Seoul Trip, Part Six - The End (서울 여행, 파트 여섯 - 끝)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Sunday, Aug. 11
We woke “early” with the intention of going to watermelon juice ahjussi’s place for a kaya toast breakfast, but he wasn’t open and had no hours posted, and we couldn’t find the place online so we had no way of knowing when and if he would be. Soooo without any other ideas and not wanting to be disappointed in another meal, we went back to Grain and had another good breakfast. This time Adelagia only got five items; I got six again, not because I felt I needed that much food, but just so that it would make deciding what to get easier. :P We both tried different things (for me, including the toast I wish I’d gotten last time, but I wasn’t as into it as I thought) for the brunch but got the same drinks. Predictably, I was too full at the end.
Since we’d enjoyed the previous escape room we decided to do another one since it was in Hongdae. We were walking there, and on the way we saw a Synnara music store, which we’ve both purchased things from on eBay. In a way it was kind of like a weird celebrity sighting lol? Anyway, we went in and bought three of Kang Daniel’s first solo album; they only cost ₩14,000! And also came with three posters! Ugh, buying things from overseas, we get ripped off so much. *shakes fist at shipping* One of the albums was for K, so we told her she wasn’t allowed to buy any albums for the next two weeks or so, lol.
Here we are with our Cooky and Chimmy umbrellas!
Since at that point we were laden down by heavy albums and unwieldy posters, we decided to get a cab back to the apartment (if you couldn’t tell, by now we were willing to take cabs to places 10 feet away, if it meant we wouldn’t have to walk in the heat. I can only imagine how stupid Aug 11!Sarea and Adelagia thought Aug 2!Sarea and Adelagia were) so we could drop off our purchases. The first driver couldn’t find our address, and after our previous experiences, we were like, that’s fine, and got out of the cab. We flagged down another one, and the second guy was great. He was not only friendly, he could actually speak English due to having lived in Arizona before! He could tell we weren’t from around these parts since we struggled to tell him that we had another stop after the first place - when we gave him the address he was like, “But this address is only 600 meters away…” lol. Hey man, 600 meters uphill in that heat, loaded down with purchases, is no joke OK! While Adelagia waited with him to make sure he wouldn’t get away (haha), I ran up to our apartment and dropped off the stuff - in retrospect, given our plans for the day, I should’ve grabbed Adelagia’s Koya shirts that she wanted to exchange (due to a stain), and also taken the leftover bread from Grain out of my purse, but in my rush I thought of neither of those things. I ran back down to give the driver the escape room address, and thankfully he was fine with the English form, whew. Although he was like, “This one is even closer!!” LOL. Luckily we had developed a rapport with him or he might’ve been annoyed by our fare lol. On the way there I mentioned that it was scary to drive in Seoul (I couldn’t do it), and he replied that it wasn’t, all I had to do was just drive in one lane, and if I did that, no matter what happened it wouldn’t be my fault. (What? LOL.) Hit another car? Whatever, not my fault. He apologized for having to drive a little further because he couldn’t just charge through the intersection to make the turn he needed to make - which we were like, that’s fine, that’s fine! I had definitely noticed before that cab drivers tended to make incredibly tight and dangerous turns rather than go even one street further to do a safer turn and double back; I don’t know if that was a personality/pride thing, or if it was actually trying to prove to the customer that they weren’t trying to rack up the fare or anything. In any case Adelagia and I were totally fine with the safer option.
The girls working at the second escape room were very aloof, saying we were late because we didn’t show up 15 min early. Like... we were there yesterday, we already know the rules! And they didn’t bother to tell us about the discount for paying in cash; I had to prompt them. -.- As for the room itself… It was called “European Spy,” and was the very next episode from the one we did before. While many of the details of the room still escape my poor memory, Adelagia reminded me of the fact that this was the room where she could not open anything, LOLOL. I don’t know what was going on that morning, but it was hilarious. Things Adelagia could not open: 1) A small, transparent plastic box. This one you needed to push up or lift the cover; 2) A key that fit a lock, but she couldn’t make it work. I don’t know what to say about this one, it was a key in a lock lolol; 3) A safe where you had to input a code, but she couldn’t turn the handle thingy right and it stayed locked; 4) Another safe where you had to input a code, but instead of hitting the “code” button first she was inputting it last, so it didn’t work. Per the usual, we got stuck on the final puzzle and didn’t escape, but I give us the win on this one - which I almost never do, I am harder on us than anyone (Jade and Adelagia will tell you!) - because during our final hint request they kept wasting our time with irrelevant things we had already accomplished!! Also, we had 3 of the 4 numbers to the final code, so really we could have tried any number combo for the digit we didn’t know at the end, and gotten out. Hmph.
From there we took a cab to the Shinsegae department store/mall (in Seoul their malls don’t seem to have individual stores; instead, different stores are all munged together, as if they’re curated sections like at Nordstrom or something) and the cab driver could tell we were foreigners because Adelagia was very deliberate about her diction so she wouldn’t be misunderstood (given our previous experiences). But after giving the address, she breezily also gave the location by name, and the driver laughed: “Oh sure, THAT you know how to say.” LOL!
The Line Friends store there was super weaksauce - I feel like we had struck out with so many of them recently! It hardly had anything, but what it did have seemed to be priced lower than other stores!! Scrunchies were ₩7000 instead of ₩8900!! That’s ₩6000 I spent for nothing (since I bought three of them). And umbrellas were ₩19,000 instead of ₩22,000! WTF. (Spoiler: We later figured out it was because it was a duty-free store, not because they priced things differently.) Also, it was located directly across from a Kakao Friends store, which was a little awkward…
There was supposedly an O’Sulloc there, but it wasn’t listed in the directory... we went up like 14 or so flights by escalator and couldn’t find it. We even wandered to the other Shinsegae (another “mall” in a different building just across the way) and it was even less promising, because online, O’Sulloc said it should be on B1, which the second building didn’t even have as a floor. We went back to the first building to go to floor B1 there, wandering around until we finally found a little section selling O’Sulloc tea; it wasn’t a full on café or store. HOWEVER. They had two boxes of hojicha latte mix!!! I was both happy and annoyed, because I had already given up on finding them by this point, and had paid a premium for several boxes on eBay.
When wandering, we came across this section of goods selling high-end hanwoo beef and whole dried persimmons, which I was very tempted by despite their high cost.
Since it wasn’t too far we walked to Myeongdong - the busy shopping area where we’d spent a lot of time early on - and went back to the underground Kpop store where I’d gotten my unofficial Taehyung T-money card, to buy A his requested souvenir. At the time I was bitter about this, because hello, he had been in Seoul himself for a month before I got there, and just because he forgot to bring back a souvenir for himself, why was that now our problem??? We bought him an RJ keychain as well as a set of BTS stickers. Aaaaaaand I ended up spending a ton of money on more stuff for myself. No regrets.
We then went to Innisfree Green Café for a late lunch - Adelagia got their soufflé pancakes again, but this time they were decidedly unpoofy compared to the time I’d gotten them, and really in comparison to everyone else’s order from that same day, wtf!! I felt she should have demanded that they re-poof her pancakes and state that she had ordered soufflé pancakes not regular goddamn pancakes. Seriously how dare they serve a customer that, though? When they KNOW what they should look like! I wasn’t that enamored of the fruit toast I’d ordered, but at least I did get to enjoy my “lemonade” more leisurely this time and didn’t give myself brain freeze.
We stopped by the Eblin in Myeongdong to ask about their exchange policy, and it was good we did, since it turned out you had to return and exchange at the same store you bought from! WTF. The American in me just cannot understand this. It’s the same fucking chain, why can’t I make an exchange or return at ANY of your stores? Also, I ended up buying winter pajamas, which seemed newly released, and had a slight “omg how am I gonna fit everything in my luggage” PANIC ATTACK. Also, I saw that they had the summer Cooky PJs I’d purchased at the other Eblin store at 30% off, but I was sure they were not that price at the other location, so I wanted to buy them again and return the other set (since we had to go back to do Adelagia’s exchange, anyway). Using Korean and English, I couldn’t get either of the shopgirls to understand what I meant by “return”… but then I overheard them talking to each other in Chinese and was relieved, because then Adelagia could accurately convey my question to them and get an answer we understood lol. Basically, returns were accepted within 7 days at the same store I’d purchased from, but they also insisted that the pricing across all their stores should be the same. I was still convinced that was not the case, however, so I bought the summer Cooky PJs again.
After this we attempted to go to cat café (we always felt so sorry for the guy/girl who was in the cat costume, in the terrible heat, passing out flyers for this café), but when we arrived it was full of people. We had no interest in fighting with other people to pet an animal whose very nature isn’t even that desiring of petting, so we left lol. We ended up at O’Sulloc and happily looked through all our Kpop purchases. Incidentally, the area where we were sitting had a bunch of English speakers around and it was strangely irritating to listen to them. Maybe it’s because it brought us out of the feeling of “being in Seoul”? Maybe it’s because we were able to understand everything they were saying, so rather than the white noise of Korean, it was distracting? Maybe because the stuff they said was annoying? Who knows, but we both felt irritated by the various English conversations going on.
We, or maybe I, decided the BTS sticker set we got A would likely not be appreciated by him (seriously, where would he even use BTS stickers?) so we decided to go back to the underground store and get him something Jin specific, and I could also buy a V poster set I had liked the look of but didn’t buy at the time (I liked it enough to take a pic of it, though). Sooooo we went back and got him a Jin note set (I still don’t know where he’ll use those, but not my problem), so I would keep the BTS sticker set for myself instead. I also got yet more stuff, including a GOT7 sticker set, so that we could use the JB stickers to somehow illustrate our courtesan story lolol.
Seriously, how is he so pretty? Is he a real human being?
After all this exhausting shopping >.> we took a cab home… only he turned down one street too early, and the crazy streets meant a huge detour even though we’d been soooo close to our apartment complex. (If I’d been able to use English I would have said something when it seemed like a mistake could potentially be made, but since I didn’t know how to do that kind of warning in Korean, I just had to hope he wasn’t gonna do what it looked like it was gonna do. My hopes were dashed.)
After setting down all our purchases we walked to the closer Kkanbu Chicken for dinner... it was super windy the whole day, and that continued in the evening for our walk there. We got the chicken tenders and fries, which was yummy. I was super hungry but Adelagia wasn’t, so I ate most of it. I was interested in trying their roast chicken, but thankfully refrained. I also ordered a “Tropicana apple drink” and was expecting a juice type thing. But then when it was brought to me it was a can, and labeled “sparkling,” so then I wondered if it was like sparkling water back home, where it’s unsweetened, carbonated, flavored water (like La Croix). It turned out it was just apple-flavored soda, lol.
After we got home I was planning to do more prepacking given all my new purchases, but couldn’t face it and decided it would be future!Sarea’s problem. It was especially not going to happen after Adelagia found all the “making of” videos of BT21 and their creation by the members of BTS lol.
Monday, Aug. 12
Second to last day! The weather forecast was for rain, rain, rain. The thing about rain in Seoul is that it very slightly cools things down, but not by that much. So when it rains, you not only have to deal with the pain in the ass the water brings, you’re also STILL dealing with heat and humidity.
We set out for our repeat lunch at Han6gam and it was already raining, ugh. Yes, yes, Seoul, we are leaving, no need to hasten our desire. In the morning I had our PJs all ready in a bag, but then remembered I hadn’t taken my medication, so when doing that I put down the PJs and didn’t remember them until we were already down the hill and halfway to the bus stop. Argh!! So then I had to trudge back. So annoying!!! But at least I remembered them then and not after we’d already traveled - what an even bigger pain that would have been.
