Travel Vertical Vlog

After staying up really late last night, Mar and I slept in the next day and woke up around lunch time. It was Eun-gyo unnie’s day off and she has cooked lunch for us. The menu was Korean purple rice (흑미밥) with soybean paste stew (된장찌개), omelette, some leftover curry and salad, and kimchi and seaweed for the banchan. Mar also cooked a cup of Jin Ramyeon because she was craving it. Eating a home-cooked meal is always special to me. I don’t really cook so even when I was living in Seoul, I usually just eat out or do take-outs. And as a tourist, unless you’re staying at an Airbnb that gives you the option of sharing the property with your host and meals are included in your stay, home-cooked meal is probably not an option either. So every time my friends cook for me, it always feels like a special experience. And this is not strictly speaking only when I’m in Seoul actually. It applies to wherever my friends are since most of them live in different parts of the world.

By the time we’re done getting ready to go out, it’s already dinner time. Our plan that night was just to meet up with Ken in Sinchon. He texted me earlier that week saying that he’s going to be in Seoul and asked if I want to meet up. So we planned to meet up over dinner before he had to head back home. What’s funny though, when we arrived at the red pipe where we agreed to meet, I immediately laughed out loud when I saw him walking over. For some odd reason, we ended up wearing the same color outfit that day. Green jacket, black pants, black backpack and even our shoes were matching! It was funny because we totally didn’t plan this at all. We had a good laugh about it before I asked Mar to take a picture of us for memories.

Greysuitcase Travel Series - Seoul Spring '17 - Sinchon (신촌), Seoul (서울), South Korea.

Afterwards, we went to Izawa for dinner and to catch up. Mar ordered their Steak Don (스테이시동) this time because she already tried their Gyukatsu (규카츠) the last time we were there and Ken and I ordered the Gyukatsu (규카츠). It was a good fulfilling meal. Ken left after we finished dinner and we decided to walked around for a bit. Since it’s a Friday, there were more people in Sinchon. There were also a lot of buskers who occupied different spots in the area so it’s fun to just walk around and watch the performances. The first guy we watched was a frequent performer in Sinchon who’s standing at his usual spot near the subway station exit jamming with his guitar. I’ve seen him for a good couple of years now, usually by himself. But there were times where he was performing with his friends who played the guitar and saxophones. They were good. One of the unique thing about this guy is he looks western right? He’d usually start singing English songs and when he greet the audience, he would speak in fluent Korean, earning shocked gasps from the crowd who’s not familiar with him. I was amongst those people too when I first watched him. Really wasn’t expecting him to be that good in speaking Korean but you can never judge a book by its cover right?

Greysuitcase Travel Series - Seoul Spring '17 - Busker in Sinchon (신촌의 버스커), Seoul (서울), South Korea.

The second performance that we watched was in front of the red pipe in front of U-plex. Two guys were singing one of South Korea’s spring anthem, ‘What the Spring’ by 10cm, a song that you probably hear a lot if you’re in South Korea during spring. It’s like one of the official soundtrack for spring season. The other one being ‘Cherry Blossom Ending’ by Busker Busker I would say. What’s funny about it though, unlike ‘Cherry Blossom Ending’ where the lyrics are talking about walking together with your significant other under the scattering cherry blossom petals, ‘What the Spring’ actually takes playful jabs on couples who like the spring season (because I guess it’s like the perfect dating season) from a single person’s perspective. The two songs are the total opposite, but they both have very spring-like melodies. The two guys who were singing sounded pretty good, even interacting and joking around with the a couple in the audience, relaying the sentiment of the song in a playful way (watch their performance on the vlog).

We then walked around some more and passed by a shop that has claw machines inside. Of course we ended up going in because Mar wanted to try her luck again with these machines. 15 minutes and many coins later, she finally gave up after her multiple failed attempts at trying to win a stuffed doll. It was fun watching her try though. I had a good laugh. Before we headed home, we stopped by Gimgane (김가네), a chain gimbap place and bought some to take home because Mar was once again craving gimbap, even after the meal we had earlier. She ended up ordering Spicy Anchovy Gimbap (멸추김밥) to try because we never had one before. Turns out it was good. And that’s how we ended our Friday night.