Korea 2018: Itaewon + Incheon Airport + More KBBQ (Day 6)

Tuesday might not have been very eventful, but I still got to experience new places and eat delicious food. So all's well that ends well!

February 20th (Tuesday)

On Monday morning Ande and I both were randomly craving eggs benedict, and after some quick research we found a brunch cafe that we were both interested in. But that cafe is closed on Mondays, so on Tuesday afternoon our first stop of the day was Summer Lane Cafe in Itaewon.

Itaewon is where the US military base and other government-owned facilities are, so there are lots of foreigners of innumerable nationalities who live in and/or frequent this area. As such, you can find all types of foreign food, including brunch fare. Even before we picked a cafe to go to, Ande predicted correctly that Itaewon would be the place to go to find eggs benedict. From our usual bus to Seoul, we took the metro to Nolsapyeong station whose exit opens onto a street that gave us an even more excellent view of Namsan Tower than the night before.

After walking through some slightly hilly neighborhood streets, we arrived at Summer Lane. It's supposedly an Australian-style cafe (I guess the owner spent some time in Australia and that was her inspiration?), and the owner is a Korean woman who speaks English beautifully. It was small but bright, the color scheme was white and navy blue, there were plenty of windows, the lighting was warm, and the food was exactly what we wanted.

Ande ordered the eggs benedict with bacon and I ordered the one with salmon, and both of our dishes included layered waffles (instead of English muffins) and a flower on top for decoration. The entire experience was perfect! Plus there were two other black girls in there, and I was able to exchange a smile-nod with one of them, so I was over the moon!

We walked back the way we came to take the metro from Nolsapyeong station, eventually transferring to line 1 which goes all the way to Incheon International Airport. Sharon's arrival from Detroit was scheduled for that evening, so we were there to pick her up. We stood waiting with a sizable crowd of other people for a little over an hour (or was it two hours)?, straining to look over and between bodies to get a first glimpse of Sharon walking through. And then she finally appeared!

Now a trio, we took the same bus back to Suwon that Ande and I took when I first arrived. And just like I did, Sharon got to choose what we ate for dinner since it was her first night in Korea. She wanted Korean BBQ (samgyeopsal), so after dropping off her stuff at Ande's apartment we took the bus to the Suwon Station area to scope out a restaurant. Directly across the street from Suwon Station is a wide, brightly-lit street that's full of food and shopping and is notably frequented by young people, and this street was packed that night. We picked a certain restaurant having no expectations, but we thoroughly enjoyed the food (way better quality and more flavor than Ungteori, though Ungteori certainly wasn't bad)!

Then we trailed Sharon as she browsed through an Innisfree beauty store on that same street before taking the bus back to Ande's place. Wednesday would be our first time going to Seoul as a trio, and for the second half of the day Sharon and I had to navigate Seoul on our own! More on that tomorrow!

Korea 2018 photos   

Korea 2018: Dongdaemun + Ihwa Mural Village (Day 5)

Our only real goal for the day was going to Ihwa Mural Village, where a neighborhood on a hill is full of street art that's painted or installed on walls, staircases, and roofs. You can also get some pretty stunning views of Seoul from up there, though as one shopowner told us, the view's probably  more impressive at night.

February 19th (Monday)
 

After alighting from our usual bus into Seoul we took the metro to Dongdaemun, one of numerous major shopping areas, where we ate gimbap (similar to a maki roll), tempura udon, and bokkeumbap. From there we walked down a major street for a long stretch before turning down a neighborhood street that took us up a steeeeeep hill that led us to Ihwa Mural Village.

There's art all along the way, but you have to climb a multitude of stairs and reach the top in order to see everything. As soon as we got up there a rack of colorful bookmarks sitting in front of a shop with blue walls caught my eye, and the owner came out to talk to us and invited us in. The shop was full of little cutesy handmade trinkets, most of which the owner had made herself.

Cutesy isn't really my thing, so I wasn't going to buy anything at first. But I appreciated so much how she wasn't too scared to invite two foreigners into her shop, show us her items, tell us about her travels, and not be pushy in any way (she even gave us slight discounts!), that I bought an amigurumi-style giraffe keychain. She told us to take an alternate route through the neighborhood to see as much of the view as possible, and then off we went exploring.

I must mention that even if you do get to the top, you still might miss some things, as the art in this neighborhood periodically changes. While there are many cafes and restaurants that welcome the increased foot traffic, other residents are not so happy to have multitudes of potentially loud and messy tourists taking up space in their neighborhood everyday. Before we went to Ihwa, I read that some residents have even destroyed or obscured some murals in protest.

