Oh Honestly, Erin

With the exception of the small portion of the afternoon we spent in Yeouido earlier in the week, we had been spending all of our time in “old Seoul,” which is north of the Han River, while “new Seoul” is south. I can tell you without any uncertainty that old Seoul was where I would gladly spend most of my time if/when I ever get to return, but I had to cross the Han in order to visit some kpop places of interest, the most important being SMTown.

But first, Henry had to look at a map…

I had just been saying that so far, this day was the best we’d had, what with starting our morning off with a hike up to Namsan Tower, and then eating lunch Myeongdong, and pretty much not having any direction snafus! But then…Gangnam.

But wait, let me back up. So, Gangnam is the ritzy neighborhood of Seoul. You might remember back in 2012 when there was a huge kpop hit that crossed over to American radio: Psy’s “Gangnam Style”? I knew a girl at the time who was so offended that this was being played on the radio because she thought he was saying “condom star.” OK…

So, that kind of put Gangnam on the map for the rest of the world. It literally means “South of the river” and is ridiculously upscale. I mean, as soon as we got off the train in Gangnam Station, the underground shopping went from sock vendors to motherfucking designer brands. It was like being in a completely different country. And then once we emerged from the subway station, even the people were different. The fashion was way more sleek, the men all dressed like they were straight out of k-dramas with their perfectly-fitted pants and pastel shirts and it was pretty hard not to stare in awe because everyone was so beautiful and physically curated.

Of course, Henry took us the wrong way right off the bat and we ended up standing in the middle of a sidewalk next to what appeared to be the main and extremely busy multi-laned street in Gangnam, looking like fucking losers for the millionth time of the trip, when an older man on a scooter rolled up to us on the sidewalk, and in broken English asked us where we were trying to go.

Henry looked at me like, “This is all you, YOU tell him!” so I sheepishly said we were looking for SMTown.

“Oh, idols? Idols!” he said, recognizing immediately what I was looking for because everyone in Korea knows kpop idols. This man was so freaking sweet and tried his very best to help us even with the very strong language barrier. He told us we could walk there, and pointed the way, but made a motion with his hand and sound that I think was implying “walk waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down that street.”

So we set off BACK THE WAY WE CAME because traditionally this is what Henry does to us, and before we made it off that block, the man in the scooter came back to us. He must have thought about it after we left and waved off his original directions. He pulled out a notebook and wrote down the names of subway stations in his best romanized attempt (honestly, romanization of the Korean language sucks. I wish I had the foresight to tell him to write it in hangeul) but we we were able to understand his new directions, and god bless that man because we got off at the subway stop he suggested and literally SMTown was RIGHT THERE when we emerged from the exit.

SMTown is this really cool multi-level building owned by SM Entertainment and full of interactive exhibits, a gift shop, a cafe, and displays of costumes worn and awards won by artists on the SM label. It’s also the collective name that the artists on SM go by.

My second favorite kpop group is on SM—-SHINee. There was no way we were going to leave Seoul without a visit to SMTown. I needed to see all of the SHINee displays!

Close-up of the mirrored facade.

I almost fell off the escalator while drooling over these large SHINee portraits on the wall. I’m notoriously terrible with escalators and generally need to devote every ounce of my attention to gripping the rail and keeping a solid stance on the step. I had one really scary escalator incident when I was around 4-years-old in Atlantic City and my SHOELACE GOT CAUGHT.

Don’t worry — my Pappap was there to rescue me.

I watch all of these different Korean music countdown programs whenever my favorite artists are performing so it was really fun to see some of these awards in real life, and for Red Velvet no less! (Chooch and Henry both really love Red Velvet, FYI.)

Super fun fact about Red Velvet: one of the members (Wendy) is actually from Minnesota. During these past Winter Olympics, one of Amanda Kessel’s (Team USA hockey and also sister to Pittsburgh Penguin’s Phil Kessel) college friends posted a picture of their college golf team group picture for Throwback Thursday and someone noticed that Wendy was also on the team! So random.

BUT TAEMIN, THO.

Chooch and I saw NCT127 at KCON last year and when they performed Cherry Bomb, we thought the bass was going to blow the roof right off the Prudential Center. It was fucking intense.

Also, there are various NCT groups (NCT127, NCT Dream, NCT U, and now NCT 2018) and I just can’t keep them all straight. I remember watching an episode of Weekly Idol were NCT127 was trying to explain all of  the different units, and Dony and Cony (the hosts) were just like, “No, just stop talking. It’s too much.”

Anyway, one of their members, Johnny, is from Chicago I think. I would say their most popular member is Taeyong but he’s my least favorite because he makes me feel uncomfortable. Don’t ask.

Henry was like, “Just take this fucking picture, fast.”

Taeyeon is my favorite member of Girl’s Generation.

More Taemin!

Chooch was annoyed because there were some girls there giggling at him, lol.

Seriously, Henry – why don’t we have full-blown murals of kpop stars in our house?!

He was so over it, hahaha. (OR WAS HE. He loves kpop, don’t let his terrorized gaze fool you. He sends me kpop news articles all the time!)

You guys, Taemin’s hands are slightly smaller than mine and I have pretty small hands! Chooch’s hands looked like ham hocks next to all of the idol hand molds.

