Seoul Trip, Part Three (서울 여행, 파트 셋)
High-class clowning in all its glory, straight ahead.
Part one is here.
Part two is here.
Friday, Aug. 2
For breakfast we ate our leftovers from the not-so-good udon place, and then we were back in Myeongdong, this time to go to the Etude House Color Factory! We had made appointments online a few days ago (I neglected to note when), as it was one of those things we had eagerly discussed doing when planning our trip. Basically, the idea is that you go to this place where you would get tested and told what colors suited you best for foundation and/or lipstick. It cost ₩40,000 to do the assessment, and included either a foundation and lipstick, or two lipsticks.
When we got there, the color consultant gal was with another group, so she asked us to fill out a form and soon thereafter another color consultant gal arrived. Adelagia’s appointment was first, so they got started while I continued to fill out the form (it wasn’t that complicated, actually, but it was taking me forever because you could engrave something onto your lipstick tube and I was agonizing over what. Shit like that takes me forever). The girl apologized for her “not good” English, but at least Adelagia’s Korean was stronger than mine, so they could kind of meet each other halfway. At some point the other consultant gal finished up with her group, so she had me meet with her, and her English (thank goodness) was actually really good! Due to the way she spoke and the phrases she used, it seemed more like British English, but in Asia (or at least Hong Kong) that was not unusual. I was impressed, and remarked on it; she mentioned that she had studied for a year in England. She also said that because I was a native English speaker, she kind of felt like she was trying to use English in front of a teacher! And I quickly reassured her that she shouldn’t feel that way and that her English skills were top notch. Because of her superior English ability, certain things she asked were similar to what her coworker had asked, but came across very differently. For example, when the other gal asked Adelagia if she drove, we both assumed she was asking if we had driven to Etude House, so Adelagia said no. However, when my consultant asked, it was clear she meant if I drove in general, back home, because that would affect whether I had more sun exposure and thus might change my foundation color. Adelagia overheard this and felt like she had gotten the short end of the stick consultant wise, since some of the communication wires had gotten crossed.
What does any of this EVEN MEAN now? I have no idea.
During the process they sat you down in front of a mirror and had swatches of fabric they would drape over your shoulder and show you what colors looked good and bad on you - this information was to be used for both makeup and clothing choices. It went by so quickly, though, and the colors were so specific, that I can’t remember anything for certain in terms of what I supposedly should avoid and what I should stick to, lol. (It would have been helpful if we could have filmed the session, but Adelagia was just taking some pictures and the color consultant asked her not to take any video.) Both Adelagia and I conveniently (suspiciously?) came up as “neutral” in color tone, which meant we could wear both warm and cool colors; nuances within those color schemes are where we differed, but again, god knows what they are now. I took pictures of the various things she showed me, but I missed some of them, and because there was just so much information, it all ended up being like white noise.
While we waited for our custom lipsticks to be created (let’s be clear, they were just pre-formulated lipsticks that are available in the Color Factory only, not that special new blends were created for us. However, they are apparently made right then and there, not pre-made. Supposedly, anyway), we went downstairs to do a little shopping at Etude House armed with our newfound knowledge. It was when I was perusing lipsticks or eyeshadow or something like that that I met... Korean Steven.
Korean Steven is so named not because his name was Steven (I suppose it could be, I don’t know), but because he became as helpful and seminal in the Etude House experience that day as our escape room Steven was to us in the OC, haha. Initially when he started talking to me, I wrote him off as someone who was just trying to sell product, like overly helpful sales people at Sephora. However, I let him put some metallic bronze thing on my eyes, and when I saw what he’d done in the mirror, I loved it! So I asked him what it was, and then promptly put it into my basket. Subsequently I asked him about lipstick; he asked to see my Color Factory card, then said, try this one, and gave me a lipstick that was orangier than I ordinarily would have chosen for myself - but once again, I loved it! In the process of doing this, he had me remove lipstick as well, which inevitably removed some of the makeup they’d put on me at the Color Factory, so he would correct it with other products - I just kept asking what he was using on me, and he seemed surprised every time I did, but when he pointed out the product, I put it immediately in my basket. He disappeared on me a couple of times, but I sought him out again to ask him his opinion about things, at this point trusting basically anything he said, lol.
The odd thing was that he didn’t seem to want to sell me anything. He would just put stuff on me, then leave. Or say something in general about what might look good on me, then leave. I kept having to seek him out to be like, “What did you use on me? I want to buy it.” Both Adelagia and I found him baffling in this way, because it was obvious I was willing to buy anything he told me about, but he didn’t take this as a prime sales opportunity, instead just doing his thing and leaving when he felt like he’d answered my questions. It was amusing, frustrating, and exciting all at the same time, not unlike being interested in a guy who you weren’t sure liked you back, LOL. Adelagia suggested it was because he wasn’t an ordinary salesperson, as unlike most of the other sales people, he had a pouch full of makeup brushes around his waist, so clearly he was more of a makeup expert than just pure sales - perhaps that accounted for his lack of desire to actually do any hard sales pushes, lol.
At some point he disappeared for real; I could not locate him again (maybe he was on break), so was left to my own devices to try and find stuff for myself. I used some of the screenshots I took when I was at the Color Factory to use some of the suggestions there, though it was a bit confusing the way they ordered/grouped their products, not making it easy to find some things. I realized I had more than half a dozen lipsticks in my basket, and in an effort to show some semblance of control, I started comparing what was in my basket with what my color card said, and put things back that I had gotten on impulse rather than because it was what supposedly would look good on me. When I checked out the cashier gave me several smaller bags, probably thinking “This can’t possibly all be for her...” LOL. Because we’d done the Color Factory thing, Adelagia and I each also got a voucher worth 20% off our purchases, so I also bought a ton of makeup brushes and stuff like that (I love brushes). My favorite of those is a lip brush that imho has an ingenious design - no more trying to carefully put a cap onto the brush, you just pull up or down to reveal or store the brush. <3
After getting our freshly made lipsticks, we decided to lunch in Myeongdong. In the harsh light of the sun, I took a look at my eyelids in my Tata mirror and was horrified by how GLITTERY everything was. Steven had used a somewhat sparkly bronze thing on my eyelids, but I had also experimented with some of their eye glitter stuff, and it sure looked less glamorous in the sunlight than it did in the store, lol.
Me: lolol I have so much glitter on my eyelids holy shit
Adelagia: It’s okay you look like a high class clown
Me: Ok as long as I don’t look cheap
Anyway, we were looking around for somewhere to eat, and somehow got pulled into this place that had grilled eel. Maybe “suckered” would be a more appropriate word, because that’s how we felt once we had ordered and our food came. Grilled eel was something we’d been wanting to try since watching Let’s Eat, and in their menu picture it looked like you got a pretty hefty portion for ₩48,000, which was still expensive. We got that as well as a couple of orders of samgyeopsal. The eel ended up being a very small SINGLE eel, and the samgyeopsal was small in portion as well. Initially we were being served by a young gal, but the owner told her to go have her lunch and took over her grilling duties, making it uncomfortable, because older Korean guys almost all seem to have that effect. He carefully “cleaned” the eel by snipping off the supposedly inedible portions, but then weirdly would taste it, I guess to make sure it was cooking okay??? I mean, I don’t know, it’s just weird to taste food that your customers are paying for? Even weirder was how he kept saying that eating eel was good for men’s stamina. Like... okay? That’s not new information after watching Let’s Eat, but why did he have to keep bringing it up? The samgyeopsal was fine, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the other place we’d gone to for the same thing, and it wasn’t like it was so cheap here. So yeah, this was yet another meal that we probably would have happily traded for something else. (The true lession here is that, unless there's somewhere specific you want to go, eating in Myeongdong is a big ripoff and bound to be disappointing.)
The disappointment was not to end there. We made our way to Cube Café, which was located in some random part of Seoul that we’d never been to, and once we got there it seemed obvious why - it felt like it was “real Korea,” not all decked out in English and friendly toward tourists. O.o But before I get to that I have to relay something else that happened.
When we went into the subway, I scanned my T-money card as usual (now conveniently located inside my Tata phone case), and noted that this time the automated voice seemed to register some kind of error. It still let me through, so I didn’t make much of it, and don’t know what I would have done even if I’d realized there was something wrong, at that juncture. However, once we got to our exit and I scanned my card to let me out, it threw an error and would not let me out. Rut-roh. It was also a quiet kind of station, and there weren’t many people around, much less a station worker to help me with my plight. There was a machine with which I could use to “add fare” - I didn’t know what the issue with my card was, but if it was just that it didn’t have enough money, or perhaps adding money could “restart” it in a way, then I’d do it. However, the machine would not go past the screen that asked you to select a language; whether I selected English or Korean, it simply did nothing.
At some point an old man noticed that I was having trouble, and came over to see what was what. It was unclear to me if he actually worked there, if he was just a do-gooder, or what, but I was hot and frustrated. There was an assistance button on the machine, so I pressed that, but unfortunately it did not call someone over, like I hoped. Instead, a tinny voice said something in Korean, and I didn’t even try to use Korean, because I wanted someone to come over and help, and speaking English helplessly seemed to be the best way to convey that. Unfortunately, they also seemed at a loss when I spoke in English. Meanwhile, the old man was trying to make the screen work, but like me, he could not get it to change to the next screen. Finally he seemed to make up his mind that this was a waste of time, and gestured for me to follow him. He scanned his card, and gestured for me to go through. I did, and then he scanned his card again and let himself out. I realized at this point with certainty that he did NOT work at the train station, and had basically just paid my fare!! I kept trying to turn back around to thank him profusely, but he was gruff and basically shooed me away, LOL. Adelagia and I of course had to then talk about how, despite some of the negative experiences we’d had, there were also random acts of kindness to be had in Seoul, too, from unexpected sources. <3 She also mentioned that K had experienced a similar kind of error with her T-money card, and apparently after some time had passed, it seemed to work fine again. I could only hope the same could be said of mine.
So, back to Cube Café. I need to preface this by saying that had we gone to Seoul a year ago as we'd originally planned, Cube Café would have been one of our primary destinations. We were totally into BTOB then, and didn’t know very many other bands at all. We’d even talked about going to Cube Café daily, to hang out and perhaps run into our guys. All I can say is, thank god we started getting into other bands (for me specifically, BTS, because it is so easy to find their stuff everywhere), otherwise Seoul might have been RUINED. Why? Because Cube Café was so, so, so disappointingly lame. It was basically just a regular café, with a few Cube artist-themed drinks. There was maybe a display somewhere that had a BTOB thing, and a small area where you could leave messages for artists that they almost certainly never saw. That was it. There was almost no other label, banner, or decoration to even let you know where you were or that the café was related to an entertainment company. The drinks - as with most themed drinks, apparently - didn’t sound appealing at all, so we just got some kind of -ade (maybe yuzu?) and latte that were whatever.