Lunch at Han6gam was just as delicious as the first time; I wished I had enough appetite to have TWO lunch meals, but modest as it is, the portion was enough to make me full. It was interesting though, they have a different lunch set with doenjangjjigae, which doesn't seem very interesting, and yet from our observation it was what the vast majority of customers preferred. Like… why? Why would you go to a hanwoo place to order doenjangjjigae? Maybe it was because it was only ₩12,000 instead of ₩15,000? But would a measly ₩3000 really influence so many people? Maybe it was more filling? Which might make sense for men, who might not get full off the set we ordered, but surely for women that wouldn't necessarily be a reason? Or maybe it was somehow super delicious? I was definitely curious to know, but unfortunately didn't have the appetite for it.
We then went back to Hyundai City Outlets to return and exchange our PJs. The exchange was easy; the girl just looked at Adelagia’s receipt and the stain, then replaced it with another pair and that was that. With my return, however, it was like the first time she’d ever had to deal with such a thing. She seemed very uncomfortable and inexperienced with the process and actually messed it up. She gave me the return receipt, and Adelagia and I were going down the escalator when I noticed that the return was for the full amount that I had paid - but that couldn’t be right, because I had purchased two items that day, the Cooky PJs and the Tata sleep shirt. We were actually on our way back to that plaza where the artist girl was, to see if maybe she would have time to draw us - we had just enough time before an escape room - but we had to give up on that idea so we could go back to Eblin and sort out the error.
The girl had realized what had happened also, so she called out to us when she saw us again. I don’t know if she realized we actually came back when we saw the error, but to me it was odd that she didn’t express more gratitude about it. I mean, if I hadn’t looked at the receipt and just stuck it into my purse, or if I’d looked and not noticed anything amiss, we would have been long gone, and it wouldn’t have been our fault! In any case, since she had accidentally returned my entire purchase, she then had to ask what I had bought that day (weirdly their receipt wasn’t freaking itemized, wtf?), and I said it was the Tata sleep shirt. So then basically she re-charged me for that. I could have sworn it was 50% off but she said it was some lesser amount off - there wasn’t anything I could do about it since I couldn’t prove it and she seemed determined to charge that amount, but the whole thing kinda pissed me off. First of all, not my fault you fucked up the return. Second of all, not my fault your stupid business doesn’t itemize the charges. I could have said I bought anything, and she’d have to take my word for it, so… why was I the one who had to accept potentially being overcharged?? It seemed so unfair. Later, however, I did the math and it all seemed to work out, so fine, whatever. Obviously, though, we’d lost whatever extra time we’d had to go get that drawing done.
Maybe that was for the best, however, because the cab we caught to go to the escape room was a delightful lady cab driver who was around my age, maybe? She turned out to be ethnically Chinese, so she was fluent in both Chinese and Korean, which made communicating with her sooooooo much easier! She totally chatted us up about all kinds of things, and it was super fun to talk to her. She unfortunately also revealed that there had been a BTS concert the night before!!!!!!! She had drive people and it was a trafficky nightmare. Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Noooooooooooooooo!!! They were in Seoul while I was in Seoul, and had a concert, and yet I missed it?!?! Howwwww whyyyyy goddddddddddddddd whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. /Nancy Kerrigan She also said that the tickets were free, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that. But what I did know was that tickets were probably sold out ages ago, so the chances of my getting to go would have been slim anyway… but still. STILL.
(I have since found out that it wasn’t exactly a BTS concert. It was the annual Lotte Duty Free Family Concert, which ran for three days, and BTS was the headliner on the final day. Actually, the final day was probably the only one worth going to, lol. Twice was also another big name Kpop group who performed that day, as did Stray Kids and Super Junior; I can only assume that most of the big-name acts were contractually obligated to perform, due to their being shills for Lotte Duty Free - aha, yes, the article says the final day was made up of LDF models. In any case, BTS performed for 30-something minutes, and the whole thing is now available to watch on YouTube. I feel less embittered given this info, but still, it would have been super cool to see BTS perform in Seoul while I was there, especially since they’re now on a hiatus that will last for who knows how long, which means it was their last performance for awhile.)
As we chatted, it came out that we were going to be leaving Seoul the next day. She asked if we were planning to take public transportation, and we laughed and said no, because we had so much stuff, we would be taking a taxi. She asked if all our stuff could fit in a car (and I could of course see where this was going), and when we said yes, most likely, she asked if we wanted her to take us to the airport. The answer was a resounding yes!! We had already discussed potentially asking Jason to call a cab for us so that we wouldn’t have to lug all our stuff down the hill in order to get to a busy street with a lot of cabs. Now we wouldn’t need to do that, and I was happy to give an airport fare to a nice lady driver!! I asked if noon was okay for her, and she said yes. The only thing that made me wary was - shit happens. What if she doesn’t come for some reason? We’d need a plan B, or at least some way of reaching her. So I asked her for her KT info, and she gave me a business card with her phone number on it. I had suspected earlier that she did skincare stuff on the side, because she gave us some face masks, but it was confirmed when I saw her business card, which was for some kind of skincare clinic.
One of the things we talked about was Kpop. Since she had brought up BTS, I asked her if she was into BTS, and she was like, “Oh no, no way. They are babies to me.” She asked what we were into. So in addition to BTS, we mentioned GOT7. Lady cab driver: “Aren’t they too young for you?” We were both like… yes? But also no? But also shhhhh. Like… we know plenty of women our age who are into Kpop, and it’s easy to forget how freaking young those guys are. That even older, mature-seeming guys like JB are only actually 25 years old. /facepalm Anyway, whatever, it’s not like we’re actually ever going to be with them or they’re harmed by our liking them. In fact, it’s the opposite - their fans are working women who actually have money to buy all their merchandise! In any case, lady cab driver was more into Kpop from her generation (and ours, really), like TVXQ/DBSK. But during that time, I wasn’t into Kpop at all; I was listening to like Avril Lavigne, Eminem, Michelle Branch, Kelly Clarkson, etc. Teehee. <3 So Kpop from that time means nothing to me… I’m generations behind!
We went to Seoul Escape Rooms’ Hongdae Branch 2 location to do “Haunted House of Venetian Merchant,” and as usual I remember almost nothing about it… but there was one super cool aspect that we have never seen in any other escape room before - a little MOAT! At some part, we did something that opened a panel in the wall, just a bit. We looked all over before I was able to find it and open it… and when I did, it revealed a boat! An actual boat on water! We had to get in the boat and pull ourselves using a rope on the side of the wall to the next room. HOW COOL IS THAT. What wasn’t so cool was that we got stuck at the next part and were supposed to grab a key dangling from the ceiling. Only… we could not see any fucking key dangling from the ceiling no matter how hard we tried. The only likely spot was this sort of door in the ceiling that had dropped an item, but it was also wiry and we couldn’t reach it easily, so of course we didn’t want to jump up and grab a bunch of wires. But after a LONGASS TIME of them repeating the same hint, finally one of the gamemasters asked if she could come in and show us. And we were like, YES. And she of course fucking jumped and pulled the key from exactly the spot we wouldn’t, due to not wanting to destroy the place. I don’t know how many times that has worked against us, where we’re trying really hard to be respectful of the room and its things, and therefore overlook the thing they want us to do because we’re being so careful. And in some ways, I don’t blame us, but blame them instead? The general “them,” because it’s sort of all the escape rooms that we’ve done added together, who collectively tell us to be careful and respectful of their things… and then they put things into the room that kind of contradicts that point. Like, “Be careful, but not when it comes to this one thing we want you to do.” -.-
Because of all the bullshit regarding the key, we totally thought we had failed to escape (in my head I was already giving us a pass, due to the placement of the key), but the gamemaster said we had 3 seconds left, so technically we escaped! As we were getting to go the gamemaster was like, "If you leave us a review on X, Y, or Z, we will give you money back.” I’m like, how much? And it was like ₩3000 or something, maybe even less. So I was like, oh okay. Then there was this awkwardness where she stood there, waiting for us to do it right then and there. I felt like I had no choice but to do it, even though in general principle I don’t leave reviews unless I feel it’s worth my while (really liking or hating a place, lol), and ₩3000 is not worth my while. But I didn’t know how to politely extricate myself from the situation, so I ended up creating some random account to leave a review on TripAdvisor.
After the escape room we took a cab to Gangnam’s new Line Friends location (that’s right, to Gangnam. All the way across the water. We had no more lines wrt when we took cabs and when we didn’t; it was now a free for all), which had exclusive things because of it being new and all. There were lots of fun things to take pictures next to, though there was one Tata statue by some steps being occupied by some girls, and I had to ask them to move for a moment so I could take a picture next to it. There was one girl who didn’t feel like she had to move, and both Adelagia and I were like wtf is wrong with this bich? She wasn’t completely blocking the statue, so I didn’t feel like I could ask her to move, but seriously, you don’t own the place, other people are trying to enjoy it too, so BE CONSIDERATE AND MOVE YOUR ASS. (￣ー￣) Upstairs there were more photo ops, but people in general were just so oblivious, loitering in front of them or taking forever with their selfies. Like, there are other people you know!!! God. Anyway, I bought Tata and Cooky speakers, spending enough to get a free reusable bag (that I had already purchased elsewhere, but whatever! I chose the Tata one - big surprise).
Top: I don’t know what their obsession is with popping candy, but it was the topping for this ice cream we didn’t get to eat because it wasn’t available.
By the time we visited the store, this awesome camera was already sold out, sigh. It’s currently being sold on eBay for $700. -.-
For our mid-afternoon beverage break we went to O’Sulloc. Get this… this O’Sulloc had boxes of the hojicha latte mix available!! I can’t remember how many of them there were, maybe four or five? I bought them all - except for one, which Adelagia bought - and figured I would somehow find a way to fit all these new purchases into my luggage. Somehow. The gal at the counter apparently didn’t know English very well, so when she ran into an issue with my passport as she was ringing me up and trying to give me my duty-free discount, she had to type what she wanted to say into her phone and showed me the message. Also, I spent enough to get yet another hand wash, which I appreciated but also stressed out about in terms of luggage space, lol. After that we went upstairs to chill in the café… I tried something new this time, the Hallabong O Fredo (hallabong = citrus hybrid that grows on Jeju Island). It was okay? A little pulpy for being a slushie type drink, and the ice cream was just a milk ice cream. (Initially when I tasted the ice cream I was thrown off because it didn’t taste like I was expecting… I wondered what I was expecting, and I realized that I’m used to white ice cream tasting like vanilla. In the US we always forget that vanilla is actually a FLAVOR, and if you don’t add it to plain ice cream, the ice cream just tastes like… cream, lol.) The thing that disappointed me most was that, contrary to their ads, the drink, once again, did not reach the top of the glass. WTF, stop doing that, Seoul!! FILL YOUR GODDAMN GLASSES TO THE TOP. It really makes me feel like I got totally ripped off. Adelagia got, I believe, a matcha latte concoction.
O’Sulloc’s drinks are so pretty. My drink would be even more attractive if it were filled up to the rim of the glass. GRRRR.
The plan for dinner was to go back to 두껍삼/Dukkeobsam, the samgyeopsal place we had gone to on my second night in Seoul, since the samgyeopsal had been so good there. Adelagia found that there was actually a location in Gangnam, and it was actually walkable from where we were! IT WAS FATE! Since it was our final dinner in Seoul (crazy how quickly the time passed), I really wanted to splurge and try all kinds of things that I might not have a chance to try again, or at least not for a really long time. Thus we ordered yukhoe, a Korean raw beef dish that I would liken to beef tartare, and I also decided to splurge on some hanwoo beef, since I felt that the hanwoo grill experience we’d had at Han6gam was less than stellar.
Not only was the meal amazing, they also had this super cool seat compartment where you could store your stuff. It was very roomy and fit my purse as well as shopping purchases, keeping everything from smelling like BBQ. Genius!
