The title of this blog post was Chooch’s idea and he was so pleased with himself when he came up with it. “Get it? Because it has two meanings?!” Yes, Chooch. We get it.

I woke up that Sunday ready to go with my G-Dragon shirt. My only goal for the day was to get one more ride in on Steel Vengeance, so we strategically parked in a different lot by the water park, which is near an entrance to the park that’s closest Steel Vengeance.

We arrived a bit after 9, so we had some time to look at the lake. Chooch found some little yellow Nerf ball thing in the sand and, I don’t know, imprinted on it or something, and that motherfucker stayed with him ALL DAY LONG. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if he kept it in his pocket but HE HAD TO FUCK AROUND WITH IT IN EVERY LINE WE STOOD IN and the number of times he dropped it was staggering. At one point, I hissed, “If that fucking thing rolls onto the track, the whole goddamn ride is going to shut down and everyone is going to hate you, me most of all!”

Wish a seagull would have swooped down and pecked it out of his hand.

After this, we got in the short line at the entrance. They had us spread us into four lines, and we were in a line behind a family. I was fucking READY TO GO. The pee-jigs were imminent. My pulse was steadily increasing.

After passing through security, we made it to the early entrance and we were IN FRONT FOR THIS. More and more people kept arriving though and the line was getting jacked, but I was like, “BITCH YOU’LL HAVE TO STAB ME DEAD STEP OVER MY LIFELESS BODY TO GET IN FRONT OF ME.” My feet were PLANTED. I had to endure some jackhole nastily snorting and sniffling, but I was like, “YOU GOT THIS ERIN. THIS IS WHAT YOU TRAINED FOR” and when they finally pulled aside the gates, the Running of the Bulls commenced and I am PROUD TO SAY that I was the only broad among a gaggle of coaster bros running like maniacs toward Steel Vengeance and I held my own. Even Chooch eventually fell back a bit, and Henry didn’t run AT ALL. But I was like, “I WILL NOT GIVE UP” and then I started laughing because, as I mentioned in my last post, my co-worker was running a 10K that day, and I GUESS I WAS RUNNING SOME TYPE OF A K TOO.

I don’t know what the actual distance was, but it wasn’t short and sweet. So when I finally reached the area of Steel Vengeance and saw the Cedar Park girl sitting in a chair and holding a sign that said DELAYED FOR MAINTENANCE, I literally felt sparks shooting out of my ears.

WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKK?!!?!? It was me and a bunch of dudes, pacing in a circle with our hands on our heads, screaming.

OK, Plan B – Maverick, which is Steel Vengeance’s neighbor.

SAME!!!!

FUCK YOU, CEDAR POINT!!! WHAT THE FUCK?!!?!?!? By now, Henry and Chooch had caught up and I flipped out. “This park FUCKING SUCKS!” I screamed. “I HATE IT HERE!” and I felt validated in my feelings because literally everyone around me was shouting the same thing so take that, Roller Coaster Capital of America. Pfft.

Before I publicly bitched about this though, I checked social media. “I’m going to feel like a fucking asshole if they said it wasn’t going to be available for Early Entry,” I said, even though we checked their website for the list numerous times before leaving that morning.

Oh, they posted alright.

TWELVE MINUTES AFTER EARLY ENTRY STARTED!

We were already en route to Millennium Force by then. I was so pissed because Chooch and I wanted to run to it but Henry wouldn’t run with us, so I started calling him Deadweight Dad and he was like, “FUCK YOU, GO BY YOURSELVES NEXT TIME!” I mean, we might as well!

He didn’t want to ride Valravn so I was like, “Take pictures of us on it” and he did pictures of the WRONG TRAIN so good job, Deadweight Dad.

WE’RE NOT ON THIS!!!

He was too busy taking selfies on my phone!!

Then we got off Valravn, which was just OK and I’m glad that the line was only about 30 instead of the 60 minutes that the standby time was posted at and also broke down literally RIGHT WHEN WE WERE WALKING DOWN THE EXIT RAMP (I like Griffin at Busch Gardens Williamsburg better), AND HENRY WAS GONE! He had our phones so we couldn’t check the app to determine were to go next and we were stuck standing in the middle of the walkway like two lost puppies and I was SO ANGRY when I eventually saw him meandering over to us from a distance.

“I had to go to the bathroom,” he shrugged. OMG DO THAT ON YOUR OWN TIME!!

Then he did it again when we were on Raptor (it was a walk-on!!). We got off the ride and he was gone for EVEN LONGER THIS TIME. I was fuming. Five minutes later, he came strolling over to us with a big fat sugar cookie, which I wrenched from his paws and took a huge, greedy bite because that’s what he gets for deserting us and not bring anything back for us!

OK, I got all the complaining out of the way. The rest of the day (save for ANOTHER Steel Vengeance break-down) was actually pretty fucking great. We were able to get a bunch of coaster creds in spite of half the park being broke down at any given point during the weekend (Gatekeeper was actually down for pretty much the whole day). The only coasters we didn’t get to ride were Maverick (this is the only one I was really bummed about), Blue Streak, Iron Dragon, and the two kiddie coasters (they count as credits so we ride them, shuttup!).

Dumb me and Deadweight Dad.

I wanted to go back to wherever Henry got that glorious hunk of a sugar cookie because I wanted my own, but instead I opted for this iced candy corn sugar cookie which was OK but not as good as that original one, I always choose poorly! I think the process of buying cookies was just as frustrating as trying to ride a damn ride in that park. There were what seemed to be enough people working there, but there was NO ORGANIZATION and people just entered the line form whatever end they felt like it and we kept getting skipped over and then someone finally helped us and left our stuff next to the register and that was another whole process of trying to flag someone down to just ring up our fucking cookies already WE WERE RUNNING OUT OF TIME AND I WANTED TO RIDE MORE THINGS BEFORE WE HAD TO LEAVE, GOOD GOD PEOPLE RING A BITCH UP!

This derby-esque carousel ride is one of the few memories I have of previous trips to Cedar Point. I remember the first time I rode it as a kid, I thought it was just a regular carousel and was completely startled at how fast it actually goes.

Chooch accumulated a fork at the cookie place after asking to try a sample of fudge, so now his stupid yellow Nerf ball thing had a friend.

Anyway, I’m obsessed with collecting family carousel photos now, lol.

Broke-down Gatekeeper.

I had to laugh because when we decided to go to Cedar Point, I distinctly remember saying, “Oh and since we have passes and can go back whenever, we can just take it easy and enjoy ourselves without rushing around trying to fit everything in.”

You guys, have you met me, though? This is the complete opposite of what happened. From the moment we parked the car, I was in RACING MODE. Adrenaline was already pumping, my arms were akimbo so I’d be ready to elbow linejumpers (there were A LOT OF THEM at Cedar Point), and I kept screaming WHERE IS THE MAP?!?! I live everyday like I’m on an episode of Amazing Race (if I were actually on that show, I would probably have a stroke during the first challenge because my entire body consists of nerves, impatience, and competitiveness). There was no way I was going to stroll about this park beneath a lace parasol, stopping to sniff the Halloween gourds.

Sigh. It’s not easy being me.

Henry was concerned about how wasteful this was and probably started dreaming about all the soups and purees he could make with Cedar Point’s October decor.

Henry makes some REALLY GOOD SOUPS, you guys. I once tried to get him to open up a soup stand in our front. He could refurbish one of Crazy Larry’s dead cars into a walk-up immobile food-truck type thing. Daily vegan options, too!  Buy a serial killer greeting card while you’re here!

If it weren’t for Steel Vengeance and a small handful of others (Millennium Force and Magnum, and probably Maverick if I had had a chance to ride it), I’m not sure I’d be in much of a hurry to go back. I’m about to start gushing about Steel Vengeance but I will stop myself here because as I mentioned before I want to have a separate post for that and Millennium Force, which were the two main highlights of an otherwise up-and-down experience.

I have to say though, for as many frustrating moments that the weekend held for us, I still left this park anxious to come back because of the aforementioned short-list of perfect rides and also being next to the lake was so scenic and those views from the coasters were breathtaking. The whole experience felt like being in an abusive relationship, though! All it took was one ride on Steel Vengeance and I magically forgot about all the shittiness that this park had delivered prior to that. I can’t hate you, Cedar Point.

I was looking forward to our Cedar Point weekend for, well, two weeks because that’s all the advanced planning we did with this one. Typically, I would NOT go to a park of this caliber on a weekend, let alone during a holiday event, but we purchased Cedar Fair platinum passes for the 2020 season and they’re available to use for the remainder of the 2019 season too. You have to go to one of the parks to get the physical cards and CP is only 3 hours away so we figured why not just go, make a weekend of it, and even if it’s super crowded, we can just go back whenever we want since we have the passes (which includes free parking and early entry too!).

I was fully anticipating a park at capacity but look, we’ve been to three Asian theme parks at this point and you do not know the true meaning of “park at capacity” until then let me tell you. I mean, a three hour wait for the Viking ship at Lotte World is next level.

And that was just on a random Monday!

Fair warning: my moods swung faster than any of the pendulum rides there that weekend, but I didn’t want this blog post to be all stabby & crabby so I waited a bit to sit down and collect my thoughts, and I realized that the good outweighed the bad and I’m already jonesin’ for a return trip!

Instead of dwelling on the negative, I’ll just get it over with before diving into the pictures and good times: rides were breaking down left and right all weekend long, starting with the very first one we were in line for! Look, I understand that it was late in the seasons, the rides were tired, the mechanics of modern rides are so computer-driven that the slightest deviation will shut down operations — I APPRECIATE THIS BECAUSE “SAFETY FIRST” AMIRITE? But when it happened 5 times to us on the first day (Maverick, Blue Streak, Magnum, Gatekeeper, Steel Vengeance), it was just very frustrating. I didn’t have a problem with waiting in lines for these rides, but when I’m 45 – 60 minutes into it and that dreaded announcement comes on, go fuck yourself Cedar Point. A park of this size and stature better have maintenance men living in bunkers beneath all the rides, you know what I mean?

This place was operating like every pathetic piece of shit park I ever tried to construct on Roller Coaster Tycoon, where I spent the whole time picking up my maintenance guys and dropping them off on whatever ride was smoking at the time.

OK, there. It’s out of my system now. I had my hissy fit inside of the park too (Magnum went down while we were in the station and then two dumb bitch lesbians totally line-jumped and I tried to stop them but they were too busy jamming their hands into each others’ back pockets to care and the other people who got line-jumped were too engrossed in their phones to care and I just fucking lost it and left the line like a fucking toddler because that’s where I am emotionally these days. I’m waiting for my second serving of pureed peas, Henry) and so we left in the afternoon so I could cool off and come back down to earth with the stable people.

Here are some highlights from Day One though! (The two biggest highlights were Millennium Force & Steel Vengeance so I will sing my ode to them separately.)

A Korean food truck inside an amusement park, shut up and take Henry’s money.

Chooch and I both had the Tofu Cup and Henry ordered nothing because he knew he was going to have to eat our leftovers. I was so sure that I was going to finish all of mine though but as usual, eyes bigger than stomach, blah blah blah. Look, my lunch at DisneySea was definitely postcard-to-home worthy, but this was a real close second as far as amusement park lunches go. I was so content. (I mean, until right afterward when we were in line for Blue Streak and it broke down right when we were the next group to get into the station BUT I SAID I’M DONE COMPLAINING THOUGH.)