As we sipped our drinks and commiserated with each other about how lame this was, we decided to cheer ourselves up by going through our Etude House purchases. That’s when I realized, to my eternal horror, that during the time of my lipstick sorting and culling, I didn’t know which of the lipsticks was the one Steven had picked out for me - and in fact, most likely had put it back because I wouldn’t have recognized it and probably figured it was one I had randomly selected myself. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! STEVENNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Since Cube Café was such a fucking letdown, we didn’t make ourselves stay too long. We formulated a new plan. Since Adelagia was on a mission from her Day6 friends to take a picture of one of the members’ “birthday” signs, which was located at a bus stop a little ways away, she would go there while I would head back to Myeongdong and Etude House, where I would hopefully get Steven to remind me of the lipstick he had initially chosen. We hoped that because he was familiar with the Color Factory stuff, he would easily be able to remember what he would have selected after seeing my card. Then we would meet up at Wangshimni Station, as that area was where we wanted to have dinner. (By the way, “birthday” signs, which are basically well wishes for a certain celeb around the time of their birthday, paid for most likely by their fan club, can be located in subway stations, bus stops, etc. The busier the station, and the more elaborate the sign - size and digital experience - the more expensive it’s likely to be. It’s very common to see them.)
We put our plan into action and... for the most part, it went fine. I made it back to Etude House, though once again the heat was making me sweat soooo disgustingly. To my eternal disappointment, however, I didn’t see Steven. :( I went back to the lipstick section where I remembered him pulling my lipstick from, and bought a couple of likely colors I thought he might’ve chosen, which looked similar to my memory of what he’d used on me. (Having to buy more lipstick, without the 20% off, just made it even worse that I had previously put things back, including probably Steven's selection, due to wanting to buy fewer things.) After I’d paid and was almost out the door, I SAW HIM. I was so upset, lol. It felt like the universe was working against me! Since I’d already made a second set of purchases, I decided to just let it go; after all, there was a chance Steven wouldn’t even remember me or what lipstick he’d chosen hours ago.
I went next door to the Innisfree Green Café and decided to branch out of my usual snowy apple tea order and get a drink I’d seen other people get. It was really pretty, purple in color, and I recalled there were blueberries in it. I looked all over their menu for something like that, but couldn’t find it. I had the following conversation with the cashier:
Me: Hi, yes, could I please get a... do you have a... a purple drink?
Him: Purple?
Me: Yes, maybe like... a blueberry type drink?
Him: *blank look*
Me: I’ve seen other people get it... it has, like, blueberries in it?
Him: A lemonade?
Me: [thinking: OMG I somehow got the one worker at this café whose English isn’t that great, when all of them have been really great before] Uh, no... it’s not a lemonade... it’s definitely purple in color...
Him: *rifling through some papers* *points* This?
Me: Yes!! That’s it!!
Him: *begins ringing up my order*
Me: What is that drink called?
Him: Lemonade.
Oh mah gawd you guys, really, you have to be very careful about these -ade drinks in Seoul, they are so confusing!! Anyway, look how beautiful this drink is. I mean, I don’t know how it’s lemonade just because there are a couple of slices of lemon in it - it didn’t taste lemony at all - but whatever. It has some kind of tart pink stuff at the bottom as well as blueberries, sparkling water (?) on top, garnish, and then a small vial of blue syrup on the side so you can sweeten the drink yourself. I really liked that, because I was able to make it juuuuust sweet enough for my taste. Once the blue syrup was mixed with the stuff at the bottom, it made the drink a gorgeous purple color.
Seriously, is this not gorgeous?
Since I assumed Adelagia was going to take awhile to get to her location, and then head back, I took my sweet time taking pictures of my drink, reading fanfic on my Kindle, and taking very leisurely sips of the “lemonade.” I also fielded a few KTs from her, and I had only finished maybe 1/8 of my drink when she said she was only a few stops away from our designated meetup spot. I nearly choked on my drink! Somehow, with all of our chatting, I had completely missed her message saying she was done with her errand and was headed to Wangshimni. YIKES!! ＼(º □ º l|l)/ ＼(l|l º □ º)/
Explosion of street carts when evening hits in Myeongdong!
I considered just ditching my drink entirely, but it was just too wasteful. So I sucked that thing down in record time, giving myself momentary brain freeze, then I booked it out of there. I quickly made my way back to the subway station and caught the right train, and thankfully was able to make it in a decent amount of time. (In fact what took the longest was finding the correct exit, because it had like an exit 6-1 and 6-2 or something like that, and I could see no signs for the correct one, so went the wrong way for a time before Adelagia KTed me to set me straight.)
Here is where I bitch about Seoul subway stations and their fucking stairs. There are so. many. fucking. stairs. And there’s sometimes escalators? But no consistency at all in terms of what length gets escalators. There could be short escalators for zero reason, or a long set of stairs for no reason. Feel sorry for disabled people in this city, because while there are elevators, they’re always hidden and inconvenient. In any case, Wangshimni really took the fucking cake. It had the longest set of stairs I had ever fucking seen coming out of a subway station. How was it possible that this did not deserve a set of escalators?!?! Going up those steps I just had to keep my head down and keep going, without looking at the top, or I would just get discouraged and give up and end up having to live on those steps. There was a girl there struggling to get to the top with a suitcase; she had to take a long rest at one point and I felt super sorry for her, but I had no spare energy, physically or mentally, with which to help her. Like, in that heat, having to deal with stairs like that? Jesus Christ. IT’S INHUMANE.
These pics don't even do justice to how long that staircase is. On the right, how it looks in your mind when you’re hot, sweaty, and dread the thought of moving one more step.
Once at the top, Adelagia did some searching on her phone for what we were looking for. We were there to have 곱창/gopchang (intestines), but we didn’t know exactly where to go - she had simply found some information that indicated there was an area close to this particular subway exit that had a bunch of restaurants specializing in it. While she looked, I recovered from those goddamn stairs, and overheard two ahjussis talking - I didn’t understand what they were saying, of course, but I did hear the word 곱창. When Adelagia came up blank in her searching, I told her what I’d overheard and was like, “Should we just... follow them?” And that’s how we began our inept stalking. We followed these two ahjussis, not knowing where the heck they would actually lead us. I could have misheard what I’d thought I’d heard; they could also have been talking about gopchang in general and not as an intent to go eat it that very evening. Every turn they made, we made as well. (Luckily there were plenty of people about, and two ladies following two old guys also likely wouldn’t have crossed anyone’s minds, lol.) The most awkward point came when they doubled back and thus passed us; we then also had to double back! If they noticed us then, and then again later, it sure would have seemed suspicious! However, we had no better ideas, so at this point we just continued to follow them. Eventually, they were peering into a restaurant, then went in! And we excitedly saw that this restaurant was, in fact, a gopchang restaurant.
However. The place looked extremely authentic/local. This was intimidating. It was kind of divey and seemed like a place where only real Koreans went to eat, so there might be etiquette and language barriers we couldn’t overcome as total foreigners. We discussed maybe walking around a little bit more, maybe try to find a place that was better suited to us (a more upscale place that might have English menus and/or English-speaking staff), but we didn’t know which direction to go, and after our successful stalking it seemed like kind of a letdown to give up. It was then that Adelagia noticed the restaurant was actually the one she had read about in a blog (황소곱창). That made me want to eat there even more - why should we pass up a potentially really great restaurant specializing in the thing we wanted to eat? Fuck our fear!
Me: Should we just do it?! 〣( ºΔº )〣
Adelagia: Okay...! (O_O;)
So we pulled up our big girl pants and went inside. Right away we were greeted by a guy who asked how many we had in our party. I squeaked in Korean, “two people,” but he might not have even heard me because I also held up two fingers. It was busy in the restaurant but not totally packed, so we were seated right away. The guy pointed at a nearby board and said, “Menu,” then left. I don’t know how he knew that we spoke English - maybe it was all the shopping bags, or possibly the fear in our eyes - but just like at RoRo11 we were just left to figure out the Korean menu on our own, lol, despite the staff knowing we were foreigners. We were doing our best to translate the menu and look stuff up on Google Translate when Gopchang Eonnie (perhaps Gopchang Stephanie?) showed up. She greeted us with a huge smile and loud mannerisms, and did her best to explain in English what the menu entailed. Adelagia asked for two bottles of water, which she later brought with a boisterous laugh and said, “Service!” We weren’t sure what she meant until Adelagia realized that we were supposed to get the water ourselves, according to the signs. In any case, this lady was a total savior to two gals who felt totally out of their depth. <3
We ordered the combination gopchang, since we weren’t sure what we would like. It did appear that they specialized in beef gopchang; I have in general found that I prefer pork intestines, but it’s not like I’m an expert, so I was excited to try the beef gopchang at this place. Like many other Korean restaurants, there is a heating element on the table and the food is cooked in front of you. Luckily, we didn’t have to lift a finger. In the US, depending on the Korean restaurant, you’re sometimes supposed to cook your food yourself. In Korea, professional servers always did the cooking (thank goodness!), rotating around the tables and always doing it just right. After eating most of the gopchang, the next “course” started, the bokkeumbap (볶음밥), which seems like a common thing. They turn the heat back on, then add in rice, kimchi, spring onions, and whatever else might go into that restaurant’s version of bokkeumbap (in this case, they also added fish eggs!). Then all of it gets stir fried together, and you let it sit on the heat until the rice reaches your desired level of crispness. It was very delicious; in this case, because of the fish eggs, it made the bokkeumbap taste totally different from the gopchang main entree. It was altogether a really wonderful experience, and I’m glad we were brave enough to go in and try it! Go us!! ( ⌒o⌒)人(⌒-⌒ )v
Sarea and Adelagia’s guide to eating gopchang in Seoul: Stalk people, then make other people do all the work. Eat and enjoy!
On the way home, we stopped by a little coffee/juice shop that was located after the second convenience store but before the third. I wasn’t sure how a shop of this nature was able to survive in a small little neighborhood like this, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. We both got watermelon juice, and I was shocked because it only cost ₩4000 (at every place I’d gotten it before, it was more like ₩7000). It was, however, overly sweet, and I couldn’t tell if it was because there was added sugar or if it was because the watermelon itself was just that sweet. Regardless, it was refreshing and hit the spot.
As for the next day - “We have high-class clowning to do!” Adelagia found a hotel that served a nice-sounding afternoon tea for a reasonable price. I then used Teams to make a (free) call to the hotel to reserve a table for us at 3pm. Their English was surprisingly not as advanced as I was expecting for a staffer at an upscale hotel, and I had some doubts about whether I had actually successfully made the reservation.
Saturday, Aug. 3
We began our day of high-class clowning by walking to Grain for breakfast. We had specifically wanted to keep to the high-class clown theme, but I couldn’t find an Asian restaurant that fit that standard... Asian breakfast fare isn’t typically an upscale thing. So instead, we went to Grain, which served Western fare, was highly rated, and was walkable from our apartment.
Naver led us down a path we'd never gone before, and it included a set of long, steep steps that didn't have any handrails and was quite uneven. It was quite nerve wracking to go down them, and we swore not to repeat the experience (for me specifically, going up them).
Why would anyone build these stairs and think it was a good idea?