You guys. YOU GUYS. This meal was amazeeeeeballlllssssssssss. I would have it every day if I could. We also ordered the same pork cut combo as the first time (I can’t remember now what these two special cuts were, but the weird thing was that they had a full plate available of each, and one of half and half. Both times, when we tried to order one plate of each, they forced us to do 2x the half and half one. Like... what? Why? I mean, ultimately it’s the same thing, and it cost the same, so why were they so insistent on that? So weird), as well as samgyeopsal, so we had plenty of food. The thing is, when they bring the food to the table, it always looks like not very much. But then they grill it (to perfection), and then you start eating, and before you know it, you’re suddenly getting very full. The yukhoe was a revelation. It was soooooo delicious, wow. I’m really glad that we had it there and not somewhere more sketchy - I mean, it is raw beef, after all - but now it might have ruined me for all other yukhoe in the future. The problem was the portion was surprisingly large. I wish it’d been half the portion and half the cost. By the time they started grilling the hanwoo beef I was pretty stuffed, so Adelagia had to slowly but surely eat most of the yukhoe, lol. But also, the hanwoo… AHHHH. It tasted so different from American beef! Not necessarily in a good or bad way, because American beef is pretty fucking delicious, but just different. It was incredibly juicy. Just chewing one piece made like an explosion of juice happen in my mouth. I finally understood what the fuss about hanwoo beef was, because Han6gam’s dinner sure didn’t make me get it. The final total was ₩41,500 ($35) for Adelagia and ₩79,500 ($66) for me due to the hanwoo, but in terms of splurgy dinners it was totally worth it imho.
Just looking at these pics activates my salivary glands.
The cab driver who took us home tried to discourage us, lol. I don’t know if he didn’t want to drive out of Gangnam or if he was genuinely trying to be helpful, but as soon as we gave our address he was like, “That’s like an hour’s drive. It would be just as fast by subway…” (And obviously, much cheaper.) We were like, just drive, Jeeves. OK no, we weren’t dicks but we also didn’t get out of the taxi, either, lol. Also it didn’t take an hour, it was more like 35 minutes or something.
I think I may have tried to pack some more? Or maybe I didn’t, figuring that without being able to account for all my things, particularly the things I would need in the morning, I might as well wait to do it the next day… I don’t know, apparently I have blocked it out lol.
Tuesday, Aug. 13
Around 9am we headed to watermelon juice ahjussi’s place (aka Café Alle) for breakfast to finally have the kaya toast, which is not something I’ve had before. Why isn’t coconut jam a thing in the US? It should be a thing!! (I guess I just have to make my own.) I once again ordered watermelon juice, because even though that didn’t exactly go with kaya toast, it was going to be my last opportunity, and just out of nostalgia, I had to do it. On our way back to the apartment we stopped by a convenience store (probably Nice to CU?) so that I could buy a tuna triangle kimbap for later (spoiler: it was not good).
So I can’t remember if this happened on this day or the day before, but at some point I finally opened my BCO suitcase and GUESS WHAT WAS INSIDE? That’s right, MY COOKY UMBRELLA!!!!!!!! The first one I bought!!! /facepalm I have no idea why it was in there. I guess maybe I thought I wouldn’t use it, and wanted to pack it away? Clearly I had no recollection of doing this, and by stupidly doing so, and by stupidly not opening up that suitcase when I first realized the umbrella was missing and it was the last place I hadn’t checked, I now have an extraneous Cooky umbrella. The ridiculous thing is that we don’t even use umbrellas in Seattle. ( > < )
I think I packed and repacked about half a dozen times. I was able to fit everything comfortably if I were to use one of the large BT21 bags as another bag I could check in (for some reason, Delta was allowing me three free checked bags, same as the leg to Seoul). That would mean I’d check the Away Medium, Away BCO, and the BT21 bag. Then I’d carry on my backpack plus the Cooky luggage bag. However, I really, really wanted to try and narrow down my checked bags to only two, for two reasons: 1) Unwieldyness - I didn’t want to drag around five bags at any point; and 2) I was going to declare that I spent under the limit ($800, which may or may not be true in terms of souvenirs only), and I didn’t want to go through with a bunch of bags and encourage customs to check them! But as I kept packing and repacking, Adelagia was like, “Maybe just accept that you have to check three bags.” And I was like, “NO!! I WILL NOT SURRENDER!!!! I CONTROL MY THINGS, MY THINGS DO NOT-Okay, fine.” So then I had to reinforce the BT21 bag with packing tape (as Adelagia had already done to hers), and then we wrapped both bags in a ton of plastic wrap (it was the least Jason owed us, given we were leaving his apartment with lots of air freshers, wet wipes, and other assorted helpful things. But funnily enough, not paper towels. Because I was now using three bags, I needed to fill the BT21 bag up to make it less damage prone, and the remaining three rolls of paper towels fit the bill. But given that, I was a little bitter that I hadn’t just purchased more BTS or BT21 things, in that case! Jason got the remaining roll that we didn’t finish using), and then reinforced with more packing tape. There wasn’t enough regular packing tape, and I had to use some of my precious BT21 packing tape. (╥_╥) (Spoiler: It’s a good thing we took all those precautions, because both of our bags ended up ripping in the same spot, around the handles. Dang those rough baggage handlers!)
Finally, we were ready to leave the apartment that had been our home for over two weeks!! Seriously, as much as I complained about having to do this write-up, those 17 days seemed to fly by again. It was like, super slow in the beginning and then zipped right up at the end, wtf is that?
We went down with all our stuff, and it was yet another hot and humid day, so part of me was very glad to be going home. I had Lady Cab Driver’s KT info in case she was very late, but I was also cool with waiting a few minutes without freaking out about it. Adelagia’s flight was around 4pm, so we had plenty of time, as my flight was a few hours after hers, even. Back before I got to Seoul I wasn’t sure if I would end up going to the airport with her or not - after all, with that kind of time difference I could, in theory, spend a little more time in Seoul had I wanted to have another meal, for example - but once I got to Seoul, it was a no brainer. We had to check out of the Airbnb at noon (we asked for an extension but Jason couldn’t grant one as he had other tenants arriving that day), so what was I going to do with all my stuff? No freaking way I could lug it all around with me, in that infernal heat, so I never once seriously entertained not going to the airport together (plus, we could split the cab).
At about 12:05pm Lady Cab Driver pulled up, and as soon as she got out of the car she complained about why didn’t I call her? The streets were so confusing, etc. I don’t know if it was because she felt bad that we had done any waiting at all or what, but I was a bit indignant at being scolded for trying to be thoughtful about not giving her a few extra minutes without bothering her. As soon as we started to load our suitcases into the car, another car came up to pull into the parking area, which our cab was blocking! OMG, seriously, why this timing. So then we huffed and puffed while the other car waited patiently (or so it seemed) for us to get done. Lady Cab Driver was amazed at how much stuff we had, and was like, isn’t there a weight limit? Korean Air and Delta have the same weight limits when it comes to baggage, but Adelagia, who was flying Korean Air, had a weight limit of 70lb (32kg) as she was in business class, while mine was 50lb (23kg) since I was in Delta Comfort+ (premium economy). My suitcases were heavy, for sure, but I felt mostly confident that I hadn’t exceeded the maximum, because my cat litter from Costco weighs about 40lbs, and my suitcases didn’t seem to weigh any more than that. LOL, you gotta have some frame of reference, right? Still, I hoped I had distributed the weight between all my check-in bags okay, because it would be so maddening if one of them was severely under while another one went over, so that I might have to open them up while at the airport to try and get everything under 50lbs. Plus, I deliberately had not weighed down the BT21 bag too much, since it was the flimsiest, and I wanted it to survive the trip intact, if possible.
Not gonna lie, I fell asleep partway through the journey to the airport, and only woke up when we were pulling into the departures area. Lady Cab Driver dropped Adelagia off at Korean Air, which came first, and then me at Delta. Conveniently, there was a luggage cart right where she dropped me off, so I was able to pile everything onto there and walk comfortably inside. (All luggage carts are free. US airports should adopt this practice as well, because it is fucking ridiculous that they make people pay $5+ to help with their luggage.) The Delta area was almost completely empty, I assume because their flights did not leave until much later. In fact, the entire area was cordoned off, and I wondered if it was possible that I couldn’t even check in yet. There were a couple of agents helping another party, and I asked if I could check in for my flight to Seattle. The agent said yes, and I told her that there was no way to even get to her, because of the area being closed off. So I had to move one of the stanchions in order to get to her with my luggage cart (and while being helped by her, other people started to gather to the side to be in a quasi-line… ridiculous! How could they not notice that there was no way to get to them??). Check-in otherwise went fine, and I was glad to see that the heavier of my suitcases only weighed 15.9kg (35lbs - Ha! The cat litter comparison totally worked!). Adelagia’s weighed 24.8kg (55lbs), holy crap, good thing she was in business class or she would have had to pay a weight overage fee!
Left: A baggage scale, which would have been nice and convenient had I seen it before checking in my stuff already. Right: The boys wanted to say goodbye. That’s the only possible reason they could have had an ad there.
We both finished checking in around the same time, and we walked for a bit taking pics of the cute BT21 ads that were on some of the luggage carts (they have a partnership with Incheon airport). I also turned in my duty free receipts to a conveniently located station that they have sprinkled around… each station seemed to be staffed by two live agents as well as automated machines. There was hardly anyone around (I don’t know if it was a particularly quiet time at Incheon, or if it’s always nice and calm like it was), so I felt like I could fumble around with the automated machine (and also be able to do stuff in English) - but as soon as I started, one of the agents approached me and told me to take my stuff to her. If you’re in Seoul and you start collecting these receipts and you don’t know if it’s even worth doing, DO IT. It was soooooo much easier than Adelagia or I had been expecting. The receipts SAY you have to fill them out in full with your name, passport no., etc., but I did none of that lol. The agent simply ripped off the stuff she needed, scanned stuff through her computer, and then gave me a receipt and told me I could get my money after I got through customs/security. It literally took less than 5 minutes. Adelagia was like, if I’d known it was that easy I would have just done mine! (She hadn’t thought it was worth it because she spent way less than me and her refund would have been like $15.)
We went through customs/security, which took no time at all (seriously, the place was even quieter than SeaTac), and then we were on the other side. We located the tax refund place, and I ended up getting about $41 back, plus some Korean won coins that weren’t enough to change into USD. Sigh, like I needed that…
And in a totally appropriate turn of events, the last thing we ended up doing together was going to… a Line Friends store. LOL!! At first Adelagia had looked it up and it seemed that the Line Friends store wasn’t in our terminal. But then we needed to ask the information desk where the tax refund place was, and while we were at it, asked about Line Friends. She was like, “Oh, there’s one right there” - and of course, it was just behind us; I don’t know how we missed it, lol. Adelagia ended up buying a Chimmy pillow that she had been eyeing for ages, while I got Tata and Cooky bag charms. The prices were similar to what we had seen at that other Line Friends, and that’s when we put together that it was because they were duty free stores.
We still had several hours to go before Adelagia’s flight left, and of course mine even longer after that, so we went to the Korean Air lounge to see if Adelagia could get me in there as her companion (entry to the lounge is for business/first class passengers). From what we had looked up, it seemed like she should have been able to - the restriction was that the guest had to also be traveling on a Korean Air partner flight, which I was (Delta). However, when Adelagia asked if she could bring a guest, the woman said she had to check if her ticket was eligible to bring a guest with her into the lounge, and after doing her check, she apologized and said I couldn’t go in as a guest. I have no idea what the requirements are, then, because she didn’t even ask what flight I had, so clearly that was not part of the requirement check. And yet, if a business class passenger can’t bring a guest, who can? It was baffling, and if I were in the US I would have delved deeper and asked why, what the requirements are, etc., but it didn’t seem worth it when I couldn’t communicate effectively.