For example, there once was a large staircase with koi fish painted on a blue background, and it was one of the most popular sights in the neighborhood. As Ande and I were going down a set of stairs to leave Ihwa, a guy who was coming up from the opposite way asked us where to find said koi staircase. We hadn't seen it, so we told him where most of the other art pieces where and wished him good luck.

It wasn't until we got to the foot of the stairs and turned around for one last look at the neighborhood, that we realized that the brusquely-painted grey stairs had faded blues and oranges peeking out from under the grey. We'd been on the koi staircase the whole time, but it had been painted over by a disgruntled resident! So that guy was looking for something that didn't exist anymore. And I can't blame whoever painted over the stairs, it is what it is. I'm just saying, if you put together a list of art pieces that you want to see from searching Instagram and Google Images, don't be surprised if they look different are aren't even there by the time you actually visit Ihwa.


After moving further downhill and through other parts of that district, we stopped for rest and tea/coffee at a toast cafe owned by a woman whose son is a student in the University of Texas system. I only mention that because I remember reading a sticker saying as much on her refrigerator, and she was a woman who spoke kindly to us and appeared to run the entire place by herself (except for a young man who was cutting and prepping ingredients with her in the kitchen).

It was dark by the time we left that cafe, and I followed Ande's lead as we walked toward Cheonggyecheon stream, which we'd orginally passed by when we walked briefly through Dongdaemun earlier in the day. We walked along the stream until we got to an area with a lot of tall buildings and a direct view of Namsan Tower. I believe this was the night that jet lag finally hit me, and even though it was only about 8pm, I was so tired that I felt like I couldn't go on, haha!* So we made our way back to Suwon.

Ande had some personal business to take care of in the morning, plus she wanted to spend time with her boo and his parents, so we stopped to get carry-out (wings from KyoChon Chicken) and she dropped me off at her place before going to spend the night at her boo's parent's place. I spent the night solo in her apartment, and this was the only night where I slept on Ande's bed just to see how it felt. Still preferred the heated floors, though!

On Tuesday, we made a brief excursion into an area known for its abundance of foreign people and cuisine before going to the airport to pick up Sharon. More on that tomorrow!


*(Correction: The jet lag thing actually happened on Sunday, after being in Hongdae. For Monday night, I think we decided to head back after seeing Namsan tower because it was cold and my feet and thighs ached. A funny thing, memory is.)


Korea 2018 photos  

Korea 2018: Gyeongbokgung Palace + Hongdae (Day 4)

As I mentioned, we didn't have much planned for our first of numerous sojourns into Seoul. There was one place from our lengthy Google doc "list" that I wanted to visit, but everything else we just decided on as we went.

February 18th (Sunday)

Our first and only goal for the day was to visit Gyeongbokung, an ancient palace in northern Seoul that is a must-do for any visitor to the city. From Ande's neighborhood we took the bus from Suwon to Seoul, which usually takes anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour. Then we took the metro to Gyeongbokung, exiting the station right outside the National Palace Museum of Korea (though Gyeongbokgung is the main attraction, the National Palace Museum of Korea and the National Folk Museum of Korea are in the same compound as the palace).

I was a tad hungry by the time we got there, so  we took a stroll down Sejong-ro, which is the major street that leads south straight from Gyeongbokgung. Ande told me that a lot of protests are held on this street, and true enough a few demonstrators had booths pitched along the sidewalk. But Sejong-ro was full of other activity this day, including a traditional Korean drum ensemble and various Olympics-related activities adding to the usual flow of auto and foot traffic. 

Sejong-ro is also where you can find statues of Sejong the Great (Korean king who's credited with the creation of hangul, the Korean alphabet) and Admiral Yi Sun-shin (navy commander who's renowned for winning battles against the Japanese navy in the late 1500s). Along Sejong-ro you can also find the US embassy and Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. We spent some time munching, chatting, and taking in the view from the second floor of an Angel-in-us Coffee before heading back to the palace.

Imagine you're royalty, and centuries after your death, millions of common people get to traipse around your sprawling home every year, for decades to come. That's Gyeongbokgung. I wasn't as impressed by it as I was by the overall experience at Hwaseong Fortress, and Ande even admitted that it's probably better to go in the summer when fewer areas of the palace are closed and more events/performances are going on. Nonetheless, it is quite beautiful, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing young men and women walking around the buildings and living quarters dressed in hanbok (Korean traditional clothing). The flowy, high-waisted skirts and vibrant colors invite both awe and respect.

From Gyeongbokgung we took the metro to Hongdae to find somewhere to eat. No particular reason for coming here as opposed to elsewhere, other than that I heard that it's a university area where college students and other young'uns often gather to hang out and crowd around buskers. I guess I was just curious to see what the busking musicians were up to. 