Grain was delightful. I got the smoothie of the day/week, while Adelagia got the juice of the day/week, and I looooved my smoothie. We both ordered the “create your own brunch” meal, and got the max six-item option. Still, it was very hard to choose what items to get, because it all sounded good. Even though I really enjoyed the food - it was all delicious - I also didn’t order right. I went with what sounded good to me individually, rather than considering the breakfast as a whole; as a result, I had too much protein and wish I’d gotten the sourdough toast instead of the smoked salmon.
Left: Our menus with my Cooky handheld fan. I teased earlier that I would eventually learn how to use a handheld fan with max efficacy, so I’ll share my tips here. Use it on yourself whenever you’re sweating. The air combined with your sweat will help cool you down, even if the air itself isn’t that cold. Don’t turn off your fan when you enter an air-conditioned space. Continue using the fan to help push more of that a/c on you, which will help you cool down much faster. Turn it on any time there’s an a/c source, even if it’s inconsistent (such as in a subway tunnel). That way, when the air comes around again, you’re able to put it to max use. Finally, if you know you have a long walk somewhere, turn it on at the start of the walk to pre-empt your perspiration, don’t wait until you’re already sweating.
Left: Our breakfast. Right: Our homage to Let’s Eat’s Daeyoung, who had the dumbest food blog ever.
The worst part of the experience wasn’t the restaurant’s fault... while we were there it was frequented almost exclusively by foreigners. There were two women who spoke loudly about work (school related), which stressed Adelagia out - one of them had a voice that carried. Then there were two other women who had the table next to ours, and one of them ordered not one but two glasses of Stella Artois during the course of their meal. I mean, I realize they’re on vacation but it was like 10:30 in the morning!! /judgy Also, she apparently wanted to make a breakfast sandwich with her selections, and because when you order the sourdough toast you get one long piece and one short piece, she demanded her companion’s long piece of bread in order to make her sandwich. Like... why is your desire for a breakfast sandwich your companion’s problem? Figure it out with the food you were given! Sheesh.
Next we walked to the Line 2 subway station. On the way, we passed by a group of tourists buying drinks from a lady with a refrigerated cart. Adelagia asked if I was interested; I said no. She was like, “But she has BTS coffees!” (We’d seen them before at one of the convenience stores.) I was still going to say no, but then I noticed that one of the boys in the group was handed a Jungkook bottle and a V bottle! So then of course I was like I MUST HAVE THEM, and went to purchase. However, when I went up to buy the same, I was given an RM coffee and told she didn’t have any more of V. WTF!! LADY, UNDERSTAND THE WARES YOU HAVE. OMG I was so irrationally (?) upset lol. That boy probably didn't give a shit about who was on the bottles and was going to throw those away once he was done drinking the coffee. Arrrghhh.
Then we were on our way to Gangnam/Coex Mall, about an hour’s subway ride away. The first thing we did when we arrived at Coex was go to the attached hotel to check on our afternoon tea reservation, only to be told it was actually a different hotel that we wanted. I saw the Grand Coex, where we were, also had an afternoon tea, but we already had a reservation at the other place, and it was located in their “Sky Lounge,” which meant it would also have nice views of the city. The hotel guy was helpful in leading us outside to show us where we wanted to go, mentioning there was an underground way to do it, but it was too complicated to explain (later we found out it wasn't at all). It was a very hot and sunny day, but off we went to the Sky Lounge of the Intercontinental Coex, which was about a 10-minute walk away (in the heat it felt like a lot longer). Along the way we stopped by this amazing library. Don’t ask me how the heck you get to some of those books, though. We also went into like three eMart 24s along the way, and none of them sold the BTS coffee. Naturally.
Once we finally found the Sky Lounge, the waitstaff there seemed totally perplexed by what we wanted, which was to check and make sure they had our reservation. I stated this was our purpose; when they heard me, they just looked apologetic and didn’t actually check their reservations list to see if I was on it. I took this to mean that they must not have any reservations at all, since they seemed convinced that I would not be there. So then I said, well in that case can I make a reservation now for 3pm? And that’s when they checked their list and was like, “Oh, are you Sarea? Here you are!” Like WTF? I don’t know what wires got crossed there, but once again I was surprised that their English wasn’t very good for people who worked in hospitality at an upscale hotel. Then BACK out into the searing heat we went, to the relative safety of the mall.
We had the intention of going to the aquarium, but on our way Adelagia needed a drink so we went to a coffee shop and took high-class clown pictures. We made ourselves laugh so much, it’s ridiculous lolol.
The effect is somewhat dampened by Tata and Chimmy standing in for us, but I assure you that they were of the highest caliber class of clown.
Then, horror of horrors, Adelagia’s shoe strap broke and we found ourselves in a shoe store (named Salt & Chocolate - many stores in Seoul had food names but didn’t sell food, and vice versa) buying new shoes. I had been wanting these sneaker sandals that many people in Seoul seemed to wear (I had first seen them on a coworker), and they had a pair of white ones that weren’t bad, so I decided to take the plunge and get them. The lady who helped us was very gregarious and endearing, and she was cracking us up with her Konglish, while she lamented about how awful her English was. Example sentence: “Shoes 때문에 tired.” Translation: “(Your feet) are tired because of your shoes.” Teehee. Adelagia purchased shoes that were similar to the ones that were broken, and then we were off again. Unfortunately, after a bit of walking I found that my shoes were not comfortable. :/ I couldn’t tell this from walking around in them in the store, but after awhile, the shoe seemed to go one way while my foot went another - it was actually making my feet and legs sore trying to make them fit right while walking! Man, I really wanted that ₩60,000 back.
At this point, it was too late to do the aquarium, because we’d have to race through it in order to make our 3pm high tea reservation. So instead we walked around the mall. First we went to Daiso; I can’t remember what we bought there, maybe more air fresheners and maybe hair ties for me? We went to OST where Adelagia got a lovely rose gold watch. I flirted with the idea of getting a Tata alarm clock, but the salesgirl got distracted by some obnoxious customers who weren't me, so I said I would come back for it later, maybe, if I still wanted it. There were also many BTS-related things to get distracted by, which killed some time. TEEHEE. Then we headed back to the Intercontinental Coex for our afternoon tea.
Tata standing next to Tae… worlds are colliding. As for that bottom right image, you would not believe the lengths I had to go to to try and get a decent shot of it. WHY would you put superstars on one whole wall and then make it impossible for people to see it with all those dangly whateverthefuck they are in the way?? And I was especially determined to get it because Tae is standing next to Jungkook. I actually got a semi-decent shot, but I haven’t included it here because… well, you’ll see why in a bit.
To no one’s surprise, we took a ton of high-class clown pictures and generally made fools of ourselves. Adelagia assured me the service staff likely saw people make asses of themselves regularly, so I shouldn’t feel too bad. The afternoon tea itself was very nicely laid out (and “only” cost ₩76,000 for two - considering what afternoon tea at nice hotels usually costs, this was indeed a very good price), but unfortunately very dessert/sweets heavy, which neither of us enjoyed. Seriously, in this whole tower there was maybe one item that didn’t have some kind of sweet element to it. Maybe because of that, we couldn’t finish it all, so we ended up boxing some of it home. (Once again we probably should have just left the things we couldn’t eat, but at the time it just seemed far too wasteful.)
If you can actually read the menu, you’ll see that it all sounds pretty great. We didn’t realize how sweet-heavy it was until we actually started eating. Also, is that not an impressive tower? Visually this might be the most beautiful high-tea tower I’ve ever experienced.
Shhh... high-class clowns at work.
The view of Gangnam from the 52nd floor of the Intercontinental Coex Hotel. Apparently if I’d shot it just a bit more to the left, I might’ve been able to capture some of the temple we had considered visiting.
After afternoon tea we actually did go to the aquarium! There were many interesting sights, including a turtle that used to belong to a Kpop star, a huge turtle that didn’t look huge at all in pictures, jellyfish, otters, sharks, an American beaver that I went all the way to Korea to see, etc. Oh also, randomly, a cardboard stand of BTS, the very same image I’d tried so hard earlier to get a photo of. (-_-;)・・・ There were also lame parts such as “touch” pools that only had things like starfish or hardshelled sea snails or something. Also when I saw huge crabs or shrimp I couldn’t help but think they would be delicious.
Then we went back to OST and instead of getting the Tata alarm clock, I also bought a rose gold watch, but had a nicer salesgirl, who gave me a bag without charging for it. (Adelagia and I are both suckers for pretty packaging.) I had her tighten my watch a little too much, but didn’t realize it at the time. We also went to ABC Mart and bought more new shoes, since the new shoes from before weren't as comfortable for us as we wanted them to be. :/ We bought identical pastel sneaker sandals, and I also bought a black and white pair as well. The total cost for these two pairs of sandals didn’t even cost what that first pair I’d purchased cost, and yet they fit better and were more comfortable. SIGH.
Our original plan was that we were going to wait until the sun had gone down, then head to a nearby temple to be cultured and what not. So we looked for a nail salon, thinking we would kill some time by getting mani-pedis, but they wanted ₩60,000 for a plain gel manicure and ₩70,000 for a pedicure!! I know we were in Gangnam, but still, WHAT. We were like forget that noise, and because we had no other ideas on how to kill time, we opted against going to the temple. I was getting hungry by that point anyway.
We went back to Hongdae and to Grain’s neighborhood to find someplace to go for dinner, because earlier when looking for Grain we had passed some promising-looking restaurants. Trying to actually find a place to eat that sounded good, however, ended up being harder to find than expected. Adelagia wasn’t that hungry, so I just quickly picked a place that had a menu that sounded decent. That’s how we found ourselves at Permil, an Italian place. I ordered some kind of seafood spaghetti dish, which came surprisingly quickly but was delicious, and came to the table bubbling even though it had no heat element. O.o I also got fries, which oddly came in an assortment of shapes and sizes - I’ve never seen anyone mix up various fries like this, lol - and another tiny side of ketchup. Adelagia got a squid and squid ink risotto, which was also good, but because she wasn’t hungry she was going to take her leftovers home. However, when she asked for it to be boxed up, the server said it wasn’t possible for that dish, something about how it wasn’t an item they would let be ordered to go, or something? I don’t know, it was odd and maddening. I could throw out various theories as to why - as we did that night - but there’s no point in dwelling, so. She and I did our best to eat as much of it as we could.
Apparently I don’t have a picture of the squid ink risotto. I have no choice but to conclude that the restaurant somehow destroyed the evidence that it ever existed - not even a photo of it was allowed to leave the premises.
After dinner went around various convenience stories to look for BTS coffee, and we theorized it was probably an older product, so none of the stores that had high turnover sold it anymore. So we went back to our neighborhood convenience stores and I got Jungkook at one, while Adelagia found V in an unrefrigerated crate that seemed marked for disposal, but they charged me ₩2300 for it anyway. Once we got home we found out they were both expired. The end.
Sunday, Aug. 4
We really embraced the idea of lazy Sunday and didn’t leave the apartment until 1pm because we slept in. Well, I slept and read in bed for like three hours after “waking up.”