And of course, it wasn’t even the lounge itself that was so desirable; it was being able to spend the time we had to while away, together, in a comfortable place that would have charging stations, food, etc. Instead, I just pulled up my Priority Pass app and found several lounges in Terminal 2 that I could go to (Priority Pass is an airport lounge membership that I get for free because I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card - and actually I also have another one with my Hilton rewards card, but that one is wasted since there’s no point having two). I ended up choosing the SPC Lounge, because it was the one closest to my gate. It ended up being a suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper nice lounge!!! The best lounge I’ve ever been in, actually. They had a really nice food spread (which I went a bit overboard on), lie-down lounge chairs (one of which I nabbed), and just a really nice atmosphere. And yes, it was airside so you could see planes coming and going if that was your thing. I mean, there was even ice cream that you could scoop yourself. Adelagia was like, wtf it’s even better there and I had to pay so much $$ for entry into this less-impressive lounge! To be fair, the lounges I’ve been in with my Priority Pass were not usually this nice. They were usually just better than no lounge at all, with minimal food and beverage selections.
My luck wasn’t to end there, however. And at first it actually seemed that my luck was terrible, because after settling in, I got a notice from my Delta app that my flight had been delayed to 9pm. Whaaaaaaaaat!! The original departure time of 7:20pm was already quite late enough; it was a good thing I had such a comfortable place to be, because I was already going to have to kill so much time there. And now they were tacking on another two hours?! Ugh, so frustrating! Thirty minutes later, the timeframe changed again, this time to 8:20pm. I mean, good that it was a shorter amount of time, but I’ve been through a situation before where they kept changing the ETA, and that was in some ways even more nerve wracking because you don’t know, then, what the true departure time is.
As is my habit, whenever anything about my flight changes, I check my Delta app. And what I saw made my eyes bug out. My original seat was 18A or something like that. With the new time change, I saw that my seat had changed to 6B. 6B!!!!!!!!!!!!! DELTA ONE. I’d somehow gotten upgraded to Delta One. Holy crap. I kept checking it over and over and over, convinced that a mistake had somehow been made, and they were going to fix it and it was going to be a huge disappointment. But it stayed that way, even through several other flight departure time changes.
I don’t know about any other airlines, but on Delta is nigh impossible to get upgraded when on an international flight. I’d done a ton of research on it ahead of time, because at the time I was still debating whether or not to splurge getting Delta One outright. I wrote about it in my first post. I forgot to mention in that post that when I got to SeaTac to check in for my flight, I even asked the agent if it was possible to pay for an upgrade (I had looked this up, and no, it’s not), juuuuuust in case, but she confirmed what I already knew: “Not for this flight, no.” J, who is a huge fan of Delta (I never realized how much until I got back to the states and started talking to him more about it - he actually goes out of his way to go on certain planes, he seems to always pay for Delta One, etc.), was like, “You got upgraded on an international flight?! That’s unheard of!” He even showed my KT to a friend of his and was like, “Can you believe this?!” (I did not know of that anecdote until later, of course. LOL.) He asked me what my status was on Delta, and I was like, “The very lowest - Silver!” To this day I still don’t know why I got upgraded. I do feel like I wasn’t the only one, though. When I was checking the app at the airport, there were still 15-20 seats available in Delta One - and yes, part of me was of course HOPING for some kind of miracle to occur, because to me it seems ridiculous that if you have open seats, that you wouldn’t try and get some money for it by letting people pay for upgrades (of course then it makes it harder to sell them outright). But by the time we boarded, there was only one seat available. So it would appear that they mass upgraded some of us, but why, I have no idea. My first guess is that they had to take on extra passengers, perhaps from another flight, for some reason, and to accommodate those passengers it was worthwhile to them to upgrade some people, which they did based on status. (And while Silver is Delta’s lowest tier, and on a domestic flight I’d be jockeying with people with much-higher positioning, I bet in Seoul, I was one of the few tiered passengers, period.) My second guess was that with all the departure time change fuckery, it was a kind of preemptive apology. That seems weaker, though, because I had gotten upgraded with only the second time change. So yeah, the long and the short of it is - who knows. I was still unconvinced it was for real, though - what if it was just a system glitch, and if I tried to sit in 6B, there would be another passenger who also claimed to have the same seat? That would be so embarrassing. I was so paranoid about it that when it came time for me to head to the gate (the hours in the lounge passed by surprisingly quickly - I guess that’s what happens when you’re super comfortable, have a bunch of things to entertain you, and are surrounded by food and beverages), the first thing I did was check with a gate agent and tentatively mention that my seat had changed. She printed out a boarding pass and only then did it seem real - so if they tried to kick me out of that seat I at least had a tangible thing to show them, printed by a Delta gate agent.
I can’t remember now what the new boarding time ETA was, but I got there in plenty of time. Every 10-15 minutes though, they would push it out another 10-15 minutes, with the reason of “a mechanical problem” (just what you want to hear before boarding a 11.5-hour flight). A gate agent went around to every passenger to apologize for the delay and offer a piece of candy. A small gesture, but appreciated! They never do stuff like this in the US. In the US it’s like, well it is what it is, do you want to go to your destination or not?
I think we finally started boarding around 7:45pm, which wasn’t that bad of a delay after all. It means we probably took off about an hour later than we were supposed to. But if that hour had anything to do with why I was upgraded, then… WORTH IT. Even despite all the uncertainty.
The flight itself was wonderful. I don’t often say that about flights, but… man, Delta One (and really any cabin that has its same amenities) was awesome. It had lie-flat seats, a massage chair, Westin bedding, noise-canceling headphones (for use while on the plane), and a complimentary Tumi travel kit. Oh, and of course, there were dedicated power ports with your seat so that could keep your stuff charged all the time. There was also a large screen if you wanted to watch movies, but of course recently my entertainment came in the form of fanfic so I didn’t use it. The service was excellent - always the nice thing about flying business/first is being treated like a human being, lol. I was definitely tired, and not long after the dinner service I made my seat go flat and I SLEPT LIKE A BABY, tucked in with all my nice bedding. I woke up twice to use the restroom; the second time my hair was crazy lol. The ahjumma flight attendant took a liking to me, and when I came out of the restroom she plied me with a triangle kimbap, coffee, and a banana, telling me that they were going to start the breakfast service soon.
Left: The complimentary Tumi travel kit, with a personal welcome note! Nice touch. Top right: The controls for your seat, whether you want the massage function, lie flat, etc. Bottom right: Comfy Westin bedding.
Where Delta One kind of fell down was in the food. :/ It’s weird because I’ve had better food on other Delta first-class flights, so I know they can be better!! For dinner we had a choice between the Korean menu and the Western menu; I chose Western because 1) I figured they’d do it better; 2) it sounded better; and 3) I’d had bibimbap on my flight over, so I didn’t want to do it again. The meal was nothing special, it was very airplane meal-y, and the beef tenderloin was overcooked. (I had a fantastic tenderloin on a first-class flight from Tampa to Seattle on Delta, so it’s not like I didn’t have anything to compare it to.) The best thing was the dessert; you could choose between an ice cream sundae, a strawberry tart, or cheese. I kind of wanted all of them, but I chose the sundae and did not regret it, it was sooooo yummy. I could have eat one double the size, easily. (There was one weird moment when the flight attendant asked me what topping I wanted, either berry or chocolate. I don’t hate chocolate, but it’s not usually my flavor of choice - I much prefer berries and such, JUST LIKE TAETAE - so I chose berry. And she was like, “Oh, you can get the chocolate, indulge yourself!” And I was like “………I am?” I mean I know it’s weird to chocolate lovers when people don’t think chocolate is the best thing ever, but I was like, I’m choosing the flavor I prefer, not trying to diet or anything, sheesh.)
How cute is that sundae spoon? It was like a Tata spoon!!!!
As for our breakfast meal, I chose the Korean option (samgyetang) despite my doubts they could pull it off, because it sounded better than the frittata or cereal. Peoples, what they served me was not samgyetang. Maybe it was inspired by samgyetang due to the chicken, ginseng, and glutinous rice, but the key thing about samgyetang is the “tang” part - aka, soup. This was not a soup, it was more like a casserole. It didn’t taste bad or anything (nor was it excellent), but when you’re expecting a soup and you get chicken medallions on a bed of rice, you’re kind of like wuuut?
Left: The “samgyetang.” Right: The triangle kimbap the flight attendant gave me. I ended up eating that much later, but it was actually really good - MUCH better than the triangle kimbap I’d gotten from the convenience store in Seoul.
Despite the flight being 11.5 hours long, it was possibly one of the fastest-feeling flights I’ve ever had, lol. It was almost disappointing to realize how close we were to Seattle when breakfast was being served. So yeah, Delta One - super nice experience. I daresay even worth paying for, if you consider that you’ll arrive at your destination totally relaxed and well rested, which might give you a whole day back. Buuuuut of course now I’m like, well I got lucky once; maybe it’ll happen again! Why pay for something you might get for free?!?! :P
Once we landed, we of course had to go through customs. I followed the signs for Global Entry, having forgotten to do the mobile passport thing that K told us about. It wasn’t clear with Global Entry whether I needed to go to a kiosk or just go directly down to baggage claim, so I asked someone (WHO RESPONDED IN ENGLISH. AND I COULD FULLY UNDERSTAND HER INSTRUCTIONS. OMG SO HAPPY) and she told me to do the kiosk. I figured as much, because that’s what I had to do when coming back from Barcelona, so I at least knew to ask (unlike poor Adelagia, who skipped the kiosk, but then had to deal with a surly customs agent who yelled at her for trying to use both Global Entry and the mobile passport - we didn’t know they were two different things, okay?!). At the kiosk I declared that I had purchased souvenirs, including fruit/vegetable items (my sweet potato chips), and it spit out a receipt. I then went to collect my baggage, which happily all made it to Seattle. However, because I had not gotten my seat upgraded until after I’d already checked in my suitcases, they weren’t marked as Sky Priority and thus took forever to arrive (if you check in when you’ve already been upgraded, your luggage gets specially tagged and they’re given priority so at baggage claim they’re always the first pieces to show up). Once I had all my things, I proceeded to the Global Entry line to leave. The customs agent asked me what fruit/vegetable thing I had; I told him sweet potato chips and he didn’t dig further. Then he asked what I’d purchased; I listed off a bunch of things like clothing, stationary, makeup… and he asked how much I thought I’d spent on all that. I guesstimated $600 - I honestly had no idea, but it was actually probably more than that and I wanted to leave myself some wiggle room - and after a pause he waved me through. Whew!
All my stuffffffff.
At that point they actually TAKE THE LUGGAGE BACK. It’s then sent to a regular carousel in baggage claim. Such a pain. So I made my way to the more familiar area of SeaTac and went to baggage claim 1 as they instructed. I paid the damn $5 to rent a luggage cart, and a short period of time later, I had my baggage again.
Theeeeeeeeeeen I got a Lyft home and was soooooooooo happy to be back in a place where I could BREATHE FREELY AGAIN! It wasn’t as cool (weather wise) as I was expecting and hoping, but still sooooo much better than the place I’d left.
As I mentioned previously, my BT21 bag did not survive intact. :( I had this Cooky luggage tag attached to it, and you can tell that He Saw Some Things. However, this luggage tag is like, indestructible lol. I wiped him with a wet towel and Cooky was like brand new again!
Because I’d gotten a nice rest on the plane, I was actually able to adapt back to Pacific Time better than I thought I would (or so I thought), because I was able to go to bed at a normal time that night. However, the next few nights saw me tossing and turning, unable to get to sleep properly. :/ Apparently even Delta One can’t help with jetlag.
And that, my friends, is THE END.