Chooch got this picture from one of the photobooths after two girls hogged it forever:

Yes, it’s already framed and hung on the Wall of Chooch.

We almost missed the 4th floor because there was a weird stairwell but thank god we saw it because that’s not only where all of the gorgeous fan art lives (the collection blew my mind), but also the Jonghyun memorial was there as well. I posted about that separately, because it was important and special to me and, well, I just felt that it deserved its own post. So if you feel like it, you can read about that here.

After absorbing all of the SM-goodness, we went to the cafe where Chooch and I each got a plastic collectors bottle of our favorite groups (SHINee for me, and Red Velvet for him). Henry bitched about it because they’re pretty small and once we added our respective beverage selection, they were $9 a piece. God, Henry, just pay the guy!

Random view of Gangnam.

After we left SMTown, Henry took us on a cross-country trudge to the JYP building. Oh my good god, our feet felt crushed and I sincerely thought that I had fractured something just from literally pounding the pavement with shoes that were OK comfort-wise, but not the best for walking 25 miles a day. We just kept walking and walking and getting more and more slap-happy, to the point where Henry quit talking to us altogether, especially since everytime he said something we would repeat it back to him in an Eeyore voice.

We’re such angels!

Every time we would ask him where we were going, he would fly on the defensive about how “ALL THE DIRECTIONS I FIND TO THESE PLACES ARE SHITTY, OK!? I’M DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN!!”

Lol forever.

We did eventually make it to JYP, after feeling like Henry was leading us off the face of the earth. And we knew that we had made it because we rounded a corner and saw a bunch of girls sitting on a curb across the street from it.

Honestly, I just wanted to do a quick walk-by and snap some pics of the building, but Chooch got super comfortable on the curb with the other fangirls, hoping for a chance to see someone from Got7 leap from the front door and disappear into a tinted-windowed car.

Henry was not OK with this, but I bet the Dunkin Donuts across the street is super on board with it, considering their shop was packed full of sasaeng (crazy) fans staking out at their tables with coffee and donuts.

It was Jackson’s birthday so there was a birthday sign up for him. Sadly, he was in Hawaii at the time (I believe) so there was no chance of getting a glimpse of him.

I would have been happy seeing TWICE!! That’s who I was holding out for.

Chooch kept saying, “Just three more minutes.”

“Just six more minutes.”

“We’ll leave at 5:45.”

“Make that 5:50.”

We eventually left at 6:00, after staking out for a half hour. I’m too old for that! (OK, maybe if there was a chance of seeing G-Dragon or Taemin, that would be making a bed under a bush somewhere, but G-Dragon is in the military now and Taemin was actually in LA the week we were in Seoul, because fuck my luck.)

This next part is almost too painful to relive by blogging, but we promised Chooch that we would go to Kakao Friends in Gangnam and Henry took us some convoluted way back to a random subway station and then we got off at what he assured us was the “correct” stop but we still somehow ended up walking over an hour through the now-dark streets of Gangnam, which was getting more and more crowded because people love to freaking shop, and Chooch and I were getting more and more angry and our feet hurt and Henry was trying to win back our hearts by making jokes and we were like, “NOT ON THIS DAY, HANK.”

Long and incredibly miserable story short, we did eventually make it to Kakao Friends and Chooch was so happy, so I guess it was worth it.

We split a strawberry cake at the Ryan Cafe (Ryan is the main Kakao character) and wouldn’t let Henry have any, hahaha. But at least we were all laughing at this point. We kept the cardboard coffee sleeve for our scrapbook about Henry getting us lost. We haven’t started it yet though, because I’m not a scrapbooker by any stretch and when I went to the craft store to get a scrapbook, I felt so overwhelmed and stressed out and then I just got mad because none of those kits are my style. Everything was all jesus-y and corny. Doesn’t anyone make scrapbook shit for Godless people!?

And since we hadn’t eaten a legit dinner, we gorged on street food in a side-street near Kakao Friends, because twigum (fried food) is life.

Here’s a quick compilation of street action from that day in Myeongdong & Gangnam:

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I kept telling myself, even though Henry’s screwy directions had us walking figure eights all around Korea, at least we were IN KOREA. We were happy by the time we got back to the hotel, and that’s all that matters.

Next post: TRAIN TO BUSAN!

I have no idea what that title is supposed to mean but it made sense in my stir-fried brain for approximately 4 seconds. But even still, here is another blog post about, what else, KOREA. As if you’re not totally over it by now (see also: 8 posts ago).

We got up nice and early on Wednesday, March 28th to set off for Myeongdong station in order to begin our hike up to Namsan Park / N. Seoul Tower, but first: HOTEL ELEVATOR SELFIE. Henry had grown to abhor Elevator Time because Chooch and I were in this constant vacuum state of giddiness and we were known to lose it and start cracking up in front of other hotel guests several times. I know what you’re thinking and I agree: “WOW THAT SOUNDS SO ADORABLE HENRY IS LUCKY TO BE IN YOUR COMPANY.”

Once we got off at Myeongdong station, we had pretty clear directions (for once) on how to get to the start of the trail. When I say we “hiked,” I hope you guys know that this was 99.9% an urban hike and we didn’t have, like, REI survival packs on our backs or even basic hiking boots on foot or anything like that. It was mostly just very wide steps or steep concrete paths that we were walking on, but shit you guys, there was still a certain degree of effort involved. The tower literally crowns the top of Namsan Mountain, which is also considered the guardian mountain of Seoul. (I just learned this now; thanks, Google.)

