Archive for the 'travel' Category
Santa Clausin’
Before I get into the real reason we were in Santa Claus, Indiana, I want to talk about the delightful time we spent at the Santa Claus Museum before departing for Pittsburgh yesterday morning.
Yes, the museum was open on Sundays, much to Henry’s dismay!
I thought it was pretty strange that a random town in Indiana was named after Santa, but luckily, I learned immediately at the museum that it was originally called Santa Fee, but when it was time to, I don’t know, do something postal-related, I can’t remember now (I’m the worst at museum-ing!), they realized that there was a town called Santa Fe also in Indiana (WHICH SANTA FE CAME FIRST!? Who has time to google, not me — I want to get through this blog post and finish watching the Taemin Off-Sick concert!! HE WEARS A SWEATER VEST WITH NOTHING UNDER IT DURING ONE SONG, AND HIS PANTS HAVE SUSPENDERS AND HE HAS SOME WEIRD SWEATER COOZY ON HIS ONE FOREARM – ONLY LEE TAEMIN CAN MAKE THIS DORK-STYLE SIZZLE).
Anyway, back to the Sante Fee vs. Santa Fe debacle. There was a town hall meeting to come up with a new name and during that meeting, a strong gust of wind blew the door open and some child-broad yelled, “SANTA CLAUS?!” So that’s how that happened.
A likely story.
But first, we had to snoop around this creepy Santa statue which is allegedly the oldest in the world but then I also read that it’s the only tribute statue to Santa, so…It was still very cool! When we were walking over to it, we saw an older couple that was standing in line in front of us for our first ride on the Voyage at Holiday World the day before!
SPOILER ALERT: We were in Santa Claus for an amusement park.
Such secrets.
(It wasn’t a secret. But we almost didn’t go so I was trying to refrain from being all FOUR MORE DAYS UNTIL HOLIDAY WORLD except at work. Those poor people had to hear about it a lot. The new admin lady is learning so much about me whether she wants to or not.)
‘Sup Santa.
So the museum was actually a museum for the TOWN and not Santa in general, which was fine. I appreciate learning the history of a quaint little town every now and then.
I love that they keep old letters to Santa on display.
LIKE THIS ONE.
One of my favorites was from some polite bitch who was like I don’t want anything for Xmas but peace and whatnot and then she conveniently left a PS:
But then the one below it, OUCH MY STUPID HEART.
Chooch was diligently working to piece together this puzzle which ended up missing a bunch of edge pieces and he was in a fit of extreme outrage over this but before the rage happened, some super annoying midwest family came in and the young daughter screamed, “MAMA IS THAT REALLY SANTA” while peering at pictures of some old town Santa in a cabinet. Chooch spun around so fast with the most disgusted look on his face and I was like OH GOD IS HE GOING TO END THIS BITCH’S CHILDHOOD RIGHT NOW but then he turned back around and focused all of his energy on that stupid puzzle that I would have had pieced together in like two minutes, but let’s not make this a competition.
Then the mom was hovering while I was reading the letters to Santa so I stepped aside and she swooped in and started taking pictures of every single one.
The other appealing thing about this town is that some dude back in the day was like, “I have a lot of money so I’m going to retired and build Santa Claus Land” and that’s what he did but then it was only mildly successful and something happened, I can’t remember, and now it’s Holiday World.
OH! There was a wall in the hallway that had a bunch of framed celebrities’ headshots with signed dollar bills in each one and it turns out that some townie back in the 80s decided to write to famous people and ask for their autographed pictures and they included a dollar to also be signed and these celebrities like Johnny Carson and Danny DeVito actually complied?! I thought only soap opera actors did that shit.
Chooch was like, “I DON’T KNOW WHO ANY OF THESE PEOPLE ARE” so I pointed to Charlton Heston and started mouthing off about the NRA and Henry gave me the NOT HERE, NOT NOW moustache bristle so then I mumbled, “He was Moses.”
GUYS, IF I WRITE TO G-DRAGON IN THE MILITARY AND INCLUDE A 1000 WON BILL, HE WILL SIGN IT AND SEND ME A GLORIOUS PHOTO OF HIS PERFECT FACE.
THEN WE WENT TO THE FAKE POST OFFICE.
AND CHOOCH WROTE A LETTER TO SANTA.
(Even though the lady in the museum didn’t ask him if he had written his letter yet, but she practically pounced on the kids in the annoying family about it because they were younger OK #AGEISM.)
This fucker really asked Santa for V-Bucks. I RUE THE DAY FORTNIGHT CAME INTO OUR LIVES. I literally start to shake when he starts begging and whining for V-Bucks. He wanted this “special” they were having the other day and then told me it was TWENTY-FIVE REAL DOLLARS to get a bunch of FAKE DOLLARS to buy FAKE GOODS for his VIDEO GAME CHARACTER?! Um, no. This is the dumbest thing ever, Santa don’t you dare get him V-Bucks.
Get me a gift certificate for Choice Music.
Then the annoying family came in and took over so I was like OK LET’S WRAP THIS UP because I just couldn’t handle the mom with her neon pink Loony Toons shirt and fanny pack.
I don’t know if it was actually Loony Toons but it was neon pink and something a mom would wear in the early nineties and I needed to get away from her.
(Ironically, I was wearing a Hypercolor shirt BUT IT WAS FOR THE BAND HANDS LIKE HOUSES so don’t lump me in. Don’t you fucking dare do it.)
This old-ass creepy church was also on the property so we poked around.
Oh god, it smelled SO OLD in there, and I felt like I was for sure inhaling asbestos and ancient sins. I can’t believe they let people go in there. The floorboards were whack in some spots and I felt like rafters could have started falling in on us at any moment and not just because we heathens yo.
The museum was free but there was a suggested donation of $5 for families so I made Henry cough it up and then I only signed Chooch’s and my name in the guest book, hahahahaha.
Afterward, we went down the street to Santa’s Candy Castle which I mentioned in my liveblog (DID YOU READ IT?! I can’t remember what I wrote but it was probably not important). This was originally part of Santa Claus Land – oh hey, the candy castle’s website has a history page! Here, just read this.
I just love shit like this. I didn’t even want any candy, I just wanted to see the building. But then I saw that they sold salt water taffy so I bought a bag for work just to be a dick because everyone goes to the beach and brings back legit salt water taffy. WELL HERE’S A SACK OF TAFFY FROM SANTA CLAUS, INDIANA!
Glenn was not impressed.
Overall, Santa Claus, Indiana is a quirky little town and even though I couldn’t imagine living there, it was a fun little road trip and I hope that one day Chooch will be like, “KIDS WE’RE GOING TO SANTA CLAUS” and his partner will be like, “WTF WHY.”
No commentsLeaving Holiday World: Updates in Real Time
Guys, our trip to Holiday World was everything I wanted it to be and more but we will get to that another day.
Right now, we just checked out of our OK hotel (I booked it and it was way better than the sex shack Henry holed us up in in Newark) but it was hard to leave because we had inadvertently become invested in a movie on the Hallmark Channel (Bridal Wave, lol). I mean, I can guess how it ends but STILL.
So now it’s 8:43am and we’re on our way to the Santa Claus Museum, because we are in Santa Claus, IN after all.
We just drove past a house surrounded by corn fields that had a ROOMS FOR RENT sign and now I wish we had stayed there. Also, I just told Henry I’m Live-blogging and he flipped me off.
8:52am:
Obligatory.
9:42am: We just left the Santa Claus Museum and Santa’s Candy Castle and both were worth the pit stop in case you were considering driving past with no regrets.
Oldest Santa statue in the world!
I think I will post about the museum separately because I have a lot of pictures and there was a family there that I hated.
But Santa’s Candy was legit. It smelled wonderful and the employees were so nice! The guy who rang us up reminded me of Hank from Breaking Bad. He just kind of looked like him, OK?!
We bought a small bag of Krispie Kreme Jelly Bellys there and I only ate like 10 of them and feel so fucking sick.
11:26am: TIME JUMPED AHEAD I GUESS. Stupid time zones. We just stopped at a Pilot and it destroyed my good mood because I hate gross gas stations and this one was awful and the “coffee station” was dilapidated and there were flies all over it SO THAT WAS A SOLID NOPE.
REMINDER THAT I HAVE NOT HAD ANY COFFEE TODAY.
11:40am:
Me: I could NOT live in Indiana.
Henry: That’s obvious. Places are limited where you could live.
But seriously WHERE ARE ALL THE CAFES. I have to get coffee at MCDONALD’S.
Chooch just screamed, “Peach ice cream!” because we just passed some barn-shaped grocery store with a huge peach ice cream sign so now I’m mocking him and screaming PEACH ICE CREAM is my new brand. Also, if you think Henry didn’t just completely overcomplicate an order of one small coffee with cream and sweetener, then do you even know Henry? That was the most awkward McDonald’s drive-thru ordering I’ve witnessed in a long time.
Also I only ordered a small because if I find a better place I AM STOPPING.
Or – telling Henry to stop.
12:08pm: Driving through Louisville and I just can’t stop feeling disgusted that they have some sports arena called the KFC Yum! Center.
12:20pm: Henry just made some off-hand comment about how the time hasn’t changed yet and I started screaming about how that there time done BEEN changed for A WHILE now and he would know that if HE READ MY LIVE BLOG.
12:50pm: Oh I forgot – when we stopped at Pilot, there was a RED CARPET INN across the street so Chooch and I were dry-heaving. And then inside Pilot, an announcement came on that SHOWER #4 WAS READY and Chooch was all “ew people take showers here?!” And we had to explain to him that Truck Driver Life but then I added, “If I was staying at that Red Carpet Inn, I’d rather take showers here” and Chooch almost puked from laughing so hard and then the cashier asked Henry if he needed a bag and he said NO because he thought we were still standing there and would help him carry the stuff but of course we had already walked outside and he came out to the parking lot with an armful of items and started bitching at us for bailing like this was so unexpected.
2:31pm: WHY DO RESTAURANTS CLOSE AFTER LUNCH. Every fucking place I’ve found on Yelp for this shitty area outside of Cincinnati closes at 2 or 3 so now I guess we are going to Hyde’s which is fine but I have eaten here before and I wanted to try something different! Ugh! I AM HUNGRY THO SO SOMEONE JUST STUFF A GRILLED CHEESE IN MY FAT FACE ALREADY.
Also I have chocolate stains all over my shirt and shorts from the dumb protein bar I ate for breakfast. Ugh.
2:48pm: We’re at Hyde’s and I came so close to sitting at a booth with OLIVER NORTH.
GAG!! (In case you don’t know, I HATE OLIVER NORTH.)
Also, Chooch beat me and submitted the Hyde’s help wanted sign to Job Spotter and got 97 points for it! THAT’S NINETY SEVEN CENTS!!
Well, Henry and I just had a mild disagreement over the Cole slaw here (I think it’s too sweet, he thinks it’s just right) and for some reason, Chooch thought this was SO HILARIOUS that he spewed a mouthful of iced tea all over the booth and Henry was like GOODBYE and left us lol.
Update: Henry’s back. He was just hiding in the bathroom. The only guy that was sitting near us got up and left.
I just had to send Chooch outside to take deep breaths and now he’s making friends with a gaggle or elder-broads.
Now he’s back and blaming Henry for making him crack up and he really just said, “I’m just trying to live a normal life.”
3:00pm: Waitress just asked me “Do you want more coffee ma’am” and I’m like yeah but I also need you to stop calling me ma’am.
I just wistfully said, “Ugh now I want to watch Short Circuit” and Henry asked why. “Um, because of this SONG?!”
