must see sights”. Most people stay in the city so they could use it as a base to see Taroko Gorge National Park, which is exactly what we’re doing. Although it was starting to rain, we headed to the coastline to walk around.

It started to rain a bit harder so we started to head back into town. I was feeling a bit tired and cold. Today was actually the first day that I felt colder than normal. The temperature in Hualien was around 15 degrees and dreary – felt like home.

When we got back into town, we looked for something to eat for an early dinner. I wasn’t feeling that great and just wanted to take it easy tonight because tomorrow was going to be a full day of exploring the Taroko Gorge. We found a soup noodle restaurant so we decided to eat there. It was like Tawainese casual noodle restaurant. My noodles were okay, Tim seemed to enjoy his pork hock a lot more (Tim: The pork hock was good, but the noodles and soup weren’t much to write home about). It was only 5pm and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

After our early dinner we went to a bakery (“181 Bakery”) that we had passed by earlier to pick up some buns to pack with us on our day trip tomorrow to the Gorge. The whole bakery smelled really good. They had samples in front of most of the items, so we were able to sample a few.

Because I wasn’t feeling that well, we decided not to go to the night market tonight. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by a bubble tea place to grab a milk tea for later. We headed back to the hotel around 6pm and since then, I’ve been writing today’s blog post while watching “Fuller House” on Netflix.

We’ll probably sleep early tonight as we have to get to the train station tomorrow around 7:30am to catch a bus towards to the Gorge. I’m looking forward to going back to Taipei and chilling out and spending time with my sister, Noel, and Nate.

Total steps for today was 15,000.

Kaohsiung (Day 7): We missed the sunset

March 7, 2016

The beds at CityInn were really comfy which felt good after our long night. Today, we planned to head south to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second largest city and the largest port city. It’s about 200km away from Taichung, and about a 2.5 train ride on the regular Taiwan rail.

Before heading out, we wanted to go back to Miyahara to have ice cream and browse around to buy something for family at home. The store is a couple blocks away from the Taichung Train Station (not the high speed rail stop) which makes it really convenient if you just want to go to Taichung to visit the store from Taipei. Miyahara is actually a former eye hospital built by a Japanese optometrist (Dr. Miyahara) while Taiwan was under Japanese rule. After WWII, the building was turned over to the government then eventually sold to a businessman and became a ice cream/tea/fancy treat store (pretty random). Taichung’s famous pineapple cake brand (actually they’re originally known for their cheesecake) is called “Dawn Cake”, which has made Miyahara their flagship location.

When we were there yesterday, the ice cream parlour had a crazy long line up so today when they opened at 10am, we decided to try their famous sundae before we left Taichung. When we got there, there were only a few people ahead of us.

For the sundae, you pick 3 ice cream flavours and get to pick 4 toppings. There are 54 different flavours of ice cream (18 of them are just chocolate) and they all looked really good. If we stayed in Taichung longer, I would probably go back for a scoop of ice cream each day.

The ice cream sundae was very over the top but we both really enjoyed having it (for our breakfast and lunch). My favourite ice cream was the mango. The chocolate was really good too, especially when eaten with the cheesecake. But I always gravitate towards fruity ice creams/sorbets because they’re more refreshing.

We bought tickets for the 12:17pm train to Kaohsiung and this time Tim and I were able to sit together. The train ride was about 2.5 hours long. This train wasn’t as nice as the last one we were on to Taichung, but it was comfortable enough.

We arrived in Kaohsiung around 3pm and walked to our hotel, which was about 10 minutes away. We booked the “Cloud Hotel” on Expedia ($55 CAD/night), because of the decent reviews on Trip Advisor and mainly because it was a 3 minute walk from the Formosa Boulevard KMRT stop (which connects the two KMRT lines).

Today, we wanted to catch the sunset from the British Consulate Residences (which is on a hill overlooking the ocean) and go to out Cijin Island for seafood for dinner (I read that Cijin has better seafood than Keelung. I haven’t been to Keelung so I have nothing to compare it to) While taking the KMRT, we noticed how quiet the train stations were. It was a bit odd, we have a few pictures of how empty the stations and train cars are.

Kaohsiung is definitely a lot more laid back than Taipei and Taichung. There are way more locals wearing shorts and flip flops and you can feel how easy going things are. I like it!

On our walk, we grabbed pearl milk tea from “Gong Cha”. It was a fairly busy location with a large seating area. We noticed afterwards that they have locations all around the world, even in Canada (Markham). When we got back to the hotel, Tim looked at his expenses and saw we went to one in NYC this summer. I guess I drink too much bubble tea to remember. On a related note, Gong Cha is originally from Kaohsiung.

While walking down the same street as Gong Cha, we came across a place filled with locals eating noodles at 4:45pm. We looked inside and decided to share something since we didn’t have lunch yet. Tim ordered pork hock with noodles and a Sarsaparilla (sort of like Taiwanese root beer). I got some pickled garlic cucumbers as a side. Everything was very tasty and the noodles were perfectly cooked. And in true Taiwanese fashion, they had a container of fresh minced garlic to add to your meal – which Tim did of course.

Here are pictures of some of the interesting places we past by on the way to the viewing point.

After our pit stops, the sun was starting to set (you can see it on its way down while we were at the park) and we didn’t know if we would make it up to the top of the mountain. We found steps up to the British Consulate Residence (which is the recommended viewing point for sunsets) and basically went up as fast as we could. It was a good short work out. But unfortunately, by the time we got up the sun had gone below the horizon.

After walking along the pier and trying to get ahead of the masses of Mainland Chinese tourists (there were over 20 tour busses at the park), we headed to catch a ferry to Cijin Island. Cijin Island is a small island five minutes from Kaohsiung Harbour, known for their seafood and beaches.

The ferry ride there was 25 NT = $1 CAD and the ride was a short one. There were three ferries operating at the same time to and from the island.

Once we got to Cijin Island, we did a quick walk up and down the seafood restaurant row and just picked one. They were all fairly busy so it was a coin toss to see which one we would go to. I did read some reviews on Trip Advisor about one that was top rated by mostly Japanese tourists but I had forgotten the name. (Tim: the one we ended up at was only so-so).

We picked clams, snapper and shrimp at 100 NT per dish. My favourite was the stir-fried clams, they used a lot of garlic and basil. The deep fried shrimp was a bit underwhelming. If we had more people to eat with, we could’ve tried a lot more.

We decided to call it an earlier night and head back to the hotel. We took the KMRT back and again noticed there aren’t that many people using it. Kind of weird, right? Also, the train makes its transfer point announcement in Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, English and Japanese.

Tomorrow we’re planning on taking a day trip to Tainan to visit the National Museum of Taiwan History and Tim has some other specific food he wants to try there.

Today we walked 21,000 steps. It helps being close to an MRT (or even having one)

I’m glad we’re spending another night in Kaohsiung, I really like the city so far. I like being close to an ocean and having the mountains close by too (reminds me of home). When we saw the ocean (Tim: straight) for the first time from the view point, it made me really happy. I guess because we’ve been in two land locked cities with a lot of scooter exhaust in the air for the past week; it made me really appreciate being close to water (I’m a spoiled Vancouverite). When we were walking along the waterfront, we sat and just listened to the small waves wash up against the shore. It was nice.