The other option is to take the cable cars to the top, but I had read that walking is so much better because 1) nature and 2) exercise and 3) you can feel less slothy later on when you’re downing your third serving of ttkeokbokki and twigum. Every single person we encountered on this trek was over the age of 60 and in fantastic shape. BECAUSE THEY HIKE FREAKING MOUNTAINS ALL THE TIME. Native Koreans cracked the code of eternal youth, you guys. It was inspiring to watch them, especially when we reached one of the level checkpoints that had an area with exercise equipment and every single one was occupied by an ahjummas and ahjussi and they were GETTIN’ IT. I posted about that in more detail here.

I bet this spot looks so dreamy in the summer!

We paused occasionally to take in the view, where I would start to feel mild panic because I’m afraid of heights. I kept feeling like Chooch was going to tumble off the mountain even though there were railings everywhere but I still kept screaming, “GET AWAY FROM THERE. STAND NEXT TO ME. HOLD DADDY’S HAND. BE CAREFULLLLLLLL!!! WHY DID WE STOP USING A STROLLER??”

I’m either NOT A PARENT or SMOTHERINGLY MATERNAL out of nowhere. You never know.

You damn well know Henry had to stop and look at this map.

This isn’t actually fog. The yellow dust levels were really high most of the time we were there, in case you were wondering why you often see photos of people in Korea wearing medical masks. It’s actually not a fashion statement! (Well, it is for some people, probably, and there are certainly really cool mask options out there if you feel the basic white ones are too plain; in fact, all of the kpop shops sell masks with different kpop group logos on them, so if you want to protect your lungs while supporting EXO, you’ve got options.)

There are apps that you can use that will let you know what the air quality is for that day, and there was one day while we were there when we actually received an emergency warning text that was all in Hangul and of course our knee-jerk reaction was “NORTH KOREA” but then Chooch looked it up while we were digging a bomb shelter on the side of the road and said, “Oh, it’s just about the yellow dust, guys.”

It’s bad in Korea, but REALLY BAD in China.

It felt like the tower kept getting farther away, the higher we climbed.

Most of our ascent up Namsan was done on very nice brick paths like the one above. I loved that everytime we turned and looked back behind us, we got a different perspective of Seoul. That city is such a motherlovin’ babe and I could stare at it all the livelong day, for serious.

If you squint, maybe you can see my HEART DOWN THERE BECAUSE I LEFT IT IN SEOUL, WAHHH.

A rare picture of Henry and me. Chooch also have a version where he zoomed in on Henry’s face and cropped it and we kept laughing at that during the rest of the trip and Henry was like, “IT’S NOT FUNNY” and then Chooch did it again to another picture but on that one he added green snot dripping out of Henry’s nose and we were peeing ourselves over it and Henry really hated that one the best. Why was everything so funny!?

MAYBE IT WAS THE YELLOW DUST.

Anyway, this day was monumental because it was the first day of the trip that Henry wore a shirt with a pattern on it.

“How many more of these mountain-things do we have to climb?” I told him none, but hahaha just wait until Busan!

We finally made it to the top after maybe an hour, a little less even, and Henry bought our tickets for the tower. We got there at a great time (I think it was still sometime before 11am) because we went up in the elevator alone and barely anyone was in the observation area. It’s weird, but I felt like I had been there before since there was an episode of, wait for it, Running Man which took place there.

Oh yeah! Before we took the elevator up, there was a photo zone which Henry tried to bypass but I was like “YOLO, Henry” so we allowed the Namsan girl to take our photos and even obliged when she told us to make finger-hearts which Henry probably taught himself how to do while watching Twice videos in the bathroom at work, and Henry claims his jutting middle finger “wasn’t on purpose” which is what I’m going to say after I sprinkle his stew with hemlock tonight.

Meanwhile, Chooch was like, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

I was excited because the gift shop had post cards with stamps that you could buy and mail straight from the tower!!

Writing about Henry in our postcards, probably, lol.

We could have stayed up there all morning, but about 30 minutes after we got into the tower, the crowds started to file in. We made it to the cafe before it got packed though and it was really fun to sit by the window and write our postcards. Sending postcards is a dying form of communication, and I get so happy when our friends Chronica and Alyson Hell send us postcards from their travels! DONT EVER STOP.

This is the postcard Chooch wrote to our friends Jessi and Bill. <3 (Yes, he signs off as Douchecup, but only to Bill & Jessi. My favorite “douchecup” moment was at his 5th birthday party when he was running around calling Bill a douchecup and one of the preschool kids’ moms was like, “Wow, sounds like he really wants a juice cup!” YES, THAT’S IT EXACTLY.

OMG as I’m writing this, the mail room lady that I thought was a high school kid here for an internship thing when she first started (it’s a long story so the tl;dr version is that my eyesight is pathetic) just delivered the post card I sent from Seoul Tower to my co-workers! Glenn just read it and tried not to smile but then he smiled and immediately tried to disparage the situation by criticizing me for writing too much but that is just how I do postcards, OK?

Here’s a fun fact about the tower, thanks to the postcard that just arrived at work: It was designed to offer a full 360 degree view of Seoul and it was also Korea’s first radio tower delivering radio and TV signals since 1969!