Chooch’s review: “The cabbage was surprisingly good.”

Before I threw a fit.

I took this picture while waiting for Henry and Chooch to catch up to me when I was storming out of the park, lol. God, I love being dramatic. If only everyone knew the real me haha.

We came to  the park around 6 that evening. These passes are great because you get free parking so leaving and coming back AIN’T NO THANG.

Except that now we had to park a trillion miles away but hey, we’re walkers so this was fine.

Now that I was calm and plied with pizza, I was able to really see this park. No, I mean, REALLY SEE IT. Like, it’s pretty fucking beautiful. Not DisneySea-levels of beauty, but fuck if Lake Erie doesn’t trick you into thinking you’re actually beachside. Like, with a real ocean. I always forget how great that lake is.

Chooch and I immediately into line for Gatekeeper, which was right, well, by the entrance gate, because the app said that the wait time was only like 30 minutes. I think it was actually less time than that, though.  Since Gatekeeper is a wing coaster, the line eventually splits so you can choose which side of the ride you want to sit on. Chooch was adamant about choosing the line that would put us on the lake side so he started to go to the left but I’m a Big Dumb and went to the right, thinking that it was the line that would put us closer to the lake since it was, well, closer to the lake, forgetting that the ride MAKES A TURN when it leaves the station.

So Chooch was correct and he cried out, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING” and abandoned the left side to fetch me, but now it was too late because we were both in too deep in the non-lakeside line. Sorry bud.

Luckily, THE RIDE FUCKING BROKE DOWN as soon as we made it back to the break run, and now we WERE on the lakeside. So while we sat there, stranded, for 25 minutes, I leaned over and said, “There’s your fucking lakeside view, buddy. SOAK IT IN.”

Yep, we figured it was par for the course that we actually get stuck on a broke-down ride. I mean, the odds were in our favor at that point.

Meanwhile, Henry the Good Parent was on the ground somewhere, waiting for us. He said that he heard the THIS PIECE OF SHIT RIDE IS BROKE DOWN announcement ,he waited for us to come filing out of the line with all the other people and when he didn’t see us, that’s when he realized, “Oh shit, they’re on the ride.” LOL yep that was us, just restrained and hanging out against our will, while the sun was setting and the cool lake air was chilling us to the bones.

Nicholas, my favorite ride operator, came  to visit us several times to give us canned updates (“Sorry guys, we’re waiting on maintenance”) and basically take the wrath of angry park patrons while the other guys were inside the operations booth tossing a football back and forth. Assholes.

Nicholas was super nice though and I didn’t fault him for this at all. He was really scrambling out there, trying to make everyone happy. So definitely one of the things that helped balance out my disdain over the unpredictability of the rides was the friendliness of the staff. Visiting other parks as often as we do always makes the surliness/blankness/ambivalence of Kennywood employees so much more apparent. I love Kennywood, it’s my home park, but I really wish they had friendlier staff.

Henry took pictures with my phone while we were stuck on Gatekeeper.

Cool pic, Hank. I think we all know what the subject of this picture is

You would think that I would have been on the hunt for desks to flip by the time we were released from Gatekeeper, but I was just numb to it all by then so when Chooch was like, “CAN WE FINALLY GO ON SPAGHETTI NOODLE*???” I mumbled, “Sure why not.”

*(This is what he called Wicked Twister all weekend.)

The standby for this was only 5 minutes and we got front row.

Wicked Twister is an impulse coaster, the kind that launches you and sends you up a twisting track to the dark heavens, drops you back down so you’re flying backward into the station and then up the twisty track on the other side. It does this like three times and IT WAS TERRIFYING. I don’t usually get “scared” on roller coasters, but this one gave me fucking chills and I screamed like I was in labor. There was a guy behind us who laughed, “Damn, these bitches be SINGING!” and I fucking KNOW he was talking about me, lol.

Look at the dumb noodle fucker! I just shuddered at the memory.

We don’t normally go to amusement parks for the Halloween shit because I’d rather go to a regular haunted house, but even though we didn’t do any of the haunts here at Cedar Point because the lines were outrageous (we expected that though!), it was still a lot of fun being there at night with all the creepy displays and fog. Plus, they were playing REALLY DOPE music too, like shit from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Midnight Syndicate was even performing there! EVERYONE KNOWS THEY MAKE THE BEST HAUNTED HOUSE SCORES.

And I heard two different Cure songs too while we were there. Cedar Point, you killed it in the ambiance department. Mwah!

And now you have to imagine three hours of nothingness because that would have been the time we were in line for Steel Vengeance. YES IT BROKE DOWN WHILE WE WERE IN LINE. But, Steel Vengeance will get his time to shine in a separate post, as I said before. Ahem.

The rest of the night, what we had left after the Steel Vengeance time-suck that is, was spent giddily riding Magnum twice (I forgot how phenomenal this coaster is, it’s been so long since I last rode it!) and SCREAMING at how creepy/awesome the lake looked from that ride at night, dragging Henry on Gemini where he tripped and fell getting into the seat and hurt his back and leg and made sure we didn’t forget about it for the rest of the weekend (#HenrytheMartyr), and then even got a last minute ride on Top Thrill Dragster! (I hate that name so much.)

This ride usually has enormous lines all day, but we were walking past it on our way out at 11:30 and it said it was only a 30 minute wait. The employee at the ride entrance said that as long as we were in line, we’d get to ride it even if it was past the park’s midnight curfew. So we were like, “Well shit, yeah!”

And the line ended up only being about 15 minutes long!

And then we were on it, listening to the damn thing revving, and suddenly I was like, “HOLY SHIT WAIT LET ME OFF I CHANGED MY MI———————————————————————————————nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnndddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd” as we were launched 120mph in 12 seconds.

Yeah, this was also something I’d file under SCARY AF. The launch was so forceful that I couldn’t even scream and then I wondered, “If I piss myself, will it just get pushed back inside?” But the best part is that I spent so much time that day, every time we walked past, dwelling on the launch, fixating on it, letting it fester in my imagination, that I never even considered the second part of that fucking ride — coming down off that towering top hat. IT IS REALLY TALL AND YOU GO STRAIGHT UP AND THEN PLUMMET STRAIGHT DOWN THE OTHER SIDE.

It gave new meaning to the phrase “I was shook” that is FOR SURE. I couldn’t get my body to stop trembling after we got off this damn thing!

Oh yeah, Henry didn’t ride it. Apparently he was going to but he had to go put his MAN PURSE in a locker and we left him because we didn’t know he wanted to ride it with us LOLOL.

Now it was 11:59PM and we for sure were on our way out of the park, but one of the monsters of one of the haunts was all, “Hey, psst, you guys wanna come in here? You can be the last group of the night!” so we did and it was pretty cool but again, amusement park haunts tend to not scare me that much because it’s so big and commercial. It was still fun though! The scare actors did a good job for it being the end of the night.

I had to take a picture for my coworker who was running a 10K that weekend because that’s her last name and I was like “Hope this isn’t an omen!” She’s only been in our department for a few months but she has already learned that I’m kind of a jerk. She seems OK with it though.

We went back to our hotel room and fucking crashed after that. I was glad that the second half of the day picked up or I would have been so sad. But oh don’t worry because the next morning would change all that. Cedar Point was like surfing Sybil’s brain waves, I swear to god.

I was outside on my lunch time walk on Monday when I happened to check Twitter, only because Henry so rudely got off the phone with me because he had to like, do his job or something, which silly me I thought his job was being my lunch time therapist but OK, you go on and do your other job then, bitch boy.

The very first tweet I saw was from Lisa, a girl I only e-know from Twitter; she had two tickets that she couldn’t use for a Stephen Chbosky lecture/book signing that night at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall and was giving them away, the only catch was that they had to be picked up at her office downtown.

Shit.

Chooch loves Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Shit.

I work downtown and could easily get the tickets.

SHIT.

I just want to go home after work!

SHIT SHIT SHIT.

It was one of those classic Good Mom vs Lazy Person throw-downs. On weeknights, I am very against spontaneity. Do not text me from across the street wanting to “drop by” or I will have a stroke.  Sometimes I miss my “I go to 15 post-hardcore shows a month” phase, but I’m very happy going home straight after work, changing clothes, eating dinner while watching roller coaster videos or Kpop music show performances on YouTube, exercising, watching a k-drama, and going to bed, with a hearty mix of “Henry Harassing” sprinkled in between. This is my post-post-hardcore life and I don’t hate it.

I had to force myself to think with the non-hermit side of my brain and consider the kid. This would be a cool opportunity for him and I should at the very least put in a modicum of effort.

So I texted Chooch a screenshot of the tweet, partially praying he would say no.

Instead he said, simply, “YES.”

So then I responded to Lisa and asked if the tickets were still available.

She said THEY WERE.

UGHHHHH. NOW I WAS IN TOO DEEP. CONTACT WAS MADE. I asked where her office was and the ticket hand-off was made quickly and painlessly.

OK look, for as much as it pained me to have an impromptu social engagement to attend instead of going home and begging Henry to take us to some far-flung amusement park, I knew that this was a cool opportunity for Chooch. He read “Perks…” over the summer in Korea, on buses and subways and planes, even at G-Dragon’s pension, and it’s what inspired him to want to start a book club at the Teen Center. I think he’s at that perfect age where certain books are resonating with him. And ever since we read The Outsiders last year (it was required reading), he’s always on the prowl for more coming-of-age books.

He really connected with Perks.

Henry dropped us off at the Carnegie Library. Chooch looked so cute and scholarly in his khakis and a nice shirt! He was READY for this. Henry had bought him a new edition of Perks and I bought him Chbosky’s new novel, “Imaginary Friend,” from a stand up at the front of the room. It’s approx. 500 more pages than Perks, so good luck with that, Chooch.

I wanted to sit somewhere in the back, but Chooch marched right over to the front of the damn place and chose the fifth row. He probably would have sat closer if he could have but the first three rows were mostly reserved for Stephen’s friends and family.

We had a good 30 minutes to relax and people-watch. The crowd was super diverse. Everyone from college students to the elderly turned out for this, and before long, the venue was full.

Oh yeah, it would be beneficial at some point to mention that Stephen Chbosky is from Pittsburgh, so this is even more special and meaningful. And the movie version of Perks was filmed here too. In fact, the Rocky Horror Picture Show scenes were filmed right down the street from my house at the Hollywood Theater.

I haven’t read the book (I started to when Chooch was sleeping on the plane to Tokyo) but I have seen the movie so I know the gist of it and can totally see why this book would mean so much to kids in the formative years. In fact, when I posted about this on Instagram that night, numerous people commented to say that book saved them in high school. How amazing that must feel to be the person responsible for writing something that made practically a whole generation of kids feel understood, seen, less alone. And now it’s being passed on to a brand new generation. Pretty amazing.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Stephen Chbosky. Would he be all navel-gaze-y? Drunk? Super awkward? Nope, he was outgoing, funny, honest, and full of energy. He was full of interesting and entertaining anecdotes, read a chapter from his new book (“I closed my eyes during that because I wanted to be able to visualize it better,” Chooch told me later), and then answered some questions from the crowd.

Chooch LOVED it. He hung on every word, laughed at all the jokes and stories, and applauded with a certain brand of sophisticated zeal like he was at the motherfucking opera. His attitude might be questionable at times, but this is my favorite Chooch-age so far. We can do things like this without him getting bored and antsy!

