Day 46: Tattoo #2

The last few days have been full of life decisions, I called one of my best friends and had a much needed chat, booked a ticket to another country, and decided I was finally going to get my second tattoo. I had one design that I had been thinking of for a long time but i couldn’t quite get the wording exactly how I wanted it so I went with another one that I had been considering. This one was super simple and small and was what I believed would be the more symbolic one to get for my trip.

I had researched a couple tattoo places the night before and I had finally found the font that I wanted it to be in while sitting and watching TV with Martin and Kate last night. So today was about finding the right place. I had two locations in mind that had great reviews and artists that also spoke English. I wanted to check both of them out in person, ask about pricing and then make a decision by the end of the night.

Place one was impossible to find. I took the subway for an hour to get there and found the building but could not figure out where the heck the entrance was. There were several floors and most of the floors had signs but none of them were for the tattoo place. I messaged their Instagram page and decided to check out the second location while I was waiting. So I took a subway from Hongdae down to Gangnam (about 45 minutes) to try and find the next place.

Again, no luck. I found where it should be but there were multiple floors and no sign for the place. Korea is different from Canada in that it’s not actually legal for someone to work as a tattoo artist here. They don’t have any schools for being a tattoo artist so people that want to be one have to go to medical school! There are many tattoo artists in Korea and there are tons of Instagram accounts where they show off their work but it is very hard to find their actual location, mainly because what they’re doing isn’t exactly legal so they don't want to advertise where they are. I was surprised to find several addresses online but not surprised that finding the exact location was a challenge. From what I have read online, people looking to get a tattoo in Korea need to contact the person directly and they will give you their address and information on how to get into their location once you have explained the design and tattoo you want and they know you are serious. So I wasn’t discouraged and I messaged the artist on Facebook this time. It had been a long shot thinking I could find the place myself so I figured I would head home and wait for their responses.

I checked my map one more time to see if there was anything nearby and realized that there was one location about a 7 minute walk from where I was. There was a sign this time! I had been hesitant to go to this place because the tattoos they had online looked super fancy and intimidating and I figured it was not the place to go to get my tiny tattoo. I walked upstairs and immediately felt out of place. There were a bunch of huge guys there getting full sleeves or other pieces done and the tattoo artists all looked really scary. One of them came up to me and immediately made me feel bad for thinking they were these terrifying hardcore people. He was super nice and spoke perfect English! He asked what I was looking for, I showed him the design, and asked how much. He said 80,000 won which was what I was expecting so that was awesome. I said that was good and he was like “ok, you wanna do it now?”. "Yea, sure”. So that was how, 20 minutes later, I ended up on a tattoo table getting my first tattoo in years, in a foreign country.

It took maybe 3 minutes and then I was all done, not painful at all and super fast! I had to wait for 10 minutes after before they could tape it up so I sat on the couch and looked around. That was when I noticed the BTS album.

It was such a random place to see their album and I had no idea why it would be there. The tattoo place was a block or two from their old and new building but that still didn’t explain why their album would be here. Tattoos are still pretty taboo in Korea and most idols don’t have them, or if they do they take great care to hide them.

I decided to ask the artist when he was putting the tape on my tattoo. It ends up that he was the one who designed the BTS logo when they first debuted and so they signed and gave him a copy of their debut album... I was shocked and excited! How cool is it that out of all the places I could have gone to, I ended `up with the artist that designed the logo for a group that has become so incredibly important to me and inspired my tattoo in the first place?! Maybe it was fate that I couldn’t find the entrance to the first two locations...

my tattoo + the tape I'm not allowed to touch

I bought some gooey cream stuff to put on it and set off in search of a store to buy baby wipes or unscented soap (for cleaning the tattoo over the next few weeks). I stopped by Hakdong park first to sit on the swing and eat a snack and then I tried a store near the place I stayed two weeks ago. No luck.

I got on the subway to head back home but decided to get off a stop early at Itaewon. Itaewon is a huge shopping and food street that is always super busy at night and I figured they were bound to have something that would work for cleaning my tattoo. I tried 4 different stores before I finally found one that had unscented soap and baby wipes (thank you Olive Young!). I also walked by BTS while searching for the soap.

The soap was the exact same one I used for my first tattoo so I knew it would be ok. Unfortunately the bottle was huge and I was getting on a plane in a few days with only a carry on (I wouldn’t be allowed to take that much liquid in it). I knew the soap worked so I bought it and I also bought the baby wipes for while I was in Japan. Then I walked back home to show off my new tattoo to Kate and Martin.

I had discussed it with them the night before just to double-check the spelling and definition of the word and to see if they knew any good places to get a tattoo. Martin had told me that one of the most important things was choosing a font because font was very important when reading Hangeul (Korean language). I had tried looking up tons of fonts online but I couldn’t find what felt like the right one. I ultimately decided that I would get the tattoo in the writing of the person who wrote and sang the song that the tattoo was for.

When I showed Martin the tattoo he said the font was great (I think he said something about literature and information but it was almost 3 weeks ago and I don’t remember it exactly I just remember being very happy with his response to the font). We had tea and then I went to bed a little earlier because I needed to be moving (not necessarily awake but at least out of bed), showered, and on the other side of Seoul by 11 am the next day.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(November 10)

Here is a longer version of the post I made on instagram for the meaning behind my tattoo (I ran out of space on the original caption):

"I’ve been juggling a few tattoo ideas around for awhile now but I eventually decided on this one. The word is 꿈 which means dream in Korean. It’s representative of a song that is really important to me called So Far Away by August D. As a couple of you may know, I struggle a lot with my mental health. There was one day in particular at the end of May this year where I locked myself in my room and had a complete mental breakdown. I felt very lost, unhappy, and angry at myself. I’m not sure how I ended up on the song but I did. It’s in Korean (a solo song by a rapper from BTS) so I sat at my desk watching the English lyric video on repeat for what felt like hours. The lyrics talk about how he feels pathetic not having a dream like everyone else, how he is in so much pain and so lonely that he is scared to open his eyes every morning. “I live because I can’t die”. It resonated a lot with how I was feeling in that moment but the part that was the most important to me was the chorus. “Dream, you will fully bloom after the hardships”. Contrary to all the anger and sadness of the rest of the lyrics the chorus was hopeful and inspiring. He talks about being there for fans while they are struggling and encourages people to keep going no matter how shitty you feel at the time. It seems kind of over dramatic but it’s the truth when I say that the song changed how I viewed a lot of things in that moment. I felt reassured that I wasn’t alone, that someone who was so successful was here talking about how he too struggled with his mental heath and feeling like he didn’t have a clear direction for his life. It also encouraged me that even though it may feel like everything is terrible right now, it doesn’t mean that it always will be. There is a reason to keep living, you have no idea what could happen in the future. I tried to stop worrying so much about the big picture and attempting to figure everything out and started to try and enjoy where I was in life right now and the things that I could accomplish. It was then that I decided I wanted to do something I had been joking about for years. I was going to take a term off from school and I was going to travel to South Korea. This song has not only helped me through many rough times (it’s still something I go back to even now if I have a crappy day) but it also motivated me to make my wish about going to Korea come true. The tattoo is a reminder that it’s ok to not have a dream (I still have so much to discover and do that I’m sure I will figure it out eventually) and that I’m not alone. It’s also, what I felt, would be the best thing to get for my trip since it’s one of the main reasons I am currently on the other side of the world having the time of my life. It’s a promise to myself that I will keep going even when things get hard. It may not be big and it may not be fancy but it is so incredibly important to me and I’m really happy that I finally got it."