This is the mail box I dropped the post cards into at my own risk.

View from 236m up, whatever that means.

View while peeing, taken after I peed—I wasn’t peeing on the floor.

There was this one activity where you could stand in front of a screen and connect to Busan Tower! However, at the moment Chooch and I did it, there was no one in Busan Tower waiting to connect, so that was sad. (We visited Busan Tower while there, but didn’t actually go up inside that one. More on that in a few posts!)

After hanging out in the cafe for a while, we left the tower and milled about the area at its base, which is filled with various shops (yes, you can buy your skin care even at Namsan Tower!) and a million places to attach a love lock if you feel so inclined to purchase one from the gift. We made Chooch use his own money to buy one because Henry was running low on cash and needed to find a bank. I can’t believe Chooch actually did it; he’s such a fucking tightwad with his own money.

“I bought a stupid marker, too,” he snottily spat when he returned from the gift shop.

This where I sat and painted my nails with $2 bottles of nail polish (hot pink and fluorescent orange) that I bought that morning at Daiso because my current nail polish was looking haggard. This is also where Chooch realized that he lost his subway card, so that was cool and not really a big deal because there was only like enough fare for one trip left on it I think and it only costs around $4 to get a new card to load, but we still made him feel like the most irresponsible child on the face of the earth because we’ve earned that right as parents.

LOL back off, CPS whistleblowers. We only harped on him for like 5 minutes and then moved on with our day.

The area around the tower is really beautiful, with lots of overlooks and colorful love locks to snoop on.

It was really nice to slow our pace a bit and just enjoy the mindblowing view. I know it’s a super touristy thing to do and Henry was kind of like, “merp merp” about it but then we made it to the top and he was like, “Fine. This is fine.” But probably had it been crowded, he’d have had a different, more sad tuba-y tune.

Chronica got Chooch this shirt for Christmas.

And then we began our walk back down the mountain to Myeongdong, where we had lunch before going to Gangnam! STAY TUNED LOLOLOL.

I lied. I said the next post was going to be about Everland but then I finished sorting through the photos and I’m already tired, ugh. Everland was a long day! So let’s skip that for now and fast-forward to  the next day (Tuesday 3/27) when we went to the Raccoon Cafe in Hongdae!

This was one of those bones we keep in our back pockets to  throw to Chooch every now and then so he forgets about all the shitty parenting moments we have, but let’s face it — it’s not like Henry and I were completely adverse to going to a freaking raccoon cafe!

I’ll write more about the Hongdae area at length in another post because it just might be my favorite part of Seoul, but for now, let’s just talk about raccoons!

If you’re into novelty, themed cafes, Seoul has got your kitschy ass covered. They have a wealth of PC and VR cafes (obvi), a phone case cafe where you literally go to drink cafe and hot glue sequins and flesh to a phone case, poop cafes, Hello Kitty cafes, and an array of animal cafes. Pittsburgh has a cat cafe now, so we didn’t do one of those, but it was hard to choose between the meercat cafe, sheep cafe, and raccoon cafe.

(And yes, Chooch tried to get us to go  to all of them but I was like THERE ARE TOO MANY GENTLE MONSTERS TO CONQUER, COME BACK TO KOREA ON YOUR OWN TIME.)

Ultimately, the raccoon won because Chooch was watching a video on YouTube and saw that they also have dogs, and of those dogs, there is a Corgi and a Shiba Inu. So, that was easy.

Plus, raccoons are fucking adorable.

(Henry hates raccoons because they hang out in the dumpster at his work and he has early morning arguments with them.)

It’s a little misleading because you’re not actually allowed to take your drinks in the room with the animals, which of course is 100% understandable! But if you have an image of sipping an Americano and  writing some BTS fanfiction while a raccoon sleeps in your lap….just know it’s not like that.

Anyway, the first thing we had to do was get yelled at by the barista for failing to read the sign when we walked in which said in large letters TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF AND PUT AL OF YOUR BELONGINGS IN A LOCKER OR GTFO.

Maybe that wasn’t the exact wording.

So we had to go back to the entryway with our dumb American heads hung low and have a do-over with Following Directions, and then we had to wait for Big Foot Henry to find a pair of house shoes that fit his dumb wide feet, and then finally we were able to buy our drinks and pay for our raccoon meet-n-greet. (8,000 won I think it was per person? So, a little less than $8. Worth it.)

I got a green tea latte and instantly realized that every green tea latte I’ve drunk here in the States has been a fat green lie.  Take me in, Asia. HOLD ME AND NEVER LET ME GO.

Once I finished my drink (Chooch made me inhale it) I went to into a little vestibule where a girl employee asked me if my pockets were empty and I said because I had taken all my change and lip gloss out but she was like, “ARE THEY?” and I was like,” Well, I guess I have this scrap of a gum wra—” and she pointed to the exit before I could even finish and wouldn’t let me back in until each pocket was as empty as Trump’s soul.

Then I walked in and  got mauled by eight dogs and raccoons because when you live with cats, you are marked, my friends.

Chooch’s review: “CORGIS!”

He honestly spent most of the time with the corgi, taking pictures of its butt, filming it getting its nails clipped…here’s his Instagram post about it.