The day before, I had looked up where we might be able to go to get some good samgyetang, which was another one of those things we had noted we wanted to eat while in Korea. It’s ginseng chicken soup, and it’s served boiling hot. Apparently Koreans eat this dish in the summer “to fight heat with heat,” but they’re crazy and/or delusional because that shit does not work. However, I was willing to have hot soup as long as I was in an air-conditioned space. I found a place in Hongdae that was written up in a blog, which described it as nothing special. LOL. Sold! I figured it was just a communication style thing, because in context, it was a lot more appealing: “I can't say this restaurant is very special, but it has been on this busy Hongdae street for so long. I think that means many things. It's a just simple Samgyetang restaurant where you can have original Samgyetang, and all the dishes include Kimchi taste nice here. :-)” Basically, I took this to mean that while this place might not serve anything unique or out of this world, they’re solid on what they do serve, and it means something that they’ve been able to stay in business this long.
The place was called 백년토종삼계탕 (Baek Nyeon Tojong Ginseng Chicken Soup) in Korean and Baek Nyeon Baekse Ginseng Chicken Soup in English; I’m not sure why that discrepancy exists. I had a little bit of trouble locating it in Naver because of that; I’m not sure now how I found it, it was some combination of Korean and comparing it with the English results or something. I had thought I remembered seeing the place when we passed by the area before, but it turns out there was another samgyetang place not too far away that was the actual one I’d remembered seeing, lol.
We were seated in an area where we had to remove our shoes before we could sit down; a first for us both. They had a limited menu of maybe 10 items, and most of those were variations of samgyetang. Adelagia and I both ordered the regular version, which was served up promptly. They probably just have a million of these going in the kitchen, and as soon as one is ordered they can easily serve it. Tongbaechu (napa cabbage kimchi) and kkakdugi (radish kimchi) were on the table, like condiments. Oh my, the samgyetang was sooooooooooooooo good. The place wasn’t as air-conditioned as I might have liked, but because there was a fan, it was tolerable.
We were a little ways into our meal when a large party showed up and the server was going to seat them on either side of me and Adelagia at the long table! We both quickly agreed that we would offer to move down the table for them, because not only was that the right thing to do, but HOW AWKWARD WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN OMG?? Also they had a halmeoni (할머니 - old lady/grandmother) with them, and we are both irrationally (?) scared of being yelled at by halmeonis. I was glad Adelagia’s Korean was advanced enough that she could suggest to one of the ladies in the party that we would trade places with them so that their party could all be seated together. A couple of times I heard the halmeoni refer to us as the “ahgassi” (아가씨 - basically meaning “young miss”), but neither of us knew if she was praising us or being like, “Well fucking obviously those inconsiderate ahgassi should move, they have legs don’t they, DUH.” When the server came back and saw that we were moving, she looked SCANDALIZED, lol. She seemed defensive on our behalf that we would have to move in the middle of our meal, while at the same time was appreciative of our considerateness. I have to say I was touched and impressed by how horrified she seemed by our moving; I feel confident saying that in a Chinese restaurant, the restaurant staff would have definitely been the ones to ask us to move, and would expect us to comply without complaint. We were not exactly immediately rewarded for our good deed, however, because our new spot was out of the way of the fan, which had cooled us down nicely while eating hot soup, and because now the communal kimchi was out of reach. :/
Because we are such slow eaters, the large party finished before we did. I wasn’t even sure, when the food came, if I would be able to finish, because each bowl comes with a whole chicken, and it’s stuffed with glutinous rice, even. However, I was either hungrier than I thought or it was just that delicious, because we both totally ate our entire bowls. When we were done the server from before came by and offered us a can of Coke as “service” (their lingo for “on the house”), to thank us for being nice enough to move for the other party. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but honestly if she were going to offer that, she should have done it while we were in the middle of our meal, or maybe when that same party ordered their own Cokes! Anyway, it was still a nice gesture and acknowledgement. The weird thing was, the server, who was obviously older - 50s and up, I’d guess - once again called Adelagia “eonni.” *cue record scratch* Like, okay, with the Insadong lady we had differing ideas of how old she might’ve been and what she might’ve assumed about Adelagia’s age. But there was no freaking way this 50-something-year-old woman thought she was younger than Adelagia, just no way. So now we have this theory that perhaps these days, a new thing has started where in a customer service scenario, because obviously you don’t know anyone’s name, perhaps all women are called “eonni” as a sign of respect (while still keeping things casual)? You obviously can’t call someone “dongsaeng” (younger sibling), because that’s not really a title to begin with (if you have a younger sibling you’d just call them by their name. Whereas eonni/oppa/noona/hyung are “real” titles), and if you did it’d be pretty condescending. Servers can be called “ahjumma” (middle-aged lady) or “imo” (aunt), but I think that’s skewing younger now too, and servers are also called “eonni.” So maybe it’s just a thing now where everyone is eonni for ease and no one gets offended. Unless maybe you’re Adelagia and you’re wondering why 50-year-old women are calling you “older sister” on the regular lololol.
After that we made our way in the blazing heat to the subway that would take us to Passion5 in Itaewon, which btw has the most difficult to read sign ever. It was a dessert place recommended to us by J, one of our Korean class friends who’s been to Seoul before. I wasn’t that big a fan of it. Maybe J overhyped it, but I felt that while they had tons of gorgeous desserts, it was all incredibly pricey, and nothing I ate (despite ordering three things) tasted amazing. Also, I had a minor disaster when my wallet slid from my tray and tumbled into the devil's tiramisu bread I was picking up and thus got coffee dust over EVERYTHING, including my white Cooky shirt, ugh. And the drinks were also costly -- the juices ran between ₩8000-9000, while a freaking Americano was ₩7000. Like what. Plus it was super crowded when we arrived, and we had to wait/stalk for a table; if we'd arrived an hour later it would have been fine. -.- The whole experience just really stressed me out, sorry, J. :/
Seriously, that sign is nearly impossible to see and in this picture there are almost no distractions *and* you know it's there.
We thought about going to the museum then didn't. We also thought about going to the Line Friends café then didn't. We started to make our way to a nail salon Adelagia found, but then a monsoon (I don’t know if it was one literally) came and we were stuck under a Starbucks awning for like 30 minutes until the rain let up. Because it had been SO sunny earlier I had decided against bringing an umbrella to save my back from the weight, and while Adelagia had hers, the rain was so heavy and the wind so gusty we both would’ve still gotten pretty wet if we'd tried to walk in it. Many people realized the same thing, because they also came to where we were to stand in the same spot, which was really kind of the perfect place to stay dry (ah, Starbucks, looking out for us even so far away from home). Still, even though it was a huge awning there was so much wind that water still occasionally blew over to us. I’ve said this before, but I will never make fun of drama characters again, Seoul rain is no joke.
I hope I don't sound too dramatic when I say that this Starbucks awning SAVED our very LIVES. Also, dang but it’s hard to capture torrential rainfall in a photo.
After awhile it seemed like the worst of it had passed, so we ventured out and got to ProNails. They had a reasonably priced (₩45,000) gel mani + regular pedi combo package, but unfortunately they couldn't take us that day, and we didn't really have any reason to return to Itaewon, so we went to Flor Nails, which I had seen from the street. At Flor Nails I was initially going to get that same combo -- though it was going to cost more (₩63,000) -- but I ended up doing a full design on both my nails and toes!! It cost ₩285,000, which was way more than I'd been intending to spend, obviously. And waaaaay more than I’ve ever spent on my nails before. But I loved my nail technician, who was really meticulous, and I was on vacation, so who the fuck cares? (I mean… I still do, to an extent, but also YOLO.) Many/most of the women in Seoul have nice manicures/pedicures, so when in Seoul…
At the time, I also hoped that both would last a good long while. (Writing this THREE WEEKS later, I have to say I’m very satisfied. Other than nail growth, my manicure looks almost exactly the same as the day I got it. Even the fucking jewels are still on. This is incredible. It helps that I chose a design that is light/pale toward my cuticles, so the growth isn’t as obvious - I can tell, but I think most people with a quick glance at my nails wouldn’t be able to.) My nails weren't as long as I’d have liked them to be, which was a shame. Even more of a shame is that I won't be able to find nail technicians this good in the US, no matter the price. Sigh. The nail technicians there seemed to actually take pride in their work, as opposed to the many places I’ve been here where the workers are only doing it because it’s the only job they can find. (However, I realized later she accidentally overcharged me. I'm almost positive both of the mani and pedi sets I requested were around ₩120,000 each, plus ₩15,000 removal of my previous gel manicure. It would be easier to swallow the overcharge if I considered it her tip - even though tipping is not a thing in Seoul - if only it actually went to her and not the owner of the place. :/)
The first thing I did with my new blinged-out nails? Dinner at Kkanbu Chicken, lol. We went to a different location that was a little closer than the first one we’d gone to. Our waiter first overturned the sauce onto our table, then proceeded to drop all the forks onto the floor. We all had a good giggle. The chicken was still good, but the cheese balls were a HUGE disappointment. They're cheese and they're deep fried; how could they be so tasteless?!
Random tip: If you ever go to Seoul, and you ask a customer service person - or any Korean person - if they speak English, they will almost always hesitantly say yes, but qualify that they don’t speak it very well. It’s out of humility, sure, but it’s more that they are incredibly self-conscious about their English, even though it is miiiiiiiiiiiiiiles better than my Korean, despite having taken it at a community college for two years now. I don’t even know that I am at a preschool level of Korean. The point is, don't let their saying they’re not good at English stump you, because their English is generally fine, especially if you talk to a younger person, or a woman, imho.
My personal experience was this. If I spoke Korean to someone, they either immediately spoke back to me in English (in a far more advanced manner than my Korean), or they thought I spoke Korean and said a bunch of things I didn’t understand, and then I had to reveal that I didn’t actually speak Korean beyond the very basics, which meant they’d then have to speak to me in English anyway. Adelagia was okay with this; if she didn’t understand what they were saying, she just charged ahead and pretended like she knew what they were on about and said “yes” in response to everything. (I can’t tell you the number of times I asked, “What did they say?” and her response was a shrug.) But I can’t say “yes” to things I don’t know what I’m saying yes to, just to avoid revealing that I don’t speak Korean (I mean, if they weren’t asking a yes/no question, it kind of gives that away anyway). I had to know wtf they were saying to me, and what I was agreeing to, because the last thing I wanted was to have some kind of misunderstanding and be responsible for the consequences, or get something I didn’t want or like, etc. Is this a learned caution from being a lawyer’s daughter? Who knows. In any case, we had two very different approaches to trying to communicate in Korean, lol. Her advanced Korean got her fairly far, and after that she was comfortable with the unknown that came with whatever she didn’t understand that she said “yes” to. I had far more basic Korean, and was not comfortable with the unknown, so my compromise was to use a little Korean while at the same time making it clear I was not a native speaker and they would need to work with me. What that meant was that all my requests were single-word questions, with an optional shrugging motion lolol. Examples!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 물? (Water?)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 이거? (This one?)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 화장실? (Bathroom?)
Everyone always understood what I wanted, so if you follow my examples above, you, too, can communicate in Korean using Sarea’s tried and true method! HAHAHAHAHAHA
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Part one is here.
