Day 93: Yeouido Hangang Park

Emily
Jan 10, 2019
4 min read

I had to say some more goodbyes today, sadly. The first was to Kate. I met her outside the Lotte Department by Star Plaza around lunch time and we went to a well-known coffee place. I noticed that the decorations in Star Plaza had changed since I first saw it. Instead of a message wall there was a huge mirror with LED signs and they had removed the clothing display.

The coffee place was great and I had an apple tea (which I have never seen in Canada) that was really good! Kate also gave me a BT21 hand cream that smells absolutely amazing. It's the Cooky (pink bunny) one and she said that she saw it in a store and thought of me (so kind of her!). Martin and Kate were wonderful hosts and lovely people. I am very glad that I got to meet them and I look forward to seeing them next time I am in Korea!

I'm going to miss seeing ads like this around and in the subways:

My next plan was to meet Alysha in Yangcheon-gu after her work. I had many hours before we had planned to meet though so I decided to stop at a cafe on the way. The t;time cafe in the KBS building (where I saw Music Bank) was holding an event for Taehyung's birthday. The cafe is also close to Yeouido Hangang Park, which is a park near the Han river. I got a tea at the cafe and then slowly made my way down to the river. The weather was so cold! My face was freezing and the wind was terrible. Fortunately, the tea helped a little to keep my hands warm. I told myself that I'm Canadian and I have dealt with much colder weather than this, but that didn't help at all.

It was so nice to look out over the water and I just stood still for quite awhile to admire the view! I am leaving soon and it made me super sad to know I wouldn't be able to just wander down to the river whenever I wanted anymore. I really love the Han river and the bridges here and it's become one of my favourite places to walk along.

I continued along the river to the subway stop that would take me to Yangcheon. When I got to the station I realized that I was at the same place I had gone to months ago when I was first trying to find the Han river (the same day I went to YG entertainment). It was weird to think back to how I was feeling then and compare it to everything I have done since and how happy I am now. My hands were so cold at this point that I could barely feel them!

I still had a few hours before I was supposed to meet Alysha. There was another Tae birthday cafe very close to where she works so I decided to pass the time there. It would have been nice to walk around the area, but it was way too cold!

The cafe (Cafe Viaggo) was very cute and I loved the decorations. I got a warm tea and a bagel and I sat down to work on writing my letter to Namjoon (I had to ask one of the baristas for a pen after mine ran out of ink half way through the letter). Many of the cafes play BTS songs when they are holding a birthday event. They typically play songs from the Love Yourself series (BTS' most recent series), but I was very happy to find that this cafe was different. They had a great variety of music ranging from mixtape songs (like AgustD's Give it to Me (to tracks only found on BTS' Soundcloud account (like Hug Me), to covers that Taehyung had done years ago.

It was so dark and cold out by the time I needed to go meet Alysha. I regretted not picking a cafe closer to her work as I walked through the freezing cold and tried to not lose any fingers. I picked up some snacks for her class on the way because it was the last time I would get to see them. Alysha was just finishing up teaching when I arrived and everyone was happy to have some food!

I said bye to all the kids and then Alysha and I went across the street to a shabu shabu restaurant. The food was so yummy and warm! There was lots of it and they even made this delicious rice dish at the end that was amazing. Alysha noticed my tattoo while we were eating and told me that it works well with my Korean name since dream can mean plans, aspirations, or ideas and my Korean name means future. We finished off the evening with cake at a cafe nearby where we sat and talked for a few hours. Before we left she wanted to take some pictures together and she asked if BTS had any kind of hand sign we could do in the photo. The first thing that came to mind was V's signature pose so we both attempted to do that. She has been such a wonderful friend to see during my time in Korea and I will definitely miss her! It's not really goodbye though because I will visit her again when I come back. I have met so many amazing people and I really don't want to leave.