(Bee Gee’s More Than a Woman is playing right now.)
Why does he never KNOW.
3:25pm: Some broad just said she wanted two slices of coconut pie to go so the waitress repeated “Ok 2 coconuts to go” so Henry scoffed and said, “I have two coconuts to go” and gestured at Chooch and me. WOW FUNNY GUY.
3:43pm: I got mad at Chooch and told him he can go get reborn elsewhere and I don’t even know that that means but it felt like the ULTIMATE SLAM at the time.
3:54pm: Here in Henry’s Mecca, aka Jungle Jim’s:
4:57pm: Just left Jungle Jim’s and Henry has that fresh-from-the-market glow. I like it there to a point but then I remember that I’m surrounded by assholes and getting rammed into with shopping carts and I’m over it. Especially when some kids were like “Mom look, exotic KitKats! Are they real?!” And Mom came over with her resting bitch fest and said, “Ew I don’t know.
Those are WEIRD” and of course she was super skinny and had that quintessential short soccer mom hair
YOU’RE weird, Mom!
They had cherimoya which I begged for because if you didn’t know that is my FAVORITE fruit but Henry was like, “NOT FOR $10 A PIECE!” Ugh. I did get a sapote though which I haven’t had since my friend Kevin sent me one five or six years ago and I have dreamt of them ever since!
5:53pm: Just stopped at another Pilot. I went into the bathroom and the only available stall had a bunch of poop in it so I said NOPE I’LL WAIT FOR ANOTHER and then a girl came in and was like “There a mess in there?” And I said “Yes it’s pretty gross” so we stood there silently for about 30 seconds listening to someone pee in the taken stall, and then the girl said, “Like is it just not flushed?” And I said “I mean I didn’t really inspect it. I just saw a ton of poop and left” so she went in, lifted up her leg AND FLUSHED IT WITH HER FOOT. She had on flip flops! It could have flipped and flopped into the muddy commode!
Anyway, it flushed and she was like THERE U GO and I muttered thanks and then reluctantly went in even though I didn’t want to use that stall and furthermore I didn’t even really have to pee that bad!!
Oh, the crisis.
Back out in the store, Henry and Chooch filled me on their own bathroom story about the guy who may or not have been living in one of the stalls and another stall was playing rap music. When I told Henry my story and got to the part about the girl using her flip flopped foot to flush, he said, “I saw a guy come out of the bathroom in bare feet yesterday” and I scanned my brain to play back all the places we were at yesterday and I screamed, “EW AT HOLIDAY WORLD?!”
That park had some very questionable clientele.
Chooch got the Giordano’s Deep Dish limited edition Lays and it doesn’t taste like it at all and now the car smells kind of like puke because of it.
7:00pm: Current Sitch – Henry is not speaking to me because I snapped at him for not immediately knowing what I was talking about when I mentioned the Log Jammer’s spillway.
7:36pm: HENRY JUST TOLD ME TO CALM DOWN BECAUSE I AM FURIOUS WITH THE SHEETZ APP RIGHT NOW. OH I’M SORRY, AM I BEING TOO MUCH “EMOTIONAL WOMAN” FOR YOU RIGHT NOW?
8:24pm: I finally ate my coveted, signature Sheetz veggie wrap so I feel better now however Henry started “thinking out loud” about whether Ruby Tuesday’s still has their lettuce wedge salad and I snapped out and yelled SHUT UP NO ONE CARES.
Also, we managed to lose not one but TWO of the three reusable straws we brought with us so I feel pretty defeated because we didn’t just throw them out by accident but we literally LITTERED. There was a hole in the stupid Journeys drawstring bag we had with us at Holiday World ugh.
Also x2 one of my relatives was mocking those of us concerned with the environment and sardonically promised not to use straws and I am just so fucking sick of conservative cabbagefucks acting like it’s so cool to be environmentally deviant. You’re right, let’s all just dump buckets of oil into the nearest body of water for funsies and show the world who owns it. Rah rah rah.
Also x3 before I fed my face, I snapped out on Chooch because I am SO SICK OF HIM ASKING FOR V-BUCKS FOR THAT STUPID FORTNITE GAME and I yelled about how I’m not spending $25 for some in-game purchase that won’t even yield something tangible that he can hold in his hand but is only just some virtual accessory for his stupid character and school starts on Friday and we haven’t even bought him new shoes yet so NO I’M NOT FUNNELING MY HARD-EARNED MONEY INTO THE MAW OF A FUCKING VIDEO GAME. And wow did I ever feel like a REAL MOM after that rant.
8:56pm: Two of my friends announced that they’re going to be moms and it was so nice to see GOOD NEWS today – I’m so happy for them!
9:24pm: WELCOME TO PENNSYLVANIA. Oh thank god.
9:47pm: Chooch was just on the phone with his neighbor-pal who is extremely geographically challenged. “I wasn’t in CHICAGO, Jayden! No that’s in ILLINOIS. I was in INDIANA!” On the way there Friday night, he was like, “No Jayden I’m not there yet. No, I’m not coming home tonight! BECAUSE IT TAKES 7 HOURS TO GET THERE, WHY WOULD I COME HOME THE SAME NIGHT?
!” He gets so aggravated talking to him haha.
10:58pm: Hi friends I have been home since 10:15 and I am ready to crash and dream about the incredible coasters we rode at Holiday World – Chooch and I are obsessed! I would include Henry in that statement but he’s a bitch and only rode ONE OF THEM, ONCE. He’s so disappointing.
No commentsQ: What to do in Newark on a Sunday?
A: Leave Newark, lol.
Honestly though, we decided to skip out on day two of the convention portion of KCON based on how clustery it was the day prior. It was like 90 degrees that day too and I could only think of several things less appealing than being in a crowded parking lot with thousands of people. (Also, we learned after the fact that this year’s KCON had nearly doubled in attendance from last year’s; thanks BTS…?)
Henry found some place for breakfast called Maple Leaf Diner, and it definitely wasn’t in Newark. It was in a town called Maplewood so you can already picture how adorable it was. Chooch gave him directions there since he was hoarding Henry’s phone for Pokemon reasons, and that was hilarious because Henry HATES not being in charge of directions. We had to drive through some really nice and upscale areas to get to this place, and it was a nice change from the bail shop-lined streets and boarded-up windows near our “hotel.”
I had a breakfast wrap and a fruit cup that was…actually good. I was anticipating a cracked-cup with like, 4 grapes and two slivers of hard and flavorless cantaloupe, but no! It was a grand variety of pineapples and melons and berries. Chooch got chocolate chip pancakes and couldn’t finish so Henry and I grudgingly helped him.
(The pancakes were good too and I am such a Persnickety Pancaker.)
I don’t know what Henry got.
Meat.
The street that Maple Leaf was on definitely looked like some place I’d frequent if I lived in the area: lots of cute little boutiques and casual restaurants, almost had a seaside-vibe to it.
We had briefly considered going back to NYC for the day but all I kept thinking about was something going awry and us not making it back in time for the concert that night. I was too nervous and superstitious to chance it, and we figured we could always just visit again when we’re back in Newark for the BTS concert in September. That being decided, I whipped open my trusty Roadside America app and, after Henry vetoed 85 of my suggestions, we settled on the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ because they have a large Guinness-owned music box exhibit.
And you peeps know how much me loves me music boxes! (Sorry, I just got done doing Lucky Charms commercial porn voice-overs for me my side gig.)
But first, we had some time kill before the museum opened so we drove out to Staten State Park so I could see the Statue of Liberty but from a SAFE DISTANCE because I’m terrified of her.
Don’t ask, OK? This isn’t a motherfucking AMA.
(LOL j/k. Please ask me anything you want, anytime! I am starving for interaction.)
Who knew some park in NJ would have such a great view? Anyone with a basic knowledge of maps and geography. Duh.
The first picture I took, Chooch was flipping off Lady Liberty and I was like, “Chooch! It’s not her fault, it’s Trump’s!” and he was like, “Oh yeah” and then admitted that I was starting to make him feel scared of the Statue of Liberty too. THE BEST MOM.
For as sweltering as it was that day, it really was nice to take a leisurely stroll next to whatever that water is. Chooch and I ganged up on Henry as usual and I almost peed my pants, so that was cool.
Seriously, though! HARROWING. Even as a kid, I never had any desire to visit her. Can you still go inside her?! Henry said he didn’t think so, but I unsubscribed from the Statue of Liberty newsletter back in the 90s so I’m way out of the loop.
I can’t remember if I already posted these but it’s me and my fam and we don’t take many group pics so deal with it.
\
Chooch is That Guy who wears last year’s festival shirt to this year’s festival. I was going to make some kind of uppity Coachella comparison but then I remembered that no one wears COTTON T-SHIRTS to Coachella. They’re all made of FOIL and BANANALEAVES.
Right?
(To be fair, when I went to Coachella in 2004, those stupid ruffle skirts that Paris Hilton always wore back then that were super popular so almost every girl was wearing one of those and like, a bikini top and Uggs. I can’t even remember what I wore because: rage blackout. But it definitely wasn’t that.)
After getting our fill of The Great Outdoors, we headed some other direction* to Morristown.
*(LOOK THIS ISN’T THE MAPQUEST BLOG OK.)
I received a Pro Tip from the Roadside America app: everyday at 2PM, there is a LIVE DEMO in the music box and animaton gallery, so we planned our arrival around this.
Admission was very reasonable. $10 for us adults and $7 for Chooch. After I gave her my clearly-not-NJ zip code, the girl at the desk asked me where I heard of the museum.
“Roadside America,” I said over top of the melancholy melody of Henry’s sigh.
“Oh!” she said, “that’s cool.” She seemed moderately intrigued by this but also kind of sad that I didn’t say, like, Mr. Roger’s or something.
Anyway, please enjoy some glimpses inside the Morris, which out to be an extremely worthwhile visit!
Chooch and I are obsessed with Burger art now. And not just for the nudity!
LOL @ Henry pretending like he cares about art. I wonder if he ever did any fingerpaintings for his mom when he was in THE SERVICE?! I just called him in the room to ask him and he walked away without answering so the clear answer here is NO HE MADE MACARONI ART.
When the museum has it all.
We headed over to the Guinness exhibition about 30 minutes before the live presentation was slated to start and I was immediately enraptured. My grandparents’ house was full of music boxes of all sorts — none of the super elaborate ones, but they had a nice collection of inlaid music boxes from Sorrento and Zurich; it was one of the many things they liked to collect. Not to mention the more traditional one in the Clown Room that played Send in the Clowns, natch.
This particular collection was donated by the estate of Murtogh Guinness—yes, of THAT Guinness family. He developed a love for music boxes of all types at an early age, after his mom gave him one as a gift. (OMG what types of things is Chooch going to start hoarding?!) He also collected automaton, moving mechanical devices made in imitation of a human being. Right up my alley!
Oh, to have this in my house!
There were several parts of the exhibit that were interactive and hands-on, so Chooch and Henry were busy.
This one was my favorite!!
Anyway, the curator started the presentation precisely at 2 and it was wonderful. He was extremely knowledgeable and even if I didn’t have any prior interest to things of this nature, I think I still would have been captivated. I mean, even Henry seemed like was paying attention and not looking at his Pinterest app.
Chooch kind of zoned out but he’s 12 and he sucks, so.
I wanted to talk to to the curator afterward to see if he’s ever been to the Bayernhof, but one of the guys in the small group that had gathered for the show (THERE’S ALWAYS ONE) was glued to his side afterward, yakking his ear off about calliopes so I eventually gave up. Thanks, Guy.