Part two is here.
Friday, Aug. 2
For breakfast we ate our leftovers from the not-so-good udon place, and then we were back in Myeongdong, this time to go to the Etude House Color Factory! We had made appointments online a few days ago (I neglected to note when), as it was one of those things we had eagerly discussed doing when planning our trip. Basically, the idea is that you go to this place where you would get tested and told what colors suited you best for foundation and/or lipstick. It cost ₩40,000 to do the assessment, and included either a foundation and lipstick, or two lipsticks.
When we got there, the color consultant gal was with another group, so she asked us to fill out a form and soon thereafter another color consultant gal arrived. Adelagia’s appointment was first, so they got started while I continued to fill out the form (it wasn’t that complicated, actually, but it was taking me forever because you could engrave something onto your lipstick tube and I was agonizing over what. Shit like that takes me forever). The girl apologized for her “not good” English, but at least Adelagia’s Korean was stronger than mine, so they could kind of meet each other halfway. At some point the other consultant gal finished up with her group, so she had me meet with her, and her English (thank goodness) was actually really good! Due to the way she spoke and the phrases she used, it seemed more like British English, but in Asia (or at least Hong Kong) that was not unusual. I was impressed, and remarked on it; she mentioned that she had studied for a year in England. She also said that because I was a native English speaker, she kind of felt like she was trying to use English in front of a teacher! And I quickly reassured her that she shouldn’t feel that way and that her English skills were top notch. Because of her superior English ability, certain things she asked were similar to what her coworker had asked, but came across very differently. For example, when the other gal asked Adelagia if she drove, we both assumed she was asking if we had driven to Etude House, so Adelagia said no. However, when my consultant asked, it was clear she meant if I drove in general, back home, because that would affect whether I had more sun exposure and thus might change my foundation color. Adelagia overheard this and felt like she had gotten the short end of the stick consultant wise, since some of the communication wires had gotten crossed.
What does any of this EVEN MEAN now? I have no idea.
During the process they sat you down in front of a mirror and had swatches of fabric they would drape over your shoulder and show you what colors looked good and bad on you - this information was to be used for both makeup and clothing choices. It went by so quickly, though, and the colors were so specific, that I can’t remember anything for certain in terms of what I supposedly should avoid and what I should stick to, lol. (It would have been helpful if we could have filmed the session, but Adelagia was just taking some pictures and the color consultant asked her not to take any video.) Both Adelagia and I conveniently (suspiciously?) came up as “neutral” in color tone, which meant we could wear both warm and cool colors; nuances within those color schemes are where we differed, but again, god knows what they are now. I took pictures of the various things she showed me, but I missed some of them, and because there was just so much information, it all ended up being like white noise.
While we waited for our custom lipsticks to be created (let’s be clear, they were just pre-formulated lipsticks that are available in the Color Factory only, not that special new blends were created for us. However, they are apparently made right then and there, not pre-made. Supposedly, anyway), we went downstairs to do a little shopping at Etude House armed with our newfound knowledge. It was when I was perusing lipsticks or eyeshadow or something like that that I met... Korean Steven.
Korean Steven is so named not because his name was Steven (I suppose it could be, I don’t know), but because he became as helpful and seminal in the Etude House experience that day as our escape room Steven was to us in the OC, haha. Initially when he started talking to me, I wrote him off as someone who was just trying to sell product, like overly helpful sales people at Sephora. However, I let him put some metallic bronze thing on my eyes, and when I saw what he’d done in the mirror, I loved it! So I asked him what it was, and then promptly put it into my basket. Subsequently I asked him about lipstick; he asked to see my Color Factory card, then said, try this one, and gave me a lipstick that was orangier than I ordinarily would have chosen for myself - but once again, I loved it! In the process of doing this, he had me remove lipstick as well, which inevitably removed some of the makeup they’d put on me at the Color Factory, so he would correct it with other products - I just kept asking what he was using on me, and he seemed surprised every time I did, but when he pointed out the product, I put it immediately in my basket. He disappeared on me a couple of times, but I sought him out again to ask him his opinion about things, at this point trusting basically anything he said, lol.
The odd thing was that he didn’t seem to want to sell me anything. He would just put stuff on me, then leave. Or say something in general about what might look good on me, then leave. I kept having to seek him out to be like, “What did you use on me? I want to buy it.” Both Adelagia and I found him baffling in this way, because it was obvious I was willing to buy anything he told me about, but he didn’t take this as a prime sales opportunity, instead just doing his thing and leaving when he felt like he’d answered my questions. It was amusing, frustrating, and exciting all at the same time, not unlike being interested in a guy who you weren’t sure liked you back, LOL. Adelagia suggested it was because he wasn’t an ordinary salesperson, as unlike most of the other sales people, he had a pouch full of makeup brushes around his waist, so clearly he was more of a makeup expert than just pure sales - perhaps that accounted for his lack of desire to actually do any hard sales pushes, lol.
At some point he disappeared for real; I could not locate him again (maybe he was on break), so was left to my own devices to try and find stuff for myself. I used some of the screenshots I took when I was at the Color Factory to use some of the suggestions there, though it was a bit confusing the way they ordered/grouped their products, not making it easy to find some things. I realized I had more than half a dozen lipsticks in my basket, and in an effort to show some semblance of control, I started comparing what was in my basket with what my color card said, and put things back that I had gotten on impulse rather than because it was what supposedly would look good on me. When I checked out the cashier gave me several smaller bags, probably thinking “This can’t possibly all be for her...” LOL. Because we’d done the Color Factory thing, Adelagia and I each also got a voucher worth 20% off our purchases, so I also bought a ton of makeup brushes and stuff like that (I love brushes). My favorite of those is a lip brush that imho has an ingenious design - no more trying to carefully put a cap onto the brush, you just pull up or down to reveal or store the brush. <3
After getting our freshly made lipsticks, we decided to lunch in Myeongdong. In the harsh light of the sun, I took a look at my eyelids in my Tata mirror and was horrified by how GLITTERY everything was. Steven had used a somewhat sparkly bronze thing on my eyelids, but I had also experimented with some of their eye glitter stuff, and it sure looked less glamorous in the sunlight than it did in the store, lol.
Me: lolol I have so much glitter on my eyelids holy shit
Adelagia: It’s okay you look like a high class clown
Me: Ok as long as I don’t look cheap
Anyway, we were looking around for somewhere to eat, and somehow got pulled into this place that had grilled eel. Maybe “suckered” would be a more appropriate word, because that’s how we felt once we had ordered and our food came. Grilled eel was something we’d been wanting to try since watching Let’s Eat, and in their menu picture it looked like you got a pretty hefty portion for ₩48,000, which was still expensive. We got that as well as a couple of orders of samgyeopsal. The eel ended up being a very small SINGLE eel, and the samgyeopsal was small in portion as well. Initially we were being served by a young gal, but the owner told her to go have her lunch and took over her grilling duties, making it uncomfortable, because older Korean guys almost all seem to have that effect. He carefully “cleaned” the eel by snipping off the supposedly inedible portions, but then weirdly would taste it, I guess to make sure it was cooking okay??? I mean, I don’t know, it’s just weird to taste food that your customers are paying for? Even weirder was how he kept saying that eating eel was good for men’s stamina. Like... okay? That’s not new information after watching Let’s Eat, but why did he have to keep bringing it up? The samgyeopsal was fine, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the other place we’d gone to for the same thing, and it wasn’t like it was so cheap here. So yeah, this was yet another meal that we probably would have happily traded for something else. (The true lession here is that, unless there's somewhere specific you want to go, eating in Myeongdong is a big ripoff and bound to be disappointing.)
The disappointment was not to end there. We made our way to Cube Café, which was located in some random part of Seoul that we’d never been to, and once we got there it seemed obvious why - it felt like it was “real Korea,” not all decked out in English and friendly toward tourists. O.o But before I get to that I have to relay something else that happened.
When we went into the subway, I scanned my T-money card as usual (now conveniently located inside my Tata phone case), and noted that this time the automated voice seemed to register some kind of error. It still let me through, so I didn’t make much of it, and don’t know what I would have done even if I’d realized there was something wrong, at that juncture. However, once we got to our exit and I scanned my card to let me out, it threw an error and would not let me out. Rut-roh. It was also a quiet kind of station, and there weren’t many people around, much less a station worker to help me with my plight. There was a machine with which I could use to “add fare” - I didn’t know what the issue with my card was, but if it was just that it didn’t have enough money, or perhaps adding money could “restart” it in a way, then I’d do it. However, the machine would not go past the screen that asked you to select a language; whether I selected English or Korean, it simply did nothing.
At some point an old man noticed that I was having trouble, and came over to see what was what. It was unclear to me if he actually worked there, if he was just a do-gooder, or what, but I was hot and frustrated. There was an assistance button on the machine, so I pressed that, but unfortunately it did not call someone over, like I hoped. Instead, a tinny voice said something in Korean, and I didn’t even try to use Korean, because I wanted someone to come over and help, and speaking English helplessly seemed to be the best way to convey that. Unfortunately, they also seemed at a loss when I spoke in English. Meanwhile, the old man was trying to make the screen work, but like me, he could not get it to change to the next screen. Finally he seemed to make up his mind that this was a waste of time, and gestured for me to follow him. He scanned his card, and gestured for me to go through. I did, and then he scanned his card again and let himself out. I realized at this point with certainty that he did NOT work at the train station, and had basically just paid my fare!! I kept trying to turn back around to thank him profusely, but he was gruff and basically shooed me away, LOL. Adelagia and I of course had to then talk about how, despite some of the negative experiences we’d had, there were also random acts of kindness to be had in Seoul, too, from unexpected sources. <3 She also mentioned that K had experienced a similar kind of error with her T-money card, and apparently after some time had passed, it seemed to work fine again. I could only hope the same could be said of mine.
So, back to Cube Café. I need to preface this by saying that had we gone to Seoul a year ago as we'd originally planned, Cube Café would have been one of our primary destinations. We were totally into BTOB then, and didn’t know very many other bands at all. We’d even talked about going to Cube Café daily, to hang out and perhaps run into our guys. All I can say is, thank god we started getting into other bands (for me specifically, BTS, because it is so easy to find their stuff everywhere), otherwise Seoul might have been RUINED. Why? Because Cube Café was so, so, so disappointingly lame. It was basically just a regular café, with a few Cube artist-themed drinks. There was maybe a display somewhere that had a BTOB thing, and a small area where you could leave messages for artists that they almost certainly never saw. That was it. There was almost no other label, banner, or decoration to even let you know where you were or that the café was related to an entertainment company. The drinks - as with most themed drinks, apparently - didn’t sound appealing at all, so we just got some kind of -ade (maybe yuzu?) and latte that were whatever.
