Day 43 & 44: Walks and Rainy Days

Day 43

I woke up feeling pretty crappy. I was almost a month and a half into my trip and I felt like I hadn’t accomplished enough. I had had these grand ideas of finding myself and suddenly discovering everything about life while I was away and that hadn’t happened yet. I knew a lot of that was unrealistic, but it was still bothering me. I didn’t know where I wanted to go so I just started walking and ended up back by the Han River. I was looking out at the water overthinking everything and feeling like crap and I decided I really needed to call someone. So I called one of my best friends, Meghan.

We spent over an hour face timing each other during which I spent the first 30 minutes crying and freaking out about life and then the last part talking about how much I love Korea and catching up with her haha. It was exactly what I needed (mostly because Meghan is the perfect person to talk to when I’m having life crises because we’ve known each other for so long that she isn’t afraid to tell me I’m being ridiculous and she knows what I need to hear). It was also really nice to see her again because we hadn’t talked to each other in a long time.

After the call I was feeling a lot better and decided I was craving one of the tea drinks from The Min’s cafe (which is starting to become my favourite cafe, not even because of all the BTS stuff but because they make this drink called five berry tea that is so so yummy). I was pretty far from the cafe but I was more than happy to plug my headphones in and just walk. The walk took me to the other side of the river on a huge bridge, down a cool little bike path, and past many other bridges. There were people out biking and walking but not as many as usual so I had a lot of the time to myself. (if you look closely at the pictures you can see that the sky looks kind of foggy, that's the air pollution).

I eventually made it to the cafe and ordered my five berry drink. Changmin's mom and dad were both working the cafe and they were super nice and happy, as usual. After I finished my drink the weather outside was looking pretty gross and it had started to rain so I took the subway back to the place I was staying. Once I arrived the weather had gotten a little better so I decided to hike up to Maebongsan park to see one of my favourite views again.

As I was walking to the trail entrance I realized that there is an entertainment company right outside it. TS Entertainment is home to two k-pop groups that I like: B.A.P and TRCNG. B.A.P is one of the first k-pop groups that I ever listened to and I absolutely love their music (if you want to listen you should watch their music video 1004 (angel) or Wake Me Up. Think hole is another great song). Their song 1004 is also called angel because the number 1004 in Korean is pronounced cheonsa which is also the Korean word for angel. TRCNG is a much newer group but they’ve had some catchy songs so far!

I have gone to watch the city here multiple times now but the walk up still kills me. It’s steep and long and I’m always sweating and super out of breath by the time I make it to the top. I tried to walk a little slower this time so I wouldn’t be such a disaster when I got to the pavilion, but I was still out of breath by the end. The sky was in pretty bad condition because of the pollution and the stormy weather but it was interesting to see from a higher view point. I watched the city for a bit and then walked back to my room.

I had tea with Martin and Kate (it's becoming a nightly tradition that I love) when I got back and then went to my room.

I have been debating going to Japan for a week or so, but I've become very comfortable in Korea and all I could think about was all the things that could go wrong. So I called my parents. My mom and dad have been the most supportive people on earth about this whole trip and everything I’ve been doing here. I call them multiple times a week, which has made the distance from home much more manageable, and they are always super excited about everything that I post and do. My mom is always replying to my Instagram stories with cute comments that make me so happy and my dad even opened an Instagram account so he could see what I’m posting. I absolutely wouldn’t have been able to do this trip without them and they have become my go to people when I’m having mental crises about decision making. So when it came to deciding whether or not I should go to Japan I didn’t hesitate to call. My moms response was “do it!” before she had to head out to help my brother with something. I talked everything over with my dad and eventually decided to ‘just do it’. I’m really good at overthinking and second guessing myself and it’s great to have people around me that can give me the boost I need. So I finished the call and immediately entered planning mode.

I booked my ticket and flight in the next half hour (I’m getting a lot better at the whole trip planning thing) before realizing omygosh I’m actually going to Japan. I started to get super excited after that and opened a crazy amount of tabs to start planning exactly what I wanted to do each day. After an hour of reading page after page of information about Japan my head was hurting and I was exhausted. When it comes to the day planning stuff I typically approach it in a very similar manner to the way I do my school work: I leave it until the night before when I suddenly become incredibly efficient and motivated (if I could put emojis here this would be the laughing face with tears one). So I opened up Netflix and watched part of a show until I was ready to go to sleep (also very similar to what I do at school when I am procrastinating studying...).

(November 7, 2018)

Distance walked: 16.9 km

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Day 44

The weather today was super crappy, very cloudy and rainy and not weather that I wanted to spend much time outside in. Kate had the day off from work so we ate breakfast together and chatted for awhile and then I decided to head to a cafe to write some blog posts (I desperately needed to catch up... and still do). There was a cafe in Hannam (an area in Seoul) that looked like it had yummy bingsu and red bean soup so I decided to walk down to work there.

It started pouring rain about 5 minutes after I left the house but Kate had fortunately given me an umbrella beforehand. The walk took half an hour and I was soaked by the time I got there! I decided to go to a cafe across the street from the one I originally wanted to go to because it looked like it had a nicer atmosphere. The place was called Motto and had tons of fancy looking desserts. I had a tea, a cake thing, and a cherry brownie (ya, not any food I should be eating but oh well).

Kate and I had made plans to meet nearby at a chicken place at 6 for dinner, but I was starting to feel sick from all the chocolate around 5 and my head was hurting so I decided to head home and lie down for a bit before dinner. When I got back, Kate decided to order pork for the three of us and eat at home because the weather was gross and the pollution was getting pretty bad. The food arrived in cute little containers with two heart sticky notes on it saying ‘thank you for ordering and please review us online’. Martin gave them to me to keep as souvenirs after he saw how excited I was about them.

The meat was pork but it had the skin on it still so it was tough in the middle but kind of slimy/smooth on the outside. It was a very different texture from anything I had tried before. It took me a couple bites to get over the texture but the overall taste was yummy! There was also kimchi (one of my favourite things ever) and rice with seaweed and fish eggs (I think it was fish).

After the meal I went to my room to lie down because my head was really hurting at this point. I’m not sure if it was because I was tired (I've been staying up late watching Netflix again) or the pollution outside or a mix of both. Whatever it was, I went to sleep and hoped I would be feeling better the next day.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(November 8, 2018)