In the months leading up to our Korea trip, I had been stressing myself out over putting together a wedding-but-not outfit to wear for pictures. I didn’t want anything that resembled a wedding dress and I also didn’t want to do the whole hanbok get-up because I’m not Korean nor am I marrying a Korean so that feels a bit too much like cultural appropriation, you know? Some of my friends were asking me if I was going to do that and I was like “do you even know me though.”

In the end, I ended up buying a lavender tulle skirt with tiered-ruffles and Henry helped me make gold glitter stars to pin to them. I had an off-white fitted crochet sweater to wear on top and purple holographic CAT AND JACK boots from Target lol – yes, literal kids shoes but they were perfect.

Henry brought a button-down shirt that sort of matched my skirt.

I kept putting off this photoshoot while we were there until finally it was the last day. Henry and I woke up early that Monday and while I was getting dressed, I just knew it was a bad move, you guys. I could feel it in my bones – we were going to get dressed, leave the hotel room, go to wherever (I think I had wanted to go Bukchon Hanok Village) and then fight. I hate hate hate having my photo taken and even though I loved my outfit – it was cute and comfortable and completely my style – I just didn’t want to deal with photos

“Look,” I said to Henry, who had just put on the “regular-people jeans” I made him buy for this (his usual jeans are SO BAGGY). “If we do this, we’re going to fight and it’s going to ruin the day. I don’t care about the pictures. I don’t care what anyone else thinks either, I don’t want to do this.”

“THANK GOD,” Henry said, swapping out the jeans for his regular hobo pants.

I am pleased to say that it’s been two months now and I still have no regertz about that decision. We have the photos with our marriage license outside of the Jongno district office and that’s all I needed.

Speaking of, Henry had to go and pick the license up from wherever he left it for the APOSTILLE process. (I already forgot about this part since I wasn’t there for it but if you feel like it, you can read the whole Korean marriage odyssey here.) We decided to let Chooch sleep in and set off to walk to Gwanghwamun Square so Henry could get the license and he suggested stopping by Deoksugung Palace, which is one of the ones we have never visited before.  It’s the smallest of all the palaces but still something I had always wanted to see.

We knew it wouldn’t be open that early but that we could still walk around it so it was a nice detour on the way to get the marriage license.

Well, except that I was IN A MOOD. Gonna be real here, I was being stubborn, contrary, argumentative – all of the things. Just one big ass walking SCOWL. Because I am still a child in that I don’t know how to process my emotions. So, while I was acting like a big fucking brat-bitch, totally spoiled and never satisfied, my core emotion was sadness. I did NOT want it to be our last day, but instead of making the most of it, I was a complete asshole and the only reason Henry or Chooch didn’t push me into the Han was probably only because we were never anywhere near it that day.

I don’t know what kind of magic chokehold Korea has me in but I was an absolute monster on this day. (I mean, I had my moments because not even I have enough energy to keep up that kind of shitty attitude all day, but um, yeah my behavior was embarrassing a lot of times during this day.)

I’m pretty sure it was after this picture was taken where my mood totally turned on its head because HENRY JUST COULDN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT AND I HATED HIM EW WHY DID I MARRY HIM, etc etc. Luckily, it was still early enough in the morning that we didn’t have an audience and to Henry’s credit, he knew what the real issue was and was being very careful with his words, handling me with kid gloves, trying to make suggestions just for me to find ways to twist his words (“OH, SO YOU’RE SAYING I’M FAT” when he said, “Let’s keep walking this way” after I pointed to a cafe across the street that I wanted to go to because I was hungry and needed coffee and really he just didn’t want to cross the street (it was a busy multi-lane road) and knew there would be 87 more cafes coming up).

Basically, I was just being super cuddly and adorbs that morning.

Literally I’m probably mumbling death threats to him here.

I know for sure I was hissing, “JUST TAKE THE PICTURE, DID YOU FUCKING TAKE IT” and then openly raging because he didn’t get what I wanted in the background. When he offered to do it again, I told him to fuck off, demanded the room key, and walked back to the hotel alone while he went to collect the marriage license that he probably didn’t even want any more at that point, haha ughhhh.

As I walked away, I threw a covert glance over my shoulder to see if he was following me because he was supposed to, that’s secretly what I wanted, but then at the same time I would have thrown a fit if he HAD followed me and accused him of thinking I couldn’t find my way back on my own and I’m sure he was more afraid of the consequences of following me than NOT following me so in the end, he went to whatever building in Gwanghawmun Square to get the marriage license on his own and I walked back to the hotel and made Chooch – who was now awake and dressed – go out to get coffee with me.

Originally, we were going to go to a nearby A Twosome Place because it’s been a joke since the first time we were there in 2018 that we couldn’t go to A Twosome Place since there are three of us. “Now’s our chance,” I said to Chooch who probably said, “Wow you’re so cool” in response because when Henry isn’t around, all of Chooch’s surliness is directed toward me. It’s fine.

But then that particular location ended up being in the lobby of an office building adjacent to our hotel so they didn’t have the full menu which allegedly included meat-free breakfast sandwich options. Chooch didn’t really care and said he was fine just going to a GS25 or whatever, so we went to one rigt around the corner and got some small packaged things for breakfast.

I still wanted coffee though so we kept walking and found this really tiny cafe called Aze Coffee. Literally only had two tables but it was fine!

Chooch got a dalgona latte and it was topped with pieces of it so he let me have one without much arguing, probably because, as my loyal and caring son, he could intuit that I was having a bad day and not at all because I had whined repeatedly that I was HAVING A BAD DAY.

Ugh.

Anyway, that was a really nice experience though, getting coffee on our own without Henry who thinks we can’t survive without him.

When he eventually came back to the hotel though, he had a bag of salt bread from a bakery that he passed on the way back and I guess that was an OK peace offering even though it wasn’t as good as my precious salt bread from Ikseondong.

Stay tuned for more Last Day Mood Swings.

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