As we sipped our drinks and commiserated with each other about how lame this was, we decided to cheer ourselves up by going through our Etude House purchases. That’s when I realized, to my eternal horror, that during the time of my lipstick sorting and culling, I didn’t know which of the lipsticks was the one Steven had picked out for me - and in fact, most likely had put it back because I wouldn’t have recognized it and probably figured it was one I had randomly selected myself. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! STEVENNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Since Cube Café was such a fucking letdown, we didn’t make ourselves stay too long. We formulated a new plan. Since Adelagia was on a mission from her Day6 friends to take a picture of one of the members’ “birthday” signs, which was located at a bus stop a little ways away, she would go there while I would head back to Myeongdong and Etude House, where I would hopefully get Steven to remind me of the lipstick he had initially chosen. We hoped that because he was familiar with the Color Factory stuff, he would easily be able to remember what he would have selected after seeing my card. Then we would meet up at Wangshimni Station, as that area was where we wanted to have dinner. (By the way, “birthday” signs, which are basically well wishes for a certain celeb around the time of their birthday, paid for most likely by their fan club, can be located in subway stations, bus stops, etc. The busier the station, and the more elaborate the sign - size and digital experience - the more expensive it’s likely to be. It’s very common to see them.)
We put our plan into action and... for the most part, it went fine. I made it back to Etude House, though once again the heat was making me sweat soooo disgustingly. To my eternal disappointment, however, I didn’t see Steven. :( I went back to the lipstick section where I remembered him pulling my lipstick from, and bought a couple of likely colors I thought he might’ve chosen, which looked similar to my memory of what he’d used on me. (Having to buy more lipstick, without the 20% off, just made it even worse that I had previously put things back, including probably Steven's selection, due to wanting to buy fewer things.) After I’d paid and was almost out the door, I SAW HIM. I was so upset, lol. It felt like the universe was working against me! Since I’d already made a second set of purchases, I decided to just let it go; after all, there was a chance Steven wouldn’t even remember me or what lipstick he’d chosen hours ago.
I went next door to the Innisfree Green Café and decided to branch out of my usual snowy apple tea order and get a drink I’d seen other people get. It was really pretty, purple in color, and I recalled there were blueberries in it. I looked all over their menu for something like that, but couldn’t find it. I had the following conversation with the cashier:
Me: Hi, yes, could I please get a... do you have a... a purple drink?
Him: Purple?
Me: Yes, maybe like... a blueberry type drink?
Him: *blank look*
Me: I’ve seen other people get it... it has, like, blueberries in it?
Him: A lemonade?
Me: [thinking: OMG I somehow got the one worker at this café whose English isn’t that great, when all of them have been really great before] Uh, no... it’s not a lemonade... it’s definitely purple in color...
Him: *rifling through some papers* *points* This?
Me: Yes!! That’s it!!
Him: *begins ringing up my order*
Me: What is that drink called?
Him: Lemonade.
Oh mah gawd you guys, really, you have to be very careful about these -ade drinks in Seoul, they are so confusing!! Anyway, look how beautiful this drink is. I mean, I don’t know how it’s lemonade just because there are a couple of slices of lemon in it - it didn’t taste lemony at all - but whatever. It has some kind of tart pink stuff at the bottom as well as blueberries, sparkling water (?) on top, garnish, and then a small vial of blue syrup on the side so you can sweeten the drink yourself. I really liked that, because I was able to make it juuuuust sweet enough for my taste. Once the blue syrup was mixed with the stuff at the bottom, it made the drink a gorgeous purple color.
Seriously, is this not gorgeous?
Since I assumed Adelagia was going to take awhile to get to her location, and then head back, I took my sweet time taking pictures of my drink, reading fanfic on my Kindle, and taking very leisurely sips of the “lemonade.” I also fielded a few KTs from her, and I had only finished maybe 1/8 of my drink when she said she was only a few stops away from our designated meetup spot. I nearly choked on my drink! Somehow, with all of our chatting, I had completely missed her message saying she was done with her errand and was headed to Wangshimni. YIKES!! ＼(º □ º l|l)/ ＼(l|l º □ º)/
Explosion of street carts when evening hits in Myeongdong!
I considered just ditching my drink entirely, but it was just too wasteful. So I sucked that thing down in record time, giving myself momentary brain freeze, then I booked it out of there. I quickly made my way back to the subway station and caught the right train, and thankfully was able to make it in a decent amount of time. (In fact what took the longest was finding the correct exit, because it had like an exit 6-1 and 6-2 or something like that, and I could see no signs for the correct one, so went the wrong way for a time before Adelagia KTed me to set me straight.)
Here is where I bitch about Seoul subway stations and their fucking stairs. There are so. many. fucking. stairs. And there’s sometimes escalators? But no consistency at all in terms of what length gets escalators. There could be short escalators for zero reason, or a long set of stairs for no reason. Feel sorry for disabled people in this city, because while there are elevators, they’re always hidden and inconvenient. In any case, Wangshimni really took the fucking cake. It had the longest set of stairs I had ever fucking seen coming out of a subway station. How was it possible that this did not deserve a set of escalators?!?! Going up those steps I just had to keep my head down and keep going, without looking at the top, or I would just get discouraged and give up and end up having to live on those steps. There was a girl there struggling to get to the top with a suitcase; she had to take a long rest at one point and I felt super sorry for her, but I had no spare energy, physically or mentally, with which to help her. Like, in that heat, having to deal with stairs like that? Jesus Christ. IT’S INHUMANE.
These pics don't even do justice to how long that staircase is. On the right, how it looks in your mind when you’re hot, sweaty, and dread the thought of moving one more step.
Once at the top, Adelagia did some searching on her phone for what we were looking for. We were there to have 곱창/gopchang (intestines), but we didn’t know exactly where to go - she had simply found some information that indicated there was an area close to this particular subway exit that had a bunch of restaurants specializing in it. While she looked, I recovered from those goddamn stairs, and overheard two ahjussis talking - I didn’t understand what they were saying, of course, but I did hear the word 곱창. When Adelagia came up blank in her searching, I told her what I’d overheard and was like, “Should we just... follow them?” And that’s how we began our inept stalking. We followed these two ahjussis, not knowing where the heck they would actually lead us. I could have misheard what I’d thought I’d heard; they could also have been talking about gopchang in general and not as an intent to go eat it that very evening. Every turn they made, we made as well. (Luckily there were plenty of people about, and two ladies following two old guys also likely wouldn’t have crossed anyone’s minds, lol.) The most awkward point came when they doubled back and thus passed us; we then also had to double back! If they noticed us then, and then again later, it sure would have seemed suspicious! However, we had no better ideas, so at this point we just continued to follow them. Eventually, they were peering into a restaurant, then went in! And we excitedly saw that this restaurant was, in fact, a gopchang restaurant.
However. The place looked extremely authentic/local. This was intimidating. It was kind of divey and seemed like a place where only real Koreans went to eat, so there might be etiquette and language barriers we couldn’t overcome as total foreigners. We discussed maybe walking around a little bit more, maybe try to find a place that was better suited to us (a more upscale place that might have English menus and/or English-speaking staff), but we didn’t know which direction to go, and after our successful stalking it seemed like kind of a letdown to give up. It was then that Adelagia noticed the restaurant was actually the one she had read about in a blog (황소곱창). That made me want to eat there even more - why should we pass up a potentially really great restaurant specializing in the thing we wanted to eat? Fuck our fear!
Me: Should we just do it?! 〣( ºΔº )〣
Adelagia: Okay...! (O_O;)
So we pulled up our big girl pants and went inside. Right away we were greeted by a guy who asked how many we had in our party. I squeaked in Korean, “two people,” but he might not have even heard me because I also held up two fingers. It was busy in the restaurant but not totally packed, so we were seated right away. The guy pointed at a nearby board and said, “Menu,” then left. I don’t know how he knew that we spoke English - maybe it was all the shopping bags, or possibly the fear in our eyes - but just like at RoRo11 we were just left to figure out the Korean menu on our own, lol, despite the staff knowing we were foreigners. We were doing our best to translate the menu and look stuff up on Google Translate when Gopchang Eonnie (perhaps Gopchang Stephanie?) showed up. She greeted us with a huge smile and loud mannerisms, and did her best to explain in English what the menu entailed. Adelagia asked for two bottles of water, which she later brought with a boisterous laugh and said, “Service!” We weren’t sure what she meant until Adelagia realized that we were supposed to get the water ourselves, according to the signs. In any case, this lady was a total savior to two gals who felt totally out of their depth. <3
We ordered the combination gopchang, since we weren’t sure what we would like. It did appear that they specialized in beef gopchang; I have in general found that I prefer pork intestines, but it’s not like I’m an expert, so I was excited to try the beef gopchang at this place. Like many other Korean restaurants, there is a heating element on the table and the food is cooked in front of you. Luckily, we didn’t have to lift a finger. In the US, depending on the Korean restaurant, you’re sometimes supposed to cook your food yourself. In Korea, professional servers always did the cooking (thank goodness!), rotating around the tables and always doing it just right. After eating most of the gopchang, the next “course” started, the bokkeumbap (볶음밥), which seems like a common thing. They turn the heat back on, then add in rice, kimchi, spring onions, and whatever else might go into that restaurant’s version of bokkeumbap (in this case, they also added fish eggs!). Then all of it gets stir fried together, and you let it sit on the heat until the rice reaches your desired level of crispness. It was very delicious; in this case, because of the fish eggs, it made the bokkeumbap taste totally different from the gopchang main entree. It was altogether a really wonderful experience, and I’m glad we were brave enough to go in and try it! Go us!! ( ⌒o⌒)人(⌒-⌒ )v
Sarea and Adelagia’s guide to eating gopchang in Seoul: Stalk people, then make other people do all the work. Eat and enjoy!
On the way home, we stopped by a little coffee/juice shop that was located after the second convenience store but before the third. I wasn’t sure how a shop of this nature was able to survive in a small little neighborhood like this, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. We both got watermelon juice, and I was shocked because it only cost ₩4000 (at every place I’d gotten it before, it was more like ₩7000). It was, however, overly sweet, and I couldn’t tell if it was because there was added sugar or if it was because the watermelon itself was just that sweet. Regardless, it was refreshing and hit the spot.
As for the next day - “We have high-class clowning to do!” Adelagia found a hotel that served a nice-sounding afternoon tea for a reasonable price. I then used Teams to make a (free) call to the hotel to reserve a table for us at 3pm. Their English was surprisingly not as advanced as I was expecting for a staffer at an upscale hotel, and I had some doubts about whether I had actually successfully made the reservation.
Saturday, Aug. 3
We began our day of high-class clowning by walking to Grain for breakfast. We had specifically wanted to keep to the high-class clown theme, but I couldn’t find an Asian restaurant that fit that standard... Asian breakfast fare isn’t typically an upscale thing. So instead, we went to Grain, which served Western fare, was highly rated, and was walkable from our apartment.
Naver led us down a path we'd never gone before, and it included a set of long, steep steps that didn't have any handrails and was quite uneven. It was quite nerve wracking to go down them, and we swore not to repeat the experience (for me specifically, going up them).
Why would anyone build these stairs and think it was a good idea?