So, I did have a raccoon in my lap at one point and I was like, “AW  YOU LOVE ME” but he was just rooting in my jacket pockets for trash. Suddenly, that girl’s garbage-sternness made a lot of sense.

Henry made a friend with this boy but it turned out the dog was just trying to hide from the Nail Clippers.

This guy was my favorite! He hung out in a hole in the wall the whole time, baiting people.

Henry went over to say hi and the raccoon immediately tried to take his hat off and then stole his glasses right off his face – it was amazing.

“Please put your phone down and help me get my glasses back,” Henry hissed, but he was actually smiling and having a nice time too which was weird.

I was really excited that the raccoons were so outgoing. You didn’t even have to seek any out! I sat down on a bench the whole time and they all took turns coming over to inspect me. The only time we were kind of scared was when several of the dogs started barking at each other and then two of the raccoons ran over and hid behind Henry and me. I was afraid they were going to go on the defensive and attack us but then they lost interest in whatever the dogs were riled up about and went back to waddling around the room.

Henry just walked by and I asked him if he has anything to add and he said he’s not doing anything for me anymore WOW JUST WOW and also hilarious because he literally just came back from getting me an iced latte haha forever spoiled, hate me.

That was an hour well-spent! And as soon as we left, Chooch missed a step (the cafe is on the 4th floor of a building) in the stairwell, sprained his ankle and collapsed. There was that scary 2-second delay where everything just stops and you’re praying that your kid isn’t going to cry, but then he burst into tears and all I could think was OMG WHAT’S THE KOREAN WORD FOR HOSPITAL, THINK ERIN, YOU KNOW THIS because a kid writhing in pain clearly isn’t enough context clue for someone to crack the language code and know what you’re asking for.

Luckily, he was able to shake it off and although he spent the rest of the day limping (probably only 25% was legit), he was a trooper and never complained about it until we walked past a VR cafe and he reminded us about how he almost had to his foot amputated because his careless parents shoved him down an elevator shaft, but even then we were like NOT TODAY.

At least now he had an excuse to steal subway seats from ahjummas.

Yeah, so that was another installment of Erin’s Tour of Seoul – definitely check this place out if you’re ever in the Hongdae are and if you’re in Seoul you should DEFINITELY BE IN THE HONGDAE AREA unless you are a fucking square who hates cool shops and street performers and being in close proximity to YG Entertainment (where my KING G-Dragon spent most of his life!)

After this, we checked out some super cool stores which will be in a later post, and then had dinner at Aori Ramen which I wrote about while we were still in Korea. Recapping this is so exhausting that I might need another vacation!

Me: Insadong is the best dong.

Henry: Thanks.

Seriously, Insadong is pretty freaking great. And since I like to occasionally sprinkle some actual facts on this broke-down Internet page of fake news, a “dong” is actually a “neighborhood” in Korea. This particular dong, while fairly touristy & gimmicky, also provides a glimpse into the traditional aspects of Korea as well. The streets are lined with souvenir shops selling traditional Korean masks (you know I bought one for my mask collection!), clothing boutiques, and local art shops. Plus FOOD VENDORS, restaurants, cafes, and tea houses. Basically, all of the staples of Seoul.

We got there around 9:00 on a Sunday morning, and the main street of Insadong was still sleepy. There were people out walking, but none of the shops were open yet. This was fine because the first thing we wanted to do was throw Chooch a bone by taking him to the Alive Museum, which was already open. It’s just one of those trick eye museums with a billion photo ops. I was annoyed about it at first because god forbid we were doing something for someone else, but then I couldn’t help but join in after a few minutes of faux-sulking.

 

After spending a good hour in that place, Insadong was waking up and the streets were already way more lively. Henry wanted to go to the tourist information booth because he was obsessed with getting a map of each area we visited (little good that did us), and while he was doing that, Chooch and I slipped into an alley to take some pictures. I thought Henry knew our whereabouts, but apparently not because he walked the opposite direction, stopped, looked all around with his arms out and palms up to the sky, and we of course started our giddy bray which led him right back to us.

This was the first time we’d lose Henry, but not the first time for the “lost” theme in general. Did I tell you guys about how we lost Chooch in Chicago on the day we left for Korea? Oh yeah, it was awesome! We had just landed in Chicago and needed to take a shuttle to the international terminal. Chooch was all, “Hurry guys, it’s leaving!” and swan-dove onto it just as the doors were closing and we were like, “NOOOOOOOoooooooo—–!”

I was panicked but Henry was all calm and collected, and actually even LAUGHED ABOUT IT?!

“I’d be worried if we had a stupid kid, but he’s not stupid, so…” Henry shrugged. But in my eyes, Chooch is still a LITTLE BABY WHO NEEDS HIS MOMMY.

And of course, he was fine. Henry and I got on the next shuttle and Chooch was waiting for us on the exact correct platform because he pays attention and follows direction, unlike me. He wasn’t even crying! When I was 11, if that had happened to me, I’d probably have died of fright right there on that shuttle.

Fuck, even now I’d probably poop my pants if I got lost in some other city, OMG someone help me grow up.

Anyway, our first order of business after the Alive Museum and losing Henry was to find food. We hadn’t eaten at a legit restaurant yet since arriving Friday night because the temptation of street food was just too strong, but now our bodies were craving a balanced meal. Chooch found this great little place in an alley and we had our first round of authentic, actual Korean bibimbap.