When we were there it was mostly dancers who were attracting attention, and not so many singers were out yet. The main popular street we went down was packed even before sundown, so you had to squeeze through to get anywhere. And being around so many youthful, stylish and energetic people reminded me of how young I no longer am. But for me it was satisfying enough just to have seen a bit of Hongdae for myself. After being turned away at one restaurant (perks of being foreigners), we ate samgyeopsal (Korean BBQ with pork belly) at Ungteori before heading back to Suwon. 

Most often we would take the metro back to Sadang station and then catch the bus from there. This night at Sadang happened to be my lucky night, since as we were headed toward the exit where the bus stops were, I spotted a rack of earmuffs out of the corner of my eye. I finally found a new pair of earmuffs that I liked enough to replace the ones I lost in Seattle! And I'll have you know, they're sitting on the table next to me as I write this, so my habit of losing things hasn't reared its ugly head just yet.

So that's Sunday for you. Monday would turn out to be full of street art, city views, and even more walking and climbing than before. More on that tomorrow!

Korea 2018 photos   

Korea 2018: Hwaseong Fortress + Black Panther (Day 3)

What a day Saturday was! An initiation in so many ways, both exciting and challenging.

February 17th (Saturday)

The day started with tea, Ande's homemade bokkeumbap (kimchi fried rice with cheese and spam), and a Whatsapp video call with Ma. I had to spend a little bit too much time setting WhatsApp and Skype up on Ma's phone and teaching her how to use them before I left, so I was really proud of us being able to make it work once I was in Korea.

From Ande's apartment we stopped at the CU convenience store down the street so I could buy and load a Cashbee card. Cashbee cards (or Tmoney cards) are basically your key to wherever you want to go in Korea. They work for buses/the metro/taxis, all you have to do is tap them against the reader whenever you enter and exit the mode of transportation that you're using, you can reload them at any convenience store or reload machine, and they work anywhere. That is to say, between Incheon airport and Suwon and Seoul and Busan, we could use our Cashbee cards to get everywhere (with the exception of the "airport limousine" bus).

Given that Suwon was our home base for the trip, I wanted to spend this day seeing more of the city, and our first destination was Hwaseong Fortress. The fortress is a UNESCO
World Heritage site in the center of Suwon that goes in a loop. Rather than the inside being closed off or outfitted to make visitors feel that they're stepping back into the Joseon era, people still live, work, and commute inside the fortress as they do outside the fortress. So the fortress is basically this 18th-century ring around an area of town where modern life continues uninterrupted. You can walk around it, on top of it, or inside it (or alternate between the three) which allows you to get spectacular views of the city while also enjoying nature (lots of parks!) and the fortress's traditional architecture at the same time.

From CU we took a bus to the area around Paldalmun, which is the southern gate of the fortress. Paldalmun is a stand-alone gate that isn't physically connected to anything, so you actually have to go down a side street and climb a hill to access the fortress. Apparently we were supposed to buy a ticket before entering, but we must have arrived there too early or something, because the booth at the entrance was closed and no one stopped us or any of the other people who were going up the hill and stairs. We didn't learn about the payment requirement until we'd already made it halfway around and reached the north gate (Janganmun), which turned out to be the main entrance and was more monitored than the southern gate. We each had to pay 2,000 won (about $2) to re-enter a place that we'd already seen half of! It was kind of confusing but we just shrugged it off, paid, and kept it moving.

I believe Ande had assumed that we'd just walk around it for a bit and then head back down once I'd seen enough. She certainly didn't expect us to go all the way around. But it was such a beautiful day, I was so happy to be there that I wanted to soak everything in, and we got to see so many beautiful things and have such lovely conversation that we just kept going. We arrived back where we started after 3-ish hours. I was a little thirsty and my feet hurt by the end of it (I chose today to break in my "new" purple Adidas that had been sitting in my closet back home for two years), but I felt invigorated.

Speaking of invigoration. Judging from my experience Korea is very hilly, and there were stairs everywhere, especially in the metros. It ended up being a workout for me to get from place to place, and Hwaseong Fortress's abundant steps and steep inclines/declines were perfect preparation for the rest of the trip. I learned quickly not to force it and just to go at my own pace, taking breaks when necessary. My thighs and feet spoke to me and I had to pause to catch my breath QUITE frequently, so I appreciate Ande (and Sharon too) for waiting on me when I lagged behind.  I hate slowing people down but I hate the idea of overdoing it more. So thank y'all.

After leaving the fortress we walked through Paldal Global Market just to see what it looked like (and to scope out a new pair of earmuffs for me, but no such luck) before settling into a cafe there to rest and chat over lattes.

