Day 90: Christmas Eve

I woke up much earlier than usual this morning to meet Sooyeon for breakfast. Sooyeon is a BTS fan from Busan. She organized one of the Jin cafe events that I went to earlier this month. I tweeted a picture from her cafe that I went to and she messaged me. We started to chat about BTS and decided to meet up when she came to Seoul. We met at JaceNine Cafe near Hakdong station, which was holding an event for Taehyung's birthday. She was super sweet and even bought tea and cake for both of us. She also brought me a little baggie full of photo cards and stickers from her event, which was so exciting! It was awesome to meet a Korean BTS fan and it was really fun to talk with her. She is a Korean teacher in Busan and her bias in BTS is Jin. She also has a cute RJ doll (Jin's BT21 character) that she brings with her to cafe events. Sooyeon had to leave for lunch with her boyfriend after an hour so we walked to Hakdong station together. There were two big BTS ads in the subway: one for Taehyung and one for Jin. I took a picture of her with the Jin ad because she really likes him. It was so nice to meet her and I look forward to seeing her again next time I am in Korea.

The Taehyung birthday ad in the subway:

I took the subway to Hongdae where Ella and I were going to meet to go to a few Taehyung birthday cafes. She was running a little behind so I went to the first cafe by myself to wait for her. They had extra Jimin photo cards from an event they had run in October so I took some for Ella and myself. This cafe was called Ego and they had a shelf full of signed CDs from several solo artists that I enjoyed looking at. Ella and I decided to meet at a different cafe after I got the photo cards so I walked over to the next one.

I passed by a restaurant called King's Cross on the way to the second cafe and had a fangirl moment. The place was super busy, but it would be awesome to go to in the future. They even had a cart at platform 9 and 3/4 that people could take pictures with. I continued walking to meet Ella. We had a bit of a mix up because I accidentally sent her the wrong location on Kakao Talk, but it was fortunately just around the corner from where we were actually supposed to meet. We walked into Main Cafe and realized that no one there had photo cards. The photo cards are the fun part of the cafe and we didn't really want to spend 6000 won for a cup sleeve so we awkwardly walked back out and set off for the next cafe.

Our next stop was called Cafe Jjang. It was a super cute corner cafe with tons of plants of fun decorations! We both ordered drinks and sat down to relax for a few minutes.

Our actual destination for today was Yeonnam Underpass (a place where Namjoon had posted a picture of). I hadn't been to Yeonnam yet so we decided to explore the area and check out the underpass while we were there. We stopped at a kimbap place for lunch and had udon noodles and lots of kimbap. While we were walking we passed by a cafe that was designed to look like a comic book. It looked super cool, but we didn't want to go to anymore cafes.

Yeonnam Underpass:

We wandered back to Hongdae after we found the underpass and passed lots of cool art along the way.

We walked through the main street in Hongdae and found a little market. Our plan for tonight was to meet one of Ella's friends for dinner. We still had an hour or so before we needed to meet her though so Ella and I found a cafe near the station and sat there to wait. The cafe had an upstairs with lots of little tables separated by thin white sheet walls. The lights cast pretty colours around the tables and makeshift booths.

Ella and I met her friend at Hongdae station and walked back to Yeonnam to a Japanese Donkasu (pork cutlet) restaurant. Ella had met her friend in Australia at school, but she is from Korea. Her friend was back in Korea for their summer break (so weird that it's summer in Australia, but winter in Canada) so they planned to meet up while they were both here. The meal was absolutely amazing and I was really happy that she recommended this place! We went for coffee after dinner at a cafe that is good at making a specific coffee that Ella likes. Her friend was really nice and it was fun to meet a new person. However, chatting with her made me realize how much time Ella and I have been spending together and how we have become used to how the other person thinks. Ella and I jump around from topic to topic very randomly and we have both become accustomed to this, but it is hard for people around us to follow along. It also made me realize how much we have done in the past few weeks. Ella would mention something that we had done and it would feel like it was such a long time ago because we have spent almost every day together and done something different each day.

Ella's friend eventually had to leave for a movie with her sister. Ella and I decided to check out a Christmas market that she had seen while walking to her dorm yesterday. The Christmas street was in Sinchon and it had so many lights and stalls full of handmade items. There were also food carts so Ella and I got some hotteok (Korean street pancake) and rice cake donuts (that looked like Timbits). We walked along the entire street and found a huge karaoke stage where people were performing. I was sad that I couldn't be spending Christmas Eve with my family, but they are relaxing on a beach and I am on the other side of the world. I'm glad that I could at least be out enjoying lights with a friend.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(December 24, 2018)