I thought it was nuts that this is his first book in 20 years, and I let imagining him in a dark room with one desk lamp and a bunch of empty whisky bottles on the floor around his slipper’d feet, but then when he was being introduced by some library woman, I was reminded that he’s also a screen writer and director, and yeah, he’s been busy between those two books, writing the screenplay for Rent and Beauty & the Beast (the movie) and directing Wonder.

There was a good discussion about inclusion of physical differences and LGBTQ representation in books and films, and he really seems to get it. It did get a little tense though when a girl in a wheelchair borderline attacked him for not using a boy with facial differences in his film Wonder, but he explained that they did try to find a candidate for the role, but only one child who fit the description applied and he just couldn’t do it so they had to go with a child actor and use prosthetics. The girl in the wheelchair compared this to a white person doing black face in a film instead of a black actor being hired. I think there is a fine line there, and I saw both points, but I didn’t think her comparison was fair. Stephen pointed out how incredibly difficult and mentally taxing it is for child actors and said that this particular boy, with no acting experience, was just unable to handle it. But that since then, Stephen has been working with an organization whose specific goal is to train and hone actors with all types of differences so that he can be sure there is broader representation in his future films.

What do you guys think about this? It was a very fragile, sensitive topic but really worth talking about and even though the girl who asked the question was combative and kind of rude, it really opened the floor up for a good discussion and I was glad that Chooch got to hear it and have something to think about.

After an hour or so of that, it was time to get in line for the book signing, which OF COURSE started on the opposite side from where we were sitting and literally our whole row was OLD PEOPLE and none of them were in a hurry to get up, so we had to go the long way to get to the end of the line and I thought Chooch’s head was going to explode.

He was SO PISSED. Especially because the four people next to us when a different way, cut in front of a bunch of people and somehow got in the front of the line while we were about 50 heads back.

The girl in the wheelchair reappeared with her friend and service dog and was EXTREMELY ANGRY that the line for the book signing was blocking the entrance to the wheelchair lift. The girl behind me was standing directly in front of it and exclaimed, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see it there!” and the girl in the wheelchair snapped something about “how could you not see it?” and then she got in the wheelchair lift with her dog and it just sat there for an excruciating amount of time and Chooch panicked and hit the “down” button a second time for her until it eventually began its snail-like descent. She made me so nervous!! I didn’t want her to yell at me!

Suddenly, Chooch said, “I can’t wait to get out of here and finish programming games on my calculator.” The ultimate dork, you guys. My son. God love him.

After about 45 minutes in line, we finally made it to the table. There was a couple in front of us and right after the guy had his book signed, one of the library people came over and stopped his girlfriend was moving up in line and then waved over an older couple from out of nowhere.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Chooch cried. “We literally just got Fast Passed. AGAIN.”

This always happens to us at amusement parks! Right when we think we’re next, the ride attendant is like, “Sorry guys” and then lets some dumb Fast Pass d-bag take the back row from under our noses.

I don’t know who these people were, but Chooch said that the lady was signing a CD or something for Stephen’s wife and then they took a selfie together, but it didn’t seem like Stephen knew them!?

Whatever. It was eventually Chooch’s turn and he was like FREAKING OUT. He shyly said, “This is my favorite book tied with The Outsiders.”

“Wow. I will TAKE that tie!” Stephen said happily, and Chooch’s face was so red. It was amazing. It’s not often I get to see the shy side of my kid, let me tell you. But meeting Stephen Chbosky definitely was an awe-inspiring moment for him and for a fleeting second I thought to myself, “MAYBE CHOOCH WILL WANT TO BE A WRITER” but oh god, I don’t want the poor kid to be tortured. I was a miserable, suicidal sack of insecurities when I used to fake-write. Now I just crap-blog and life is so much better! WOO!

Look at this. So cute. So presh. So there’s-something-in-my-eye. I’m glad I put my selfishness in my back pocket for once and indulged Chooch in something that mattered to him. I drag him to enough of my concerts! He’s earned this.

***********

Later that night, I was texting Janna and she said she’s never actually read “Perks” so I asked Chooch if she could borrow his copy.

“I mean I guess,” Chooch sighed. “But you should let her know that there are things called libraries.”

He’s such a dick.

You guys, we have finally reached the end of the Great Modern Odyssey that is Erin Kelly’s Korea Vacation Recaps. If you were bored, I apologize. If I drove you away, please come back. If you want me to just go back to Korea and shut up forever I WILL DO THAT FOR YOU GLADLY.

But anyway, this post will be about the morning of our last full day in South Korea, and what a morning it was! Waking up in G-Dragon’s Dolce Bita pension, drinking coffee (instant Maxim, boiiii) on a balcony overlooking a serene lake? This was pretty close to paradise for me.

I spotted G-Dragon’s dad, Mr. Kwon, outside so I ran back into the room and shook Chooch violently. “HE’S OUT THERE. WE HAVE TO GO FOR A WALK. ACT CASUAL.”

Acting casual.

I wanted a picture of my dumb self in front of the pension and thank God it was Chooch who was with me because Henry is the worst picture-taker. Chooch knows how to  take pictures of me that won’t make me want to cut my face off. Thanks, son. Sonny Boy. Pally Pal.

(I’m on my second cup of coffee this morning.)

On our way back to the pension, GD’s APPA was walking toward his car with a cup of coffee, and I was like, “OK BABY IT’S NOW OR NEVER” so after he said good morning to us, I blurted out, “WILL YOU TAKE A PICTURE WITH US!?”

He smiled, stepped back for effect, and, with a hand on his chest, said, “Oh, you know me?”

“Yes!” I laughed, and it was the cutest thing, Mr. Kwon feigning surprise that he’s secondhand famous. You know he’s done this a time or two though because he signaled for us to hold on, put his coffee in his car, and then led us over to what I imagine must be “the photo spot” considering we had already taken three pictures here during our stay!

He asked us where we’re from and said, “Ohhh!” when I told him we came all the way from the east coast of the US to stay here. #SuckUp

It took everything inside of me not to start blabbering about how much I love his son and what does he think about Seungri’s scandal and will BIGBANG survive that in addition to their military-forced hiatus and what are my chances with Jiyong I AM ONLY 9 YEARS OLDER THAN HIM DOES HE LIKE NOONAS?!

DEEP BREATHS, ERIN.

So, I initially only wanted to  get Chooch’s picture with him because I am OH SO SHY and also because Chooch is now collecting pictures of the BIGBANG dads.

But Mr. Kwon was like, “OK and now you” and summoned me over and I’m sorry but you don’t say no to a Kwon.

I couldn’t even force myself t o look cool and calm in  this – I thought my smile was going to split my face in half, I WAS SO GIDDY AND NERVOUS AND AWESTRUCK.

This man is half the reason why my #1 Korean artist (and honestly #2 of all time, right behind Robert Smith of The Cure) is on this earth. I know a lot of people think that Kpop is dumb or weird or whatever, and that’s fine (your loss!) but GD transcends Kpop. He is a FUCKING ARTIST in every sense. The guy was clearly born to be on stage, and he’s an artist off of it as well. His charisma is palpable, whether it’s in a concert or even just watching him on TV shows.

While Chooch was preparing to take the picture, Mr. Kwon told me he liked my tattoo! KILL ME DEAD!

So this happened, and I was having a FIT over it for days.

We thanked him profusely and then casually walked away like we didn’t just have a brush with the father of greatness and then once we rounded a corner, we ran back up to our room and screamed about it to Henry, who was still sleeping, lol.

By now, the Cafe was open so Henry finally finished getting dressed and we headed out.

The whole Cafe is stuffed to the gills with G-Dragon and BIGBANG memorabilia, including the actual piano from GD’s “Who You” music video.

Of course Chooch and I added our own messages to this wall! We didn’t even ask Henry if he wanted to add anything because he’s dumb and would probably mess it all  up.

Anyway, two other rooms were already in the Cafe – the extended family with the baby, and the Chinese Super VIP.

That baby was so freaking cute, though. His grandma kept trying to feed him but he was so interested in what Chooch and I were doing, so the grandma and I kept laughing together and I felt so connected in that moment! Language barriers were being torn down! It was such a beautiful time.

Henry pointed out that the Seungri doll is missing from the shelf up there and I felt sad, wondering if that was the Kwon’s way of showing their stance in the Seungri scandal (FYI nothing criminal has even been proven), but then Henry did some investigating and noticed that the doll stopped showing up in pictures way before the beginning of 2019 (when “the scandal” started) so maybe it was stolen or it broke!?

Anyway, the Cafe’s breakfast was self-serve which was fine because “self-serve” in our house means “Henry will serve.” So Chooch got us the easy stuff, like cereal and juice, and then shouted our egg and toast orders to Henry, who had to stand in the kitchen, slaving over a skillet, just like he was at home, haha.

It’s awesome being us.

While eating, we were entertained by BIGBANG videos playing on an overheard TV and it was next-level euphoria for me.

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(In that video, I love how Henry whips around while he’s cooking, like he can sense that I’m doing something sinister behind him,)

This table was great. I wish we had those in our conference rooms at work.

(I ATE BREAKFAST IN GD’S CAFE, OMGOMGOMG.)

I need a wall-sized portrait of GD in my house. Maybe on my bedroom ceiling!? HENRY CAN WE!?

This whole unit is the Crayon Room and rumor has it, Taeyang has stayed there as well other friends of GD! It was like $700 a night or something else that was quickly deemed Too Rich for our humble lifestyles.

Dolce Bita is so cool. I love the industrial-like facade against the lush Pocheon trees.

Almost time  to give back the VIP key. :(

One final picture of Chooch in the foyer of our VIP room before packing up our stuff and hitching a ride back to the Ildong bus station by Uncle Kwon. Before we got in the car, he said, “Something for you! Present from Jiyong!” and it was a signed picture of him! We currently have it framed, but I want to cover the mat in red velvet before hanging it and Henry keeps saying, “Sorry I haven’t had time to go to the velvet store” every time I’m like WHY ISN’T MY G-DRAGON PICTURE FINISHED?!

I mean, I ask so little.

Anyway, when we pulled up to the bus station, GD’s uncle motioned for us to follow him inside, where he proceeded to get the bus tickets for us so that we wouldn’t have to struggle. I cannot stress enough how accommodating and hospitable GD’s family is. Honestly, we were treated like real guests and not just written off as some weirdo fans from America, and it really meant a lot. I’m so glad that we had the chance to not only stay in this VIP haven, but also relax and really take the time to slow down and take it all in because this last full day in Korea was going to fucking FLY BY once we got back to Seoul. It was non-stop running, eating last minute favorite foods, buying up last minute presents, eating LAST MEALS, ugh.

Having finally gotten to the end of the recaps, I think my favorite thing about this return trip to Korea was that we got out of our comfort zone even more than before. Traveling without an organized tour group in foreign countries is no joke, and I think I can speak for all three of us when I say that we felt pretty accomplished. My love for Korea may have started accidentally with Kpop cardio as my gateway, but I have grown to love the entire country and its history and culture, so much that I want to see ALL of Korea. I’m not even close to being finished and I am probably maybe definitely already planning our next trip there.

If you’ve read all of this, thank you! And I am always super eager to talk about Korea so if you’re thinking about going and have any questions, PLEASE ASK ME.

