Sakura of DOOM

So I'm at Incheon Airport right now and leaving Seoul. I can't believe 6 weeks passed so quickly! Sadly, the last week has been rather disappointing—at least three different places I wanted to eat at ended up being closed on the precise day I chose, or didn't deliver even after confirming that they would with my friend. So the fooding hasn't been great. But oh, I will miss Seoul so much! I liked Busan and Gyeongju too, but didn't get to see them nearly as much as Seoul, which I think is now up there with Hong Kong as one of my favorite cities.

It's odd that both San Francisco and Taipei aren't among that number; rather, I love Bay Area and Taiwan. But Seoul is such a distinctive city to me, and I love all its neighborhoods and the old Joseon capital of Hanyang you still see in it, I love Insadong and Samcheongdong and Hongdae and Myeongdong and a billionty more places I didn't get the chance to explore. I love the subway and the buses and the way it is so easy finding anything next to a subway stop.

Things further from a subway is a different matter, contributing to my getting lost while attempting to find random tiny museums more times than I can count, but even that was mostly fun, despite the heat and humidity. Also, another thing that is slightly annoying is the lack of paper towels and air dryers in many bathrooms.

Still. I love that the subway bathrooms overall are clean and usable—there's actually a campaign with the slogan "Department store bathroom? No! It's the bathroom of Seoul Metro!" My friend said she was shocked when she saw some of the public bathrooms in the US and no wonder! In so many ways, it feels so much more civilized here in comparison with the US (please do not use "civilized" in the comments detrimentally comparing places to Western countries though).

It was just so big here, which I hadn't expected, and there is so much! For example, I knew Dongdaemun had a lot of clothes stores, but I didn't quite realize just how much until I spent who knows how much money and at least 2 and a half hours in a single building, only to realize there were at least 30 other buildings just as large in the area. This city just feels so big and it holds so much!

Anyway, I must board now, but hopefully more later (and hopefully a stable Internet connection too...).

I'm doing (yet another) presentation on kdramas for Korean class and was wondering off I could get anecdotes from people.

Frex, have you heard of kdramas? What are your general impressions? What kinds do you like? What have you seen?

Also, what vocabulary have you learned? Are you Korean? Are kdramas popular in the country you're from?

I won't individually identify people in my presentation, but I'll probably summarize
and paraphrase things in Korean.

Also also, please feel free to pass this around as much as possible!

Yesterday I decided that instead of staying in my room and doing homework, I needed to amp up spending time hanging around Seoul. I can't believe I only have two weeks and a bit left! Not enough time!

So I figured I'd go back to Samcheongdong, which is an incredibly cute neighborhood full of art galleries and cafes. I then managed to overshoot my intended subway station—this is one of many stories about my Seoul Metro mishaps—and decided to walk instead of take the subway back a station. This being me, the exit closest to where I wanted to go ended up having construction around it, meaning that I had to walk even further to circle around. Then I spotted a sign for a free shuttle bus for Samcheonggak and thought, "Whoo!" I got on the bus with two other women and happily smiled as it drove through Samcheongdong.

Then I started wondering when it would stop. I figured if it went to the other end of Samcheongdong, that would actually be nice, since I could stroll leisurely back to the subway station after cafe hopping. Alas, the bus went further than the other end of Samcheongdong. "That's okay," I thought. "I can still walk back." And then it went yet further... through a tunnel... into the mountains. Me: "Uh. This does not look like Seoul." The driver then entered what looked like a set of traditional houses and stopped. "Uh. How go back?" I asked in my terrible Korean. "Something something six [twenty?] something here something something," said the driver.

Clearly my listening had not improved as much as I had hoped. Well, it was beautiful (albeit in the middle of nowhere!), and I wandered around a bit. Apparently it was a place for people to learn about traditional Korean arts and partly a hotel, but alas, by the time I got there, everything had closed, so all I could see were the gardens and outsides of the beautiful traditional houses. Then, of course, it started to rain.

I am certain this happened because I lugged my umbrella all through school all day long while the sky was insultingly bright and sunny, and then I left it in my room before going out, thinking, "Obviously the weather report was wrong!"

Samcheonggak is extremely beautiful, little houses nestled in the green mountains surrounded by a twisty wall, with what I think was gayageum music playing in the background. I am quite sure it would have been very nice had it been open and had I brought my umbrella. After aimlessly wandering around for a few minutes, I returned to the shuttle to find the other two women speaking in Japanese and intently studying the schedule. It was rather comforting to think that I wasn't the only one who got mistakenly boarded the shuttle.

After that, I managed to get off on the right shuttle stop and find my way toward the subway station. I stopped by a nifty status of a giant calligraphy brush, photographed it, then tried to puzzle out the hanja in Korean. "In... something... dong. Huh," I thought.

"Oh wait. Insadong! Duh."

