South Korea Trip!

Went to South Korea last month, and I'm finally getting around to posting it lol. I'm going back to using bullets because this post will already be long enough. :P

Thursday/Friday, April 11-12:

• Flew to Korea, which took 15 hours
• Arrived in time for dinner
• Explored our AirBnb apartment before exploring the area nearby
• Ate dinner at this place nearby. We mainly chose our food based off of the pictures lol
• Bought a bunch of snacks from a nearby convenience store

Saturday, April 13:

• Woke up super early around five because of jetlag
• Bought more snacks at E-Mart
• Went to a ramen place nearby for breakfast and experienced our first time ordering by kiosk over there
• Explored Yongsan Electronics Market, which was a whole street full of new, old, vintage, or limited edition games and game systems
• Went to this huge mall and spent a lot of time in a giant bookstore buying souvenirs for people
• Rested at a Gundam store in the mall while Kyle shopped around
• Found a street vendor at the train station near our AirBnb who sold these corn snacks that we haven't eaten since childhood!

Sunday, April 14:

• Ate convenience store onigiri for breakfast
• Spent most of the day in Myeongdong
• Explored the underground markets
• Ate so much street food
• Got pooped on by a pigeon
• Played at a cat cafe
• Ate dinner at someplace tasty (I forgot lol)

Monday, April 15:

• Explored Kukje Electronics
• Bought a bunch of cute My Hero Academia figurines from Gachapons and made a friend from it because I owned too many Bakugos and she had Ochako lol
• Explored SMTOWN Coex Artium and bought an EXO souvenir cup at the cafe
• Visited the Seoul Sky Tower and took lots of pics
• Ate ramen at a restaurant called Lamen's at the Lotte World Mall

Tuesday, April 16:

• Ate fried chicken for brunch at Mom's Touch lol
• Bought funny looking snacks at the nearby convenience store to try
• Ran across King's Cross Cafe on the way to get Korean BBQ
• Explored Mapo-gu while waiting for our turn for dinner
• Saw this beret wearing guy looking down at us from the third floor of the neighboring restaurant and all automatically thought that he was a douchebag lol
• Ate the best kimchi ever at the KBBQ restaurant
• Went back to King's Cross Cafe for alcoholic butterbear
• Only explored the top floor to take pictures in the robes because it was closing time

Wednesday, April 17:

• Ate breakfast at Innisfree Cafe back in Myeongdong
• Explored Gyeongbokgung Palace the day after Robert Downey Jr posted a pic of him there on Instagram
• Ate bingsoo at a little hidden cafe somewhat nearby
• Ate dinner at a traditional Korean restaurant where we had to sit down on cushions on the floor with our shoes off
• Walked around Hanok village
• Explored a tea museum and got a fresh cup of tea with the entrance fee
• Played with a bunch of dogs at a dog cafe
• Bought a bunch of takoyaki from a street vendor near our AirBnb

Thursday, April 18:

• Went to a kimchi museum, tried different kimchi samples and got free kimchi to take home
• Took a break at a traditional tea house
• Went back to King's Cross cafe during the day time and tried the cafe drinks and snacks
• Took a lot of pictures there
• Played Splendor at a board game cafe where Tawanda dropped her phone in the toilet and panicked for a while
• Ate a typical Korean restaurant nearby and finally got to eat authentic kimchi jiggae and pig's feet (they even gave us gloves to eat it with lol)

Friday, April 19:

• Explored another Gundam/anime store because of Kyle
• Rested at a mint cafe, so mint was in everything
• Went back to Mapo-gu to explore the stores again
• Walked past potential idols since they were recording themselves with a giant selfie stick and had a dude record them with a big DSLR camera
• Walked around and watched a lot of street performers
• Stumbled across a video game cat cafe, so we played with a bunch of cats and video games

Then we went back home the next day.

What did I learn during this trip? 1) Being illiterate in another country can be really funny if it doesn't stress you out lol. 2) Choose your travel companions carefully.

We asked Tawanda if she wanted to come along with us since her boyfriend had moved to South Korea six months ago, so she said yes. Then we quickly realized that she was never on the same page as us. We'd say something, and then a minute or two later, she'd say the same thing. Then she'd always lag behind, and we'd always have to check to make sure that she was still there. Then there was the whole dropping the phone down the toilet issue that turned into her drinking too much on an empty stomach and projectile vomiting at two in the morning.

So yeah, this trip made us think about how we can't keep inviting people all willy nilly for our future trips. We don't want anymore incidents like this, especially when we're out of the country.