Hey babes (???), I was sick from Thursday morning until, well, I’m still kinda sick (we’re at Slim-Fast-flavored cough phase) and basically my life is just wasting away because Henry was all YOU NEED TO REST and I really don’t know how to do that but I did try a little.

Apparently, if I had rested like real people and like, slept a lot, I might be better right now. That’s what Dr. Henry told me.

Here’s a sicko bullet point post because I feel like it’s been a while since we bulleted on through a blog post, right?

• This is a picture of me from earlier in the week when I was not sick and I wore my SMTown Museum badge as an accessory because I thought Key from SHINee looked nice next to my yellow shirt and I do what I want, boy.
• On Thursday, I started to watch Dead To Me on Netflix because I needed something in English since I was too sickly to worry about subtitles. I finished it on Saturday and that is how you know I’ve been sick because I am soooo not a binge-watcher, my friends. In good health, it would probably take me about a month to finish a season of a TV show. I love Christina Applegate.

• My pal Chris and his daughter Katelyn stopped by one night last week, pre-Plague, and dropped off three complimentary coupons for us to use this weekend at Castle Blood’s friends and family event! I felt so honored and grateful that we were being included in this, and I still can’t believe that I am now friends with the masterminds behind one of my favorite haunted houses of all time. I got a second wind after my late shift on Friday so we went out to the Castle and had one of the best times ever—this year’s theme IS SO GOOD and I will be posting about that separately sometime soon, but I am admittedly drowning in blog posts.
• Chooch just started watching The Good Place and got to the episode where Adam Scott and some of the Bad Place people visit and they’re all assholes who mock people and Chooch screamed, “THAT IS LITERALLY YOU!” to me, and I can’t deny it. I remember watching this episode and thinking that my life was being spied on because the Bad Place people is like the perfect television representation of how I verbally treat Henry everyday.

• I bought the scarf in Incheon’s Chinatown! That’s all.

• I saw this picture on the teen center’s IG and I started cracking up because when Chooch came home that day, I did a double take and asked, “Did you…get your haircut?” and he just casually was like, “Yeah” and then started talking about things and I cracked up because it’s so hilarious to me that he’s so independent and smart in so many ways but then he still asks us whose name goes on a card envelope- his or the recipient’s. Literally this just happened again two weeks ago. How is so smart but so dumb?! Maybe I should start making Common Sense quizzes for him.

• On Friday, I had to walk to the post office to mail some card orders because Henry didn’t care that I was sick, he still left them for me to handle, what a horrible business partner. Anyway, my favorite mail clerk Maureen was working. I used to not like her but I think that now that I’m getting older, I really see a lot of myself in her which is actually not a great thing but I kind of want to be a brash old lady when I grow up. On this particular day, there were two even older ladies in line in front of me and they both had questions about Xmas stamps and this just really set Maureen off to the point where she started complaining to me about them BEFORE THEY EVEN LEFT THE POST OFFICE! Also, it was only FIFTEEN MINUTES INTO HER SHIFT and she was already acting like an entire hornet’s nest was stuffed down her pants. God, I love her. She looked at me and said disgustedly, “You know, some days I drive to work and ask Mary to please let me see her son in the faces of my customers.” I ALMOST PEED MY PANTS. This lady hates her job so much but she is so accidentally hilarious in her cynical rants that I really think she should have a podcast or a YouTube channel because she is amazing. She likes me though because I always bring a scan sheet so she doesn’t have to stand there and scan all of my individual envelopes. Then she started bitching about how some kids were riding their bikes along the handicap ramp in front of the post office and she went out to tell them to stop and the one kid was like, “I KNOW HOW TO CONTROL MY BIKE” and she was like, “CLEARLY NO ONE HAS TAUGHT YOU TO RESPECT YOUR ELDERS SO WHY DON’T YOU STAND THERE AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT” and I was like OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD I hope it wasn’t my kid, but when I asked him about it, he said that he doesn’t ride his bike anywhere on that sidewalk because the guy at the bike place told him that curbs will ruin his handlebars or something but I wasn’t listening because I started picturing Chooch as a future Pee Wee going to Chuck’s Bike-o-Rama.

• Well, SuperM tickets went on sale yesterday at 10am and I was a BAG OF NERVES waiting in that fucking Ticketmaster queue. Oh god do I miss the old days when I went to tiny shows in clubs and could just buy a ticket at the door and still get in the front row if I wanted. Kpop is next level. It’s like 1980s NKOTB-level of ticket-acquiring insanity and I hate it so much. I kept looking at my FitBit and my heart rate at once point was 135, I am the most pathetic! Henry and I both logged in and counted down at the same time, and I managed to get in first and snag decent floor seats that were in my price-range. So on November 17th, I will finally be seeing LEE TAEMIN for the first time ever in Fairfax, Virginia and also I’m so FUCKING HAPPY THAT IT’S NOT NEWARK FOR GODDAMN ONCE!

Well, on that note, I’m still weak-ish and have nothing else to report since I only left the house twice since Wednesday. I have no idea what I even wrote in this stupid thing. Enjoy!!!

We had some time to grab lunch in Ildong before our ride was scheduled to get us from the bus station. Let me tell something about Ildong – you’re half-fucked if you don’t at least know how to read Korean, and it’s a ghost town on Sundays.

Luckily, I can read Korean.

Unfortunately, we were there on a Sunday, and finding an open restaurant was not easy. We eventually settled on a Korean-Chinese restaurant, which was pretty goddamn fantastic.

These noodles were SO GOOD. I was like, “Oh wow, I am not going to be able to eat this whole thing” as I skillfully sucked down every last noodle on that plate.

The young waiter was so friendly and didn’t get flustered with us even with the language barrier, and this was the first time I was brave enough to push the button on our table to summon him! (This is extremely common in restaurants in Korea, which is awesome because it means that the waitstaff will only come to you when you need something and they’re not constantly hovering and interrupting your conversations like the waitress did the entire time we were with Jason last weekend at George’s in Cleveland!)

We were all happy with our respective lunches (I think Chooch had the classic mapo tofu and was super Yeah Boi about it). Everyone there was so nice and thanked us for eating there, it made me feel so good!

Afterward, we walked around for a bit looking for a grocery store so we could take food to the pension with us. As I said before, nearly everything was closed in that town, and that sucked. We passed this same old man several times as we checked the backstreets for options, and finally he asked us if he could help. We basically communicated through Google translate and he was so happy to point us toward a convenience store across the street, which isn’t exactly what we wanted, but honestly Asian convenience stores are SO GOOD that you can get real quality stuff there.

Plus, he stood on the sidewalk and watched us to make sure we crossed the street and went to the right place, what a sweet, sweet man!

This makes me realize that I need to brush up on my direction-giving skills so I can actually help people too whenever I’m sought out for assistance downtown.

Anyway, our ride arrived around 3pm (oh, don’t worry – Chooch had JUST ENOUGH TIME to blow money in a claw machine arcade in the meantime). It wasn’t G-Dragon’s dad as I had hoped but another older man who actually kind of reminded me of a Korean Glenn?!

“GD’s music for going to GD’s pension,” he said, pushing play on the car stereo and straight-up blasting G-Dragon’s last solo album, Kwon Jiyong. It was SURREAL, GD’s “Bullshit” blaring, our driver laying on the horn and swerving past cars like this was the Autobahn and not some quiet Korean country road.

I was in the passenger seat, white-knuckling my seat belt and making up prayers in my head. It, um, really added to the experience. We found out later that it was GD’s uncle!!! The surreality just kept surging!

It was only about a 5 minute drive, and when the pension finally came into few from across the lake, my mind was BLOWN. I couldn’t believe that this was really real! It was really real for real for real!

Let me back up in case anyone is like, “the fuck is a G-Dragon’s pension?” Pensions in Korea are basically rental properties, like beach houses or whatever. Several years ago GD bought property along a beautiful lake in Pocheon, which is about an hour outside of Seoul. All of the rooms are themed after his solo songs and BIGBANG songs, and he gave the property to his parents to run. Staying there is a huge must-do for any BIGBANG fan.

I wanted to do this on our first trip to Korea, but he FAQs say that no guests under 19 are allowed. So thanks Chooch. But then when I was telling my friend Jiyong about this a few months ago, she took it upon herself to contact the pension and was told that a family with a thirteen year old was perfectly fine, so we happily made reservations!

Since it was my birthday (Henry was SO SICK of hearing this, lol) I decided to splurge and get the VIP room, which was two floors and came with a private mini-pool on the deck. VIP is the name of the BIGBANG fan group, in case you didn’t know.

I’m here to teach.

Call me Prof. ERK.

The best room you can get is the Crayon room which is rumored to be a room that GD has used to host his friends in the past so that was tempting but also kind of out of my price range. The VIP room is the second best so I was happy with it!

Anyway, I posted a bit while we were there, so I will now just run through some photos of the property that I took on the first day.

The VIP room was at the top of those steps and to the left. GD’s uncle took us up there and gave us a tour of the facilities.

The sitting area.

I read a review online that said there were too many pictures of G-Dragon around the property and only fans would like that. Well, I mean, that is the main draw of this place, so…

However, the other guests (with the exception of this one lady who was staying alone in the room next to ours and who I accidentally found on Instagram while I was scrolling through the pension’s geotag and discovered that she’s some Chinese mega-VIP who travels everywhere for BIGBANG concerts, exhibitions, fan meetings, etc and has like 50,000 followers on Instagram wth) all seemed like “regular” Korean people who were there for a weekend get-away, including an extended family with a baby, and several couples. I mean, it really is a nice area so I could see why people would go there even if they were GD super-fans. There are other pensions around too, like one right down the street from ours that had a waterfall effect on each porch so that was pretty cool, too.

This was on a shelf in our room.

I loved that the pension had such a modern, industrial feel to it. It just felt like GD’s style all around.

This was a little garden area behind our room.

Henry is such a great poser. I don’t know what these red figures are but they were cool and I want some in my front yard too.

Seriously, this place. I’m glad we planned this over-nighter at the end of the trip because the slowed-down pace was really needed. Our whole vacation so go-go-go that it was nice to be forced to relax and not have anything to do but take some strolls around the lake, read our books, listen to the Korean bugs at night, maybe get drunk on some soju.

Chooch didn’t want to go for a walk with us because I made him walk 4000 miles every day and besides, so he hung back and read a book. I was acutely aware of the fact that we could run into some crazy Korean-style wildlife out there and that was a bit scary. Did you know that there are wild boars in South Korea and they can KILL YOU?! Also, some super fucking alienesque hornets. I like nature until I start pondering the things that I might find in nature. Then I just want to go back to a city, any city.

But also, I kept imagining that maybe this was somewhere GD has taken a walk and that made me so excited! That I could be walking in his footsteps! I AM SO PATHETIC!

GD’s dog, Gaho!

I loved this painting of G-Dragon. <3

This is the bathroom on the main floor. I was creeped out that you could see through the door so I only used the one upstairs.

Our bedroom. STRIPES AND POLKA DOTS!

It was like a million degrees so we didn’t partake in the hot tub, but I bet this is amazing on a chilly night!

Of course I had to send a picture of GD’s loo to my friend Alyson, who is known to enjoy a good loo photo every now and then.  I’ll never forget way back when I was looking at the place where my baby shower was going to be held. The bathroom was pretty creepy and I begged Henry to let me text Alyson a picture of it and this is where you need to know that it was the year 2006 and it WAS EXPENSIVE (according to Henry) to text, let alone SEND PHOTOS. Oh, the data! But he understood that this was important and said it was fine, lol.