Chooch was happy because he got to use a hole puncher and make a song.
Before we left, we went into the basement, where you can view part of an additional 700+ items left by Mr. Guinness. That’s a double-stuffed nightmare for some people, but I was like licking the glass.
No I wasn’t, that’s unsanitary.
Highly recommend this place if you’re ever in the area! Just try to plan to be there at 2 for the free show!
Afterward, we were going to get ice cream but the place Chooch chose (because there was a Pokemon there or something) was in a super sketchy area (because it was close to our “hotel” lol), really dark inside, and definitely a front so we pocketed the ice cream idea for later.
AND THAT WAS THE FIRST HALF OF OUR SUNDAY IN NOT-NEWARK.
3 commentsNYC in Photos
If you read that trainwreck of a liveblog from last week, you know that we had some free time last Friday and actually got our shit together in enough time to take the train from Newark to Penn Station. We’re getting a little better at these things. I mean, we’re still bumbling tourists, but we got on a train heading in the right direction, so that was cool, and we all ended up sitting separately which served as a perfectly-timed reprieve after spending all day in the car together. BYYYYEEEE BITCHES.
For an entire 30 minutes, anyway. Sigh.
Chooch of course made friends with the people he sat with. I did NOT make friends with the guy next to me. I’m not sure where Henry was sitting and never bothered asking him how his ride was because, Henry.
Aside from going to Central Park so Chooch could catch idiotic Pokemon and then running into Super Junior (!!!!), we mostly just walked around and looked at things, flipped off Trump Tower, sang the NO YOU AREN’T GETTING ANY DESIGNER CLOTHING song to Chooch while walking down Fifth Avenue, and had a highly anticipated food-related hunger blow-out. So basically, it was the Oh Honestlys in [insert literally any city, ever].
Because we’re in the middle of a heat wave and I have spent way too much outside, my brain is goo so I’m just going to post a shit ton of photos I took with my phone and call it a day*, because I already reported all the exciting things. The rest was just us literally walking and walking and walking like we do in cities. Let’s just say that even after spending 7 hours in the car that day, I still managed to get 23,000 steps.
*(I just finished writing this whole thing and came back up here to say, “lol, nice try Erin, this piece of shit post is still over 1,100 words.”)
Here’s Chooch, as close as he’s gonna get to Hamilton. (He’s obsessed with Hamilton, I mean, who isn’t, I guess). This was right before we saw Super Junior! The same sidewalk!!!
Chooch in Times Square. I thought he would be overwhelmed, but he was like, “Well, we were in Seoul, so….” #SeoulFTW #SorryNYC
I just kept taking pictures. That’s what you’re supposed to do there, right?
I always hear that Times Square often plays kpop stuff on the screens there but I didn’t notice anything on this particular day.
Those Minnie Mouses back there next to the texting Statue of Liberty were actually old ladies. Henry was obsessed with them.
Every time Chooch saw an adult shop, lingerie store, or anything relating to women, he would scream, “OH, HE LOOKED!” and Henry was just like, “FUNNY HOW YOU’RE THE ONE WHO ALWAYS SEES THESE THINGS FIRST, THOUGH” and it is pretty funny, actually. What a fun game! Anyway, Chooch nearly fell into a garbage can in his urgent attempt to catch Henry looking at the giant Aerie ads up there.
We had fun telling Chooch he couldn’t go in the Lego store, lol. That place is like the equivalent of a hardware store to me.
Obligatory pictures.
OMG we were dying over Henry squatting to tie his shoe because it brought back memories of him squatting down in front of my pink backpack in Busan Station, so we were in tears and Henry was like, “IT’S NOT FUNNY*” as he pushed past us. Chooch and I have so much fun together at Henry’s expense.
*(Honestly, it’s definitely not that funny to anyone else but Chooch and me, like the time Janna hit her head getting off the train at Kennywood and I had to run to the bathroom while I was trying to tell Barb about it the next day at work because I thought I was going to pee my pants. I guess I was just born with extra funny bones. #birthdefect)
This was taken while some guy was yelling, “THERE’S A FUCKIN’ FENCE THERE!!” when his wife suggested walking a certain way and just in case you think I’m being all subtle here because it was actually me and Henry, let me remind you that I AM NOT HIS WIFE NOR WILL I EVER BE because I’m holding out for a hero Korean.
Another great “Overheard in NYC” convo was when we were waiting to cross the street and some broad was scream-talking into her cell phone about some guy who’s engaged to a girl “AND EVERYONE KNOWS HE’S GAY” and I wanted to hear more about this but the light changed.
KOREATOWN!! Of course we had to go to Koreatown. Unfortunately, it was reaching prime time on a Friday night and every restaurant had a long wait.
<3 G-Dragon <3
You would never see anything like this in stupid backward Pittsburgh.
Anyway, around this time, Chooch and I were reaching the Hunger Apex and it was Big Trouble In Little Korea for real, trying to find a place on a Friday night that was family friendly, and then Henry was like, “HERE LET’S EAT AT THIS PIZZA PLACE THAT’S SMALLER THAN OUR KITCHEN AND POTENTIALLY HAS ROACHES” and I was like, “You can go fuck yourself, Hank” and then it was all, “THEN LET’S JUST GO BACK TO NEWARK, THIS IS FUCKED!!!” and Chooch was like, “YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M SO HUNGRY THAT I ATE MY HUNGER AND NOW I’M NOT HUNGRY ANYMORE, THANKS FOR BEING SHITTY PARENTS” but then right before Henry had a chance to make good on his bluff of going back into Penn Station, I looked on Yelp and found some pizza place around the corner called NY Pizza Suprema and was like, “IT’S HERE OR A VENDING MACHINE, MOTHERFUCKERS” and since I picked it, it ended up being some award-winning joint that Anthony Bourdain (rip) has visited.
But we had no idea about that until after we sat down with our pizza.
It thankfully wasn’t too crowded, though it definitely wasn’t quiet, so we were able to quickly order and appease the hunger demons.
The one on the left is vegan (lol, I eat cheese, but I wanted to see if it was any good and it actually was super fucking good) and the one on the right was Hot Honey, which was fucking fantastic and oh, how I wish I had an entire pie in front of me right now. It literally had some local hot honey drizzled on top of hearty clumps of ricotta and the best specks of mushrooms I’ve ever had on a pizza. It was just what I didn’t know I needed.
There’s a picture of Anthony Bourdain hanging up there. :(
Chooch and Henry both got sicilian slices and I’m happy to report that everyone was extremely satisfied and we were magically transformed back into a happy family. Thank you, NY Pizza Suprema.
Henry, earlier that day: “We can go if we get to Newark early enough because I don’t want to be in NYC at night.” Lol ok.
And then we got back on the train to Broad Station. We all got to sit together this time, which was fine I guess since we were on speaking terms again. It was fun watching all of the weirdos trying to interact with people.
Then we went back to our “hotel,” which was even BETTER AT NIGHT, you can probably imagine. What a great town Newark is.
No commentsSuper Random Super Junior
Picture it: New York City, 2018. It was a whirlwind day of driving to Newark from Pittsburgh, which should have only taken about 6 hours but when does it ever work out that way, you know?
We had tossed around the idea of possibly taking the train into NYC from Newark if we got in early enough because honestly what the hell is there to possibly do in Newark on a Friday night that’s family friendly? I mean I’m sure there is something but I didn’t care enough to look because I wanted to take a train somewhere lol.
#kidgoals
The LiveBlog from Friday already told you that we did indeed make it into Newark early enough for a quick foray into NYC to be worthwhile. It only cost about $20 for round trip tickets for the three of us so that was a delightful surprise.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I will have a post just for that portion of the evening but today I am here to talk about the happiest of all accidents.
We were just casually strolling down a street toward Times Square, Chooch rambling on about how we’re so mean for not trying to get him a ticket to Hamilton, me trying to avoid falling into potholes or puddles of puke (I almost always walk with my head down because I’m so clumsy), when Henry clamped his meat-hand down on my shoulder and said, “LOOK.”
I was annoyed for a second and bristled visibly at being man-handled, but then my tune changed drastically as my eyes finally focused on what Henry saw.
FREAKING KPOP ICONS SUPER JUNIOR.
Real quick, a condensed history to give you some perspective on how cool this was: Super Junior is one of the biggest Kpop groups in the world. They’re one of the SM Entertainment godfathers, debuting back in 2005 and they’ve been heavily credited for helping spread the Hallyu Wave. From wiki:
Super Junior have earned thirteen music awards from the Mnet Asian Music Awards, sixteen from the Golden Disc Awards, and are the second singing group to win Favorite Artist Korea at the 2008 MTV Asia Awards after jtL in 2003.[4] In 2012, they were nominated for “Best Asian Act” in MTV Europe Music Awards.[5] In 2015, they won the “International Artist” and “Best Fandom” in the Teen Choice Awards.[6]
They currently have seven members in their lineup, but one of them (Heechul, my favorite) doesn’t perform with them anymore due to health issues, but he does appear on a ton of variety shows and he’s awesome. I think two members are currently in the military, 2 are inactive, and two other original members have permanently left the group. It’s really hard to keep up if you’re not a super fan (or an ELF, which is what their fandom is called. Duh.).
So yeah, back to this surreptitious run-in with SUJU!
The first one I saw was Siwon, looking totally unapproachable and regal in his black suit. I started trembling immediately and just kept murmuring, “Oh my god, holy shit” over and over, because OMG HOLY SHIT SUPER JUNIOR IS STANDING ON THE SIDEWALK IN FRONT OF ME AND THERE IS NO BARRICADE SEPARATING US.
Honestly, this is what I wanted to happen when we were strolling about Toronto last summer before the G-Dragon concert but I think I thought about it too hard and it broke the Fate Fairy’s wand.
In the striped shirt over there is Eunhyuk WHO JUST FILMED A DANCING REALITY SHOW WITH ..:::TAEMIN:::.. IN LA, UGHHHHH. And the guy in the suit with his back toward to the camera is the most handsomest one, Donghae. I didn’t even notice him until moments later when he took off his jacket and speed-walked past me, taking my BREATH WITH HIM.
Also, I guess I don’t feel too creepy salivating over these guys because they’re all in their 30s like me and not questionably underage like some of the boy groups out there, lol.
The girl in the yellow pants is Leslie Grace, who sings on Lo Siento with them. I never heard of her, but she is apparently an American tropical singer. She made a special appearance the next night at KCON to perform Lo Siento with them and it was really exciting! I figured they would probably just have one of the girls from Red Velvet fill her spot.
Ugh this dumb broad had the worst photobombing timing ever — this was the best photo I could get of Donghae and he is seriously the best handsome one, in my opinion. I already thought so (ask Henry, he’ll roll his eyes) but good Lord seeing him that close, as he walked past me, it made my knees buckle. What a perfectly gorgeous man, it’s almost unfair.
I replayed this moment over and over again in my head.
Here’s a picture of his whole face so you can see his flawless visage:
Since this was America, the throng of fans was pretty scant, with us being the only non-Asians. But we all kept a respectful distance. One young Asian girl had this huge-ass paparazzi camera though so that was pretty funny.
Look at all the people walking by, oblivious to their proximity to Korean greatness!
Here is the portion of the event where my hands were shaking so bad that I slid my camera options to square format. The guy over there in the yellow on the left, you see the sliver of him holding the birthday gift bag? That’s the leader of SUJU, LeeTeuk. I unfortunately didn’t notice him at the time, so this is the best picture I could get.
I also missed Yesung, which sucks because he is so fucking adorable.