I was in heaven! Bibimbap has been one of my favorite foods for years and years, and to be eating it in a small, traditional restaurant in a back street of Seoul was just blowing my mind. We were shocked that Chooch ordered bibimbap as well without any whining and actually ate a good portion of it, also without whining. He is so notoriously picky, as kids are wont to be, but he swore that he would try new things when we got to Korea and I have to be honest here, as the title of my blog suggests: he was pretty fucking adventurous.

That banchan though. Good lord, take me back.

Afterward, we got some poop bread! It comes in two flavors – chocolate or pat (sweet red beans). When pat is an option, I will always choose that. It’s such a sweet, earthy flavor! We should use that more in American desserts, guys. Maybe I’ll have pat-filled cake at my imaginary never-wedding.

AND WE CAN CALL IT A PAT-TY CAKE.

There is also a poop cafe in Insadong, but we didn’t go. So many novelty cafes, so little time!

I wanted to buy something from every store in this shopping center, but I didn’t because I’m cheap AF.

It was here in this shopping center where Chooch was scanning a display of phone cases for Bambi and I was like, “BOY, NO ONE HAS CARED ABOUT BAMBI SINCE LIKE 1961, YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FIND A BAMBI PHONE CASE” and then guess who was handing over 20,000 won for a Bambi phone case 30 seconds later?

Ugh. Really, Korea?!

Also Insadong is where you can find the famous Dragon Beard candy vendors! The guy we bought from was excited that we were from Pittsburgh because of the Pirates and told Chooch he was a handsome boy and I was like, “WHAT ABOUT ME WHAT AM I!?” Ugh, Chooch got all the attention.

On the way out of Insadong and to the subway station, we bought some chapssal donuts from a vendor wherein I gave a big fat FUCK YOU to any semblance of a diet that I might have been trying to maintain. I mean, it’s not everyday I can eat legit Korean street food, so I was basically on a mission to try one of everything, and then of course on the flight home, I started making a mental list of all the stuff I forgot to try.

OH WELL, I guess I’ll just have to go back!

Next post: Yeouido Hangang Park!

After our Saturday morning in Myeongdong, I wanted to go to the DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza). I had seen tons of videos of it online and am just obsessed with its architecture and unique crashing-UFO design. It just so happened that the tail-end of Seoul Fashion Week was underway, so we had free entertainment! I previously posted about this while we were still in Korea, so you can read that here if you want.

These flowers are so pretty and light up at night!

 

I could have easily stayed here all day long and people-watched, but the one thing that I should say is that I spent a good chunk of our trip with this terrible Chasing the White Rabbit mentality, where I felt like we were running out of time, and I was in a near-constant state of panic that we weren’t doing enough. At the end of each day though, I went to bed grateful that we were even there at all, trust me! And even the times Henry got us lost, after my anger subsided I was able to reason that at least we were lost in freakin’ SEOUL. And honestly, that allowed us to see parts of the city that we might not have seen otherwise, lol!

The DDP was within walking distance from our hotel so we took a leisurely stroll back, where the intention was to “rest” for “an hour or so.” But first we got some piping hot croquettes from a vendor (mine was kimchi, I always opted for kimchi fillings whenever that was an option because my love affair with that fermented babe is real). Chooch got a potato one and I was so happy that he was actually eating things. Henry and I were afraid that he’s starve to death in Korea because he’s so goddamn picky. But he promised us that he would try things and he really did uphold his end of the deal.

If you read my Naksan sunset post from last week, you might recognize that wall. It’s the Seoul Fortress Wall and if we had followed it down from Naksan Park, it would have brought us all the way down to the Heunginjimun Gate which I photographed on our very first night in Seoul when we were half-asleep and shambling around in the dark like American zombies. When we made this realization the next evening in Naksan Park, I got so excited because I am always completely confused by maps and geography so it was cool to start having pieces of Seoul fall into place in my mind’s compass, you know?

You can’t go through the Gate, but look at the beautiful design on the ceiling!

After this, we walked down the street and popped into Gwangjang Market (formerly Dongdaemun Market which we were desperately trying to find, unbeknownst that it changed names) where Chooch confidently walked up to a vendor and ordered a fresh fruit juice. He was so proud of himself! Simple things like ordering a drink can be daunting in a foreign country and I give him major props for wanting to do this himself instead of relying on Henry and me. That kid is really going to go places someday, I’m sure of it.

We also got our first real Korean bindaetteok (mung bean pancake) and I was in clogged artery heaven.

This was in the plaza right next to our hotel (Hotel Atrium). Chooch was desperate for me to take this picture (Gwangjang fruit juice cameo!) and two young girls giggled when they walked past so my new dream is for Chooch to get a Korean girlfriend, move to Korea, and let me visit 10 times a year.

So then we went back to the room to “rest” which inevitably turned into a three hour nap because our bodies were telling us that it was 3AM. When we woke up, all of us, it was nearly 7PM. I felt like absolute shit. It’s been awhile since I last traveled this far (Australia was the farthest for me) so I can’t remember how badly my previous bouts with jetlag were, and I was also much younger too so probably more resilient at that. But when I woke up, I felt like I had the flu. Full body chills, feverish, just really awful. I was scared that I actually have the flu because I’ve been surrounded by it at work, and wouldn’t that just be my luck? To finally make it to Korea and wind up sick in a hotel room for most of it.