I mean, I would have done it anyway.

I had a really peaceful sleep. I never thought I was a lake person, but maybe I’m a lake person!?

I’ll be back to write about the next morning, which includes one of the greatest moments on the whole entire trip.

I am in tears right now! The Super M video dropped at midnight last night and I forced myself to stay awake even with a fever (Henry said I don’t have a fever but I have a fever), watched the live press conference beforehand, and then sobbed in my tuffet if Kleenex and blankets while I watched the video.

THE STRESS!

I love it–they’ve received so much hate from respective fandoms who want SM Entertainment to only focus on the main groups but I think this collective talent works so well together, it gives them something fresh to do. Taemin’s entire group is in the military so he’s alone, and some members of EXO have started enlisting too, and it gives some of the NCT guys an opportunity to collaborate with their sunbaes– what a dream that must be for them!

The other day, they announced their US tour and instead of feeling joy, I felt the dread coat my whole body because now I have to try and fight for tickets and this is my least favorite thing in the world that doesn’t involve bodily harm or death.

Henry is an efficient oppa.

I wanted to wait for my preordered album to arrive in the mail today but I couldn’t resist and listened to it on YouTube already haha. And I’m so happy that the entire Super M album isn’t in English, as rumored.

The songs being in Korean is like 75% of the reason I was drawn to Kpop in the first place!

OK, now I have to go and pass out and hopefully feel better before I have to log on to work at noon.

What a great day.

P.S. I think this one is my favorite so far:

I know this is going to be shocking, but we have officially made it to the last batch of Korea recaps! We just had dinner last weekend with our friend Jason and he asked, “How many times have you been there now? Wow, it seems like a lot more than just two times.” And Henry mumbled, “That’s because she is STILL blogging about it.”

SORRY FOR BEING THOROUGH!

Anyway, to those who haven’t abandoned ship out of sheer annoyance, today we will start talking about Sunday, August 4th, which was our second-to-the-last day in Korea and the last day that I have yet to record on this dumb site so that one day when I’m in the nursing home, Chooch can open up my blog in hologram-form and read these posts to me while some nurse spoon-feeds me pureed peas and orange Jello.

Green and orange is such a hideous color combo that I actually kind of like it.

This was our big Korea finale where we would be staying at G-Dragon’s pension, Dolce Bita, in Ildong. Ildong is about an hour or so north east of Seoul, in the country. We had to take a bus there, which required us going to a bus station that was pretty much Hangul or GTFO, so luckily my baby babble skill level was just enough for me to find Ildong on the departures list and buy the tickets (at first I pronounced “Ildong” like an American and the ticket lady was like “?” so then I had to say it over again with a heavy Korean annunciation and then she was like “Ah!” I love languages!!!)

Anyway, you can read about our bus ride here because I was live-blogging it.

We got off the bus in Ildong with a bunch of Korean army guys and milled about the bus station aimlessly (it was moreso just a bus stop, with a small ticket window nearby). Luckily, there was a taxi stop nearby so we grabbed one and had him take us to Pocheon Art Valley, which was really the only thing aside from some Herb Island thing that there is to do tourist-wise in that area. The reason I chose the Art Valley is because several dramas have been filmed there and it just looks so beautiful!

It took about 20 minutes to arrive by taxi, and Chooch and Henry were immediately like “this place is dumb” only they said it with their poor attitudes, not words!

Please also remember that it was like 100 degrees and we were far enough outside of Seoul where English was a rarity so we were kind of just stumbling around like lost puppies. We did manage to buy tickets for the monorail without making fools of ourselves at least.

As we ascended the steep incline, the monorail operator excitedly pointed to something out of one of the windows and everyone was like “Oooh! Ahhhh!” but of course, we couldn’t tell what it was. We still looked though!

Meanwhile, some old lady was sitting in  the first seat facing out and recorded the whole entire journey to the top and I was like, “Why though? Nothing is happening!”

Honestly, there is not too much information to provide aside from that it’s an old rock quarry that’s been converted into this beautiful nature-tastic retreat full of art sculptures, a planetarium, a concert site, a restaurant – I can see where this would be a very appealing day trip for older people but there were also a ton of photo zones which would cater to Generation Instagram too. We spent about two hours killing time there (we weren’t scheduled to get picked up for GD’s pension until 3) so here are some pictures.

This is the pièce de résistance, FO’ SHO. There is one drama in particular that was filmed here, called Legend of the Blue Sea, and I was SHOCKED when I found this out because it’s about a mermaid and those scenes make it look so ethereal and epic that it’s hard to believe it took place right here in some man-made lake-thing!

Chooch was like, “I didn’t watch that drama so why would I care?” and then he left to sit on a swing with some other Korean kids who I wanted him to become friends with.

LEE MINHO STOOD ON THIS BOAT IN LEGEND OF THE BLUE SEA! He is one of my favorite Korean actors (says, like, every k-drama watcher ever).

Top of the quarry.

One thing is for sure, we got a lot of exercise in Korea. We climbed a steep hill to get to this view point and it was so worth it…

…even if Chooch’s hair was sticking to his face in sweaty tendrils.

There really aren’t any bad views in Korea.

Korea is largely made of mountains and they are fucking beautiful.

I had the cold sweats and jelly-legs descending this spiral staircase. It was so scary.

Henry took “real” pictures of this place using the “real camera” but I am so lazy that I still haven’t even gone through and edited those plus Henry kind of sucks at taking pictures. SORRY HENRY BUT YOU DO!!

I bet this would be such a romantic spot to walk with a date at night. It was hard for me to imagine though since it’s been so long since I have been in any type of romantic situation OH HO HO HO thanks Henry.

Meanwhile, we realized that we lost Chooch, only to find him down yonder – he had spotted a Corgi and was straight-up stalking it, he’s so fucking embarrassing.

The Adventures of Dick & Dick.

I was concerned that Chooch missed this masculine landmark in his hurry to find the Corgi, but he showed me that later that he too had taken a picture of it. A good one for his school slideshow.

#art

I made Chooch halt his Corgi chase for this photo op. Apparently, the Corgi’s owners took its picture sitting here so Chooch started manically scrolling through the corgi hashtags on Instagram because, “all Corgis are Instagram-famous,” he reasoned.

Spoiler: he did not find this Corgi on Instagram.

Immediately after, he ran up that hill in hot pursuit of the Corgi, but the Corgi and its family were boarding the monorail—we only had one-way tickets though because the walk back to the parking lot was all downhill, so Chooch was very unhappy about this and tried to race the monorail back down.

I mumbled, “don’t fall,” and let him run off down the hill. Korea’s safe, no one was going to kidnap a sweaty American kid.

Look how cute the monorail is! Everything in Korea is cute!!

Chooch pretty much chucked my phone back at me after he took this because THE CORGI PEOPLE WERE GETTING OFF THE MONORAIL.

He goddamn walked next to them like a creepy Corgi-boo and had even looked up how to say “can I pet your dog” in Korean but lost his nerve. He gets so weird when it comes to Corgis, like me with guys in bands!

There goes the Corgi, not once bum-patted by Chooch.

Corgi probably would have been offended though because Chooch was wearing a Shiba Inu shirt. Aren’t they like rivals? Seems like they would be rivals.

Now that we were back at the parking lot, we started panicking about how to get back to the Ildong bus station, which was the designated pickup spot to get to the pension. Our options were to walk down to the main road outside of the Art Valley and pray that a bus came, or sit at the taxi stand in the parking lot and pray that a taxi came.

Then a taxi came!

But the taxi driver was actually off duty and actually there with his wife to enjoy a day at the Art Valley.

I was just about to find the nicest-looking person sitting in the nearby courtyard to ask them to call a taxi for us, when one actually pulled up and we all drop-rolled into it and proceeded to ride back to town in silence.

Pocheon Art Valley was nice but I wouldn’t recommend traveling outside of Seoul solely to visit this place unless you’re super into visiting filming locations or have a quarry fetish. If I could have a do-over, I think I would have opted to hang back in Seoul that day, and then take a bus to Ildong around 12:30, eat lunch in Ildong, and then go straight to pension. It would have saved us a bunch of $$$ in cab fare, that’s for sure!

If you’ve read this far into my DMZ recap, thank you, and also: congratulations, because you made it to the last one! The Joint Security Area was hands down the most exciting, exhilarating part of the entire tour. After leaving the Dora Observatory, we drove to a military checkpoint where we went through one last passport check by our new guide, a US soldier named “Gould” who I liked immediately because he had a wonderfully biting Bradley Walden-meets-Chris-Pratt personality that really helped to take off some of the edge. I was so anxious and nervous on the bus ride to the JSA that my ears were ringing and my face felt all flushed. I was fairly certain we were going to be safe….but, you just never know.

We had to wait for the “all clear” to take photos, at which point we were encouraged to snap away from the bus windows. Obviously not the greatest quality but hello, when will I ever be in this situation again? I have a ton of blurry pictures on my camera roll from this day and I will not delete them!

On our way to Panmunjom, we passed by the Unification Village, which is located inside the DMZ and only several hundred people live there. It’s under United Nations command so residents don’t have to pay South Korea taxes and are exempt from mandatory military service.

But they have a midnight curfew and are subject to military check-ins at their homes, so I’m not sure how great that trade off is, dot dot dot.

Gould told us that the reason the name tags of the US and ROK soldiers (KATUSAs) only include their surnames and no rank is to protect their identity in case DPRK soldiers look for them online and try to harass them on social media.

“I don’t care if they find me,” he said. “Bring it.”

INSTANT CRUSH.

On the bus, he also told us that the DMZ, since it’s largely uninhabited, has grown to be something of an accidental refuge for endangered species over the years. There are literally lions and tigers and bears that have migrated from Russia, just chillin’ up in the landmine-riddled demilitarized zone.

(Someone asked if the animals set off the landmines, which is the question Chooch and I both fearfully had on the tips of our tongues, but he assured us that the landmines are so old, he can’t imagine that any of the animals actually set them off. I guess there was a landmine clean-up project at some point, too. Ugh, it scares to me to think about things like that.)

We arrived at Camp Bonifas, the UN Command post at the JSA, received a security briefing and watched a short informational video in an auditorium, where I cried. Camp Bonifas was once known as Camp Kitty Hawk, but the name was changed in the 80s to honor one of the two victims of the Korean Axe Murder Incident of 1976, CPT Arthur Bonifas. The US soldiers were partaking in tree-cutting duties, when they were ambushed by North Korean soldiers who murdered them with their own axes.

This is a really interesting article about the incident, which I don’t remember ever learning about in school.

Afterward, our group and two other groups combined and split up onto two new coaches. I was happy when Officer Gould chose our bus! We made a short drive deeper into the military area (I don’t know much army terminology!) until we reached the JSA, where we watched the South Korean soldiers do their thing before going outside to take their posts.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3IgUt7Fhfg/

Once we walked through the doors, we were facing the iconic baby blue conference buildings which run right across the border, so meetings can take place between diplomats from each side on neutral ground, so to speak.

We were instructed to not make any contact with or gestures toward any North Korean soldier if we saw one, and were warned that they would be watching from the building back there.