Grain was delightful. I got the smoothie of the day/week, while Adelagia got the juice of the day/week, and I looooved my smoothie. We both ordered the “create your own brunch” meal, and got the max six-item option. Still, it was very hard to choose what items to get, because it all sounded good. Even though I really enjoyed the food - it was all delicious - I also didn’t order right. I went with what sounded good to me individually, rather than considering the breakfast as a whole; as a result, I had too much protein and wish I’d gotten the sourdough toast instead of the smoked salmon.
Left: Our menus with my Cooky handheld fan. I teased earlier that I would eventually learn how to use a handheld fan with max efficacy, so I’ll share my tips here. Use it on yourself whenever you’re sweating. The air combined with your sweat will help cool you down, even if the air itself isn’t that cold. Don’t turn off your fan when you enter an air-conditioned space. Continue using the fan to help push more of that a/c on you, which will help you cool down much faster. Turn it on any time there’s an a/c source, even if it’s inconsistent (such as in a subway tunnel). That way, when the air comes around again, you’re able to put it to max use. Finally, if you know you have a long walk somewhere, turn it on at the start of the walk to pre-empt your perspiration, don’t wait until you’re already sweating.
Left: Our breakfast. Right: Our homage to Let’s Eat’s Daeyoung, who had the dumbest food blog ever.
The worst part of the experience wasn’t the restaurant’s fault... while we were there it was frequented almost exclusively by foreigners. There were two women who spoke loudly about work (school related), which stressed Adelagia out - one of them had a voice that carried. Then there were two other women who had the table next to ours, and one of them ordered not one but two glasses of Stella Artois during the course of their meal. I mean, I realize they’re on vacation but it was like 10:30 in the morning!! /judgy Also, she apparently wanted to make a breakfast sandwich with her selections, and because when you order the sourdough toast you get one long piece and one short piece, she demanded her companion’s long piece of bread in order to make her sandwich. Like... why is your desire for a breakfast sandwich your companion’s problem? Figure it out with the food you were given! Sheesh.
Next we walked to the Line 2 subway station. On the way, we passed by a group of tourists buying drinks from a lady with a refrigerated cart. Adelagia asked if I was interested; I said no. She was like, “But she has BTS coffees!” (We’d seen them before at one of the convenience stores.) I was still going to say no, but then I noticed that one of the boys in the group was handed a Jungkook bottle and a V bottle! So then of course I was like I MUST HAVE THEM, and went to purchase. However, when I went up to buy the same, I was given an RM coffee and told she didn’t have any more of V. WTF!! LADY, UNDERSTAND THE WARES YOU HAVE. OMG I was so irrationally (?) upset lol. That boy probably didn't give a shit about who was on the bottles and was going to throw those away once he was done drinking the coffee. Arrrghhh.
Then we were on our way to Gangnam/Coex Mall, about an hour’s subway ride away. The first thing we did when we arrived at Coex was go to the attached hotel to check on our afternoon tea reservation, only to be told it was actually a different hotel that we wanted. I saw the Grand Coex, where we were, also had an afternoon tea, but we already had a reservation at the other place, and it was located in their “Sky Lounge,” which meant it would also have nice views of the city. The hotel guy was helpful in leading us outside to show us where we wanted to go, mentioning there was an underground way to do it, but it was too complicated to explain (later we found out it wasn't at all). It was a very hot and sunny day, but off we went to the Sky Lounge of the Intercontinental Coex, which was about a 10-minute walk away (in the heat it felt like a lot longer). Along the way we stopped by this amazing library. Don’t ask me how the heck you get to some of those books, though. We also went into like three eMart 24s along the way, and none of them sold the BTS coffee. Naturally.
Once we finally found the Sky Lounge, the waitstaff there seemed totally perplexed by what we wanted, which was to check and make sure they had our reservation. I stated this was our purpose; when they heard me, they just looked apologetic and didn’t actually check their reservations list to see if I was on it. I took this to mean that they must not have any reservations at all, since they seemed convinced that I would not be there. So then I said, well in that case can I make a reservation now for 3pm? And that’s when they checked their list and was like, “Oh, are you Sarea? Here you are!” Like WTF? I don’t know what wires got crossed there, but once again I was surprised that their English wasn’t very good for people who worked in hospitality at an upscale hotel. Then BACK out into the searing heat we went, to the relative safety of the mall.
We had the intention of going to the aquarium, but on our way Adelagia needed a drink so we went to a coffee shop and took high-class clown pictures. We made ourselves laugh so much, it’s ridiculous lolol.
The effect is somewhat dampened by Tata and Chimmy standing in for us, but I assure you that they were of the highest caliber class of clown.
Then, horror of horrors, Adelagia’s shoe strap broke and we found ourselves in a shoe store (named Salt & Chocolate - many stores in Seoul had food names but didn’t sell food, and vice versa) buying new shoes. I had been wanting these sneaker sandals that many people in Seoul seemed to wear (I had first seen them on a coworker), and they had a pair of white ones that weren’t bad, so I decided to take the plunge and get them. The lady who helped us was very gregarious and endearing, and she was cracking us up with her Konglish, while she lamented about how awful her English was. Example sentence: “Shoes 때문에 tired.” Translation: “(Your feet) are tired because of your shoes.” Teehee. Adelagia purchased shoes that were similar to the ones that were broken, and then we were off again. Unfortunately, after a bit of walking I found that my shoes were not comfortable. :/ I couldn’t tell this from walking around in them in the store, but after awhile, the shoe seemed to go one way while my foot went another - it was actually making my feet and legs sore trying to make them fit right while walking! Man, I really wanted that ₩60,000 back.
At this point, it was too late to do the aquarium, because we’d have to race through it in order to make our 3pm high tea reservation. So instead we walked around the mall. First we went to Daiso; I can’t remember what we bought there, maybe more air fresheners and maybe hair ties for me? We went to OST where Adelagia got a lovely rose gold watch. I flirted with the idea of getting a Tata alarm clock, but the salesgirl got distracted by some obnoxious customers who weren't me, so I said I would come back for it later, maybe, if I still wanted it. There were also many BTS-related things to get distracted by, which killed some time. TEEHEE. Then we headed back to the Intercontinental Coex for our afternoon tea.
Tata standing next to Tae… worlds are colliding. As for that bottom right image, you would not believe the lengths I had to go to to try and get a decent shot of it. WHY would you put superstars on one whole wall and then make it impossible for people to see it with all those dangly whateverthefuck they are in the way?? And I was especially determined to get it because Tae is standing next to Jungkook. I actually got a semi-decent shot, but I haven’t included it here because… well, you’ll see why in a bit.
To no one’s surprise, we took a ton of high-class clown pictures and generally made fools of ourselves. Adelagia assured me the service staff likely saw people make asses of themselves regularly, so I shouldn’t feel too bad. The afternoon tea itself was very nicely laid out (and “only” cost ₩76,000 for two - considering what afternoon tea at nice hotels usually costs, this was indeed a very good price), but unfortunately very dessert/sweets heavy, which neither of us enjoyed. Seriously, in this whole tower there was maybe one item that didn’t have some kind of sweet element to it. Maybe because of that, we couldn’t finish it all, so we ended up boxing some of it home. (Once again we probably should have just left the things we couldn’t eat, but at the time it just seemed far too wasteful.)
If you can actually read the menu, you’ll see that it all sounds pretty great. We didn’t realize how sweet-heavy it was until we actually started eating. Also, is that not an impressive tower? Visually this might be the most beautiful high-tea tower I’ve ever experienced.
Shhh... high-class clowns at work.
The view of Gangnam from the 52nd floor of the Intercontinental Coex Hotel. Apparently if I’d shot it just a bit more to the left, I might’ve been able to capture some of the temple we had considered visiting.
After afternoon tea we actually did go to the aquarium! There were many interesting sights, including a turtle that used to belong to a Kpop star, a huge turtle that didn’t look huge at all in pictures, jellyfish, otters, sharks, an American beaver that I went all the way to Korea to see, etc. Oh also, randomly, a cardboard stand of BTS, the very same image I’d tried so hard earlier to get a photo of. (-_-;)・・・ There were also lame parts such as “touch” pools that only had things like starfish or hardshelled sea snails or something. Also when I saw huge crabs or shrimp I couldn’t help but think they would be delicious.
Then we went back to OST and instead of getting the Tata alarm clock, I also bought a rose gold watch, but had a nicer salesgirl, who gave me a bag without charging for it. (Adelagia and I are both suckers for pretty packaging.) I had her tighten my watch a little too much, but didn’t realize it at the time. We also went to ABC Mart and bought more new shoes, since the new shoes from before weren't as comfortable for us as we wanted them to be. :/ We bought identical pastel sneaker sandals, and I also bought a black and white pair as well. The total cost for these two pairs of sandals didn’t even cost what that first pair I’d purchased cost, and yet they fit better and were more comfortable. SIGH.
Our original plan was that we were going to wait until the sun had gone down, then head to a nearby temple to be cultured and what not. So we looked for a nail salon, thinking we would kill some time by getting mani-pedis, but they wanted ₩60,000 for a plain gel manicure and ₩70,000 for a pedicure!! I know we were in Gangnam, but still, WHAT. We were like forget that noise, and because we had no other ideas on how to kill time, we opted against going to the temple. I was getting hungry by that point anyway.
We went back to Hongdae and to Grain’s neighborhood to find someplace to go for dinner, because earlier when looking for Grain we had passed some promising-looking restaurants. Trying to actually find a place to eat that sounded good, however, ended up being harder to find than expected. Adelagia wasn’t that hungry, so I just quickly picked a place that had a menu that sounded decent. That’s how we found ourselves at Permil, an Italian place. I ordered some kind of seafood spaghetti dish, which came surprisingly quickly but was delicious, and came to the table bubbling even though it had no heat element. O.o I also got fries, which oddly came in an assortment of shapes and sizes - I’ve never seen anyone mix up various fries like this, lol - and another tiny side of ketchup. Adelagia got a squid and squid ink risotto, which was also good, but because she wasn’t hungry she was going to take her leftovers home. However, when she asked for it to be boxed up, the server said it wasn’t possible for that dish, something about how it wasn’t an item they would let be ordered to go, or something? I don’t know, it was odd and maddening. I could throw out various theories as to why - as we did that night - but there’s no point in dwelling, so. She and I did our best to eat as much of it as we could.
Apparently I don’t have a picture of the squid ink risotto. I have no choice but to conclude that the restaurant somehow destroyed the evidence that it ever existed - not even a photo of it was allowed to leave the premises.
After dinner went around various convenience stories to look for BTS coffee, and we theorized it was probably an older product, so none of the stores that had high turnover sold it anymore. So we went back to our neighborhood convenience stores and I got Jungkook at one, while Adelagia found V in an unrefrigerated crate that seemed marked for disposal, but they charged me ₩2300 for it anyway. Once we got home we found out they were both expired. The end.
Sunday, Aug. 4
We really embraced the idea of lazy Sunday and didn’t leave the apartment until 1pm because we slept in. Well, I slept and read in bed for like three hours after “waking up.”