...Well, not really. It’s the end of the travel diary part, but there are still probably a couple more posts related to the trip that I’m going to be writing. :D
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Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Sunday, Aug. 11
We woke “early” with the intention of going to watermelon juice ahjussi’s place for a kaya toast breakfast, but he wasn’t open and had no hours posted, and we couldn’t find the place online so we had no way of knowing when and if he would be. Soooo without any other ideas and not wanting to be disappointed in another meal, we went back to Grain and had another good breakfast. This time Adelagia only got five items; I got six again, not because I felt I needed that much food, but just so that it would make deciding what to get easier. :P We both tried different things (for me, including the toast I wish I’d gotten last time, but I wasn’t as into it as I thought) for the brunch but got the same drinks. Predictably, I was too full at the end.
Since we’d enjoyed the previous escape room we decided to do another one since it was in Hongdae. We were walking there, and on the way we saw a Synnara music store, which we’ve both purchased things from on eBay. In a way it was kind of like a weird celebrity sighting lol? Anyway, we went in and bought three of Kang Daniel’s first solo album; they only cost ₩14,000! And also came with three posters! Ugh, buying things from overseas, we get ripped off so much. *shakes fist at shipping* One of the albums was for K, so we told her she wasn’t allowed to buy any albums for the next two weeks or so, lol.
Here we are with our Cooky and Chimmy umbrellas!
Since at that point we were laden down by heavy albums and unwieldy posters, we decided to get a cab back to the apartment (if you couldn’t tell, by now we were willing to take cabs to places 10 feet away, if it meant we wouldn’t have to walk in the heat. I can only imagine how stupid Aug 11!Sarea and Adelagia thought Aug 2!Sarea and Adelagia were) so we could drop off our purchases. The first driver couldn’t find our address, and after our previous experiences, we were like, that’s fine, and got out of the cab. We flagged down another one, and the second guy was great. He was not only friendly, he could actually speak English due to having lived in Arizona before! He could tell we weren’t from around these parts since we struggled to tell him that we had another stop after the first place - when we gave him the address he was like, “But this address is only 600 meters away…” lol. Hey man, 600 meters uphill in that heat, loaded down with purchases, is no joke OK! While Adelagia waited with him to make sure he wouldn’t get away (haha), I ran up to our apartment and dropped off the stuff - in retrospect, given our plans for the day, I should’ve grabbed Adelagia’s Koya shirts that she wanted to exchange (due to a stain), and also taken the leftover bread from Grain out of my purse, but in my rush I thought of neither of those things. I ran back down to give the driver the escape room address, and thankfully he was fine with the English form, whew. Although he was like, “This one is even closer!!” LOL. Luckily we had developed a rapport with him or he might’ve been annoyed by our fare lol. On the way there I mentioned that it was scary to drive in Seoul (I couldn’t do it), and he replied that it wasn’t, all I had to do was just drive in one lane, and if I did that, no matter what happened it wouldn’t be my fault. (What? LOL.) Hit another car? Whatever, not my fault. He apologized for having to drive a little further because he couldn’t just charge through the intersection to make the turn he needed to make - which we were like, that’s fine, that’s fine! I had definitely noticed before that cab drivers tended to make incredibly tight and dangerous turns rather than go even one street further to do a safer turn and double back; I don’t know if that was a personality/pride thing, or if it was actually trying to prove to the customer that they weren’t trying to rack up the fare or anything. In any case Adelagia and I were totally fine with the safer option.
The girls working at the second escape room were very aloof, saying we were late because we didn’t show up 15 min early. Like... we were there yesterday, we already know the rules! And they didn’t bother to tell us about the discount for paying in cash; I had to prompt them. -.- As for the room itself… It was called “European Spy,” and was the very next episode from the one we did before. While many of the details of the room still escape my poor memory, Adelagia reminded me of the fact that this was the room where she could not open anything, LOLOL. I don’t know what was going on that morning, but it was hilarious. Things Adelagia could not open: 1) A small, transparent plastic box. This one you needed to push up or lift the cover; 2) A key that fit a lock, but she couldn’t make it work. I don’t know what to say about this one, it was a key in a lock lolol; 3) A safe where you had to input a code, but she couldn’t turn the handle thingy right and it stayed locked; 4) Another safe where you had to input a code, but instead of hitting the “code” button first she was inputting it last, so it didn’t work. Per the usual, we got stuck on the final puzzle and didn’t escape, but I give us the win on this one - which I almost never do, I am harder on us than anyone (Jade and Adelagia will tell you!) - because during our final hint request they kept wasting our time with irrelevant things we had already accomplished!! Also, we had 3 of the 4 numbers to the final code, so really we could have tried any number combo for the digit we didn’t know at the end, and gotten out. Hmph.
From there we took a cab to the Shinsegae department store/mall (in Seoul their malls don’t seem to have individual stores; instead, different stores are all munged together, as if they’re curated sections like at Nordstrom or something) and the cab driver could tell we were foreigners because Adelagia was very deliberate about her diction so she wouldn’t be misunderstood (given our previous experiences). But after giving the address, she breezily also gave the location by name, and the driver laughed: “Oh sure, THAT you know how to say.” LOL!
The Line Friends store there was super weaksauce - I feel like we had struck out with so many of them recently! It hardly had anything, but what it did have seemed to be priced lower than other stores!! Scrunchies were ₩7000 instead of ₩8900!! That’s ₩6000 I spent for nothing (since I bought three of them). And umbrellas were ₩19,000 instead of ₩22,000! WTF. (Spoiler: We later figured out it was because it was a duty-free store, not because they priced things differently.) Also, it was located directly across from a Kakao Friends store, which was a little awkward…
There was supposedly an O’Sulloc there, but it wasn’t listed in the directory... we went up like 14 or so flights by escalator and couldn’t find it. We even wandered to the other Shinsegae (another “mall” in a different building just across the way) and it was even less promising, because online, O’Sulloc said it should be on B1, which the second building didn’t even have as a floor. We went back to the first building to go to floor B1 there, wandering around until we finally found a little section selling O’Sulloc tea; it wasn’t a full on café or store. HOWEVER. They had two boxes of hojicha latte mix!!! I was both happy and annoyed, because I had already given up on finding them by this point, and had paid a premium for several boxes on eBay.
When wandering, we came across this section of goods selling high-end hanwoo beef and whole dried persimmons, which I was very tempted by despite their high cost.
Since it wasn’t too far we walked to Myeongdong - the busy shopping area where we’d spent a lot of time early on - and went back to the underground Kpop store where I’d gotten my unofficial Taehyung T-money card, to buy A his requested souvenir. At the time I was bitter about this, because hello, he had been in Seoul himself for a month before I got there, and just because he forgot to bring back a souvenir for himself, why was that now our problem??? We bought him an RJ keychain as well as a set of BTS stickers. Aaaaaaand I ended up spending a ton of money on more stuff for myself. No regrets.
We then went to Innisfree Green Café for a late lunch - Adelagia got their soufflé pancakes again, but this time they were decidedly unpoofy compared to the time I’d gotten them, and really in comparison to everyone else’s order from that same day, wtf!! I felt she should have demanded that they re-poof her pancakes and state that she had ordered soufflé pancakes not regular goddamn pancakes. Seriously how dare they serve a customer that, though? When they KNOW what they should look like! I wasn’t that enamored of the fruit toast I’d ordered, but at least I did get to enjoy my “lemonade” more leisurely this time and didn’t give myself brain freeze.
We stopped by the Eblin in Myeongdong to ask about their exchange policy, and it was good we did, since it turned out you had to return and exchange at the same store you bought from! WTF. The American in me just cannot understand this. It’s the same fucking chain, why can’t I make an exchange or return at ANY of your stores? Also, I ended up buying winter pajamas, which seemed newly released, and had a slight “omg how am I gonna fit everything in my luggage” PANIC ATTACK. Also, I saw that they had the summer Cooky PJs I’d purchased at the other Eblin store at 30% off, but I was sure they were not that price at the other location, so I wanted to buy them again and return the other set (since we had to go back to do Adelagia’s exchange, anyway). Using Korean and English, I couldn’t get either of the shopgirls to understand what I meant by “return”… but then I overheard them talking to each other in Chinese and was relieved, because then Adelagia could accurately convey my question to them and get an answer we understood lol. Basically, returns were accepted within 7 days at the same store I’d purchased from, but they also insisted that the pricing across all their stores should be the same. I was still convinced that was not the case, however, so I bought the summer Cooky PJs again.
After this we attempted to go to cat café (we always felt so sorry for the guy/girl who was in the cat costume, in the terrible heat, passing out flyers for this café), but when we arrived it was full of people. We had no interest in fighting with other people to pet an animal whose very nature isn’t even that desiring of petting, so we left lol. We ended up at O’Sulloc and happily looked through all our Kpop purchases. Incidentally, the area where we were sitting had a bunch of English speakers around and it was strangely irritating to listen to them. Maybe it’s because it brought us out of the feeling of “being in Seoul”? Maybe it’s because we were able to understand everything they were saying, so rather than the white noise of Korean, it was distracting? Maybe because the stuff they said was annoying? Who knows, but we both felt irritated by the various English conversations going on.
We, or maybe I, decided the BTS sticker set we got A would likely not be appreciated by him (seriously, where would he even use BTS stickers?) so we decided to go back to the underground store and get him something Jin specific, and I could also buy a V poster set I had liked the look of but didn’t buy at the time (I liked it enough to take a pic of it, though). Sooooo we went back and got him a Jin note set (I still don’t know where he’ll use those, but not my problem), so I would keep the BTS sticker set for myself instead. I also got yet more stuff, including a GOT7 sticker set, so that we could use the JB stickers to somehow illustrate our courtesan story lolol.
Seriously, how is he so pretty? Is he a real human being?
After all this exhausting shopping >.> we took a cab home… only he turned down one street too early, and the crazy streets meant a huge detour even though we’d been soooo close to our apartment complex. (If I’d been able to use English I would have said something when it seemed like a mistake could potentially be made, but since I didn’t know how to do that kind of warning in Korean, I just had to hope he wasn’t gonna do what it looked like it was gonna do. My hopes were dashed.)
After setting down all our purchases we walked to the closer Kkanbu Chicken for dinner... it was super windy the whole day, and that continued in the evening for our walk there. We got the chicken tenders and fries, which was yummy. I was super hungry but Adelagia wasn’t, so I ate most of it. I was interested in trying their roast chicken, but thankfully refrained. I also ordered a “Tropicana apple drink” and was expecting a juice type thing. But then when it was brought to me it was a can, and labeled “sparkling,” so then I wondered if it was like sparkling water back home, where it’s unsweetened, carbonated, flavored water (like La Croix). It turned out it was just apple-flavored soda, lol.
After we got home I was planning to do more prepacking given all my new purchases, but couldn’t face it and decided it would be future!Sarea’s problem. It was especially not going to happen after Adelagia found all the “making of” videos of BT21 and their creation by the members of BTS lol.
Monday, Aug. 12
Second to last day! The weather forecast was for rain, rain, rain. The thing about rain in Seoul is that it very slightly cools things down, but not by that much. So when it rains, you not only have to deal with the pain in the ass the water brings, you’re also STILL dealing with heat and humidity.
We set out for our repeat lunch at Han6gam and it was already raining, ugh. Yes, yes, Seoul, we are leaving, no need to hasten our desire. In the morning I had our PJs all ready in a bag, but then remembered I hadn’t taken my medication, so when doing that I put down the PJs and didn’t remember them until we were already down the hill and halfway to the bus stop. Argh!! So then I had to trudge back. So annoying!!! But at least I remembered them then and not after we’d already traveled - what an even bigger pain that would have been.