It was chilling (even in the 100 degree heat) and wildly exciting to stand before these buildings that I’ve seen numerous times on the news (and Conan, lol).

Our fearless guide, Gould! He’s been stationed in South Korea for the past year and told us that he absolutely loves it, has had amazing times in Seoul, and said that the South Korean soldiers he’s worked with have been awesome and extremely funny, but I thought it was weird that he didn’t also mention how attractive they, but OK Gould. We all know.

Everyone was quiet. All you could hear was whispering among families and the shutter-clicks of cameras. I mean, that was North Korea right on the other side. I didn’t see any of their soldiers, but shit—anything could have happened!

I told Chooch he should write an essay about this for school and he was like, “Yeah ok but no.”

Honestly, I was impressed with how interested he actually seemed — it was a long day in the sweltering heat, but he handled it like an adult and didn’t bitch about being bored not even once. I was happy to be able to provide this educational experience for him but also extremely sad that this place even existed.

Gould took us inside one of the conference buildings and one of the Korean kids in our group asked when we got to cross over to the other side, and Gould was like, “THANKS FOR RUINING MY MOMENT” lol.

But yeah, the moment we all were anxiously anticipating – stepping over to the other side of that conference table where we would officially be standing in North Korea. Since there’s a current travel ban to North Korea, this is the closest us Americans can get at this time to saying that we crossed the border. I recently watched a video about an American girl who wanted to be the youngest person in the world to have traveled to every country in the world, and she had to take a JSA tour in order to cross off North Korea.

Here we are, fake-smiling and hissing for Henry to hurry up and take the damn picture.

The door behind us leads out to the other side. Officer Gould said anyone who chooses to exit through that door is 100% on their own and no longer under the protection of the US military.

I’m sure that door is locked (I hope?) but that’s still a really scary thought.

Officer Gould told us that he truthfully believes that the room we were standing in was going to become obsolete sooner rather than later and that people will be able to freely pass back and forth over the border. He explained that just from being there for the last year, right up against it, he has sensed a healthy level of optimism and communication between the two sides, and he fully believes that unification is going to become a reality.

Granted, the North started shooting off their missiles again right after this, so who knows! I want to have hope!

People from our tour – I loved them all so, so, so much even though I had next to no interaction with any of them. It was just good vibes all around, OK?!

This is the same bridge that South Korean President Moon and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un recently met for a peace talk:

Chooch and Henry need to sit down for a nice peace talk too, really.

This little tree back there was planted by Moon Jae-In and Kim Jong Un in 2018.

From this article:

A mixture of soil from mountains in each country was used for the roots. Kim poured water from a South Korean river over it, while Moon poured water from the Taedong River in North Korea (which also gives its name to the country’s beer). Next to the tree, a stone plaque bears the phrase “Peace and Prosperity Are Planted.

Image: Vietnam News

The Peace House, a neutral building where peace talks take place.

This is the spot where a South Korean officer was killed after a Soviet defector was chased down by the North Korean army into South Korean territory, inciting what became known as the 40 Minute Korean War.

On this somber note, the tour was wrapping up. Officer Gould took some time to answer questions for us and the guy with crutches asked if he was around when the North Korean soldier famously defected last year. Gould said that he was indeed stationed there at that time and even pointed out where it happened!

After this intimate Q&A session (this guy was such a great speaker and was so knowledgeable!), we got back on the bus and headed back to the parking lot outside of Camp Bonifas welcome center, where our original tour bus was waiting for us.

A closer view of the South Korean flag I mentioned in my last DMZ post.

We returned to the parking lot where our original bus was waiting, and Lee gave us time to use the restrooms, etc. Chooch and I sniffed around this beautiful peace bell for a bit and then freaked out when it began to ring, because we didn’t want to be accused of striking it, but then it turned out some decidedly non-hoodlum guy did it and we learned that there is a mallet there specifically so that anyone can ring the bell for, you know, peace. We were still too nervous to do it though!

And then we made the hour long trek back to Seoul. Lee advised us that because of the ongoing Japan-related protests, there might be traffic, but we managed to make it back by 6. I almost cried when we said goodbye to Lee and I blurted out that she was the best tour guide ever because I’m so weird when it comes to these fast-growing attachments that I get on strangers in travel settings.

****

I’m not much of a history buff or a war aficionado, but this whole experience had made me want to learn about the Korean War. Especially because I have grown to love the South Korean culture and people so much, I just think that learning more about the history of the two countries is important, especially when the United States played such a huge role in it.

If you are ever in South Korea, I highly, 100%, would book again, recommend you to take a tour of not just the DMZ, but the Joint Security Area. Make sure that the tour you’re booking includes the JSA! Not every DMZ tour does and I hear that a lot of people make that mistake and wind up like Pee Wee anxiously awaiting to see the basement.

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to come watch some war movies with me, hit me up.

****

P.S. I either lost my fucking DMZ magnet or left it on the bus, so how will I ever prove that I visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone?!

Today I was thinking about how I would like to decorate for Halloween at work, like the olden days, but I just don’t think I will have the time and that KILLS ME. I’ve only had the chance to do this 5x out of the 9 years I’ve been there, and I think my favorite was 2014: the year of the Funeral Parlor Desk. This one was fun because it enabled me to purchase items on eBay that some people might coin “morbid” or “gross” but for me, it was stuff that I wanted to have anyway, like vintage embalming fluid bottles, so it was a lucrative theme for me! Anyway, I’m sharing here the blog recap of the decoration process and the interactive portion of the desk too. It was fun but I remember being extremely frustrated when SOME PEOPLE wouldn’t play along. Like, you don’t want to win a prize? ARE YOU DUMB?!

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My theme this year is Funeral Parlor. I have several post-mortem photos that I keep on my desk year-round and I figured I would just build my Halloween theme around those this year. I’m still in the beginning stages, but so far, it’s really all up in Glenn’s face so that’s good!

Candy urn. I burnt paper to make ashes and luckily I didn’t burn the house down since I was home alone while playing with fire. You should have seen the disapproving look Marcy was giving me!

It’s been surprisingly difficult to get co-workers to take some candy maggots out of the urn.

Some light reading.

Today while Glenn was at lunch, I added some cobwebs to his desk too. “Wow. I was gone longer than I thought,” he dead-panned, and then I got all offended when he took it down.

“I had to! You taped it over my keyboard and mouse!” he said defensively. God, chill out, Glenn.

Ugh, that paper in the background is  going to be the death of me. It’s just scrapbook paper but I’m three pieces short of covering the whole cubicle wall and I’ve already been to three Pat Catan’s (craft store) in search of more. It’s perfect though because it has a velvet-texture. That bottle is one of several empty embalming fluid bottles.

“Oh….you’re decorating again,” my boss said last Friday, after doing a double-take. I couldn’t tell if she was excited or scared, or a mixture of both.

The next several stages are going to be really fun! I’m building up to the point where it will be interactive like the carnival desk of 2012. Glenn is just totally on the edge of his seat!

Today, I came up with an incredible idea that made me lose it at my desk. I confided in Mean Amber who said, “Wow. You’re a genius.”

“I know,” I said, but that came out all wrong.

What I meant to say was, “duh.”

*****
Things are heating up over at my desk/funeral parlor this week! (OK. Not really. I still have to lure people over by convincing them that I have Really Great Prizes under my desk.) The first week+ was more of just an exhibit of funeral shit. I was just getting my feet wet. My co-worker Colleen one day was like, “I mean, is this it?” and then apologized when my face fell and said, “No, it’s just that we all expect more!” And I understood. I gotcha.

So I came up with a way to make it interactive. Because who doesn’t like getting free shit? Even if it’s just dumb shit like candy and Glenn activity books. Basically, gross Glenn is robbing graves again and hiding severed fingers around the department. There are clues on the back of department-specific prayer cards (RIP Natalie’s Pizza Rolls that were stolen from the freezer) and anyone who finds a finger and returns it to Erin’s Funeral Parlor gets the aforementioned prizes! OMG!

Printer 39 had to have major surgery yesterday. :( It was real touch-and-go but he’s back and only jammed for me once today….although, I think I only printed to it once.

I know. It’s kind of dumb. But I just like making people happy!

Glenn actually laughed real laughter when he read about his latest dastardly deeds, and he has been excitedly telling people, “You have to get a prayer card to get a clue! Did you read the newspaper article? IT TIES EVERYTHING TOGETHER!”

OK, he only actually told one person this. But still! He seemed excited!

One of the prizes is The Great Glenn Activity Book. I was sitting here at work last Thursday when it hit me: GLENN COLORING BOOK. But then I was like, “No we need activities, too!” And then Mean Amber (new nickname in the works) said that a Where’s Glenn would make her really happy. ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE:

“It’s nice to know that my favorite band is Village People,” Glenn mumbled last week when he found the extra crossword puzzle I accidentally left on the printer.

The next phase was to bake funeral biscuits. Obviously here you will read between the lines and know that this means Henry baked the funeral biscuits. It was a Victorian tradition to give these gingersnap-esque cookies away at funerals. So basically what I’m saying here is that my Halloween theme is educational, OK?

They’re made with molasses and I’ve had to listen to Henry bitch for two days about how disgusting molasses is after he presumably chugged it straight from the bottle.

(Yes, I used food coloring markers, thank you for your concern!)

Some prizes!

Henry and I watched reruns of Dexter while packaging the cookies last night. Each one is individually-wrapped in a paper pouch, sealed with wax and wrapped with a black ribbon. Funeral biscuits don’t just get plopped naked on a tray! Respect.

My work-friends seemed pretty skeptical at first, but once they found out that Henry baked them, they were like, “Fine. We will eat one of your dumb cookies.” Everyone is still alive, you guys!

Of course The Shiny One got a skull and then made me take a picture of her before she went around gloating to people. Sandy got a skull-less cookie and immediately blamed Henry.

THAT WAX SEAL, THO.

Henry has been a pretty good sport about all of this. Even when we had to go out of our way on Sunday to get the dumb wax seal stamp. (My choices were a fleur de lis or wedding bells.) He’s been on the ball with the Great Glenn Activity Book one-man printing press.

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 “How much time did you spend on all of this?” Jeannie asked me in her typical “you need help” tone.

“I mean…let’s just say I haven’t been cleaning or washing the dishes lately,” I answered. I always joke that I have too much time on my hands, but the reality is that I don’t have enough. Not nearly! And I get so caught up in ridiculous ideas and projects that other things suffer.

“She hasn’t fed her kid in a week,” Glenn joked when someone was commenting on all of the details I’ve put in around my desk.

He’s not entirely wrong…

Hola. We’re currently driving back to Pittsburgh after a weekend in Sandusky, OH and a pit stop in Cleveland to see our pall-io Jason.

We’re listening to Samantha Fox, not that it’s any of your business, BUT THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING.

I’m bored, so here are some visual aids from some quaint place in Sandusky where we got ice cream yesterday after I threw a fit and stormed out of Cedar Point (haha that’s not really how it happened but ok it’s how it happened).

We arrived behind a family of 4 or 5 who were really making the process of ordering ice cream into something way too complicated and they had all kinds of questions and requests and then Mommy (that’s what these grown-ass women called their mother when she rolled up) arrived and wanted a banana split but she hates pineapples so they had to make sure they told the SUPER PATIENT guy at the counter this but then they joked that they should order her something with pineapple and bitch I wish they would have because Mommy did not look like the type to spare the rod (Jillian Michaels says that in one of her workouts which I do often and I always say it out loud with her so it was only a matter of time before I found a way to slip this in a blog post).