The day before, I had looked up where we might be able to go to get some good samgyetang, which was another one of those things we had noted we wanted to eat while in Korea. It’s ginseng chicken soup, and it’s served boiling hot. Apparently Koreans eat this dish in the summer “to fight heat with heat,” but they’re crazy and/or delusional because that shit does not work. However, I was willing to have hot soup as long as I was in an air-conditioned space. I found a place in Hongdae that was written up in a blog, which described it as nothing special. LOL. Sold! I figured it was just a communication style thing, because in context, it was a lot more appealing: “I can't say this restaurant is very special, but it has been on this busy Hongdae street for so long. I think that means many things. It's a just simple Samgyetang restaurant where you can have original Samgyetang, and all the dishes include Kimchi taste nice here. :-)” Basically, I took this to mean that while this place might not serve anything unique or out of this world, they’re solid on what they do serve, and it means something that they’ve been able to stay in business this long.
The place was called 백년토종삼계탕 (Baek Nyeon Tojong Ginseng Chicken Soup) in Korean and Baek Nyeon Baekse Ginseng Chicken Soup in English; I’m not sure why that discrepancy exists. I had a little bit of trouble locating it in Naver because of that; I’m not sure now how I found it, it was some combination of Korean and comparing it with the English results or something. I had thought I remembered seeing the place when we passed by the area before, but it turns out there was another samgyetang place not too far away that was the actual one I’d remembered seeing, lol.
We were seated in an area where we had to remove our shoes before we could sit down; a first for us both. They had a limited menu of maybe 10 items, and most of those were variations of samgyetang. Adelagia and I both ordered the regular version, which was served up promptly. They probably just have a million of these going in the kitchen, and as soon as one is ordered they can easily serve it. Tongbaechu (napa cabbage kimchi) and kkakdugi (radish kimchi) were on the table, like condiments. Oh my, the samgyetang was sooooooooooooooo good. The place wasn’t as air-conditioned as I might have liked, but because there was a fan, it was tolerable.
We were a little ways into our meal when a large party showed up and the server was going to seat them on either side of me and Adelagia at the long table! We both quickly agreed that we would offer to move down the table for them, because not only was that the right thing to do, but HOW AWKWARD WOULD THAT HAVE BEEN OMG?? Also they had a halmeoni (할머니 - old lady/grandmother) with them, and we are both irrationally (?) scared of being yelled at by halmeonis. I was glad Adelagia’s Korean was advanced enough that she could suggest to one of the ladies in the party that we would trade places with them so that their party could all be seated together. A couple of times I heard the halmeoni refer to us as the “ahgassi” (아가씨 - basically meaning “young miss”), but neither of us knew if she was praising us or being like, “Well fucking obviously those inconsiderate ahgassi should move, they have legs don’t they, DUH.” When the server came back and saw that we were moving, she looked SCANDALIZED, lol. She seemed defensive on our behalf that we would have to move in the middle of our meal, while at the same time was appreciative of our considerateness. I have to say I was touched and impressed by how horrified she seemed by our moving; I feel confident saying that in a Chinese restaurant, the restaurant staff would have definitely been the ones to ask us to move, and would expect us to comply without complaint. We were not exactly immediately rewarded for our good deed, however, because our new spot was out of the way of the fan, which had cooled us down nicely while eating hot soup, and because now the communal kimchi was out of reach. :/
Because we are such slow eaters, the large party finished before we did. I wasn’t even sure, when the food came, if I would be able to finish, because each bowl comes with a whole chicken, and it’s stuffed with glutinous rice, even. However, I was either hungrier than I thought or it was just that delicious, because we both totally ate our entire bowls. When we were done the server from before came by and offered us a can of Coke as “service” (their lingo for “on the house”), to thank us for being nice enough to move for the other party. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but honestly if she were going to offer that, she should have done it while we were in the middle of our meal, or maybe when that same party ordered their own Cokes! Anyway, it was still a nice gesture and acknowledgement. The weird thing was, the server, who was obviously older - 50s and up, I’d guess - once again called Adelagia “eonni.” *cue record scratch* Like, okay, with the Insadong lady we had differing ideas of how old she might’ve been and what she might’ve assumed about Adelagia’s age. But there was no freaking way this 50-something-year-old woman thought she was younger than Adelagia, just no way. So now we have this theory that perhaps these days, a new thing has started where in a customer service scenario, because obviously you don’t know anyone’s name, perhaps all women are called “eonni” as a sign of respect (while still keeping things casual)? You obviously can’t call someone “dongsaeng” (younger sibling), because that’s not really a title to begin with (if you have a younger sibling you’d just call them by their name. Whereas eonni/oppa/noona/hyung are “real” titles), and if you did it’d be pretty condescending. Servers can be called “ahjumma” (middle-aged lady) or “imo” (aunt), but I think that’s skewing younger now too, and servers are also called “eonni.” So maybe it’s just a thing now where everyone is eonni for ease and no one gets offended. Unless maybe you’re Adelagia and you’re wondering why 50-year-old women are calling you “older sister” on the regular lololol.
After that we made our way in the blazing heat to the subway that would take us to Passion5 in Itaewon, which btw has the most difficult to read sign ever. It was a dessert place recommended to us by J, one of our Korean class friends who’s been to Seoul before. I wasn’t that big a fan of it. Maybe J overhyped it, but I felt that while they had tons of gorgeous desserts, it was all incredibly pricey, and nothing I ate (despite ordering three things) tasted amazing. Also, I had a minor disaster when my wallet slid from my tray and tumbled into the devil's tiramisu bread I was picking up and thus got coffee dust over EVERYTHING, including my white Cooky shirt, ugh. And the drinks were also costly -- the juices ran between ₩8000-9000, while a freaking Americano was ₩7000. Like what. Plus it was super crowded when we arrived, and we had to wait/stalk for a table; if we'd arrived an hour later it would have been fine. -.- The whole experience just really stressed me out, sorry, J. :/
Seriously, that sign is nearly impossible to see and in this picture there are almost no distractions *and* you know it's there.
We thought about going to the museum then didn't. We also thought about going to the Line Friends café then didn't. We started to make our way to a nail salon Adelagia found, but then a monsoon (I don’t know if it was one literally) came and we were stuck under a Starbucks awning for like 30 minutes until the rain let up. Because it had been SO sunny earlier I had decided against bringing an umbrella to save my back from the weight, and while Adelagia had hers, the rain was so heavy and the wind so gusty we both would’ve still gotten pretty wet if we'd tried to walk in it. Many people realized the same thing, because they also came to where we were to stand in the same spot, which was really kind of the perfect place to stay dry (ah, Starbucks, looking out for us even so far away from home). Still, even though it was a huge awning there was so much wind that water still occasionally blew over to us. I’ve said this before, but I will never make fun of drama characters again, Seoul rain is no joke.
I hope I don't sound too dramatic when I say that this Starbucks awning SAVED our very LIVES. Also, dang but it’s hard to capture torrential rainfall in a photo.
After awhile it seemed like the worst of it had passed, so we ventured out and got to ProNails. They had a reasonably priced (₩45,000) gel mani + regular pedi combo package, but unfortunately they couldn't take us that day, and we didn't really have any reason to return to Itaewon, so we went to Flor Nails, which I had seen from the street. At Flor Nails I was initially going to get that same combo -- though it was going to cost more (₩63,000) -- but I ended up doing a full design on both my nails and toes!! It cost ₩285,000, which was way more than I'd been intending to spend, obviously. And waaaaay more than I’ve ever spent on my nails before. But I loved my nail technician, who was really meticulous, and I was on vacation, so who the fuck cares? (I mean… I still do, to an extent, but also YOLO.) Many/most of the women in Seoul have nice manicures/pedicures, so when in Seoul…
At the time, I also hoped that both would last a good long while. (Writing this THREE WEEKS later, I have to say I’m very satisfied. Other than nail growth, my manicure looks almost exactly the same as the day I got it. Even the fucking jewels are still on. This is incredible. It helps that I chose a design that is light/pale toward my cuticles, so the growth isn’t as obvious - I can tell, but I think most people with a quick glance at my nails wouldn’t be able to.) My nails weren't as long as I’d have liked them to be, which was a shame. Even more of a shame is that I won't be able to find nail technicians this good in the US, no matter the price. Sigh. The nail technicians there seemed to actually take pride in their work, as opposed to the many places I’ve been here where the workers are only doing it because it’s the only job they can find. (However, I realized later she accidentally overcharged me. I'm almost positive both of the mani and pedi sets I requested were around ₩120,000 each, plus ₩15,000 removal of my previous gel manicure. It would be easier to swallow the overcharge if I considered it her tip - even though tipping is not a thing in Seoul - if only it actually went to her and not the owner of the place. :/)
The first thing I did with my new blinged-out nails? Dinner at Kkanbu Chicken, lol. We went to a different location that was a little closer than the first one we’d gone to. Our waiter first overturned the sauce onto our table, then proceeded to drop all the forks onto the floor. We all had a good giggle. The chicken was still good, but the cheese balls were a HUGE disappointment. They're cheese and they're deep fried; how could they be so tasteless?!
Random tip: If you ever go to Seoul, and you ask a customer service person - or any Korean person - if they speak English, they will almost always hesitantly say yes, but qualify that they don’t speak it very well. It’s out of humility, sure, but it’s more that they are incredibly self-conscious about their English, even though it is miiiiiiiiiiiiiiles better than my Korean, despite having taken it at a community college for two years now. I don’t even know that I am at a preschool level of Korean. The point is, don't let their saying they’re not good at English stump you, because their English is generally fine, especially if you talk to a younger person, or a woman, imho.
My personal experience was this. If I spoke Korean to someone, they either immediately spoke back to me in English (in a far more advanced manner than my Korean), or they thought I spoke Korean and said a bunch of things I didn’t understand, and then I had to reveal that I didn’t actually speak Korean beyond the very basics, which meant they’d then have to speak to me in English anyway. Adelagia was okay with this; if she didn’t understand what they were saying, she just charged ahead and pretended like she knew what they were on about and said “yes” in response to everything. (I can’t tell you the number of times I asked, “What did they say?” and her response was a shrug.) But I can’t say “yes” to things I don’t know what I’m saying yes to, just to avoid revealing that I don’t speak Korean (I mean, if they weren’t asking a yes/no question, it kind of gives that away anyway). I had to know wtf they were saying to me, and what I was agreeing to, because the last thing I wanted was to have some kind of misunderstanding and be responsible for the consequences, or get something I didn’t want or like, etc. Is this a learned caution from being a lawyer’s daughter? Who knows. In any case, we had two very different approaches to trying to communicate in Korean, lol. Her advanced Korean got her fairly far, and after that she was comfortable with the unknown that came with whatever she didn’t understand that she said “yes” to. I had far more basic Korean, and was not comfortable with the unknown, so my compromise was to use a little Korean while at the same time making it clear I was not a native speaker and they would need to work with me. What that meant was that all my requests were single-word questions, with an optional shrugging motion lolol. Examples!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 물? (Water?)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 이거? (This one?)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 화장실? (Bathroom?)
Everyone always understood what I wanted, so if you follow my examples above, you, too, can communicate in Korean using Sarea’s tried and true method! HAHAHAHAHAHA
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