Lunch at Han6gam was just as delicious as the first time; I wished I had enough appetite to have TWO lunch meals, but modest as it is, the portion was enough to make me full. It was interesting though, they have a different lunch set with doenjangjjigae, which doesn't seem very interesting, and yet from our observation it was what the vast majority of customers preferred. Like… why? Why would you go to a hanwoo place to order doenjangjjigae? Maybe it was because it was only ₩12,000 instead of ₩15,000? But would a measly ₩3000 really influence so many people? Maybe it was more filling? Which might make sense for men, who might not get full off the set we ordered, but surely for women that wouldn't necessarily be a reason? Or maybe it was somehow super delicious? I was definitely curious to know, but unfortunately didn't have the appetite for it.
We then went back to Hyundai City Outlets to return and exchange our PJs. The exchange was easy; the girl just looked at Adelagia’s receipt and the stain, then replaced it with another pair and that was that. With my return, however, it was like the first time she’d ever had to deal with such a thing. She seemed very uncomfortable and inexperienced with the process and actually messed it up. She gave me the return receipt, and Adelagia and I were going down the escalator when I noticed that the return was for the full amount that I had paid - but that couldn’t be right, because I had purchased two items that day, the Cooky PJs and the Tata sleep shirt. We were actually on our way back to that plaza where the artist girl was, to see if maybe she would have time to draw us - we had just enough time before an escape room - but we had to give up on that idea so we could go back to Eblin and sort out the error.
The girl had realized what had happened also, so she called out to us when she saw us again. I don’t know if she realized we actually came back when we saw the error, but to me it was odd that she didn’t express more gratitude about it. I mean, if I hadn’t looked at the receipt and just stuck it into my purse, or if I’d looked and not noticed anything amiss, we would have been long gone, and it wouldn’t have been our fault! In any case, since she had accidentally returned my entire purchase, she then had to ask what I had bought that day (weirdly their receipt wasn’t freaking itemized, wtf?), and I said it was the Tata sleep shirt. So then basically she re-charged me for that. I could have sworn it was 50% off but she said it was some lesser amount off - there wasn’t anything I could do about it since I couldn’t prove it and she seemed determined to charge that amount, but the whole thing kinda pissed me off. First of all, not my fault you fucked up the return. Second of all, not my fault your stupid business doesn’t itemize the charges. I could have said I bought anything, and she’d have to take my word for it, so… why was I the one who had to accept potentially being overcharged?? It seemed so unfair. Later, however, I did the math and it all seemed to work out, so fine, whatever. Obviously, though, we’d lost whatever extra time we’d had to go get that drawing done.
Maybe that was for the best, however, because the cab we caught to go to the escape room was a delightful lady cab driver who was around my age, maybe? She turned out to be ethnically Chinese, so she was fluent in both Chinese and Korean, which made communicating with her sooooooo much easier! She totally chatted us up about all kinds of things, and it was super fun to talk to her. She unfortunately also revealed that there had been a BTS concert the night before!!!!!!! She had drive people and it was a trafficky nightmare. Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Noooooooooooooooo!!! They were in Seoul while I was in Seoul, and had a concert, and yet I missed it?!?! Howwwww whyyyyy goddddddddddddddd whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. /Nancy Kerrigan She also said that the tickets were free, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that. But what I did know was that tickets were probably sold out ages ago, so the chances of my getting to go would have been slim anyway… but still. STILL.
(I have since found out that it wasn’t exactly a BTS concert. It was the annual Lotte Duty Free Family Concert, which ran for three days, and BTS was the headliner on the final day. Actually, the final day was probably the only one worth going to, lol. Twice was also another big name Kpop group who performed that day, as did Stray Kids and Super Junior; I can only assume that most of the big-name acts were contractually obligated to perform, due to their being shills for Lotte Duty Free - aha, yes, the article says the final day was made up of LDF models. In any case, BTS performed for 30-something minutes, and the whole thing is now available to watch on YouTube. I feel less embittered given this info, but still, it would have been super cool to see BTS perform in Seoul while I was there, especially since they’re now on a hiatus that will last for who knows how long, which means it was their last performance for awhile.)
As we chatted, it came out that we were going to be leaving Seoul the next day. She asked if we were planning to take public transportation, and we laughed and said no, because we had so much stuff, we would be taking a taxi. She asked if all our stuff could fit in a car (and I could of course see where this was going), and when we said yes, most likely, she asked if we wanted her to take us to the airport. The answer was a resounding yes!! We had already discussed potentially asking Jason to call a cab for us so that we wouldn’t have to lug all our stuff down the hill in order to get to a busy street with a lot of cabs. Now we wouldn’t need to do that, and I was happy to give an airport fare to a nice lady driver!! I asked if noon was okay for her, and she said yes. The only thing that made me wary was - shit happens. What if she doesn’t come for some reason? We’d need a plan B, or at least some way of reaching her. So I asked her for her KT info, and she gave me a business card with her phone number on it. I had suspected earlier that she did skincare stuff on the side, because she gave us some face masks, but it was confirmed when I saw her business card, which was for some kind of skincare clinic.
One of the things we talked about was Kpop. Since she had brought up BTS, I asked her if she was into BTS, and she was like, “Oh no, no way. They are babies to me.” She asked what we were into. So in addition to BTS, we mentioned GOT7. Lady cab driver: “Aren’t they too young for you?” We were both like… yes? But also no? But also shhhhh. Like… we know plenty of women our age who are into Kpop, and it’s easy to forget how freaking young those guys are. That even older, mature-seeming guys like JB are only actually 25 years old. /facepalm Anyway, whatever, it’s not like we’re actually ever going to be with them or they’re harmed by our liking them. In fact, it’s the opposite - their fans are working women who actually have money to buy all their merchandise! In any case, lady cab driver was more into Kpop from her generation (and ours, really), like TVXQ/DBSK. But during that time, I wasn’t into Kpop at all; I was listening to like Avril Lavigne, Eminem, Michelle Branch, Kelly Clarkson, etc. Teehee. <3 So Kpop from that time means nothing to me… I’m generations behind!
We went to Seoul Escape Rooms’ Hongdae Branch 2 location to do “Haunted House of Venetian Merchant,” and as usual I remember almost nothing about it… but there was one super cool aspect that we have never seen in any other escape room before - a little MOAT! At some part, we did something that opened a panel in the wall, just a bit. We looked all over before I was able to find it and open it… and when I did, it revealed a boat! An actual boat on water! We had to get in the boat and pull ourselves using a rope on the side of the wall to the next room. HOW COOL IS THAT. What wasn’t so cool was that we got stuck at the next part and were supposed to grab a key dangling from the ceiling. Only… we could not see any fucking key dangling from the ceiling no matter how hard we tried. The only likely spot was this sort of door in the ceiling that had dropped an item, but it was also wiry and we couldn’t reach it easily, so of course we didn’t want to jump up and grab a bunch of wires. But after a LONGASS TIME of them repeating the same hint, finally one of the gamemasters asked if she could come in and show us. And we were like, YES. And she of course fucking jumped and pulled the key from exactly the spot we wouldn’t, due to not wanting to destroy the place. I don’t know how many times that has worked against us, where we’re trying really hard to be respectful of the room and its things, and therefore overlook the thing they want us to do because we’re being so careful. And in some ways, I don’t blame us, but blame them instead? The general “them,” because it’s sort of all the escape rooms that we’ve done added together, who collectively tell us to be careful and respectful of their things… and then they put things into the room that kind of contradicts that point. Like, “Be careful, but not when it comes to this one thing we want you to do.” -.-
Because of all the bullshit regarding the key, we totally thought we had failed to escape (in my head I was already giving us a pass, due to the placement of the key), but the gamemaster said we had 3 seconds left, so technically we escaped! As we were getting to go the gamemaster was like, "If you leave us a review on X, Y, or Z, we will give you money back.” I’m like, how much? And it was like ₩3000 or something, maybe even less. So I was like, oh okay. Then there was this awkwardness where she stood there, waiting for us to do it right then and there. I felt like I had no choice but to do it, even though in general principle I don’t leave reviews unless I feel it’s worth my while (really liking or hating a place, lol), and ₩3000 is not worth my while. But I didn’t know how to politely extricate myself from the situation, so I ended up creating some random account to leave a review on TripAdvisor.
After the escape room we took a cab to Gangnam’s new Line Friends location (that’s right, to Gangnam. All the way across the water. We had no more lines wrt when we took cabs and when we didn’t; it was now a free for all), which had exclusive things because of it being new and all. There were lots of fun things to take pictures next to, though there was one Tata statue by some steps being occupied by some girls, and I had to ask them to move for a moment so I could take a picture next to it. There was one girl who didn’t feel like she had to move, and both Adelagia and I were like wtf is wrong with this bich? She wasn’t completely blocking the statue, so I didn’t feel like I could ask her to move, but seriously, you don’t own the place, other people are trying to enjoy it too, so BE CONSIDERATE AND MOVE YOUR ASS. (￣ー￣) Upstairs there were more photo ops, but people in general were just so oblivious, loitering in front of them or taking forever with their selfies. Like, there are other people you know!!! God. Anyway, I bought Tata and Cooky speakers, spending enough to get a free reusable bag (that I had already purchased elsewhere, but whatever! I chose the Tata one - big surprise).
Top: I don’t know what their obsession is with popping candy, but it was the topping for this ice cream we didn’t get to eat because it wasn’t available.
By the time we visited the store, this awesome camera was already sold out, sigh. It’s currently being sold on eBay for $700. -.-
For our mid-afternoon beverage break we went to O’Sulloc. Get this… this O’Sulloc had boxes of the hojicha latte mix available!! I can’t remember how many of them there were, maybe four or five? I bought them all - except for one, which Adelagia bought - and figured I would somehow find a way to fit all these new purchases into my luggage. Somehow. The gal at the counter apparently didn’t know English very well, so when she ran into an issue with my passport as she was ringing me up and trying to give me my duty-free discount, she had to type what she wanted to say into her phone and showed me the message. Also, I spent enough to get yet another hand wash, which I appreciated but also stressed out about in terms of luggage space, lol. After that we went upstairs to chill in the café… I tried something new this time, the Hallabong O Fredo (hallabong = citrus hybrid that grows on Jeju Island). It was okay? A little pulpy for being a slushie type drink, and the ice cream was just a milk ice cream. (Initially when I tasted the ice cream I was thrown off because it didn’t taste like I was expecting… I wondered what I was expecting, and I realized that I’m used to white ice cream tasting like vanilla. In the US we always forget that vanilla is actually a FLAVOR, and if you don’t add it to plain ice cream, the ice cream just tastes like… cream, lol.) The thing that disappointed me most was that, contrary to their ads, the drink, once again, did not reach the top of the glass. WTF, stop doing that, Seoul!! FILL YOUR GODDAMN GLASSES TO THE TOP. It really makes me feel like I got totally ripped off. Adelagia got, I believe, a matcha latte concoction.
O’Sulloc’s drinks are so pretty. My drink would be even more attractive if it were filled up to the rim of the glass. GRRRR.
The plan for dinner was to go back to 두껍삼/Dukkeobsam, the samgyeopsal place we had gone to on my second night in Seoul, since the samgyeopsal had been so good there. Adelagia found that there was actually a location in Gangnam, and it was actually walkable from where we were! IT WAS FATE! Since it was our final dinner in Seoul (crazy how quickly the time passed), I really wanted to splurge and try all kinds of things that I might not have a chance to try again, or at least not for a really long time. Thus we ordered yukhoe, a Korean raw beef dish that I would liken to beef tartare, and I also decided to splurge on some hanwoo beef, since I felt that the hanwoo grill experience we’d had at Han6gam was less than stellar.
Not only was the meal amazing, they also had this super cool seat compartment where you could store your stuff. It was very roomy and fit my purse as well as shopping purchases, keeping everything from smelling like BBQ. Genius!