Anyway, normally my patience would have been done near depleted by a family like this but I had a good feeling about this place from the moment I saw it while we were at red light and I already had one shit fit that day, actually two because I was a REAL SWEETHEART before we left the house too mmkay, so I felt like I needed to stay and wait my turn like a big girl.

Turns out, on this day the establishment was donating all of their proceeds to St Jude’s and was letting the patrons pay what they wanted! God only knows what Complicated Order family paid but Henry hooked the place up because he reasoned that we would have paid that much or more had we got ice cream at Cedar Point so why not do a good thing.

I had butter pecan flavorburst because back home, the vegan ice creamery that I love had butter pecan and I don’t normally get homesick but seeing their weekend menu definitely gave me a bit of FOMO!

It’s amazing how much better a decent ice cream cone & a change of scenery can make a bitch feel, ya know?

Bonus information:

Afterward, Henry went to check into our “hotel” but when I saw it, I was all N-O-P-E in the style of the Village People.

So he pulled into a parking lot, canceled that piece of shit murder shack, and booked a normal “brand name” hotel and I was happy until I saw this monstrosity on the desk in our room:

When I declared that I was going to the front desk to remedy this fuck up, Henry was like, “OK but please be nice to the girl at the front desk. She’s really nice, she has friends from Pittsburgh” and he had very nervous eyeballs in this moment but apparently he wasn’t concerned enough to put his pants back on and take care of this himself.

“Yeah her name’s Emily and she’s nice!” Chooch chimes in. He ended up coming with me I guess to supervise.

Made the coffee exchange without verbal violence but when I came back to the room, I yelled, “EMILY IS REAL CUNT!”

Henry looked SO SCARED for what was about to come next but then I said “j/k. She was nice. She liked my nail polish.” And I caught Chooch’s reflection in the mirror swiping sweat from his brow.

Then we ordered pizza from some place called Cameo and when it was delivered I discovered that Henry ordered half with MUSHROOMS INSTEAD OF OLIVES WHEN EVERY LAST MOTHERFUCKER KNOWS THAT I LIKE MY PIZZA BLACK WITH OLIVES. Henry and Chooch held their breath, but I grabbed a piece and mumbled, “You’re lucky that these aren’t those slimy canned ones.”

I was having a real…day. Emotions were running high, you guys. But we ate pizza and then went back to Cedar Point which was fine until it wasn’t and then it was cool again until it wasn’t but then the night ended on a good note. It was a real… ROLLERCOASTER OF A DAY, #DadJokeDab

Then I realized that the toothbrush in the travel bag was from our guest house in Seoul and I started crying because I wished I was back in Korea and not brushing my teeth in OHIOOOOOsobsnifflehic.

If you ask Chooch what his favorite part of the day was, he will blurt out, “BIBIMBAP” with no haste. In fact, he said this was his favorite meal of the whole entire trip.

Before the bus even left Seoul, Lee walked down the aisle and inquired if anyone had any dietary restrictions. I thought for sure that Chooch and I would be Those Weird Americans but surprisingly there were others in our group who also were vegan/vegetarian!

Everyone was so stoked when Lee said we were on our way to lunch after leaving Imjingak – our brains were getting so much fact food that day but it was time for some real food too thanks. I was happy that we didn’t have to eat in one of the chains at Imjingak. Instead, we went to this small, tradition place in the country and it was legit. We even had to take our shoes off, which is how you know a Korean restaurant is going to be good.

(This actually might not have been proven so maybe don’t go updating any Wiki pages based on this.)

Lee had called ahead with our orders (bulgogi for everyone, bibimbap for us veg-heads) so all the tables were already set with our respective foods as soon as we arrived! THAT IS THE ULTIMATE SERVICE.

The Maybe-Italian family sat with us but we didn’t talk. Henry judged them by the amount of banchan (side dishes) they left untouched (almost all of it). Meanwhile, we were swatting each other with our chopsticks in the ultimate banchan war. (And by we I do mean Henry and me – Chooch still hasn’t acquired that taste for kimchi or really most other banchan either. MORE FOR ME.)

What a delicious lunch! Our bibimbap was so fresh, probably because all of the ingredients were grown right outside the restaurant it seemed. Chooch ate it without even chewing, it was so barbaric. And then he kept saying, “OH MY GOD” after every bite, while rolling his eyes back, and it was super uncomfortable to watch.

He still talks about this bibimbap like it’s the one that got away or something.

This is a tree outside of the restaurant. I think those are dates maybe?

THE POSSIBLY-ITALIANS and Chooch, looking at chickens outside of the restaurant.

On our way to Dora Observatory after lunch, we passed so many roadside Korean melon stands — these are the best melons! Henry buys them at the Asian markets here in Pittsburgh but I can only imagine how much more delicious they are in actual Korea, ugh.

We had to walk up this incredibly steep hill to get to the observatory. This one is better than the first one we went to because you can actually see North Korea from here.

That super-tall guy up and the lady behind him are the British people from our group, and the people on the left are the American Korean kids who I desperately wanted Chooch to talk to but he refused to pander to my dreams.

Here are some pictures I took from the top! It was extremely hot and hazy that day, but that’s North Korea.

Up until last April, you could apparently hear the sounds of Kpop That South Korea had blasting from loudspeakers into North Korea, which is wild. I heard that Bigbang’s BANG BANG BANG was one of the songs that they played!

Anyway, through the binoculars, we were able to see the propaganda village that North Korea refers to as the “Peace Village” but has long thought to be a facade controlled by the NK military.

In the throes of heat stroke, here.

From the observatory, we were also able to see the South Korean flagpole and North Korean flagpole which were erected in the 80s. SK put theirs up first and NK saw this an act of aggression, so they responded by erecting an even bigger flagpole, and it’s gone down in history as the Flagpole Wars. I mean, you kind of have to laugh at the strange ways these two countries have found to pester each other.

South Korea has even launched Choco Pie-filled balloons over the border.

Here are some pictures taken with the real camera and not my phone, wow halfway to profesh travel journalist here:

SK flag.

NK flag.

This is the South Korea side, but I really liked that cloud, so.

Chooch was at odds with some white broad who said something snarky about how all the binocular things were in use and when he turned around, she was apparently glaring at him even though he had JUST STARTED looking through the view finder like a second prior to this. Then he said he felt bad because he noticed she had a big hearing aid so he thought she was deaf or hearing impaired.

But then a few minutes later, he noticed that she was an entire group of people who had the thing on their ears and then realized it was some audio tour thing so he happily went back to hating her, guilt-free.

This auditorium was so beautiful!!

After our eyeballs got their fill of North Korean landscape, we went to another gift shop and I might have thrown a small fit here because I wanted to buy a bottle of North Korean wine and Henry was being a jerk about so then I was like THEN I DON’T WANT ANY ICE CREAM EITHER because wow, I really know how to hurt him…by depriving myself of a frozen treat.

He followed me onto the bus and was like WHAT IS WRONG and I was like NOTHING and then I WANTED THAT WINE so he was like OMG I WILL GO AND GET IT so he got off the bus and bought me a bottle of North Korean wine which who knows if it was really made in North Korea but the bottle says so and I will keep it forever and show everyone who comes into my house.

We gets these all the time at the Asian markets here in Pittsburgh but they certainly taste better in Korea, obviduh.

Henry bought this juice and became obsessed with it. I think I already mentioned this in my blog post from the bus to Pocheon, but I thought it tasted like a Squeez-It, so I obviously agreed with him that yes, this was some bomb-ass nectar, boy.

And then Lee got on the bus and announced that she was informed that we would indeed be granted access to the Joint Security Area, so that is where we headed next, and I swear to god, I had big time goosebumps on the way there.

DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNNNN….Final DMZ recap coming soon!

Continuing our DMZ deep dive, we left the Third Tunnel and our trusty bus brought us to Dorasan Station, which is a railway station found on the Gyeongui, that once connected the North and South. It’s about 700 yards from the border of the DMZ.

Here is our guide Lee (<3) giving us TRU FAX.

Trains still occasionally run here from Seoul, I think about 1-4 times a day, but it’s mostly for tourist purposes. This station is now largely symbolic for hopes of a reunification. If that happens, this could provide a reconnection between South Korea and the rest of the continent, as there have long been plans for this track to extend into Russia and beyond. 

Dorasan means Mt. Dora. I KNOW YOU DIDN’T ASK BUT I AM TELLING YOU.

Since it’s not used for high-volume commuting as planned, the inside of the station has preserved that sparkly new-new ambiance.

Someday, this train could run regularly to Pyeongyang, North Korea, and even beyond. I’ve talked about this with my friend Jiyong and she said that most Koreans do believe that this could be a reality someday. How incredible would that be? I hope that one day in the future, if I return to South Korea (lol, “if” yeah right I’ll be back in you soon, SK), this dream will be realized and my next visit to Dorasan Station will see it bustling with travelers.

For 1,000 Won (a little less than a buck), you can purchase a ticket to enter the platform. Of course Chooch and I both did this but Henry opted out because he needed to call G-Dragon’s pension to arrange our transportation and was super nervous about potentially talking to GD’s dad on the phone. (J/K, he wasn’t nervous about that, but he was having a hell of a time making the call from a non-Korean phone number. He actually wasn’t able to do it and had to wait until we got back to our hotel later that evening, and then it took him like 45 minutes to figure out how to dial after Googling “How do you call a Korean phone number” hahaha, lame-o.)

It was basically just the people from our tour who were out there, so we got to really stand there and take it all in with getting jostled by crowds of tourists. It made the experience feel more real and less of a tourist spot.

George W. Bush visited the DMZ in 2002 and gave a speech at Dorasan Station. 

There was a time when this image would have made me cringe, but it’s amazing how our current “leader” has dulled the negative opinions I’ve had on certain past presidents.

North Korea is thattaway, you guys.

I don’t know what would happen if you walked past that sign and just started walking, because no one was out there guarding it or anything. I tried to get Chooch to find out, but he said, “Nah I’m good.”

There’s a piece of the Berlin Wall on display here, which is HEAVY. (I mean, the history and symbolism are heavy, but yes, that piece of the wall is probably also very heavy.)

There was actually an industrial complex, like a factory, in North Korea, where South Koreans also worked, and freight trains would pass through Dorasan Station to take materials to Kaesong Industrial Complex, until the North accused the South of some confrontational something or other and closed off the border.

So it seems like, over the years, there have been little pockets of hope here and there but nothing that has been substantial enough to turn into a full reunification.

We left Dorasan and moved on to Imjingdak Park. You don’t need to be a part of an organized tour group in order to come here. You can just take a train or hop on a bus from Seoul and come out to this beautiful park to soak in the history….and maybe take a ride on the Super Viking…

Dude, Viking Ships are BELOVED in South Korea. In fact, I am strongly considering getting a viking ship charm for my charm bracelet instead of a tiny gold hanok or some other intrinsically Korean object.

Lee said she’s often asked why there would be an amusement park here, so close to the border, and her answer really resonated with me. She said that people still live there and contrary to popular belief, they don’t actually live in fear. Lee pointed out that if North Korea does intend to go full-blown nuclear one day, those missiles can reach freaking Alaska. 

