Saturday in Seoul! I have several photos that I could have used here but I want you, Blog, to see how PUT OUT Chooch looks in real life every time I suggest that it’s PHOTO TIME. I truly hope he ends up with a counterpart that is just as snap-happy as me so that his life will continue to be filled with demands of, “COME ON, JUST SMILE FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

Anyway! The plan for the morning was to go to Ewha Womans University because it’s been on my Korea list since the first trip – the campus is beautiful and a very popular and tranquil tourist spot. We passed the stop for it on every trip we took to Hongdae over the years, but this time I made sure we actually stopped.

Also, it’s my friend Jiyong’s alma mater!

LOL ugh he hates being this close to me.

I took so many pictures of this because I’m obviously 12.

The way Korea tickles my obsessive personality…I was made to be in Korea.

FUN FACT: The first Starbucks in Korea was built in 1999 outside of the entrance to Ewha’s campus. I personally hate Starbucks so I didn’t care about this but Chooch did take a picture to send to Blake, who is a Starbucks…manager? Something?

This picture was taken right before we got to the campus, where I joked that the excuse I sent to Chooch’s school for his absences (he missed 3 days even though we tried hard to contain the whole trip to spring break, you can’t “do Korea” in ~7 days, sorry) wasn’t technically a lie now since I said he had to miss those days for campus tours.

#MomsWhoThink

Iconic! I have seen this in so many Seoul videos, it was so crazy to be there IRL.

I think they do allow a handful of men in and it *is* a prestigious private research university, which is definitely Chooch’s jam. Maybe semester abroad??

#MomsWhoDream

Afterward, we walked down the street to Dessert 39 because we were HUNGIE and I needed coffee bigly. I didn’t know this until days later when we saw another Dessert 39 but the 39 actually means that it has desserts from 39 countries.

……………

I had no idea while we were there. When I announced my factual findings, Chooch and Henry said in tandem, “Yeah, you didn’t know that?” Ugh fuck off.

Anyway, I was trying not to get distracted by everything in the case because I saw fig bagel on the sign outside the door and was set on that before we even walked in. I had never had a bagel in Korea before and wanted to know, OK??

The aesthetics here were so on point.

That’s Henry’s stick thing up there which he whined about for days because IT WASN’T WHAT HE ORDERED WAH. I guess he ordered something similar but it was supposed to be “in a bun” but instead it was given to him “packaged differently.” Um OK. I tasted it and it was delicious. There was cream inside.

My fig bagel was also really good and actually just what I needed for breakfast. The bagel itself definitely had that “rice cake / mochi” chew to it as expected from a Korean bagel – it was really satisfying.

Meanwhile, some guy who ordered right after us got his stuff first because he only got a coffee to go and we were making the poor girl, who was there alone, get her AM steps in as she ran and back and forth trying to get our shit done, and I just sort of casually watched him take his coffee up a short set of steps in the back where the bathroom sign was.

He was there FOREVER. Like to the point where I was starting to get concerned?! Henry and Chooch ignored me though.

 

Ahhhh my coffee cup! I should have checked to see if they were selling these. Goddammit.

Then Henry’s banana drink that I made him order against his will was ready! Look at Henry, mid-strut, returning to the table with his cuppa diabeetus.

You guys, it was delicious. It was like my beloved banana uyu but loaded up with way more calories – you could just, they might as well have just melted a stick of butter in there too for good measure.

It was topped with Banana Kicks!

LOL then I made Henry go back up and order this corn thing. From their website:

Corn Poisoned Bread

A deadly blend of corn and corn cream! With the savory texture of the corn kernels popping in your mouth and the sweetness of the fluffy bread sheets, you can indulge in the deadly and addictive taste of corn.

Yep! Anything corn-themed is going to be lit in Korea. Corn lattes? SATISFYING. Corn on pizza? BRING IT TO AMERICA. Corn desserts? CORNBREAD COULD NEVER.

(Well, that’s not true, I take that back – SOME cornbread could. ChiChi’s cornbread paved the way.)

Meanwhile, I still hadn’t peeped that guy returning from the bathroom but then some older man came out of the door at the top of the steps! He went behind the counter and based on CONTEXT CLUES, I think he was the manager / owner. Anyway, now I was curious so I went to investigate.

Ugh turns out it just opened up into a vestibule that connected the cafe to the rest of the building and there was a bathroom there as well. So, probably that guy exited that way because he works somewhere in the building.

:( Not very exciting.

And while ALL OF THIS was going on, Chooch was sitting at the table next to us being an utter cra-bapple because there was some POKEMON GO event happening at 10AM in Gangnam and he desperately wanted to go but like….I didn’t? We walked around for a bit after the cafe – we were within walking distance to Hongdae and started to go in that direction but then I said, “Yo, we have been to Hongdae A LOT” so then, around the time we saw some older man pee in a corner along a busy street, we decided that FINE we would trust Chooch to go to Gangnam alone, and Henry and I would go to the DDP.

I mean, the kid was in Mexico alone and is kind of amazing at figuring out public transportation. So, Mommy slackened the leash a little bit and let him go off because if he’s going to be exploring any gigantic metropolitan city alone, Seoul is definitely one of the safest.

That was so weird though, getting off the subway without him and watching it continue on with him sitting there without us, NOT EVEN CARING. :(

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