HOWEVER!!!
I did manage to work up the courage to ask Shindong, who was standing alone at the moment, for a picture and he was so nice to us! I wasn’t sure if this was breaking any rules or what, because I didn’t notice any of the other gawkers and oglers asking for pictures, but I saw the opportunity and had to pounce on the now-or-never moment. If he was talking to someone, I wouldn’t have asked. But he was just chilling there, so I took a deep breath and just went for it and he was so nice! “Picture? Sure!” he said and I was like, “Is this is a dream.
”
I pushed Chooch over there because he is my proxy when it comes to posing with celebs, monuments, landmarks, statues, Welcome to [State] signs….But look at Chooch’s face! Even he knows how unexpectedly magical this moment was! Shindong was so nice and I stupidly said thank you to him in English instead of Korean because my brain was causing my motor functions to run backward at that time and honestly, I’m lucky I was even able to say it in English and not some make-believe Alien jibberish. Also, I didn’t drop my phone either, which is a miracle because my hands were shaking so badly. I couldn’t get my nervous system to shut the fuck up for a good solid three hours after this happened, and I just kept saying over and over, “I can’t believe we saw Super Junior. I can’t believe Shindong put his hand on Chooch’s shoulder.” And then it was “SHINDONG PUT HIS HAND ON CHOOCH’S SHOULDER. SHINDOG IS FRIENDS WITH TAEMIN. SHINDONG HAS PROBABLY DEFINITELY TOUCHED TAEMIN 100S OF TIMES. CHOOCH LET ME RUB MY FACE ON YOUR SHOULDER” and you can guess how well that went over.
Also, before I close this chapter, can we just talk about how adorable it is that Henry is the one who recognized them first? Henry unabashedly loves Super Junior though and I think he was honestly a little sad that he wasn’t going to the concert the next night.
Here is their recent music video for Lo Siento with Leslie Grace, in case anyone cares.
2 comments
Gold Pizza & Noraebang: Chooch’s Big Fun Time Korea Farewell 4/1/18
Can you tell that I’ve been supremely dragging my feet with these posts? I know it’s annoying to everyone else that I have approx. 87 posts about a 10-day trip and that we’ve been home for over two months and I still haven’t closed the book on it, but you have to remember that I’m the girl who can stretch Warped Tour into 6 blog posts plus a gratuitous Henry Interview Extravaganza.
And I’m not even sponsored!
So on that note, here is what we did for the rest of our final full day in Seoul, holy shit I didn’t expect to start crying as I typed that, yet here we are.
For the last night, we finally gave in to Chooch’s desire for SUPER KOREAN FUN TIMES, which involved pizza (specifically, “gold” pizza, more on that in a bit) and noraebang, which is Korean karaoke (literally translates to ‘song room’). Let’s be real, you can’t go to South Korea and not partake in some noraebang because it is a super popular pastime of native Koreans. There are noraebangs everywhere, on nearly every street, in alleys, in every neighborhood and district.
But first he had to suffer through last minute souvenir shopping in Insadong, haha. What every 12-year-old boy wants!
This was when Henry abandoned us in Insadong because he wanted to exchange more money and Chooch somehow inherited two balloons from some people promoting the Alive Museum and then some older Korean man came over and tried to pretend-steal one from Chooch and even with a language barrier, we all managed to have a great big international laugh and these are the heart-warming things that happens when Henry abandons us.
The plan after Insadong was to walk back to the hotel, where Henry would meet us later with pizza procured from a place that Chooch had zeroed in on the day before when we were walking to the palaces. We figured we’d just eat in our room and then set off to Myeongdong for noraebang.
But then Henry came back and was like, “DON’T GET TOO EXCITED” because the pizza was just REGULAR, not GOLD. Apparently, the menu that Chooch saw was for a pizza place that was there previously and now this new one had a different menu which was all in Hangeul and hey you guys, I spent many months leading up to this trip trying to get Henry to learn how to at least read it and he was all, “I DON’T NEED NO HANGEUL.”
Yeah, until you do!
Anyway, Henry felt obligated to buy a pizza from this joint because he had already frustrated the guy working there enough I guess, and it was great pizza, you guys! It really was. But it was extremely similar to American pizza and it was not want we wanted. We wanted that Korean flair.
So we decided to venture on out to the Cheonggyecheon Stream where we saw a place called Mr. Pizza on our second night in Seoul.
But first! We got no further than across the street from the hotel before I realized I left my subway card in the room so Henry obediently went back inside to get it. For some reason, like we need a reason, Chooch and I were nearly peeing our pants in anticipation of seeing our hotel room light turn on, I don’t know why this was such a crucial comedic moment for us, but then it never happened because Henry was all, “I didn’t need to turn it on.” Whatever. At least Chooch nabbed this frameable picture of Henry on his way back to us:
I can only imagine what Chooch and I looked like to passers by, as our raucous laughter caused us to fall into each other like drunks.
This reminds me that I never talked about (lol, like this is a talk show) how we accidentally got lost from Henry the night before on our way to Hongdae. We were walking to one of the Jongno subway stations when Chooch and I stopped to look at jewelry in a store window. I thought dumb Henry knew we stopped but he kept walking and by the time we looked up from the window, WE WERE ABANDONED.
This was like the theme of Korea now that I think about it.
Anyway, we were mildly panicked because there were two subway stations near us and weren’t sure which one he was going to, so we chose the closest one and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And eventually, this happened:
He didn’t realize we weren’t with him anymore until he turned around to hand us our subway cards.
“You couldn’t tell that you didn’t hear us laughing anymore?” I asked.
“No, because I block that out,” Henry mumbled.
Random alley picture because I don’t even want to forget those narrow Korean alleys that pop off once the sun sets.
When we got to Cheongyecheon, we were excited to see that another night market was going on! It was so tempting to just pig out on all the food vendors there, but we had a fucking pizza to scratch off the Korea bucket list, goddammit. To Mr. Pizza!
Gold pizza level achieved!
So, one notorious thing about Korean pizza is that “gold crust” means that it’s made with sweet potato — I fucking love sweet potato but nothing is better than Korean sweet potato, my friends. It’s like candy. Also, corn! Somehow, corn is as synonymous with pizza in Korea as pepperoni is here.
I just asked Chooch what his Mr. Pizza review is and his eyes got all bugged out. “Yum,” he said, with a very ‘duh’ inflection.
But yeah, so worth it and I’m glad we didn’t settle on the other normal pizza!
I just also asked Henry if he liked Mr. Pizza and he said, “Yeah!” with an actual modicum of enthusiasm because he’s trying to keep me from leaving him so he’s suddenly Boyfriend of the Year.
Also, I was excited because I got to push the button on the table to get the waitress to come and bring us a box! I always wanted to push the button!!!
Afterward, we took the subway to Myeongdong. I chose Myeongdong for our final night because that area rules and we hadn’t experienced it at night before then.
“Are you sure there are noraebangs here?” Henry asked, and I was like, “Uh yeah, le duh” because where aren’t there noraebangs, is the real question. Funny though how as soon as you’re looking for one, they’re suddenly gone, like those little trolls from Labyrinth were flipping over the signs before we walked past. Also, I did notice that most of these places don’t have any English on the signs, so unless it’s a really big, touristy noraebang with big windows in the front to let you see in, you might walk past 59 of them without ever knowing. So if you’re planning to go to Korea and want to sing your face blue in one of these joints, look for this word: 노래방
We eventually found one (not like we were bored looking for one though; Myeongdong is so freaking vibrant and upbeat at night, even on a Sunday!) called Sing Sing. When we walked in, Henry was like, “OH” because it reeked like a dive bar and was pretty dark and creepy, but I loved the atmosphere! It felt more authentic than the shiny, bright ones in Gangnam and Hongdae. This one felt like a place where locals would hang out, and we were definitely not the only ones there.
Henry paid the nice boy approximately 20,000 won for an hour and he lead us into our own private room, gave us a brief tutorial on how to work the remote, and then let us have our privacy to hold faux Produce 101 auditions.
Chooch’s first song was a goddamn Maroon 5 song and we were like, “Oh.” Then he sang something else that was dumb too, while I flipped through the book to find him something cool to sing.
Guys, the rooms even come with tambourines.
I had no intentions of doing any singing because I’m just not into that. And that’s when I saw it.
“Even the Night’s Are Better” by Air Supply.
Air Supply, you guys.
“Henry, you’re singing this with me,” I ordered, tossing him a mic and punching in the number.
“Wha—?” he stuttered, and then the song started and he was like, “Are you kidding.”
I immediately launched into my famous brand of shriek-singing on top of a bed of throaty giggles, while Henry mumbled along, and Chooch stared at me with the most appalled and disgusted look on his face.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?” he cried when the song ended.
“God, I forgot how great I sing!” I said, and Henry was just like, “No.” I think it brought back his PTSD from all the Saturday nights we spent at McCoy’s on karaoke night. I think my crowning moment was the time I sang “Old McDonald Had a Farm” and called for audience participation. The weathered broad who ran karaoke there, DJ Danger (lol), haaaaated me with such a passion and actually got to the point where she would make executive decisions and veto my song choices.
WELL THEN DON’T PUT THEM IN YOUR SONG BOOK, BITCH.
Anyway, back to noraebang, we also sang SHATTERED DREAMS and Chooch was like WHAT IS HAPPENING AM I HALLUCINATING, OR….
“Ugh, I wish they had Skater Boi!” Chooch groaned, flipping through the book 7800 times. I knew they had it because I saw it but I lied and said they totally 100% did not have that song or any other Avril Lavigne songs because she has a lawsuit out against noraebangs, but then I felt bad and said FINE HERE IT IS, SING YOUR DUMB HEART OUT.
But the grand finale was Chooch and me dueting with….
CAN YOU GUESS?!?!
CALL ME MAYBE.
Our theme!
Oh good lord, we were so sweaty by the time our hour was up, and our stomachs hurt from laughing so hard, and my throat hurt from going ham on Air Supply, and it was just the perfect way to end our time in Korea. I especially loved how we could hear people singing in other rooms every time we paused to find our next song.
It was so good! Don’t skip out on noraebang if you’re in Korea! DON’T!!
Here I am in the noraebang bathroom!
Here’s Chooch under the noraebang sign!
Myeongdong!
We capped off the night with ice cream from Milky Bee.
My hand looks so weird here. Henry’s pose, tho.
On our walk back to the hotel from the Jongno subway station, we stopped at a snack shop and I stocked up on some Korean candies for my International Candy Pumpkin at work and had to snap this picture because I’ve had some these corn sticks in there before and at first my work friends were skeptical but then grew to love them.
OK, maybe “love” is a stretch, but they ate them. There were so many different varieties in Korea! Back at the hotel. Chooch and I collapsed and Henry did all the packing while muttering things like, “Just lay there, assholes. Sure, I’ll do everything. Don’t help me.”
I don’t even know how to end this. This was so much more than just a vacation, though. It was a dream come true and a really amazing thing to experience with my little family unit. But, all good things, am I right? We’re hoping to go back again next summer, because there are other cities we want to explore in addition to Seoul and Busan, and plus there was so much in Seoul alone that we weren’t able to get to.
So, if you read all of these or followed along with us on Instagram, thank you! You’re the real MVP!
“OMG I don’t want to hit ‘publish’ on this because once I do, it’s done. It’s over. It’s really over,” I just wailed to Henry. “UNLESS YOU WRITE YOUR OWN RECAP!!!!”
And do you know what he said?
“We’ll see.”
THAT MEANS YES!