Many families were pulled apart during the Korean conflict and those in the South are still trying desperately to be reunited with estranged family members. There was a TV show to help  these efforts and people wrote down their addresses and phone numbers to be posted here in Imjingdak.

This was so sad to see.

One of the Korean boys in our group was about to sit in one of those chairs for a picture until he realized that these were Korean Comfort Women monuments. He quickly changed his made after that! This was actually an underlying part of the protests happening in Seoul during the time we were there  – yes, trade wars, but also the fact that Koreans aren’t satisfied with Japan’s restitution for the forced labor they put upon Koreans during Japan’s colonization. That history is still pretty fresh, when you think about it, because many of those people who were affected are still alive, or are direct descendants of those who were brutally mistreated during Japan’s rule.

It’s so depressing.

I loved this beautiful, peaceful area.

Chooch bought that beaded bracelet on our DMZ Tour and then I wanted one too but then Henry was being a weirdo so I said FINE FORGET IT and he was all I DIDN’T SAY NO but he had that DAD LOOK on his face which means I DON’T WANT TO TAKE MY WALLET OUT AGAIN. I think this was the only real conflict we had that day, to be honest.

You can see the observatory in the background. This building also had a Korean restaurant and…I think there was a Popeye’s?! Lunch was actually included on this tour and I appreciated that it wasn’t in this touristy cesspool of chain restaurants!

People write messages to their families in North Korea on these ribbons.

For as somber as the history is, this place actually had an upbeat vibe to it. Some kind of Korean YMCA song was blasted on repeat:

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…and there were people cheering on bikers as they raced through the area:

“Fighting” is a term Koreans regularly use to show support and encouragement, like how we’d say, “You can do it!” or “I’m rooting for you!” in English. It was actually one of the first Korean words/phrases I learned three years ago!

Imjingak has an observatory which allows for better views of the desolate Freedom Bridge, and also here is a nice view of Henry’s Trapper Keeper couture.

The Freedom Bridge is also known as the Bridge of No Return. After the 1953 Korean War armistice, there was an exchange of POWs on this bridge. The name was derived from the fact that the prisoners of war voluntarily in favor of choosing North Korea were unable to return to South Korea for good. After the murder of two US soldiers in 1976, it was shutdown. I’ll get to that murder in the JSA portion of this series of blog posts.

Then we were nearly the last people to make it back to the bus and I was filled with that old, familiar panic that I used to get on all of those old Globus vacations where my aunt would be busy bartering in a jewelry shop while everyone else was back on the bus and the tour guide was standing in the parking lot tapping her watch.

But thank god for that old man on crutches because he and his wife were the actual last ones on the bus every single time. Bless up.

STAY TUNED OR GET…PRUNED…?

I need to take a break from my regular postings and share the new Twice song because I think it’s something that WE ALL NEED IN OUR LIVES RIGHT NOW. What I love so much about this song and video is that, when you just listen to the song (or, read the English translation in most of our cases, lol), you’d assume this about a significant other/partner/spouse/crush, etc. But then when you watch the MV, you realize that no, it’s about FRIENDS.

Many of the members of Twice have been publicly going through some hard times lately and I really like that JYP gave them this opportunity to express that artistically. Also, one of the members (Mina) has been recently diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and instead of being all “the show must go on” and forcing her back into the spotlight, JYP made an official announcement over the summer that Mina would be taking time off and even with this recent comeback, she’s in the video and on the album, but has decided to sit the promotions out. Thank you, JYP, for putting the mental and emotional well-being of one of your artists over the business. I can only hope that it sets a precedent for more of the agencies to follow. (You know, SM?)

Janna and I just had a conversation not too long ago about how lucky we are to fit into someone else’s circle/life, and it’s so true. I have very few good, close friends and that used to kind of bother me; but really, the friends that I do have are high quality and low drama. So I’m OK with not having a veritable Rolodex of casual contacts, if we’re being honest here. The people who make time for me are the real ones.

All you need is one loyal friend. One supportive family member. One sympathetic Internet friend. One kind co-worker.

To feel special.

And I really hope that everyone reading this has that one person. Life is hard enough. <3

Aside from my weekly meet-up with Jiyong (she forced me to speak Korean and it was chaos), Saturday was pretty low key, but Sunday was the perfect Autumn Eve…even if it was 87 degrees that day.

One of the flavors at Sugar Spell Scoops for the weekend was Iced Pumpkin Loaf and Chooch was like WE HAVE TO GO. I was interested in that, but also Dunkaroos which is the flavor that Chooch got the first time we went to Sugar Spell and I had major remorse for not ordering it.

Janna wanted to go with us and then also, at some point over the weekend, Chooch asked if we could go to a haunted house also, and I was like, “BOY WHAT A DUMB QUESTION.”

I mean, of COURSE we can go to a haunted house!

But first, ice cream.

I indulged and had TWO SCOOPS. And thank god I did because that Iced Pumpkin Loaf was out of this world good.

I imagined it was just going to taste like pumpkin pie ice cream, but it ACTUALLY had the same flavor profile (lol I’m professional now) as an actual pumpkin loaf, the rolled kind with the cream cheese icing in the middle? YES, THAT.

And the ice cream even had a soft icing glaze in it, which completely elevated it to another level. You can see the glaze in my photo!

And the Dunkaroos was Halloween edition (“Oh, it just means we put Halloween sprinkles in it,” the totally awesome brains behind the freeze said when Chooch asked her what the difference was between that and the regular Dunkaroos flavor) was so delicious, and for lack of a better word: FUN. It really tastes just like Dunkaroos which makes me yearn for my lunch boxes of yesteryear (although my mom went through a heavy phase where she made me salami sandwiches every day and the lunch boxes during that era became so permeated with that stinky, greasy meat stink that they were unsalveagable).

(I had one super awesome lunch box that was also a radio and everyone was jealous of it.)

Janna wanted the sundae of the day but ordered it wrong and ended up with a scoop of the 3x Chocolate with marshmallows. She was pouting about that for a bit and I was like, “Why don’t you just go back up and explain that you actually wanted the sundae. I’m sure she can just dump it into a bigger bowl, add the toppings, and charge you the difference.” I don’t know what Janna did but she came back with her scoop dressed with sprinkles and chocolate syrup, which still wasn’t what the sundae was supposed to be, but she seemed content with this so I didn’t pressure her further.

I JUST WANT EVERYONE TO GET THE ICE CREAM OF THEIR DREAMS BECAUSE I KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE HEARTBROKEN AT THE ICE CREAM SHOP.

Anyway, Janna the Carnivore was like I Can’t Believe This Is Vegan so you’re welcome, Sugar Spell, for bringing you a new cult follower.

(Honestly, I can’t give this place enough accolades. Not only is the shop a real stunner, but the owners are so down-to-earth and happy to please, and, most importantly, the ice cream is exceptionally wonderful! I have had some bad vegan ice cream before, but this stuff is like YEAH BOIIII.)

While we were there, “Eye in the Sky” by Alan Parsons Project came on and I had a Real Moment. That song is a huge part of my life and I was eating ice cream that reminded me of elementary school — the only thing that could have made it any better would have been if it was Saturday morning and I was sitting in my Pappap’s den eating my ice cream while watching cartoons.

Yeah, I was really feeling some things.

After this, we went to Freddy’s Haunts in Aliquippa. Now, I haven’t gone to this place in probably 5 years or so, because the last several times were just “meh.” But this used to be in my annual haunt rotation for years and when I saw that it was open on Sundays, I figured I’d give it another chance. Besides, Chooch had never been to this one yet!

It was still light out when we arrived, so we hung out around the bonfire (which wasn’t necessary since it was still like 80 degrees) and Chooch was happy because there were two dogs hanging out.

Chooch needed the dog to be in the background.

Some older man who reminded me of if Glenn was dressed like a scarecrow came over and sat near me and started telling me that they were trying something new this year with the bonfire, and that they were just waiting for it to get a bit darker before opening, and that “his guy” was in there inspecting it right now, etc etc. Then he told me the name of the two dogs out there, and also the names of four other dogs, but he kept forgetting the names and so that took segment of the conversation took some time.

Anyway, barely anyone was there but I kept getting anxious because no one was standing in line and I needed to make sure that people who came after us weren’t going to go in first and I promise you, no one gave a shit about this, but I was shaking with I HAVE TO BE FIRST jitters.

There are a lot of things I hate about myself, but this is probably at the top somewhere near my all-consuming body dysmorphia and inability to snap my fingers.

Everytime someone came out of the building, I would start to stand up, ready to sprint over to the entrance, but then they would go back inside. I can’t help it!!

Meanwhile, the DJ was playing a bizarre mix of N’Sync deep cuts, country, and 90s R&B. Michael Jackson’s “Jam” came on at one point and I got so nostalgic, like Dunkaroos all over again, because that song brings back memories of This One Time when I was probably 14 or 15 and my brother Ryan and I were out with my mom, who needed to stop at the grocery store (Giant Eagle) before going home. Our German Shepherd, Rama, was with us so Ryan and I stayed in my mom’s Explorer with him, when suddenly!! “Jam” came on the radio and Ryan became possessed by the need to dance so he got out of the car and started writhing maniacally in the middle of the parking lot, while scream-singing along and I, already giddy, started laughing even harder and then Rama was barking wildly because people were walking by the car with their carts and basically it was pandemonium, or “just another day with the Kellys” if you ask any of my friends from back then (like Janna – she can tell you some stories!). So all of this chaos is happening – car radio blasting, my 10-year-old brother dancing in a grocery store parking lot at night, the dog woofing – and I finally crossed the threshold and peed my pants. Like, really peed them. And then there was nothing I could do but wait for my mom to come out from the store and take us home while I sat in my warm pee.

I texted Ryan that moment to see if he remembered and he said: The old giant eagle where best buy is right lol idk why but i still remember that too.

YESSSSS.

And so I shared this story with Janna and Chooch and then Janna started talking about a stabbing, which really killed the mood.

But then finally someone came out and opened the gate – I think they should have also rang a dinner bell to let us know for sure it was time, but I guess the act of opening the gate was enough. We were going to be nice and let this one family go in first because they were there before us, but the mom was like, “You guys can go ahead of us, we don’t want to go in first!” and the angels sang on high.

After we bought our tickets, we wound our way around to the actual entrance of the haunt and Scarecrow Glenn was there waiting for us. He started telling us some insider info about what was going on behind the scenes and I blurted out ARE YOU FREDDY and you guys guess what it was Freddy! After all these years, I finally met Freddy!

As you may know, I keep a separate paper journal for my haunted house recaps because I am Le Loser, but I will say that Freddy’s redeemed itself on this September night in 2019 and that my favorite part was when I had enough of Chooch acting like a bad ass and constantly making me go first because he thought I should “face my fears,” so I said, “OK tough guy, you go first for a while then!” and then when he yelled, “FINE! I’M NOT SCARED!” and started to walk ahead of us, I swung my arm out to hold Janna back and we stood there, watching him walk down this path alone, mouthing off the entire way (I fucking swear to god, that child never stops yapping), when a girl came out from the side and made him scream like a little baby—it was SO PERFECT. Especially when he realized he was alone, haha.

My throat hurt from screaming my face off and laughing which, you know, are the symptoms of a REALLY GREAT HAUNT.

Henry had a great night too because he got to be all alone in a quiet house watching whatever boring shit he has in his Netflix queue.