Henry said he was fine with whatever I decided to do but I refused to lay around in the room and wanted to at least go for a walk to see how I would feel. We walked to a nearby Paris Baguette where I had an Americano and milk bread, and then just like that, I was fine. I started to wonder if maybe that was my body reacting to the yellow dust?

We took the subway to the start of Cheonggyecheon so we could check out Cheonggye Plaza. Turns out there was some Earth Day event thing going on where they were turning off all the lights for an hour and having a small concert, so Chooch got to have his picture taken with a panda, which is all he cared about.

Seriously, he could be having the worst day, but then someone will walk by in an animal suit and it’s suddenly a brand new day for him.

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I think I will remember this night at the first time we were approached by locals, asking us where we’re from, etc. I had a nice conversation with a young guy at the stream about how he used to live in DC, and then earlier on our way to the stream, a young guy eating an ice cream cone approached us too.

It was really exciting for me because I LOVE KOREANS and was so happy that someone wanted to talk to us. It was very overwhelming for us on thus first full day but there was just enough random kindness and helpfulness to make us feel less like aliens.

Also, most people just ignored us on the subway so that wasn’t nearly as scary as I had built it up in my mind and every single fucking day since we’ve been home, I’ve shed legit tears thinking about how much I miss it. I told Henry earlier today that I think I imprinted on the entire Korean transit system.

“Is that weird?” I asked.

“Not for you,” he said, unfazed by my soul-splitting admission.

We left the plaza and walked for a while but then HANGER set in so Henry frantically went into “FIND FOOD” mode before Chooch and I ate him alive.

Deoksugung Palace.

Bosingak Bell Pavilion, which Henry kept calling a Palace and we were like NOT EVERYTHING IS A PALACE! Honestly though, it seems like no matter what direction you walk around Seoul, you will inevitably turn a corner on one of these ancient beauties. I loved it so much.

Originally, we were going to get pizza because I needed to judge for myself just how “weird” Korean pizza is supposed to be, but we wound up filling up on street food which is, in our defense, very easy and fast to do.

And so goddamn delicious.

I could eat hotteok for every meal. In fact, some random YouTube video about hotteok was just playing as I’m typing this and now I’m drinking a dixie cup of a tears/saliva blend. I’ve had hotteok at Korean food festivals here in the States but there is nothing like burning the fuck out of your mouth on that piping hot brown sugar filling while standing on the streets of actual Seoul, Korea — how was this a reality just a mere two weeks ago!?

Chooch got something from an Isaac Toast walk-up window and didn’t like it all that much, but I was like, “GIVE ME THAT” and then ended up eating all of it because holy fuck how do they take something so simple as bread and egg and cheese and turn it into God’s own hangover breakfast? There was something about the sauce, for god’s sake, that sauce. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but it tasted something like honey mustard mixed with mayo? Henry, am I wrong? (LOL, like he would know, I barely let him have any!) We saw another Issac Toast window earlier that day when we were in Myeongdong and the line for it was about a block long. Now I understand why. I know that there is at least one location in Seoul where you can actually go inside and I kept saying I wanted to find it but then I kept getting distracted by all of the other shiny things Seoul has to offer, so I never did get another Isaac toast.

We started walking back to the hotel after that, and even though it was after 10 by then, all of the shops were still open. Chooch went to a candy shop and bought his own stuff and then promptly hid it from Henry in the hotel.

It was a good (and filling) end to the first full day. Please hurry up and get me back there ASAP.

A lot of my friends kept asking for our itinerary before we left, and well, we didn’t really have one. I just had a list of all the major areas of Seoul I wanted to visit, and get in lost in thanks to Henry (but even though I was really annoyed at the amount of directionless wandering we did, I eventually reasoned that hey, we might be lost, but at least we’re lost in SOUTH KOREA #brightside). So every morning, we’d wing it. I think that kind of harried, unorganized travel non-plan really suits us, though.

For our first morning, we woke up around 3am because jetlag. Luckily, there were a million convenience stores nearby, and Henry latched on to the GS25 around the corner and became a regular during our time there. We dined on packaged Korean pastries—I’m sorry, but I will eat the fuck out of anything filled with pat (red bean). I also finally had legit Binggrae banana milk and expected it to be gross because I typically don’t enjoy banana-flavored things, but this was like perfectly-sweetened liquid silk, I can’t even explain it. I would be so fat if I lived in Korea because I would probably drink it more than I drink coffee and I drink a lot of coffee if you didn’t know.

Chooch became obsessed with Shiro and Maro because he’s really into Corgis and Shiba Inus, so Korea was his Babylon in that respect. He made Henry get him one of these every day so he could collect the stickers.

While we were sitting there waiting for the rest of the city to wake up. I mean, Seoul truly never sleeps so we could have probably walked outside and easily found a soju bar still rockin’ at 5am, but we’re old people with an 11-year-old so we figured we’d just wait for the regular things to open.

I decided that I wanted to go to Myeongdong first. This is an area of Seoul known for all of its makeup shops and Kpop-blasting. But first, we had to fuck around with the subway! There was this thing called the Korea Tour Card that Henry wanted to get, because it’s made specifically for foreigners and gives you discounts into some of the palaces and shops, etc. But you can only purchase it in some locations, so we had to go to the station close to us (there were two — our hotel was super convenient) and get a ticket to Seoul Station.