3 commentsChooch’s Itaewon Recap: 4/1/18
Hey, Chooch here! The last day of Korea went by with many tears and broken heart fragments left behind. The morning was the same as any morning in Korea, with my feet still sore from the pain and agony of the hills and miles we walked the night before. Although, we never know what we are going to do next during the day. I’m pretty sure this day was actually planned; we were going to Itaewon. We took the saddening subway, not because it was gross and disgusting in there, GOD NO! It was pretty much our last time hearing the beautiful subway jingle. I heard the *bloop* as my tear hit the floor. We made it to Itaewon, it was still early so nothing was open, except for the convenience stores that are open 24 hours; like every convenience store. We walked around and noticed that the streets were not cleaned yet after all of the clubbing and drunks the night before.
[Ed.Note: Chooch makes it sound like Itaewon was some unsavory area but it’s just a neighborhood that’s a popular hangout and go-to for bars and clubs. Seoul in general was pretty squeaky clean as far as litter goes which is a mystery considering how challenging it was to find garbage cans!]
As I wept inside my mind just thinking of leaving, I noticed the Line Friends flagship, the main one we were looking for the whole 10 days we were there. The reason we could not find it was because it just wasn’t listed on any website. The main thing that made this particular store so special was because this one sold BTS’ line of animals; BT21. Sadly, they were not for sale the day we went, otherwise we definitely would have got one or two.
Other than that, I was promised something from this store because of the agony I went through during our journey through complex Gangnam, you know the city we almost died in because Henry got us lost and said, “Oh. There is no subway we can take to get there faster.” Although, we went back to our hotel through the subway down the street from where we went.
These are the BT21 animals that weren’t on sale. I found it hilarious how the horse/unicorn character is on his head. You know what? It probably isn’t a unicorn. If it was his horn would be snapped either completely or in half.
In the Line Friends store, there were many rooms, being used by the mascots for the company.
The one I am in is Brown’s room. He was the most popular.. I should say the main mascot for Line. I should say what Line Friends is. DUH. Line Friends is owned by Line, a messaging company as like Kakao. Koreans use Line, or Kakao instead of the actual texting apps on their phones, I guess because it’s more aesthetic?
Staircase with the BT21 characters on the individual steps.
My favorite character is the little cookie! He comes in a group and is just flat down cute.
Sally was my favorite character. No, Sally is not the rabbit on the ceiling of the yellow room, that is it’s own room. Sally is the chick you can see painting through the red, round window. I actually got a stuffed Sally. She is dressed up as a chicken, a grown up version of herself. I don’t love her as much as Peachy Boi “Apeach” from Kakao, though. Peachy Boi is definitely the best of all of Kakao and Line Friends, but Line Friends does have those BT21 character, so I’ll give em’ that.
This guy was really cool! I ordered Turkish ice cream an I guess to show that the ice cream is sticky and sturdy, the man was taunting me by flipping the cone upside down and around, trying to make me grab it, but quickly pulled it back. He then proceeds to tap my nose with THE ICE CREAM. I don’t think he realized, and I really don’t care, but, “DARN YOU, MAN!”
As a conclusion to this post, here are 5 things to know before you travel to Korea.
Number 5: You should know some Korean, if not all. Entering stores, Koreans may not always say hello. They might say Annyeonghaseyo, or 안녕하세요, which is Korean for “Hello!” You would also need to know some Hangul, the Korean alphabet, because you may have to read menus/signs.
Number 4: Be aware of the ajummas, or the old women. They may seem like they hate you, but really, they stare at and push everyone. Don’t feel special.
Number 3: Learn how the currency works. If you don’t understand, obviously, you will not know how to trade in the U.S Dollar for Korean Won. $1 is equal to about ₩1.
Number 2: Know that Northeastern Asia is very mountainous and steep. Many interesting cultural villages are located on a mountain or hill. A VERY STEEP HILL. On the other hand, the pleasant hand, the trek is worth it. The view is also very delightful, from the top and from the bottom.
Number 1: Finally, know how to read a map. It is NOT very hard, especially if you were in the service for a long period of time. You need to know how to read a map because you may want to go somewhere on the subway and you might not know how to get there, so you need to read a map. If you don’t know how, you will probably get your family and yourself lost.
In conclusion, those are some things you need to know before traveling to South Korea.
1 commentSinsa Sojourn: 4/1/18
Henry rues the day I ever found the Joan Day vlogs on YouTube because a lot of what we did in Korea was influenced by her suggestive Seoul videos. Lots of pink cafes and trendy boutiques and, you know, Gentle Monster. I might never have known about GM if not for Joan Day vlogs! She also frequently vlogs from a place in Gangnam called Garosu-gil, which is full of high-end shops in the Sinsa neighborhood but the area is so pretty and fancy and also, the best Gentle Monster is there so I was like, “We are not leaving Korea before going to Garosu-gil” and Henry was silently cursing Joan and her constant promoting of all that is extra in Korea.
It’s also worth noting that the district of Gangnam is a hotbed of plastic surgery activity, and you will know you’re there before even leaving the subway stations which are lined with billboard and advertisements for plastic surgery centers. Henry wasn’t exactly thrilled about revisiting this area because even if he found a blank t-shirt to buy, it would cost 789% more than the ones he buys at home and he’d probably have to wade through a ball pit just to pull it off the rack.
(Seriously, there is a boutique in Seoul that has a mini ball pit-type installation going on in one of the rooms but I can’t think of the name of it now, and this is not to be confused with Urban Space, the bar that has a pool in the middle of it filled with white balls and unicorn innertubes.)
On the subway there, Chooch and I made friends with an old Korean man who insisted that Chooch sit down and then talked to us about having a friend who moved to Pittsburgh and it was one of those golden moments that made me love Korea even more. Our experience was that people were either very nice and helpful to us, or were just flat-out ambivalent. But we were never on the receiving end of any mean stares or rudeness which is also a concern when traveling to a foreign country and what so many people sadly experience here in my own dumb country. Get it together, America.
But first, Henry had to get us lost in Apgujeong (apparently the RICHEST neighborhood in Seoul so we felt like American hobos) while looking for K-Star Road. There was this awesome moment where Henry took all of his money out of his pocket and punched it into my hand and said, “GOOD LUCK FINDING YOUR WAY BACK TO THE HOTEL, ASSHOLES!!!” and stormed off down into the subway station. After a few seconds, Chooch said, “Um, I’m going to go and get him” because it didn’t take us long to realize that we were fucked to the nth degree if he didn’t come back, also who would we make fun of, lol.
So then he came back and we all had a grand chuckle and I was like, “Let’s just go to Gentle Monster!” and then Henry wasn’t laughing anymore.
Our time in Sinsa was smooth-sailing! We stopped at Latte King to get some beverages and allow Henry time to stare at maps on his phone while he had wifi and grow back some of the balls he lost after Chooch and I forced him to apologize for yelling at us. Family vacations, amirite? Korea was fucking perfect but it would have felt too artificial if there wasn’t some family-realness sprinkled up in there.
My drink was a hazelnut Jeju green tea latte. Chooch got some strawberry thing and Henry amazingly managed to order something without getting lost.
Directional dum-dum.
We were able to find the majestic Gentle Monster shortly after leaving
You guys. I know it’s weird to put a sunglasses store on a MUST SEE IN KOREA list, but each one of these locations was just so delightful—if you like bizarre art installations, that is. If you’re the type that just wants to walk into a plain store and grab what you need, then avoid Gentle Monster. Or most clothing shops. And also skincare stores.
Even Henry said he thought it was interesting! But then I asked him if he would recommend it to anyone and he frowned, so I guess not.
This is a mixture of pictures from my phone and Chooch’s phone. Chooch was super into it. THAT’S MY BOY.
Anyway, as soon as we walked into this particular flagship, we were greeted by the sounds of cawing crows.
I have no idea what these are supposed to be but I wish they were in my house.
Or in my front yard.
The nice thing about GM is that the staff doesn’t swoop in and pressure you. In fact, when I bought my pair in Busan, I had to get someone to help me. I liked that a lot because I tend to make rash decisions when a salesperson is following me around. Also, they don’t discourage you from take pictures and video.
Which is great because right as we were leaving, the girl at the door pointed to steps and said, “Please go in the basement for our closing.” At first I thought she said “clothing” but after seeing that were no clothes down there, I realized it was must have been like their “send-off” room which was extremely stimulating:
There was another GM right across the street! It was the Gentle Monster: Parallel store, which showcased their limited edition/special designs most of which were way out of my price-range and also super over-the-top.
Now I kind of wish I had bought that pair on the right. :/
I love that their building facades are so minimal, though.
We didn’t eat here but I thought it was super cool and had 1980’s arcade vibes. AND I WANT THAT NEON PIZZA.
We couldn’t walk by Mr. Holmes Bakehouse without stopping in for a famous cruffin. The original shop is in San Francisco, but for whatever reason, they opened a location in Seoul too. I actually just heard that this one closed so I’m glad that we got to try it while we were there!
Black sesame croissant and cookies and cream cruffin (not what I would have chosen but sometimes I throw Chooch a bone and let him choose ugh). Totally worth it.
There were two floors with lots of seating. Look at how beautiful it is in there! There were several other people there but they left shortly after we got there and if you ask Henry, it’s because Chooch and I chased them away with our loud cackles. Whatever, Hank.
I like how Chooch is trying to have serious-Instagram face while his feet don’t even touch the ground.
We also went to Dr. Jart which is also super strange and cool. It’s a Korean skincare line and the entire bottom floor was lit only by dangling strands of lights which are sound-activated.
The top floor was a lounge area where a Dr. Jart employee in a lab coat whipped us up a sample of the Peptidin energy drink they were promoting. I really liked it but Henry and Chooch were like “No thanks.”
We couldn’t spend too much time in Garosu-gil though (much to Henry’s delight) because we had other things we had to cram in, like stopping in Itaewon and going back to Insadong for last minute gift procuring, plus our Last Night Pizza & Noraebang Extravaganza. Sniff sniff.
No commentsThe YG Pilgrimage: 4/1/18
This probably just looks like a weird-shaped building to the untrained eye, but even most kpop n00bs would know that this is the headquarters of YG Entertainment, the agency that has brought the world 2NE1, Psy, Blackpink, Ikon, Winner, and the ultimate kpop kings, BIGBANG. Even though you can’t go inside, visiting this kpop castle was at the top of my list because I just needed to look it all over, up and down, side to side, back to front, with my own two eyeballs.
So after eating the 8734082705 dollar breakfast buffet at our hotel (not worth it!), we set off early Sunday morning (a/k/a Our Last Full Day in Korea) for the iconic YG homestead.
Surprisingly, this was the easiest thing we found during the whole entire trip, I think! It was meant to be!
YG Entertainment is considered to be one of the Big Three Kpop agencies (SM and JYP being the other two). I know that BTS is taking over America right now, but BIGBANG was wooing the rest of the world way before that and everything they touch turns to gold. G-Dragon is Korea’s National Treasure! Just standing there and looking up at this structure, with so much talent within its walls, felt so surreal! I have seen it so many times in pictures and in videos, and now here it was right in front of me! I COULD HAVE PROBABLY BEEN STANDING IN THE SAME SPOT THAT G-DRAGON MIGHT HAVE MAYBE STOOD ONCE AT SOME POINT, I CAN’T EVEN HANDLE IT!
Right across the street is a GS25 (a large and amazing convenience store chain that we stopped in everyday) and I pictured G-Dragon strolling in there on any random afternoon to grab some ramyun or banana uyuu and can you imagine WORKING THERE?! I would never take a day off! Let me stand behind my register all fucking and night and wait to catch a glimpse of Seungri or Mino or Jenny.
