Grand Adventure Day 11

Met up with Tina at Hapjeong station and headed to Insadong because she knew we could find at least one food cart selling cornbread with egg cooked inside. No, I'm not joking. Completely worth it. I think I ate two this first time, and I would buy one almost every single time I came across them the rest of the trip. My favorite street food. Also, I didn't have to carry around a stick until I found a trash can. We also bought two burritos, one pizza-filled and the other long rice-filled ... japchae I think it's called.

Yesterday, I picked up a booklet of admission tickets into several popular palaces. With the ticket from the booklet, we visited Changdeokgung Palace.

I think Tina wanted me to stare at the trees or something

The next stop was to the SM Town COEX which was insane. I assumed it would be an experience in openly displaying and accepting my kpop fanaticism in a public arena, to actively browse merchandise, to openly buy things related to my "bias" from each group, etc. Instead it was a lesson of what true fandom was. First off, the place was packed. For those not familiar, each Kpop group falls under a particular entertainment/management company that trains and promotes them. SM is one of those companies that promotes groups like Girls Generation and Red Velvet. Apparently, the reason it was so busy that day was because one of their boy groups, EXO, just released a new song literally a couple days ago and everyone was there buying up, well, everything.

I know that picture looks like it might have been for a Silver Egg raid, but no one here was playing PokemonGo. Instead this was like a lounge-ish area with tables and chairs for people to hang out and, most of all, exchange cards. Apparently, one of the benefits of buying an actual, physical copy of the CD is that it comes with a bunch of bonus stuff, one of them being a random photocard of one of the group members which there are currently 9 of them. Tina mentioned that one of the things people try to do is either collect all 9 of them (which I assume the person I saw with CDs stacked up to her head was trying to do) or try to trade their photocard with someone else to get their favorite member, both of which I completely understand as I used to play Magic and Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh all those years ago. But it was really eye-opening in that I had a long way to go before I got to that point.

I was back to being on my own after that as Tina had tickets to the Seventeen concert later that night. I wandered around for a bit before stopping at a sandwich shop for lunch. It was already 3pm, which is much later than I typically eat lunch, so it was a good thing they sold smaller sandwiches than American-size portions. Plus, I got a Cuban sandwich which I haven't had since the plate lunch place by the old office stopped making them every Friday, years ago.

In the middle of the mall next to the COEX was a library, I guess. There were a ton of books and the second floor was lined with tables and chairs, but I never saw a librarian or a check-out desk so I have no idea how it works. Also, all the tables were filled so there went my plan to kill time sitting and writing. I wandered around a bit more and then the downsides of not planning hit. Thought about going to the casino nearby (at least on the free tourist map I took from the hostel, it said it was a casino) but then I remembered that I don't speak Korean and I didn't want to just sit in front of a slot machine.

This was also not a raid, but a chance for fans to interact with a group through what I assume was a speaker built into the wall, or something

Those guys, on the giant screen in the back. After wandering the area a bit more, I decided to head to someplace marked as the Royal Tombs but when I got there the signs showed that it closed about a half hour ago. I saw an ad for "Bohemian Rhapsody" and decided to take a trip to the theaters in Hongik. I got lost right outside the building for a good half hour. Back home, most theaters are their own building so you can spot them from the street. Instead, the theater occupied the 3rd to 9th floors of the building I'd been walking circles around because I didn't look up to see the sign. I decided to comeback another time since, according to the website, all the better seats were taken unless I planned to wait around for a couple hours.

Remembering all the food places near my hostel, I took the train back to Hapjeong, dropped my stuff off at the hostel and headed back out in search for something to eat. I walked a couple blocks in a direction I hadn't gone before, but there were a lot of lights so I just assumed there would be a lot of restaurants too.

I feel like there's some sort of meaning here that I'm missing

Eventually, I chose an Indian restaurant mostly because it smelled good, and had a bunch of empty tables that I could see from outside. The waitress gave me a menu in Korean, but luckily there was a little placard on the table advertising a set menu in English. I managed to use the one word I remembered Tina had taught me. "Anoo, set chuseyo," as I pointed at the set menu on the placard. I probably spelled that wrong, and I'm really hoping that does mean "give me" or something equivalent. I got chicken curry, naan bread, a piece of chicken, and a slice of bacon covered with some sort of powder. It was really good, and that's about as good as I am at describing things. Then I headed back to the hostel.