Insadong is an incredibly touristy yet still charming neighborhood filled with shops selling fans (I am obsessed with fans. I think I bought ten at a dollar store when I did homestay in Japan, and am on my third fan for this trip), porcelain, tea, handmade paper, embroidery, and etc. I wandered around comparing fan prices and watching the various ggultare (like Chinese dragon whisker candy except they put more of a mixture of nuts in the ones here, as opposed to the peanut or black sesame I am used to) makers go through the exact same spiel for the tourists. I am impressed by their spiel! The ggultare guy in Myeongdong has the exact same one as well.

I would have wandered around some more, except it started to rain again. I ducked into a completely random teeny cafe with the most expensive waffles ever. Thankfully, the waffles were almost good enough to justify the price, though by the time I left, the very fickle rain had of course begun to pour. I bought another umbrella (purple polka dots!)—like fans, I obsessively buy umbrellas and have brought back at least three super cute ones from Taiwan. And, uh, bought two more this summer. I could not help it! It was a sakura of DOOM umbrella and clearly meant for me!

I also found a shop selling teruterubouzu earrings (the little guy in my icon), which I now desperately want; a shop selling absolutely adorable teeny weeny Korean food charms (website); a shop devoted solely to Lee Byun-Hun; a wee stand selling even more fans (!!); and a ton of embroidery and patchwork. All this in the Ssamzigil, which has three or four floors in a spiral pattern, letting you gradually walk through the entire thing without taking any stairs if you don't want to.

Also, it looked like an adorable little bakery/patisserie was opening up right by the subway station. I will have to go back when it is open, because I am also completely obsessed with adorable little bakeries and patisseries, particularly Asian/French ones.

Hello from Busan! I feel I should be posting way more about Korea, except the internet at where I'm staying is terribly fickle, so I can never tell when I can get on and check email or not. At least I've finally managed to get internet at school, but since I access it on the phone, it's not as conducive to writing things up.

Anyway, I have spent the night in Busan! It is especially nice because we are using a free voucher my friend's dad has, which means free and nice hotel with free breakfast. It's on the beach, and the view is absolutely gorgeous. We also went to an 오뎅/odeng (like Korean oden) bar yesterday, and then to a 찜질방/jjimjilbang/spa with a view of the ocean.

Alas, I came down with a cold this week, and on Thursday it morphed into a full-blown asthma attack. And since I haven't had one for about two years, I had no inhaler. Ugh. It was a pretty nasty day before my friend, whose mom thankfully used to be a pharmacist, came to the rescue.

But yes, hopefully more to come, depending on my internet access!

I am in Seoul! So far I have taken the airport bus, taken the subway (yay subway!), and eaten. My friend took me to 눈나무집/Nunnamu Jip for 김치말이밥/rice in cold kimchi soup with sesame seeds and nori on top. The soup actually isn't spicy, but rather a little sweet and a little sour, with bits of crunchy kimchi in the middle of each bite. We also had galbi on the side, although it seemed kind of like ground meat shaped into a patty, with some ddeok that was lightly dusted with salt and pepper. It was very refreshing for the summer day, even if it wasn't too hot. Then again, compared to yesterday in Shanghai, anything would be not hot. On our way to the restaurant, I got distracted by a waffle stand in the subway station. My friend J seemed a bit puzzled by my obsession with waffles, and I tried explaining that I love waffles in Taiwan and haven't found many places in the Bay Area that do them the way I like.

Then when we got to Samcheongdon, it turned out that every single coffee house there—and there was a coffee house every other step—served waffles. Possibly my friend is still unimpressed, but I don't care. Waffles everywhere! AWESOME. (So far, I have mostly seen dessert waffles and no tuna waffles, but I did see a picture of a pancake with eggs on top, so there is hope. Not that I have anything against dessert waffles.) I will secretly pretend it is the influence of Coffee Prince and the Waffle Guy in it. The entire area is very cute; all small winding alleys and stairs leading up to more stores, many boutiques which I am sure are very expensive, and coffee shops galore! I think I will go there one weekend and just hop around coffee shops. Aside from the many stores serving waffles, I of course managed to find a place with macarons, my current obsession, and got orange chocolate, lemon, and wasabi (!). Verdict so far: I still like my place in Taiwan better, but the wasabi is really interesting. It almost tastes and smells like lemon at first until a tiny bit of the wasabi kicks in. There was also a place selling ddeok on a stick and a guy cooking sugar mixed with some powder that he would then shape into something like cookies. Sadly, I was already full so I didn't any.

Then Paris Baguette for breakfast for tomorrow! I think most of the good stuff was already gone by then, but since it's only a block or two away, I suspect I will be going there a lot.

Seoul so far reminds me a bit of both Taipei and Tokyo, except it is much larger feeling than Taipei. I am not sure if it is actually bigger, but I suspect there is more land here, because everything feels a bit further a part and less squashed together. Also, it's always odd for me to be in a city that feels like Taipei without all the subtropical plants around.