Chooch ended up understanding the subway lines way before Henry which I think is hilarious. The amount of times Chooch got us un-lost was amazing to me and crippling to Henry’s man-of-the-house masculinity.

Long story short, it ended up taking over an hour trying to locate this stupid tourist card because Henry wouldn’t listen to us and insisted on walking us in circles around Seoul Station, and then when I found an American lady in front of us at one of the T-Money machines, I asked her how to get one and she was all, “Oh  you can get one using this machine!” which is what Chooch and I kept telling Henry but he was like NO THAT IS NOT RIGHT. Meanwhile, two other foreign tourists approached Henry and gave him their T-Money cards because they were leaving and didn’t need them anymore. They weren’t the ones that Henry wanted, but it was still a sweet deal because T-Money cards are like $4 a piece, plus the fare money that you have to load onto them. And then all we had to get was purchase a child card through the machine for Chooch and luckily that was pretty much the end of our subway saga pretty much for our entire stay. Seoul’s subway system is amazing and relatively simple to master—we used it multiple times a day while there and it saved us so much time and money!

Plus the subway stations are filled with beautiful kpop idols.

We ran into this on our walk to Myeongdong and if you know Chooch, you know that he has to have his picture taken at every character statue thing he comes across which was cute when he was 4….

Anyway, by the time we made it to Myeongdong, it was still pretty early on Saturday morning so it wasn’t TOO NUTS yet but it was quickly getting there! The food vendors were already out and  the kpop was blasting – it was just like how I imagined!

Myeongdong is the perfect cocktail of trendy makeup shops, stalls full of cheap but adorable socks (Chooch and I were sock-obsessed and bought a ton), and FOOD.

Side bar: We prayed the whole time that Trump wouldn’t plan his North Korea talk while we were there. It was already nerve-wracking just being an American over there. (I was practicing my “eh”s and “aboots” and “soory”s and maple syrup facts just in case – love you, Canada!!) Actually, there were huge protests going on all day on Saturday and there were actual busloads of police all over the street near our hotel. People were standing on things and yelling, but other than that, it didn’t seem violent. I couldn’t tell what was going on, but there were people holding the American flag and that made me nervous.

“Well, at least they’re waving it and not burning it,” Henry pointed out.

“What type of Hell did the subway bring me to?”

BTS and EXO were everywhere in Myeongdong because they’re the faces of various skincare lines. So is the actor Gong Yoo, and he’s one of my favorites so I definitely didn’t mind seeing his handsome face on every other store window!

Then we stumbled upon the Line Friends store and Chooch was like, “YES, FUN TIME!” I have to say, he was pretty content doing all of the things I wanted to do, as well, but we did try to carve out time each day for Chooch-appropriate activities, as well. Luckily (or sadly?), there are Line Friends and Kakao Friends stores in pretty much every major neighborhood of Seoul so he really enjoyed that.

I hate this picture of me, but the one where I looked normal was the one where Henry cut off Sally (the duck on the top of Brown’s head) because he is the literal worst person ever to take pictures. He never tells us when he’s taking the picture so I’m usually in the middle of talking or yawning or my hair’s in my face, and he’s just like, “K, done” and then walks away!? WE HAD TO STAND IN LINE FOR THIS FUCKING PICTURE!

Chooch would have went home with every one of these plushes if I was a nicer mom. But I only let him pick out one. A much smaller one, lol.

Or if I was more like my Pappap, who for sure would have had them all shipped back to Pittsburgh. He was the best.

(He was also a millionaire. I am not a millionaire.)

Henry was not happy about posing for this picture and refused to  go inside the store to stand next to his bias, Jimin. I went inside and saw that they were selling BTS toothpaste sets and I really wanted one but then I was like, “Erin, you do not need a BTS toothpaste set.”

BUT NOW THAT I’M HOME I REALIZE THAT YES, YES I DO NEED A BTS TOOTHPASTE SET! I just hate shopping.

Then we had street food! We got some ttkeobokki and mayak kimbap to share. Chooch was like, “No, I like it. I swear I like it. It’s um…just a little spicy.”

Tteokbokki is my actual favorite. Henry makes it for me at home sometimes and I had to say, his is pretty comparable! I still prefer actual Korean street ttkeobokki of course. This was when I started to realize that the last year and a half of eating a 90% Korean diet has really dulled my tongue because when all the street vendors were warning us of things being “hot! very spicy!” I was like, “This isn’t spicy at all??” while Henry and Chooch were coughing out fireballs.

Looking back at our first day, it feels like such a blur. We were all still very jet-lagged and it also just felt completely like a dream. I kept catching myself looking around and staring at everything with my mouth hanging open like a farmgirl seeing the big city for the first time. It was just so stimulating, such a sensory free-for-all, walking down these streets that I have seen so many times on my TV, in YouTube videos and in dramas, hearing all of my favorite songs blasting at full volume, having an elderly man in a kpop merch shop showing Chooch and me his collection of Twice of memorabilia (I ended up buying a Taemin vinyl thingie to go with my G-Dragon one that I thought someone stole a few months ago!)

Be back later with part 2 of day 1! I am drowning in photo-editing.