I’m not going to try and act like I wasn’t shook. I was pretty giddy.
I loved that there were so many messages of love and appreciation scrawled on the walls behind the convenience store. It was early enough on a Sunday morning that we were the only ones there but I can imagine the crowds this area must draw, especially before 4 out of 5 BIGBANG members enlisted in the military. If I was a kid in Seoul, I feel like I would be loafing (lol, that word will forever make me think of my dad) in that area all the time after school.
“What did you think about going to YG?” I asked Henry just now.
“What do you mean?” he asked because he’s remedial and needs questions illustrated for him, translated into Caveman grunts, played out it in an interpretive dance.
“Like, did you think it was cool? Were you like ‘Oh cool, the YG building!’?” I coached.
“No, I thought it was just another building,” and then he mumbled other things that I couldn’t hear because he was walking away, and I think it’s funny that now that he knows he’s being interviewed, he’s trying to act like he doesn’t care about kpop because over the weekend I was like “WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON!”and he quietly said, “Yes, we do. I like kpop” and I was like, “OH SHIT BOY I’LL NEVER LET YOU FORGET THAT YOU SAID THIS!”
But really, here are some signs that Henry is a Kpop dad:
“Jimin looks like he lost weight.”
“Is this SHINee’s comeback stage?”
“Pfft, probably” – after hearing the headline Did Hyuna Take Sexy Too Far.
“They got V’s name wrong! That said Jung Kook!”
YG will always be the most prestigious kpop agency in my eyes and I’m so excited that I got to see it. I WONDER WHO WAS IN THERE THAT DAY?!!?!? Blackpink has been preparing for a comeback, so maybe they were there?! OMG I would have died if I saw them. (Henry would have too — he loves him some Blackpink. He listens to them A LOT on his own time.)
I will leave you with two of my favorite non-BIGBANG YG videos, because it’s nice to give some other groups the spotlight sometimes.
I like to shout the 널 좋아해 parts real loud to the cats when I listen to this alone in the house. It means “I like you.” That’s your daily lesson from me to you.
One of my favorite kpop cardio workouts uses this song! Anyway, the first time we went to Hongdae, Ikon was there giving out free hugs apparently and I think I may have seen one of them but he was across the street and Chooch was like, “WE ARE GOING THIS WAY BECAUSE I’M IN CHARGE HERE” so I didn’t get to see what was going on. Thanks, Chooch.
LOL OK FINE TWIST MY ARM here is a BIGBANG video too. I just asked Chooch which BIGBANG he would share and he said, with little hesitation, “Fantastic Baby.” So here’s a three-song compilation from one of the award shows they performed on because it also includes Bang Bang Bang and that song is a, well, banger. Also I loved G-Dragon’s hair so much in this! HOW DOES HE MAKE A MULLET LOOK SO FUCKING HOT.
Kings. BIGBANG is the group that got me 100% obsessed with kpop and Korea in general, so YG will always be the best in my opinion. I can’t believe I got to stand before it, like it was a legit religious shrine and I just got off the church bus with a bunch of nuns.
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An Ode to Hongdae
Fun fact: every time I type Hongdae, my phone tries to change it to “bondage.”
I had dinner with Barb the other night and she asked me what my favorite part of Korea was, and right away I said it was our evening on Hongdae and I tried so hard to summarize that area for her, in between all of the INTERRUPTIONS FROM OUR SUPER ATTENTIVE WAITRESS, oh my god I wanted to scream, “STFU CAN’T YOU SEE SOMEONE IS FINALLY LETTING ME TALK ABOUT MY FUCKING TRIP TO KOREA?!”
God!!
Anyway, this post is about all of the things I wanted to tell Barb about Hongdae but Miss Mary Lynn Rajskub-doppelganger and her “REFILL?!” sidekick made it nearly impossible.
After our afternoon in Samcheondong, we walked back to the hotel, changed, and then set off for the subway that would take us to Hongdae. I refused to leave Korea without experiencing Hongdae at night. It’s not like we could go to bars or whatever (THANKS CHOOCH) but Hongdae is famous for its infinite wealth of street performers, especially being in such a youthful area (it’s right next to Hongik University).
Here we are, waiting for the subway, preparing to be dicks.
Gotta get one last map-check in.
Since it was still early in the evening, we made a pit-stop to Mangwon because I was like, “I WILL DIE IF I DON’T GET TO GO TO ZAPANGI.
” And it wasn’t dramatic at all. I have a whole post just for this quirky Instagram-famous cafe, so see your way over there if you’d like to read more about it. But if you’re like, “Nah, mate, I’m good” then I’ll just quickly tell you that “zapangi” means “vending machine” in Korean and you literally walk through a vending machine door to get inside. Also, it’s pronounced “ja-pahng-ee” because there is no “z” sound in Korean so why “they” made the romanization of the word spelled this way is beyond me. Good job, “They.”
Mangwon also has a market so we of course had to peruse it. Henry bought a bottle of makgeolli (traditional Korean rice wine — don’t get it confused with sake though; makgeolli is more milky) and was straight-up giddy about it. “It only cost 1,000 won!” he cried, which is about a dollar. We drank it in the hotel room that night like losers who vacation with their kid and can’t go to bars.
THANKS CHOOCH.
J/K. It would have been weird being there without my partner in giddiness.
By the time we waded our way through the market, it was getting dark so we knew it would be a good time to head to Hongdae.
First, we had to lose Henry. Here’s his face when he realized we weren’t behind him anymore, lol. He was in the middle of chastising us. We just laughed and walked away.
And then we made it to where all of the action was. There were street performers lined up everywhere, each one with their own throng of oglers. We walked down the street and passed singers, dancers, magicians, comedians…there was something for everyone and the vibe was so positive and energetic. How can I even encapsulate something like this into words on a blog post?! It was a dream for any kpop fan for sure because there was no shortage of street dancers emulating beloved kpop choreo. (My favorite was the group of boys who danced to about 8374 BTS songs as well as Block B’s “Her” which I liked prior to this but there was something about seeing these local boys dancing to it in the middle of a street in Hongdae on a Saturday night in March that has really made me pull that song close into my heart.
Here’s a small compilation of videos that Chooch sent me:
We just don’t have anything here in Pittsburgh like Hongdae which is actually kind of strange because we have several college campuses right near each other in Oakland. But, unless things have changed since the last time I was out and about in Oakland at night, the streets aren’t poppin’ off with street performers and I was constantly looking over my shoulder walking back to my car because I didn’t want to get mugged or raped or organ-harvested. (I had a lot of night classes when I went to Pitt and constantly felt like prey walking through campus at night.)
In Hongdae, the party atmosphere felt joyful and not sleazy and date-rapey. I’m usually crowd-phobic, but no one was aggressive, no one was pushing and shoving, and you know, no one pulled out a gun and started firing at random because this wasn’t America. The people there were mostly in their 20s, but there were also kids with their families as well, so I didn’t feel like a shitty parent dragging their kid to some after-hours club.
Speaking of Chooch, I’mma let him jump in here and tell you about Block Burger.
Hey it’s Chooch, I’m just going to talk about the food that we ate while in Hongdae. We ate at Block Burger, a place we saw the first time we were in Hongdae. Block Burger is a burger place that is based on Lego’s and they had Lego head mugs, and buns in the shape of a Lego brick. The buns all had different flavors: squid ink, sweet pumpkin, and red velvet.
We decided to get sweet pumpkin because it was the only normal sounding one. [ERIN EDIT: I ordered that one because I like pumpkin, and I knew Chooch and his milquetoast palate wouldn’t eat the other two options, so…..] On the bun, we had chicken; our vegetarianism went on vacation, too… The burger was very savory and better than expected. But then, as I thought it couldn’t get any better, an amazing song started playing on the speaker. That song is a song that my cat, Bambi loves. The song is called, “Bambi,” by Jidenna.
The thing is, this restaurant actually had us full for the whole rest of the night! Usually we eat, walk for five to ten minutes, then eat again. This time was different, we ate, then walked around for the whole rest of the day without eating any street food, or any kind of snack.
Daddy didn’t get anything because there wasn’t any XL Unsweetened Teas he could order. That’s fine, though. I didn’t want to hear his loud crunching and chewing, (Especially not with chicken.)
Even the napkin holders were Lego built; you know Henry still didn’t see them, even with the colorful bricks the holder was built with.
This was the juicy, savory chicken we ate on our sweet pumpkin bun. I honestly miss this burger so much; I wish I could go back just to eat this burger. God I love Korean chicken.
OK, Erin back at the keyboard. Not pictured, but there were several carnival games set up and one of them, a balloon game, had GOBLIN DOLLS!! Chooch said he would try to win me one and technically he lost but the guy running it kept throwing darts in between Chooch’s throws so Chooch succeeded in winning me a Goblin through a joint effort. I was so happy!!
Goblin is one of my favorite korean dramas and this doll was won in Hongdae by Chooch so it’s doubly special to me!
(I have to be honest, I didn’t think he would actually give it to me!)
Chooch is so good at impromptu posing. Where does he get that from? Certainly not me. I look the same in every picture: grotesque and surprised.
One of the things I wanted to do before we left was have Chooch’s caricature done. I think caricatures are so fun and I wanted to add a Korean one to the collection. We saw tons of caricature artists in nearly every neighborhood we explored, but when we walked past this guy in Hongdae, I knew he was the one and not just because he kind of looked like my favorite guy on Running Man (Ha-Ha!)
(No seriously, his name is Ha-Ha!)
(Ha-ha!)
(No, that was really me laughing that time.)
Oh Ha-Ha, BE MY LAST LOVE.
Surprisingly, Chooch LOVES having his caricature done and he is so good at diligently sitting there being stared at by the artist and everyone walking past. Not me. I’m like “DON’T LOOK AT ME” which is kind of going against everything a caricature is but if the artist is good, they should be able to figure out what I look like behind the hair-curtain I’m hiding under.
You guys, this was only 10,000 won (roughly $10) and beyond worth it. We have it framed and hanging on our Chooch wall in the living room and it makes me so happy to see it everyday.
This place is a walk-up cocktail window that serves its mixed drinks in IV bags Chooch wanted one and I was like, “Look, Korea is super progressive in a lot of ways but selling booze to a 6th grader is not one of them, buddy.”
Like I said before, just because I threw down over 1,000 words doesn’t mean I’ve even come close to doing it justice. The music was loud and good, the crowd was lively and friendly, and it felt like sneaking into a party that you thought you weren’t cool enough for but then no one makes you feel like you don’t belong there and what a wonderful fucking feeling that is.
Hongdae, more like HongBAE.
Yeah, I went there.
No commentsSamcheondong: 3/31/18
We needed lunch after our long morning of palace-prodding, and we needed it NOW. Luckily, the neighborhood of Samcheondong was a short walk from Gyeongbok Palace and like every other neighborhood in Seoul, its streets are lined with restaurants and cafes. And even with my blurry hunger-vision, I was able to find a place pretty quickly that had something we all wanted (well, at least what Chooch and I wanted; I never bothered to ask Henry HAHAHA).
Korea has a LOT of very trendy, Instagram-aesthetic eateries, and that was really fun when we were looking for cafes, but for the most part when it came to actual meals, we wanted authentic, ahjumma-run kitchens. And Samcheongdong Kimbap was perfect for that.
The menu outside was all in Korean (and some Chinese) so Henry was like, “Erin, please help. I need your help. I know everyone on the Internet thinks I am a Super Capable Man and that you are worthless in every capacity, but I can’t read this menu and you can so please help. Help.”
