Chill Day

Today was mostly a chilling-out day. We ate breakfast at the Tous Les Jour across the street, then went over to HomePlus, which is kind of like a grocery store and small department store combined, to pick up some groceries and a few pillows to try and pad the bed a little. After bringing those back, we walked more around Sangsu (the neighborhood right next to our Airbnb) to see what was around. We stopped in a little cafe that was seemingly a Christian cafe, judging from the stationary that they were selling there. I had an affogato (ice cream with a shot of espresso) and Meghan had a strawberry-ade:

There were tiny little cookies served with it

After we walked around a little bit more, we hung out until our friend Paul’s parents picked us up for lunch at a traditional Korean restaurant, Moghyang. They had gotten us some welcome gifts, which was very sweet - a handmade traditional Korean fan, and a little jewelry case made of traditional Korean fabric. We stopped to pick up Paul’s brother, John, to help translate, and then they drove us out to a little farming area where the restaurant was nestled on a cliff overlooking a very small river. The setting was quaint, and the restaurant was delicious! We had to sit on the floor on traditional mats, which was a little unconfortable even for our hosts, but the course menu they chose was great. We had all kinds of tasty seafood including smoked salmon, conch, and jellyfish, some bulgogi beef, various soups and side dishes, and of course great kimchi. One of the side dishes ended up being a raw fermented crab leg, we both tried it and it was very good, but very salty. The restaurant gave us some bottles of something they described to us as Korean Sprite as a free add on as well. We didn’t really take any pictures of lunch because it seemed maybe a little rude to keep stopping, but trust that it was all very nicely served!

After we finished eating lunch, we took a stroll through the garden and sat at a shady little table to drink some coffee and tea and to have a little conversation. It was nice and breezy, so it was a lovely afternoon spent with great company. John worked overtime to facilitate the conversation and he did a great job - he definitely deserves his job as a Netflix translator here in Korea!

After lunch we went out to try and buy some anti-chafing gel at the running store because we were both having some discomfort with our walking, but they didn’t have any - they told us to go to the pharmacy nearby which also did not have any. We were close to the tax refund location  in the area, so we went over to try to claim our tax exemption, but the only woman at the store seemed to tell us that we had to come back another time, I guess because whoever normally does it wasn’t there? The explaination was in Korean, so we just had to infer. We went back towards the station to try and  get some shaved ice dessert,  but that place was closed too. The whole trip to that area was a bust, and we were getting kind of hot, so we took a cab back over to the cafe we really liked the first day in Hongdae. It was a pretty decent distance and it only cost us ~$5.50, so that was nice.

Meghan caught me while I wasn’t paying attention

Brownie Tart and another Strawberry Tart - The brownie was too dense

We hung out there for a while to cool down and rest some more before we went for another walk through Hongdae. We went to the Gentle Monster store in Hongdae to see what their art was like. It turned out to be all themed around this story about a man whose dog died, but he dreamed the dog was in space, so he built a coconut-powered rocket to take to the planet where his dog was. He completed his rocket and then flew out into space where he was reunited with his dog. This story was presented on an old-fashioned TV and through all the installations throughout the store:

Story Time!

Coconut Chopper

Tools

There were abiguously dispositioned natives in the story - we couldn’t tell if they were helping or angry

The Rocket

So happy to be reunited!

After leaving there, we checked with the bar we saw that had a giant projector of the soccer matches going to see when we should arrive tonight for the game, and they told us probably 2 hours early, which sounded like it’s going to be crazy. After that we tried to go to one of the Japanese restaurants that looked super cool from the outside, but the menu was entirely in Korean, with no English or Japanese translations, and it seemed kind of pricey from the few menu items we translated. We looked at a few other Japanese restaurants which also had the same problems. We started to look around for alternatives when we stumbled on one other Japanese restaurant that was a little more secluded. It turned out to be a yakitori place with Japanese on the menu, so we decided to eat there. We got the 8-skewer set and were amazed at the authentic-ness of it and how crazy delicious it was! The heart was super tender, and we had a few cuts of meat that we had never had before as well:

These guys looked like they could be part of a Korean Drama about the shop - quirky dude cooking skewers and a handsome dude learning the ropes while falling in love or something

Chicken Heart

Breast meat with wasabi

Bacon wrapped tomatoes

Chicken Thigh with crispy skin

Mushrooms

Chicken Necks and Chicken Bellies

Chicken breast cartillage (sounds gross, I thought it tasted pretty good and was an interesting texture - Meghan likened it to feeling like carrot sticks where it is crisp but has some give)

After dinner we had some time to kill before going back out to the bar, so we went back to the Airbnb to chill for a little while before we went back out.

Guess what? We didn’t feel like it. Oh well... Go Korea? Hope they win.

Step count was a lot lower, 14 thousand.