You guys. YOU GUYS. This meal was amazeeeeeballlllssssssssss. I would have it every day if I could. We also ordered the same pork cut combo as the first time (I can’t remember now what these two special cuts were, but the weird thing was that they had a full plate available of each, and one of half and half. Both times, when we tried to order one plate of each, they forced us to do 2x the half and half one. Like... what? Why? I mean, ultimately it’s the same thing, and it cost the same, so why were they so insistent on that? So weird), as well as samgyeopsal, so we had plenty of food. The thing is, when they bring the food to the table, it always looks like not very much. But then they grill it (to perfection), and then you start eating, and before you know it, you’re suddenly getting very full. The yukhoe was a revelation. It was soooooo delicious, wow. I’m really glad that we had it there and not somewhere more sketchy - I mean, it is raw beef, after all - but now it might have ruined me for all other yukhoe in the future. The problem was the portion was surprisingly large. I wish it’d been half the portion and half the cost. By the time they started grilling the hanwoo beef I was pretty stuffed, so Adelagia had to slowly but surely eat most of the yukhoe, lol. But also, the hanwoo… AHHHH. It tasted so different from American beef! Not necessarily in a good or bad way, because American beef is pretty fucking delicious, but just different. It was incredibly juicy. Just chewing one piece made like an explosion of juice happen in my mouth. I finally understood what the fuss about hanwoo beef was, because Han6gam’s dinner sure didn’t make me get it. The final total was ₩41,500 ($35) for Adelagia and ₩79,500 ($66) for me due to the hanwoo, but in terms of splurgy dinners it was totally worth it imho.
Just looking at these pics activates my salivary glands.
The cab driver who took us home tried to discourage us, lol. I don’t know if he didn’t want to drive out of Gangnam or if he was genuinely trying to be helpful, but as soon as we gave our address he was like, “That’s like an hour’s drive. It would be just as fast by subway…” (And obviously, much cheaper.) We were like, just drive, Jeeves. OK no, we weren’t dicks but we also didn’t get out of the taxi, either, lol. Also it didn’t take an hour, it was more like 35 minutes or something.
I think I may have tried to pack some more? Or maybe I didn’t, figuring that without being able to account for all my things, particularly the things I would need in the morning, I might as well wait to do it the next day… I don’t know, apparently I have blocked it out lol.
Tuesday, Aug. 13
Around 9am we headed to watermelon juice ahjussi’s place (aka Café Alle) for breakfast to finally have the kaya toast, which is not something I’ve had before. Why isn’t coconut jam a thing in the US? It should be a thing!! (I guess I just have to make my own.) I once again ordered watermelon juice, because even though that didn’t exactly go with kaya toast, it was going to be my last opportunity, and just out of nostalgia, I had to do it. On our way back to the apartment we stopped by a convenience store (probably Nice to CU?) so that I could buy a tuna triangle kimbap for later (spoiler: it was not good).
So I can’t remember if this happened on this day or the day before, but at some point I finally opened my BCO suitcase and GUESS WHAT WAS INSIDE? That’s right, MY COOKY UMBRELLA!!!!!!!! The first one I bought!!! /facepalm I have no idea why it was in there. I guess maybe I thought I wouldn’t use it, and wanted to pack it away? Clearly I had no recollection of doing this, and by stupidly doing so, and by stupidly not opening up that suitcase when I first realized the umbrella was missing and it was the last place I hadn’t checked, I now have an extraneous Cooky umbrella. The ridiculous thing is that we don’t even use umbrellas in Seattle. ( > < )
I think I packed and repacked about half a dozen times. I was able to fit everything comfortably if I were to use one of the large BT21 bags as another bag I could check in (for some reason, Delta was allowing me three free checked bags, same as the leg to Seoul). That would mean I’d check the Away Medium, Away BCO, and the BT21 bag. Then I’d carry on my backpack plus the Cooky luggage bag. However, I really, really wanted to try and narrow down my checked bags to only two, for two reasons: 1) Unwieldyness - I didn’t want to drag around five bags at any point; and 2) I was going to declare that I spent under the limit ($800, which may or may not be true in terms of souvenirs only), and I didn’t want to go through with a bunch of bags and encourage customs to check them! But as I kept packing and repacking, Adelagia was like, “Maybe just accept that you have to check three bags.” And I was like, “NO!! I WILL NOT SURRENDER!!!! I CONTROL MY THINGS, MY THINGS DO NOT-Okay, fine.” So then I had to reinforce the BT21 bag with packing tape (as Adelagia had already done to hers), and then we wrapped both bags in a ton of plastic wrap (it was the least Jason owed us, given we were leaving his apartment with lots of air freshers, wet wipes, and other assorted helpful things. But funnily enough, not paper towels. Because I was now using three bags, I needed to fill the BT21 bag up to make it less damage prone, and the remaining three rolls of paper towels fit the bill. But given that, I was a little bitter that I hadn’t just purchased more BTS or BT21 things, in that case! Jason got the remaining roll that we didn’t finish using), and then reinforced with more packing tape. There wasn’t enough regular packing tape, and I had to use some of my precious BT21 packing tape. (╥_╥) (Spoiler: It’s a good thing we took all those precautions, because both of our bags ended up ripping in the same spot, around the handles. Dang those rough baggage handlers!)
Finally, we were ready to leave the apartment that had been our home for over two weeks!! Seriously, as much as I complained about having to do this write-up, those 17 days seemed to fly by again. It was like, super slow in the beginning and then zipped right up at the end, wtf is that?
We went down with all our stuff, and it was yet another hot and humid day, so part of me was very glad to be going home. I had Lady Cab Driver’s KT info in case she was very late, but I was also cool with waiting a few minutes without freaking out about it. Adelagia’s flight was around 4pm, so we had plenty of time, as my flight was a few hours after hers, even. Back before I got to Seoul I wasn’t sure if I would end up going to the airport with her or not - after all, with that kind of time difference I could, in theory, spend a little more time in Seoul had I wanted to have another meal, for example - but once I got to Seoul, it was a no brainer. We had to check out of the Airbnb at noon (we asked for an extension but Jason couldn’t grant one as he had other tenants arriving that day), so what was I going to do with all my stuff? No freaking way I could lug it all around with me, in that infernal heat, so I never once seriously entertained not going to the airport together (plus, we could split the cab).
At about 12:05pm Lady Cab Driver pulled up, and as soon as she got out of the car she complained about why didn’t I call her? The streets were so confusing, etc. I don’t know if it was because she felt bad that we had done any waiting at all or what, but I was a bit indignant at being scolded for trying to be thoughtful about not giving her a few extra minutes without bothering her. As soon as we started to load our suitcases into the car, another car came up to pull into the parking area, which our cab was blocking! OMG, seriously, why this timing. So then we huffed and puffed while the other car waited patiently (or so it seemed) for us to get done. Lady Cab Driver was amazed at how much stuff we had, and was like, isn’t there a weight limit? Korean Air and Delta have the same weight limits when it comes to baggage, but Adelagia, who was flying Korean Air, had a weight limit of 70lb (32kg) as she was in business class, while mine was 50lb (23kg) since I was in Delta Comfort+ (premium economy). My suitcases were heavy, for sure, but I felt mostly confident that I hadn’t exceeded the maximum, because my cat litter from Costco weighs about 40lbs, and my suitcases didn’t seem to weigh any more than that. LOL, you gotta have some frame of reference, right? Still, I hoped I had distributed the weight between all my check-in bags okay, because it would be so maddening if one of them was severely under while another one went over, so that I might have to open them up while at the airport to try and get everything under 50lbs. Plus, I deliberately had not weighed down the BT21 bag too much, since it was the flimsiest, and I wanted it to survive the trip intact, if possible.
Not gonna lie, I fell asleep partway through the journey to the airport, and only woke up when we were pulling into the departures area. Lady Cab Driver dropped Adelagia off at Korean Air, which came first, and then me at Delta. Conveniently, there was a luggage cart right where she dropped me off, so I was able to pile everything onto there and walk comfortably inside. (All luggage carts are free. US airports should adopt this practice as well, because it is fucking ridiculous that they make people pay $5+ to help with their luggage.) The Delta area was almost completely empty, I assume because their flights did not leave until much later. In fact, the entire area was cordoned off, and I wondered if it was possible that I couldn’t even check in yet. There were a couple of agents helping another party, and I asked if I could check in for my flight to Seattle. The agent said yes, and I told her that there was no way to even get to her, because of the area being closed off. So I had to move one of the stanchions in order to get to her with my luggage cart (and while being helped by her, other people started to gather to the side to be in a quasi-line… ridiculous! How could they not notice that there was no way to get to them??). Check-in otherwise went fine, and I was glad to see that the heavier of my suitcases only weighed 15.9kg (35lbs - Ha! The cat litter comparison totally worked!). Adelagia’s weighed 24.8kg (55lbs), holy crap, good thing she was in business class or she would have had to pay a weight overage fee!
Left: A baggage scale, which would have been nice and convenient had I seen it before checking in my stuff already. Right: The boys wanted to say goodbye. That’s the only possible reason they could have had an ad there.
We both finished checking in around the same time, and we walked for a bit taking pics of the cute BT21 ads that were on some of the luggage carts (they have a partnership with Incheon airport). I also turned in my duty free receipts to a conveniently located station that they have sprinkled around… each station seemed to be staffed by two live agents as well as automated machines. There was hardly anyone around (I don’t know if it was a particularly quiet time at Incheon, or if it’s always nice and calm like it was), so I felt like I could fumble around with the automated machine (and also be able to do stuff in English) - but as soon as I started, one of the agents approached me and told me to take my stuff to her. If you’re in Seoul and you start collecting these receipts and you don’t know if it’s even worth doing, DO IT. It was soooooo much easier than Adelagia or I had been expecting. The receipts SAY you have to fill them out in full with your name, passport no., etc., but I did none of that lol. The agent simply ripped off the stuff she needed, scanned stuff through her computer, and then gave me a receipt and told me I could get my money after I got through customs/security. It literally took less than 5 minutes. Adelagia was like, if I’d known it was that easy I would have just done mine! (She hadn’t thought it was worth it because she spent way less than me and her refund would have been like $15.)
We went through customs/security, which took no time at all (seriously, the place was even quieter than SeaTac), and then we were on the other side. We located the tax refund place, and I ended up getting about $41 back, plus some Korean won coins that weren’t enough to change into USD. Sigh, like I needed that…
And in a totally appropriate turn of events, the last thing we ended up doing together was going to… a Line Friends store. LOL!! At first Adelagia had looked it up and it seemed that the Line Friends store wasn’t in our terminal. But then we needed to ask the information desk where the tax refund place was, and while we were at it, asked about Line Friends. She was like, “Oh, there’s one right there” - and of course, it was just behind us; I don’t know how we missed it, lol. Adelagia ended up buying a Chimmy pillow that she had been eyeing for ages, while I got Tata and Cooky bag charms. The prices were similar to what we had seen at that other Line Friends, and that’s when we put together that it was because they were duty free stores.
We still had several hours to go before Adelagia’s flight left, and of course mine even longer after that, so we went to the Korean Air lounge to see if Adelagia could get me in there as her companion (entry to the lounge is for business/first class passengers). From what we had looked up, it seemed like she should have been able to - the restriction was that the guest had to also be traveling on a Korean Air partner flight, which I was (Delta). However, when Adelagia asked if she could bring a guest, the woman said she had to check if her ticket was eligible to bring a guest with her into the lounge, and after doing her check, she apologized and said I couldn’t go in as a guest. I have no idea what the requirements are, then, because she didn’t even ask what flight I had, so clearly that was not part of the requirement check. And yet, if a business class passenger can’t bring a guest, who can? It was baffling, and if I were in the US I would have delved deeper and asked why, what the requirements are, etc., but it didn’t seem worth it when I couldn’t communicate effectively.