FUCK YES. Right away I was like, “They have kimchi jjigae*, we’re eating here.” Because I was craving kimchi jjigae all morning!
*(Kimchi stew. It comes in a small bubbling cauldron of Korean majesty and splendor.)
And Chooch really wanted ramyun, so this place was golden.
There was a self-ordering pad on all the tables and I was excited to put my basic hangeul skills to use. I was starting to fill it out by checking off Chooch’s ramyun, and marking down an order of cheese kimbap, when the waitress came over in a hurry and took the pad from me. Not in a rude or shitty way, though! Please don’t misunderstand – she was really friendly. But I think she thought I was struggling and she wanted to help by taking our orders herself. I appreciated that but I was also kind of deflated because I was having fun filling it out on my own!
I can’t remember what Henry ordered. Donkkaseu, maybe? But I got my cheesey kimbap and kimchi jjigae and guess what, no one stared at me and mocked me while I ate it like they did here IN AMERICA several days later. Fucking rednecks.
In a lot of the Korean restaurants, there are free water stations set up so don’t sit there and wait for the waitress to fetch that shit for you. You just go up, grab a metal cup, and fill it up yourself from a water cooler.
We made Henry do this for us, of course. Lol forever.
Also, all the sides (banchan) come with the meal and if one of them runs out, don’t be afraid to ask for more! Sometimes the waitress will already be coming over to refill it for you. Korean restaurants are the best.
Chooch, god love him, was trying to be adventurous with spicy dishes. This kid prefers everything to be bland and plain here at home, so he really took us by surprise by climbing out of his comfort zone and reaching for the gochujang.
A YouTuber probably told him to do it.
Sigh.
But yeah, look at his ramyun-stung lips! For as painful as his face makes it seem, he is still talking about how much he misses that ramyun. Nearly two months later.
Yes, it’s been nearly two months since we’ve been back (and exactly two months since we left Pittsburgh!) and I am still recapping this. SUE ME.
After stuffing ourselves with Korean homecookin’, we set off for Bukchon Hanok Village, which required us to embark on yet another urban hike. Seoul is like the SanFran of Asia! If you want to read more about Bukchon Hanok Village and eyeball some photos, see your way to this post.
I didn’t take these views for granted, not even for a second. I wanted to just sear the images into my mind in case I never get to go back.
After tooling around the labyrinthine Bukchon streets, we came back down to Samcheondong because of all things there is a Gentle Monster location there and I was on a mission to explore as many as possible.
However, on our way there, we took a wrong turn as usual and wound up on a side street. There were some vintage stores there, one of which was a quirky vintage toy store. Chooch and I left after taking a quick walk aroundandf eventually realized that Henry wasn’t following us.
“Maybe he’s pooping,” I shrugged, because that’s my explanation always whenever Henry can’t be found. So we went back inside and found him in a small back room.
Pooping.
J/K. He was in this small back room, pointing to something on a high shelf, and once Chooch saw what it was, he lost his shit so then it was Chooch in a small back room.
Pooping.
The poop-inducing object was a vintage set of Bambi figures, still in the box. Yes, Bambi, the dumb Disney cartoon that Chooch is oddly obsessed with.
It was only 30,000 won (a little less than $30) so…happy early bithday, sonny boy.
Whoever thought Chooch would find so much Bambi shit in Korea.
Oh, and in case you were wondering if you should load up on street food before visiting Samcheondong, don’t bother because their streets are just as fooded as the best of them! Chooch got tteokkochi which is the same kind of spicy rice cake in tteokbokki, but fried and skewered. Chooch going for the spice again!
I got a green tea hotteok and wanted to cry, not only because the searing, molten filling oozed out and burnt my hand, but because it was such a delicious variation of those delicious little dough pockets and I was so happy that I didn’t have to give Henry a bite because he’s weird and doesn’t like green tea.
You could easily go to Korea and do nothing but eat. Eschew all the sight-seeing and shopping and surgery (hey, people take medical vacations to Seoul!) and just camp out in the markets and I guarantee you will still have the best vacation ever. I’m not a foodie so much, but goddamn Korea, you’re doing it right.
And then finally it was time to enter Gentle Monster and spin around like Julie Andrews on a hilltop. This particular location is known as Bathhouse because, well, it’s literally inside an old Korean bathhouse.
Chooch, crying over those damn sunglasses again. Also, look at his dumb Bambi play set. What a baby.
I told him I liked the blue ones better and then he got all hopeful because he thought that meant I was going to buy him the blue pair instead and I was like, “HAHAH DREAM ON, PRETEEN.” He made some mouthy comment about how my pappap probably would have bought me $250 sunglasses and I laughed and said, “Yeah I got a pair of Versace sunglasses in Italy one year on vacation. I think they cost more than $250 though” and he was so disgusted.
So was Henry!
LOLOL I love rubbing my rich kid childhood in their faces.
(But I mean really though, look how far that got me in life.)
No, this is still Gentle Monster. Can’t you see the sunglasses in the background? Haha.
I was obsessed with how they left some of the old foundation intact. What a genius use of space!
This crank-thing was on the first floor, and when we went upstairs, we saw that it was moving this thing up and down….
Whatever “this thing” is.
This the view from GM’s balcony. I love this picture SO MUCH. I put it on our department’s wiki page and in one of our meetings someone dryly said, “Wow, nice…roofs” and I was like, “YEAH THEY ARE NICE ROOFS. BECAUSE THEY FREAKING KOREAN HANOK ROOFS. GOD!!!!” Ugh, really!!!!
One of my work friends is Korean and HE likes this picture so that’s all that matters. He gets it. He was born with aesthetic.
Chooch, drowning his Gentle Monster tears into his ttkeokochi. He was faking the sad-face for the sake of this photo but he really did want those damn sunglasses, lol.
The sign to the right up there says “mok-yok-tang” which means “baths” in Korean. It’s really cool that they kept the original bathhouse sign DON’T YOU THINK. Also, look how freaking small “Gentle Monster” is. The only way I was able to find it so quickly was because I’ve seen so many YouTube videos (#loser) of it that I knew exactly what to look for, so when I saw thet Bath sign, I yelled a little and scared Henry.
Korea had him on edge.
It was just too extra and his basic blood couldn’t handle it.
If I lived in Seoul, I could see myself spending a lot of time in Samcheondong. It was quaint, maybe less overtly exciting than Myeongdong and Hongdae, but certainly no less charming.
I just want you to know that I started to cry while writing this. Korea, you stole my stupid heart.
No commentsBukchon Hanok Village: 3/31/18
I’m skipping ahead a little because I want to keep these pictures in their own post, but after leaving Gyeongbok Palace, we ate lunch and then, GOD FORBID, embarked on another urban hike up into the hills of Samcheongdong where Bukchon Hanok Village is located. “Hanok” is the type of traditional Korean houses that have been around for centuries, and nobles once inhabited these villages. People still live there to this day, as evidenced by the many signs that remind tourists to keep their jerkiness to a low roar so as not to disturb the residents.
And of course we got some beautiful peeks at the surrounding mountains.
If this looks familiar to you, it’s because it’s a pretty well-known area of Seoul and on pretty much every tourist list you’ll see for South Korea as a whole. It’s literally a maze of alleys with some restaurants and boutiques tucked away so you really have to keep your eyes peeled for the gems.
I just found out that Henry didn’t think Bukchon was “that great” and that maybe he’s “missing something.” YEAH, IT’S CALLED CULTURE AND EYESIGHT. I mean, we were quite literally surrounded by quintessential Korean imagery but OK Hank. I guess he didn’t think it was a good enough place to sit back with a can of Faygo, who knows.
Bukchon is located between Changdeok and Gyeongbok Palaces so you’ll see a lot of Hanbok-clad tourists milling about the streets here too.
I loved it because it literally felt like we were ensconced in history.
Chooch thought it was “nice. The ice cream I got there was good. Strawberry something.”
Cool story, bro. Can’t wait to read your travel memoirs.
(Maybe I’m a little salty, but when I was his age, I had A LOT TO SAY about vacations.)
Chooch is smiling here because he was finally fed.
I had to wait patiently for a delivery van to slowly make its way down before I was clear to take this picture.
This street is super iconic and I’ve seen pictures where it’s just straight flooded with people fighting to get their selfies at the top. It wasn’t exactly dead on this Saturday in late March, but the crowds were pleasant and tolerable. That door off to the right held a small museum inside but we weren’t allowed to take photos.
I miss all of Seoul’s steep alleys. :(
In one of them, we stumbled upon Granhand which is a Korean fragrance company. I was really excited because I’ve seen this tiny shop on Joan Kim’s vlogs before and wanted to check it out. Chooch immediately got ejected from the premises because he was eating an ice cream cone, but then was conveniently allowed back in once the salesman realized I was primed and ready to make a purchase. My mom loves candles but I always hesitate to get her one because she literally has like dozens of them in a cabinet, so I was excited to get her a bottle of fragrance spray instead so now she can make her house smell beautiful like Korea (not the sewage-smelling parts of Korea, though).
The face the salesman made at the end of the transaction when he told me to have a nice day looked strikingly similar to the face that Craig Owens has been known to make while particularly possessed by adrenaline on stage, so then I was obsessed with him for awhile.
But yeah, if you’re in the market for a candle alternatives, check out Granhand. And if you’re looking for the scent of an inner man, in particular, you’ll want to go with their Lumberjack scent. Sadly, they did not ask Henry for his input while concocting this blend in the lab.
Lumberjack inspo.
Anyway, even though Henry wouldn’t include Bukchon on his Must-Sees of Seoul list, I would certainly go back and recommend it to everyone! I mean shit Henry, Psy even filmed one of his MVs there, so you better get with it.
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Palace Post #2: Gyeongbokgung
For our second palace viewing of the day, we made the short walk to Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is the largest of the five grand palaces of Seoul. It was built in the 14th century during the Joseon Dynasty, but most of it was destroyed in the 20th century by Japan. There has been an on-going restoration project since 1989 and about 40% of the buildings have been reconstructed.
When I see places like this in real life, it’s overwhelming to grasp just how much time has passed around these foundations and it makes me appreciate the efforts to keep it alive. Can you imagine if, say for instance, Italy was just like, “Fuck it” and let the Colosseum completely crumble?
It’s hard even for someone as unnecessarily verbose* as myself to put into words.
*(Just on here. I barely talk in real life at all anymore. Henry probably has other opinions on this though.)
I wanted to check out Gwanghwamun Plaza first though because the famous statue of King Sejong is there, and he is the creator of Hangeul. You guys know how obsessed I am with Hangeul, right? Oh my god, it’s such a beautiful alphabet system. On the way there, we got to see the changing of the guards on the side of Gwangbokdung!
King Sejong in all his glory!
In reality, King Sejong didn’t come up with Hangeul himself, but he was the one who decided that Korea needed their own language, their own alphabet, so he had his people do the rest. Basically, the only directive he gave them was, “Make it simple” and they did. Sure, Korean GRAMMAR is killer. For example, last night I sent Janna an example of the sentence I was able to craft on my own during one of my Korean lessons:
“What does it say?” she asked.
“‘Please give me a potato or sweet potato.’ I’ve finally reached Korean Baby level,” I said.
I’m much better at reading it but as soon as I have to write it myself, my mind has suddenly been erased. But yeah, my point is that learning how to at least pronounce Hangeul has unlocked some language barriers so thank you King Sejong for realizing that languages using 74083470912384b23498 symbols is kind of ridiculous.
