Day 26: Laundry Pizza

I slept in again today... I was doing so well while I was in Jeju, but now I’m getting worse and worse at waking up at a reasonable time.

For breakfast, I picked another pancake place nearby (about 20 minutes away) and made my way to it. Along the way I passed a cool fashion street and decided to come back and look around it after I had eaten. Outside the restaurant there was a sports store that had lots of girls lined up around it. I had no clue what was going on so I just walked by.

I had to make a reservation at the restaurant and then wait since it was busy. While I was waiting I went back outside to see why people were standing around. Lots of fans had banners or slogans and I was able to figure out that there was a k-pop group, called The Boyz, doing a signing event in collaboration with the shoe store. I waited for 30 minutes outside the shoe place and then went back to the restaurant to see if there was room for me to eat yet. There were still lots of people in line ahead of me so I went out to the shoe store again. I ended up waiting for quite a while but two big black vans eventually pulled up and fans went running for them!

People were pushing security to try and get pictures and it was a little chaotic. I figured that meant they were going to be coming outside soon so I waited a little longer. Half an hour later and they still hadn’t come outside. By this point I was too hungry to keep waiting so I went back to the restaurant. I had a huge plate of bacon pancakes and then went back outside to check on the signing. The group still hadn’t come outside and people had started lining up to show security something on their phones. I didn’t want to wait longer and I had no idea if I needed to buy something to do the signing so I left. I went back to the street I had seen earlier that morning and wandered around for a bit. One of the stores that I found had various items from the BTS x VT cosmetics collaboration.

Once I made it to the end of the street I realized I was pretty close to the Han River so I kept walking. I had to pass under a tunnel to get there, but when I made it to the other side I was really happy to see that I had finally found the part of the Han River I had been looking for since I arrived in Korea! There was a huge flat park area where people were playing catch or relaxing as well as a big convenience store where tons of people were sitting outside eating. Tents were set up everywhere along the grass and the view was amazing! The weather was awesome so I decided to see how far I could walk along the river.

There were lots of people out biking and walking and it was very relaxing. I passed several more convenience stores, a park, a fair with exhibition tents, a big bridge, and these huge restaurants on the water. I also found a couple gardens along the water with really beautiful plants. There were little pathways built between the plants so people could walk through them and take photos. Some people had even brought tripods and huge cameras.

I walked for several hours and then went back to the main street area. I had been looking at what other people were wearing for the past couple days and I really loved the baggy hoodies that I had seen. I found an H&M near the river and decided to see if they sold anything like the ones I liked.

I could have bought the entire H&M! Absolutely everything inside of it was so cool and way better than the ones in Canada. I found a ton of big hoodies that I loved and ended up leaving with 4... oops. When I got back to my room I went on Twitter and realized that a k-pop group called VAV (whose recent single Seniorita I like) had done a flash mob performance less than an hour ago. I looked at the picture and realized I had literally been walking right there right before they had come. Bad timing, but oh well.

My plan for the evening was to go to a restaurant called Laundry Pizza. The pizza restaurant is a location frequently used for music videos and photo shoots because of the cool decorations. BTS recently went there to do concept photos for their Love Yourself: Her album and I had a poster for it sitting at home.

The walk there was about half an hour and I passed by some cool areas on the way. It's in the basement of a building that has several restaurants. The other restaurants looked cool but I wanted to go to the pizza one. Maybe a trip for next time? Everything looked exactly like the photo shoot set (except the photo shoot had better lighting haha). I got the restaurant special pizza and a sprite and sat near one of the washing machine tables.

The pizza was actually really good! When I ordered the cashier asked where I was from and how I had discovered the place so I told her I was from Canada and I had come because of BTS. She didn’t seem surprised.

There weren’t too many people inside, but it was almost closing time. I ate my pizza, took a few photos, and then left for home.

BTS at Laundry Pizza

It was super dark, but these are the tables from the shoot.

I face-timed my sister on the way back and we chatted for a while. I wanted to show off my new hoodie and tell her about all the k-pop stuff I had been doing. We were still talking when I got back to my house so I kept walking. I decided that I was craving the red bean soup again and set off to find it while talking with Sarah. I got super confused while trying to find the place. I completely forgot to write down the name of it and I only remembered that it was near The Min’s cafe. I walked in the general direction I thought it was in and hoped for the best! I was trying to find it, Sarah was trying to Google it, and it was all a bit of a mess. I eventually found it around 10:30!

After I finished eating, I face-timed my brother and we talked while I walked back to my room. It was really nice to see my siblings again! This is the longest I've ever gone without seeing my family and it's super strange. Even when I was in school or working in Toronto I still saw them every couple of weeks. Now it has been almost a month and they are on the other side of the world. I face-time my parents so often though that it's ok, most of the time!

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(October 21, 2018)

Distance walked: 17.8 km