Day 80 & 81: MAMA Day 3 & Jin's Restaurant

Day 80

Today was the third day of the Mnet Asian Music Awards and they were taking place in Hong Kong. Ella and I met to stream the award show from the same cafe that we were at on Wednesday. BTS won two of the daesangs (grand prizes) tonight: Artist of the Year and Album of the Year. Their speech when they won Artist of the Year was incredibly emotional and the eldest member (Jin) revealed that they considered disbanding at the beginning of this year. It must be so challenging to be as successful and busy as they are. There must be a ridiculous amount of pressure and they are constantly surrounded by cameras. They are still regular people at the end of the day and this kind of lifestyle must be very stressful and exhausting. It was sad to hear that it got so hard for them that they considered stopping, but it was also good to know that they are trying to look out for their own mental health and wellbeing.

(December 14, 2018)

Day 81

Ella and I met at Jamsil station late in the afternoon today. Our plan was to go skating at the rink under Lotte World and then eat dinner at a restaurant that Jin (BTS) and his brother opened together. The restaurant specializes in steamed Japanese dishes (particularly shabu shabu) and reviews on it have said that the food is amazing so we were both excited to try it out.

What we didn't plan for was how busy the rink would be. It was a late afternoon on a weekend and the rink was packed. There was a line up just to pay and get skates and then there were line ups to get on the rink. We decided to come back at a better time on a weekday so we could have more time on the ice.

It was too early to have dinner so we wandered around the department store and then walked outside and found a cafe that was near Jin's restaurant. There is a huge lake near the Lotte department store that looked really pretty. It would be such a nice place to walk around or sit and relax at!

When we got to the restaurant (it's called Ossu Seiromushi) there was a huge wait list. We didn't want to go to another cafe so we put our name on the list and then went to the convenience store across the street. I was super hungry and wanted something to snack on that wasn't cake plus it was too chilly to wander around while we waited. We got a super healthy snack consisting of caramel popcorn, chips, and this lyche drink thing that had a weird consistency, but tasted pretty good.

Ella and I waited for around an hour before she got a text saying there was a table ready. We ordered the dish that we had seen a lot of people posting about in reviews and it didn't disappoint. There were so many vegetables and the sauce and meat were amazing! The food was so warm and yummy that we sat at the restaurant for quite awhile. It was the first opportunity for Ella and I to talk about more than BTS and I was really glad that I could get to know more about her. This is definitely a restaurant I would want my family to try if they ever come to Korea.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(December 15, 2018)

P.S In the evenings I typically go to cafes near my hostel to work on my blog or on my data visualization dashboards. There's a cafe called Ediya that is just around the corner from my place and it has outlets so I tend to spend lots of time there. It is not as common to have outlets for chargers in cafes here, especially compared to Canada.