And of course, it wasn’t even the lounge itself that was so desirable; it was being able to spend the time we had to while away, together, in a comfortable place that would have charging stations, food, etc. Instead, I just pulled up my Priority Pass app and found several lounges in Terminal 2 that I could go to (Priority Pass is an airport lounge membership that I get for free because I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve card - and actually I also have another one with my Hilton rewards card, but that one is wasted since there’s no point having two). I ended up choosing the SPC Lounge, because it was the one closest to my gate. It ended up being a suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper nice lounge!!! The best lounge I’ve ever been in, actually. They had a really nice food spread (which I went a bit overboard on), lie-down lounge chairs (one of which I nabbed), and just a really nice atmosphere. And yes, it was airside so you could see planes coming and going if that was your thing. I mean, there was even ice cream that you could scoop yourself. Adelagia was like, wtf it’s even better there and I had to pay so much $$ for entry into this less-impressive lounge! To be fair, the lounges I’ve been in with my Priority Pass were not usually this nice. They were usually just better than no lounge at all, with minimal food and beverage selections.
My luck wasn’t to end there, however. And at first it actually seemed that my luck was terrible, because after settling in, I got a notice from my Delta app that my flight had been delayed to 9pm. Whaaaaaaaaat!! The original departure time of 7:20pm was already quite late enough; it was a good thing I had such a comfortable place to be, because I was already going to have to kill so much time there. And now they were tacking on another two hours?! Ugh, so frustrating! Thirty minutes later, the timeframe changed again, this time to 8:20pm. I mean, good that it was a shorter amount of time, but I’ve been through a situation before where they kept changing the ETA, and that was in some ways even more nerve wracking because you don’t know, then, what the true departure time is.
As is my habit, whenever anything about my flight changes, I check my Delta app. And what I saw made my eyes bug out. My original seat was 18A or something like that. With the new time change, I saw that my seat had changed to 6B. 6B!!!!!!!!!!!!! DELTA ONE. I’d somehow gotten upgraded to Delta One. Holy crap. I kept checking it over and over and over, convinced that a mistake had somehow been made, and they were going to fix it and it was going to be a huge disappointment. But it stayed that way, even through several other flight departure time changes.
I don’t know about any other airlines, but on Delta is nigh impossible to get upgraded when on an international flight. I’d done a ton of research on it ahead of time, because at the time I was still debating whether or not to splurge getting Delta One outright. I wrote about it in my first post. I forgot to mention in that post that when I got to SeaTac to check in for my flight, I even asked the agent if it was possible to pay for an upgrade (I had looked this up, and no, it’s not), juuuuuust in case, but she confirmed what I already knew: “Not for this flight, no.” J, who is a huge fan of Delta (I never realized how much until I got back to the states and started talking to him more about it - he actually goes out of his way to go on certain planes, he seems to always pay for Delta One, etc.), was like, “You got upgraded on an international flight?! That’s unheard of!” He even showed my KT to a friend of his and was like, “Can you believe this?!” (I did not know of that anecdote until later, of course. LOL.) He asked me what my status was on Delta, and I was like, “The very lowest - Silver!” To this day I still don’t know why I got upgraded. I do feel like I wasn’t the only one, though. When I was checking the app at the airport, there were still 15-20 seats available in Delta One - and yes, part of me was of course HOPING for some kind of miracle to occur, because to me it seems ridiculous that if you have open seats, that you wouldn’t try and get some money for it by letting people pay for upgrades (of course then it makes it harder to sell them outright). But by the time we boarded, there was only one seat available. So it would appear that they mass upgraded some of us, but why, I have no idea. My first guess is that they had to take on extra passengers, perhaps from another flight, for some reason, and to accommodate those passengers it was worthwhile to them to upgrade some people, which they did based on status. (And while Silver is Delta’s lowest tier, and on a domestic flight I’d be jockeying with people with much-higher positioning, I bet in Seoul, I was one of the few tiered passengers, period.) My second guess was that with all the departure time change fuckery, it was a kind of preemptive apology. That seems weaker, though, because I had gotten upgraded with only the second time change. So yeah, the long and the short of it is - who knows. I was still unconvinced it was for real, though - what if it was just a system glitch, and if I tried to sit in 6B, there would be another passenger who also claimed to have the same seat? That would be so embarrassing. I was so paranoid about it that when it came time for me to head to the gate (the hours in the lounge passed by surprisingly quickly - I guess that’s what happens when you’re super comfortable, have a bunch of things to entertain you, and are surrounded by food and beverages), the first thing I did was check with a gate agent and tentatively mention that my seat had changed. She printed out a boarding pass and only then did it seem real - so if they tried to kick me out of that seat I at least had a tangible thing to show them, printed by a Delta gate agent.
I can’t remember now what the new boarding time ETA was, but I got there in plenty of time. Every 10-15 minutes though, they would push it out another 10-15 minutes, with the reason of “a mechanical problem” (just what you want to hear before boarding a 11.5-hour flight). A gate agent went around to every passenger to apologize for the delay and offer a piece of candy. A small gesture, but appreciated! They never do stuff like this in the US. In the US it’s like, well it is what it is, do you want to go to your destination or not?
I think we finally started boarding around 7:45pm, which wasn’t that bad of a delay after all. It means we probably took off about an hour later than we were supposed to. But if that hour had anything to do with why I was upgraded, then… WORTH IT. Even despite all the uncertainty.
The flight itself was wonderful. I don’t often say that about flights, but… man, Delta One (and really any cabin that has its same amenities) was awesome. It had lie-flat seats, a massage chair, Westin bedding, noise-canceling headphones (for use while on the plane), and a complimentary Tumi travel kit. Oh, and of course, there were dedicated power ports with your seat so that could keep your stuff charged all the time. There was also a large screen if you wanted to watch movies, but of course recently my entertainment came in the form of fanfic so I didn’t use it. The service was excellent - always the nice thing about flying business/first is being treated like a human being, lol. I was definitely tired, and not long after the dinner service I made my seat go flat and I SLEPT LIKE A BABY, tucked in with all my nice bedding. I woke up twice to use the restroom; the second time my hair was crazy lol. The ahjumma flight attendant took a liking to me, and when I came out of the restroom she plied me with a triangle kimbap, coffee, and a banana, telling me that they were going to start the breakfast service soon.
Left: The complimentary Tumi travel kit, with a personal welcome note! Nice touch. Top right: The controls for your seat, whether you want the massage function, lie flat, etc. Bottom right: Comfy Westin bedding.
Where Delta One kind of fell down was in the food. :/ It’s weird because I’ve had better food on other Delta first-class flights, so I know they can be better!! For dinner we had a choice between the Korean menu and the Western menu; I chose Western because 1) I figured they’d do it better; 2) it sounded better; and 3) I’d had bibimbap on my flight over, so I didn’t want to do it again. The meal was nothing special, it was very airplane meal-y, and the beef tenderloin was overcooked. (I had a fantastic tenderloin on a first-class flight from Tampa to Seattle on Delta, so it’s not like I didn’t have anything to compare it to.) The best thing was the dessert; you could choose between an ice cream sundae, a strawberry tart, or cheese. I kind of wanted all of them, but I chose the sundae and did not regret it, it was sooooo yummy. I could have eat one double the size, easily. (There was one weird moment when the flight attendant asked me what topping I wanted, either berry or chocolate. I don’t hate chocolate, but it’s not usually my flavor of choice - I much prefer berries and such, JUST LIKE TAETAE - so I chose berry. And she was like, “Oh, you can get the chocolate, indulge yourself!” And I was like “………I am?” I mean I know it’s weird to chocolate lovers when people don’t think chocolate is the best thing ever, but I was like, I’m choosing the flavor I prefer, not trying to diet or anything, sheesh.)
How cute is that sundae spoon? It was like a Tata spoon!!!!
As for our breakfast meal, I chose the Korean option (samgyetang) despite my doubts they could pull it off, because it sounded better than the frittata or cereal. Peoples, what they served me was not samgyetang. Maybe it was inspired by samgyetang due to the chicken, ginseng, and glutinous rice, but the key thing about samgyetang is the “tang” part - aka, soup. This was not a soup, it was more like a casserole. It didn’t taste bad or anything (nor was it excellent), but when you’re expecting a soup and you get chicken medallions on a bed of rice, you’re kind of like wuuut?
Left: The “samgyetang.” Right: The triangle kimbap the flight attendant gave me. I ended up eating that much later, but it was actually really good - MUCH better than the triangle kimbap I’d gotten from the convenience store in Seoul.
Despite the flight being 11.5 hours long, it was possibly one of the fastest-feeling flights I’ve ever had, lol. It was almost disappointing to realize how close we were to Seattle when breakfast was being served. So yeah, Delta One - super nice experience. I daresay even worth paying for, if you consider that you’ll arrive at your destination totally relaxed and well rested, which might give you a whole day back. Buuuuut of course now I’m like, well I got lucky once; maybe it’ll happen again! Why pay for something you might get for free?!?! :P
Once we landed, we of course had to go through customs. I followed the signs for Global Entry, having forgotten to do the mobile passport thing that K told us about. It wasn’t clear with Global Entry whether I needed to go to a kiosk or just go directly down to baggage claim, so I asked someone (WHO RESPONDED IN ENGLISH. AND I COULD FULLY UNDERSTAND HER INSTRUCTIONS. OMG SO HAPPY) and she told me to do the kiosk. I figured as much, because that’s what I had to do when coming back from Barcelona, so I at least knew to ask (unlike poor Adelagia, who skipped the kiosk, but then had to deal with a surly customs agent who yelled at her for trying to use both Global Entry and the mobile passport - we didn’t know they were two different things, okay?!). At the kiosk I declared that I had purchased souvenirs, including fruit/vegetable items (my sweet potato chips), and it spit out a receipt. I then went to collect my baggage, which happily all made it to Seattle. However, because I had not gotten my seat upgraded until after I’d already checked in my suitcases, they weren’t marked as Sky Priority and thus took forever to arrive (if you check in when you’ve already been upgraded, your luggage gets specially tagged and they’re given priority so at baggage claim they’re always the first pieces to show up). Once I had all my things, I proceeded to the Global Entry line to leave. The customs agent asked me what fruit/vegetable thing I had; I told him sweet potato chips and he didn’t dig further. Then he asked what I’d purchased; I listed off a bunch of things like clothing, stationary, makeup… and he asked how much I thought I’d spent on all that. I guesstimated $600 - I honestly had no idea, but it was actually probably more than that and I wanted to leave myself some wiggle room - and after a pause he waved me through. Whew!
All my stuffffffff.
At that point they actually TAKE THE LUGGAGE BACK. It’s then sent to a regular carousel in baggage claim. Such a pain. So I made my way to the more familiar area of SeaTac and went to baggage claim 1 as they instructed. I paid the damn $5 to rent a luggage cart, and a short period of time later, I had my baggage again.
Theeeeeeeeeeen I got a Lyft home and was soooooooooo happy to be back in a place where I could BREATHE FREELY AGAIN! It wasn’t as cool (weather wise) as I was expecting and hoping, but still sooooo much better than the place I’d left.
As I mentioned previously, my BT21 bag did not survive intact. :( I had this Cooky luggage tag attached to it, and you can tell that He Saw Some Things. However, this luggage tag is like, indestructible lol. I wiped him with a wet towel and Cooky was like brand new again!
Because I’d gotten a nice rest on the plane, I was actually able to adapt back to Pacific Time better than I thought I would (or so I thought), because I was able to go to bed at a normal time that night. However, the next few nights saw me tossing and turning, unable to get to sleep properly. :/ Apparently even Delta One can’t help with jetlag.
And that, my friends, is THE END.
...Well, not really. It’s the end of the travel diary part, but there are still probably a couple more posts related to the trip that I’m going to be writing. :D
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