We are so lucky to know someone who lives in South Korea. Katie was in my improv classes in Cincinnati and was kind enough to come up to Seoul and share everything with us. We had the best time and are so grateful.

On Saturday we had intended to hike but it was raining so we had to forego it. That’s ok though because Seoul has so much to see. First we went Dongdaemun Design Plaza, a place famous for its museums, shopping, and fashion. The buildings are really cool. Katie and I took our picture by a giant plushie named Hechi. He’s one of Seoul’s mascots.

We visited a few museum shops and got some cool stickers–stickers are a great souvenir actually because they are cheap, portable, and location-specific. They will be good future reminders of a lovely trip. The bird is hugging one of the lions that guard the temples and shrines.

Then we went and got some food. One great surprise is that Seoul has amazing bakeries. Katie told me that people don’t generally have ovens (this fact really helped me understand Korean food more), so they go out for their bread. I am almost always disappointed by pastries–they often look better than they taste–but these were really good. The donut with the cookie was chewy and mochi-esque.

We then spent some time at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Garett spent the most time there. I’m not a huge fan of contemporary art, but I do like modern art generally. Here are a few pieces we liked. The first one is entitled “1000-year-old House.” It’s a good name. There were 10,000 panels in the second picture and the final picture has birds. I’ve realized during this trip that I really like anything containing birds.

Next Katie and I went to a Korean sauna–no pictures, unfortunately. We were assuming it would have hot and cold water and different saunas to chill in, but it was a surprise! I honestly have no idea what type of sauna we wandered into, but here were the instructions we were given.

Go into a really hot, dark room with a really, really hot floor. Lay down your towel and lie face down on it for 5 minutes, resting your head on a wooden pillow. Sweat. Then lay on your back for 10 minutes. Sweat some more. Then go into a normal-temperature room and drink a lot of water. Repeat 3x in total.

It was fairly arduous, to be honest, but it felt very authentic. I am at the end of a cold right now and all colds, after getting covid the first time, now always make it so I can’t smell anything. When I showered before the sauna, I couldn’t smell the shampoo, but when I got done with being grilled and took another shower, I could now smell the shampoo. So all that sweating cleared something out.

That night we went to a malatang place. We really need these places in the US (along with croffles, for sure)–with malatang you get to go in and just add anything you want in your hot pot to a bowl, they charge you by weight, and then you get a delicious hot pot. I had some crazy different kinds of noodles and tofu. Katie knows all the best food.

After that Katie and I peeled off to do some karaoke. I’ve never been to a karaoke room so small before–it was perfect for two people. We paid for an hour. There’s a lot of reverb, so we actually sounded okay (I thought), but the machine did not agree. We didn’t get above a 40 I think on any song–check out the boo-hooing woman with the 31 and condescending message below–except for Mr. Brightside. We got a 98 on that one.

The next day we had a tour of the Secret Garden. The Secret Garden is located in the Changdeokgung palace and was the special place reserved for the royal family and their guests. It is very beautiful and because it required an extra ticket, there were fewer people, which was really nice.

We also stumbled across two really different traditional ceremonies–one was a Confucian ritual to honor their dead kings called jongmyo daeje and the other was entitled Hanok Concert (in English). They were quite different–both were very rehearsed and heavily involved drums and awesome hats, but one was all straight lines and synchronized bowing, while the Hanok Concert was a whirling dance.

More food!

There’s Standard Bread–here you get a loaf of bread and order spreads for it. It was amazing. We got dubai chocolate (chocolate and pistachios), strawberry, and an onion/bacon spread. You just tear it off in hunks–no need to cut it politely. If the States weren’t so afraid of bread, I’d say this would be an amazing addition to our restaurant culture.

Next is a fruit skewer covered in sugar that you buy on the street and some salt bread. It’s basically really buttery croissants with salt on them that come in a cute little bag.

It should be said that we missed a lot of good street food–we should have talked to Katie earlier. It was hard for us to tell whether things were vegetarian. I would say that Japan and South Korea were the hardest places I’ve ever gone as a vegetarian, but it may be the language barrier and my lack of preparation that caused issues.

Overall our time in South Korea was a joy. Thank you again to Katie for all her help. She took the following candid of me and Garett which I thought was pretty fun.

Next we’re off to Vietnam!