At the base of this monument is the entrance to the Hanguel Museum, which I thought was just going to be a little one-room display of Hanguel and its history, but shit no — this museum was expansive! It took up a good bit of the underground layer of that plaza! There were several other exhibits in it too, and we spent at least an hour in there.
Chooch thought it was nice.
Literally, that’s all he just said right now when I asked him. But he did seem to have a lot of fun in there because it was very interactive, and he got to make a tracing of a ship in some kids activity room. Chooch LOVES ACTIVITIES. When we go to Pat Catan’s (craft store) on the weekend, he always heads right over to the kids craft table and makes whatever monstrosity is on the menu for that day.
There was some event going on in the plaza called “Do Dream.” I have no idea what was happening but everyone was happy and cheerful so I was too!
As always, this post is going to be a hodgepodge of photos from my phone and from my “real” camera. Sometimes, you just gotta use your phone, you know?
I found out after the fact the Seoul office of the law firm I work for was right by the plaza — can you imagine looking out your office window and seeing not only beautiful mountains but this handsome palace gate? All I see when I look out the window on my floor is stinky Pittsburgh streets, sometimes protests, derelicts, other crappy buildings. I mean, it’s Pittsburgh.
Chooch wore the right colors.
Henry is the WORST at taking pictures of us. It was so windy and dust was blowing in our faces. We look like we’re smiling here but what’s really happening is that we’re hissing, “TAKE THE FUCKING PICTURE” through our gritted teeth. Also, as expected, this palace was definitely starting to get crowded since it was a weekend, which is why I wanted to come here first but hey, Henry knows everything!
If you rent a Hanbok (traditional Korean dress) from one of the many hanbok rental shops nearby, you can enter all of the palaces for free. I didn’t do this (being accused of cultural appropriation scares me) but I really enjoyed looking at all of the other people flouncing by in all of their silken glory. I think I heard that wearing hanbok makes everyone 80% prettier.
(Maybe don’t quote me on that.)
(I just tried to picture Henry in hanbok and now my stomach hurts from laughing so that backfired.)
“This palace is nearly as old as me.”
I love the juxtaposition of old and new that you see everywhere in Seoul.
This is currently my desktop background on my work computer. I love this image so much!
We spent a lot of time strolling the grounds, taking it all in. These palaces are so quintessentially Korea, totally iconic landmarks, that I wanted to make sure we absorbed as much as we had time for. I would have liked to have toured all five of the palaces, but sight-seeing is exhausting and Chooch and I require regular feedings — we were already running late on one of those feedings and it was starting to show big-time. This is quite frankly the catalyst of 90% of our family brawls. That’s good I guess, though right? Because it means at least we like each other all of the other times when we’re not hungry.
Although, I’m hungry a lot.
So.
Chooch had gone from, “THIS IS SO COOL I LOVE KOREA” to “IF YOU’VE SEEN ONE PALACE, YOU’VE SEEN ‘EM ALL, STOP TAKING MY PICTURE AND FUCKING FEED ME FOR CHRIST’S SAKE THIS IS CHILD ABUSE” faster than Henry could get the orphanage number locked and loaded on his phone.
THE FACE OF HUNGRY DISGUST.
“I was hungry in every single picture you took of me,” Chooch just said defensively when I accused him of looking like an ungrateful rich kid who is like, “Wow, Korea. Big whoop. I’d rather be playing tennis with Muffy.” Fine. I’ll believe it.
I was like, “We’ll eat after I take one more picture of these flowers…” while Chooch was standing off to the side willing himself to travel back in time to the morning when he was eating a Shiro & Maro breakfast pastry.
How fucking dreamy is this? Can you imagine being part of the royal family back then and being like, “BRB just gonna have my ginseng tea out by the pagoda while you guys talk about war stuff.”
Anyway, this area was under construction so this was as close we could get, so it’s a good thing I have an active imagination.
From the back of the palace, you can see the Blue House, which is the residence of the South Korean president. (Shout out to President Moon Jae In and his strong efforts at achieving peace between the Koreas!) Chooch posted his own picture of the Blue House on his Instagram with the caption, “Hey Trump, the Blue House is better than the White House because you’re not there!” TOUCHE, YOUNG ADULT!
So by this point, we were knee-deep in the lunch hour and ready to start eating Henry’s face, so that was our cue to say farewell to beautiful Gyeongbokgung and set off for Bukchon Hanok Village, where our first priority was FOOD.
No commentsChangdeokgung Palace, 3/31/18: Also Known As “The Calm Before the Hunger Storm”
We woke up early on a Saturday morning and set off for some palace-touring. As I mentioned previously, our hotel was in a great location, and we were able to walk to several of the Five Grand Palaces of Seoul! Probably would have been a faster/easier walk if we weren’t following Henry’s lead, but….as Henry said, “WE GOT THERE, DIDN’T WE?!”
Wow, tough guy.
I wanted to start with Gyeongbokgung Palace first, but Henry was all, “my way or the highway” or some other Dad-ism, so we went to Changdeokgung Palace first. I know, it’s hard to keep the names straight! But the one that starts with a G is like, the most popular one, I guess.
In hindsight though, our crazy walks are something I look back on now and laugh about. I miss it! We saw a lot of crazy shit this way and it reaffirmed that we definitely were better suited sans itinerary. As much as I loved the European adventures I went on as a kid with my family, it was so much better not to be tied down to a group agenda and panicking every day because you’re close to missing bus call. For this trip, we had a list of things we wanted to do, and we played it by ear. Sometimes we didn’t know what we were doing until after we woke up that morning! It was slightly stressful for me at times because I’m an undercover control freak, but I quickly learned to just go with it and maybe that’s why we managed to make it through our Korea pilgrimage with minimal fighting.
Donhwamun Gate, the largest of all palace gates. Get on Donhwamun’s level, other gates.
According to Wiki, this Palace literally translates to “Prospering Virtue Palace.” It was the second palace to be established after Gyeongbokgung, which is the one I wanted to see first but that’s OK Henry, fuck up the chronological order!
The original palace was built between 1405-1412 but burnt down during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and again in 1623 but each time it was rebuilt, and the reconstruction remained true to its original form. It’s incredibly humbling and sobering to be walking around grounds filled with so much history and tragedy.
Chooch might have a future as a Walmart greeter, you guys.
We got there early enough that it wasn’t flooded with tourists yet. Look at the mountain peeking out back there! I believe that’s part of Mt. Bugaksan. One of the things I didn’t know about Korea until I started marinating in a KOREA 101 bath is that Korea is like, 70% mountains! And almost everywhere you go in Seoul, you can see them. It’s one of the things I loved so much about this city, that no matter how urban and cosmopolitan it feels in one direction, if you pivot another way, you’ve got a mountain looming over you, or a Palace’s ancient presence behind you. Seoul has everything. Seoul IS everything.
Injeongjeon Hall
This is the throne hall, where all The Big Events took place back in the day, like coronations and poisonings probably.
This is the inside of Injeongjeon Hall. I bet lots of scary people have mingled under those chandeliers.
And now please enjoy some gratuitous spring flower shots:
The spring buds were like celebs, man. There were some cherry blossoms that you couldn’t get anywhere near because of the throng of older people with their tripods and huge lenses.
It was so deserted in this area that I was afraid we weren’t supposed to be there. Those trees though.
I was so glad that Chooch got to experience all this history! He was really into it.
This was before ancient Korean spirits possessed Chooch and me and gave us the ability to lacerate Henry’s feelings with our hunger-driven words.
Because we would never normally be mean to Henry.
Lol.
I had to go for my annual wellness test this morning at work, and when the lab tech was getting ready to take my blood pressure, he said, “Just think about things that make you happy.” And immediately, in my mind, I was walking the peaceful grounds of Changdeokgung again.
No commentsFriday Night Vibes: Seoul Edition
Henry just made some disparaging remark about how we’ve been home for over a month and I’m still recapping this trip and I was like, “WELL MAYBE IF YOU WOULD HELP ME…” Sike, I don’t want him helping. His posts will be like, “We went on a train and then ate at a market and went to another market and then ate again and walked a lot. And I think I might have accidentally swore at someone when I was trying to say thank you in Korean.”
But, that would probably be preferable to anyone sick of the Seoul onslaught!
Too bad though because this is my post so there will be a lot more words but maybe I’ll try to keep it under 1,000 for once.
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We arrived back in Seoul from Busan on a Friday night around 7:30. Here are some photos from that evening!
Before we did anything, we went back to our hotel to drop off our bags before they became permanently affixed to Chooch’s and my backs. We realized that we had never checked out the rooftop garden yet so we did that real quick before heading out. Here’s what the view looked like:
I didn’t notice until now, but you can see the reflection our the hotel’s sign (Atrium) on those windows to the left. I AM SUCH A GOOD PHOTOGRAPHER.
I miss this view. I miss you, Jongno-gu. I’d highly recommend staying there to anyone who is thinking of traveling to Seoul because it’s centrally located, within walking distance from numerous palaces, the DDP, Gwangjang Market, and two really accessible subway stations. The Jongno stations also have a huge shopping mall in them. You could get lost in there, honestly, especially if you’re there with Henry. You can by everything from bread to shoes down there, guys. Get on Korea’s (subterranium) level.
Also, it’s an actual shelter because it’s so deep underground.
Our first stop was Gwangjang Market for a piece-meal dinner (something from this stall, something from that stall, something later from a sidewalk stall…).
The food stall cooks must be so accustomed to being recorded and photographed because so many travel and food shows have gone through and then the YouTube vlogging generation swept in and shoved even more cameras in their faces. I know it seems hypocritical as I’m typing this beneath pictures I took in Gwangjang Market! But I just don’t think I could ever be a vlogger. I’d feel like such an asshole walking around with a camera and talking to myself.
Our next Friday night stop was the DDP (we were obsessed with that place) because they were having a Bamdokkaebi Night Market, which was overflowing with food trucks and craft vendors. The vibes were so upbeat and carefree here! Even though it was crowded, everyone was so laidback and chill – it didn’t feel overwhelming or suffocating. There was even a marching band! So festive.
The DDP is crazy amazing to spectate during the day, but it is a must-see at night. I would definitely put it on the recommednation list if any of my imaginary friends were taking a fantasy trip to Seoul.
All the LED roses are stunning at night, obviously! Plus here’s Chooch with his signature “Korea daze” expression. We over-walked that kid, lol.
The one part of the night market that sticks out in my memory is the dog that Chooch was desperately trying to pet on the way out. Some older man had his dog off-leash and that dog was super social and lapping up all the attention he was getting, but he kept getting distracted by other people every time he would start to run to Chooch. Two younger guys were walking by and noticed Chooch’s plight, so they helped lure the dog over to him, and when Chooch was finally successfully in petting the dog, the guys & several other spectators cheered – it was such a heartwarming moment and definitely something that I will always remember.
This cool Last Supper-spoof was in the textile area of Gwangjang Market. I love that the disciples are actually designers!
We continued to stroll around, spectating all the drunken sidewalk revelry, stopping for third dinner at the above food stall, and just trying to take in as much as possible while we were still there. This was when the clock really started to tick for me, and I was hyper-aware that we only had two full days left. It was frustrating because I wanted to start grabbing at everything and clutching it close to my chest, you know? Like, let me double-fist all of these experiences that are still out there before I run out of time because who knows if I will ever get the opportunity to go back. Just, utter panic and behind-the-scenes sadness no matter how hard I tried to live in the moment, because the end was always looming around the corner. LE SIGH.
The next Korea post will be about Changdeokgung Palace! Get stoked for some traditional Korean snaps!
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