From that area we took the bus to Suwon Station, which is not only a train/metro station but also has an underground shopping center and an above-ground mall. Inside that mall is a CGV theatre, which is where we went to see Black Panther! We saw it in 2D, in English with Korean subtitles.The showing we'd planned to see was basically sold out when we arrived, so we bought tickets for a showing that was two hours later and walked around that floor of the mall to kill time. We ate sundubu-jjigae (soft tofu stew) before heading back to the cinema.


I finally saw other Black people while we were at the mall (I always keep an eye out for people who look like me wherever I go, even back home), and they happened to go to the same showing as us! Our theatre was packed, mostly by Korean people, and it made me feel proud to know that Black Panther was getting so much support all the way in Korea. I don't know if it's because the film was partly shot in Busan, or because Marvel films always draw a large audience in Korea, or because Korean people might have been intrigued to watch a superhero movie with mostly Black people in it. But no matter, I was overjoyed just to have been in the midst of it all. There was a moment where Lupita Nyongo's character said "Thanks" in Korean to the fishmonger lady in Busan before passing through and all the Korean audience members busted out laughing, but for the most part people were pretty quiet.

I clocked the dichotomy between Black American and African perspectives within the diaspora right away, so from the theatre, back through the mall, through the underground shopping center to the bus stop on the other side of the street, on the bus, walking to Ande's apartment, and even once inside the apartment, I couldn't keep from sharing my observations with her while listening to her impressions of the film as well. Saturday was really a fantastic day.


Sunday would be my first time going to Seoul, and though we didn't have a set plan, we still managed to see a lot. More on that tomorrow. Again, you can still find all the photos here:


Korea 2018 photos  

Korea 2018: Arrival (Days 1 and 2)

In my latest book review I mentioned venturing out of the country, and four days ago I returned home from... South Korea!

Before anyone asks, no I did not go there for the Pyeongchang 2018 Winer Olympics. I was in the Seoul area most of the time (too far). It's winter (too cold). And I don't particularly care about sports (self-explanatory). It was nice to be in Seoul and witness some of the Olympics-related hype, and I got to see a lot of Olympic athletes from the US and elsewhere in Incheon airport and on my flight home. But other than that, the games were far from my mind.

The main reason I was in South Korea was to visit a friend. Some months ago I had this plan to take a leave of absence from life and travel internationally for six months in 2018. That plan was a bust, but in the process of planning that trip a friend of mine from high school invited me to join her in visiting our mutual high school friend who works as a teacher in Suwon, South Korea. Korea was a place I thought I'd like to go eventually in my lifetime, but before being invited I hadn't imagined that I'd be going there in 2018. I was basically a warmly-welcomed third wheel, traveling with people I was already on good terms with, and I wouldn't have to pay for a hotel. So come February 15th, I was gone!

February 15th-16th (Thursday-Friday)

For my friend Sharon and I who were coming from Michigan to visit Ande, our initial plan was for us to take the same flight to Korea so that all three of us could be there together from February 16th to the 26th. But Sharon got a really cool opportunity to work in India for three months beforehand, and due to some logistical mumbo-jumbo she'd actually be returning to Michigan briefly and then arriving in Korea on the 20th. So for the first half of the trip it would be just Ande and I, and I traveled from Detroit to Seattle to Incheon on my own.

On Thursday morning I awoke at 4am to make my 8 o'clock flight, and Ma was gracious enough to drive me to DTW. After five hours in the air my flight landed on time in Seattle and I had about an hour to  transfer to my next flight, but then I lost about 20 minutes because my plane was in line behind other planes each waiting to park at a gate. And then, just my luck, the one big arrival/departure board that was within my vicinity was completely blank, so I had to figure out where to go on my own (the gate for my flight out of Seattle wasn't printed on the boarding pass that I received in Detroit).

Thanks to Google somehow knowing my flight information, I got a notification on my phone telling me where my gate was. The exact gate that Google gave me turned out to be incorrect, but thankfully it was still in the right area. So I took the terminal train there, went up some escalators, and as soon as I stepped foot on the floor I heard "last call" for my flight!

But because of either my panicked state or the acoustics there, I couldn't tell exactly where the announcement was coming from, so I started to run frantically until some nice Delta flight attendants at an adjacent gate pointed me toward my gate for Incheon. And the flight attendants at my gate were very kind and didn't make a stink about me arriving so late, and they let me through. So Seattle had me messed up, and I almost missed my flight to Korea, BUT GOD! I made it. Lost my earmuffs somewhere in the process, but I made it.

Twelve hours later (Friday evening, local time) I arrived at Incheon! Ande met me at arrivals and then we took a bus to Suwon, and then a taxi to her neighborhood, and then it was a short walk to her apartment. After dropping off my suitcase, receiving a tour of Ande's place, and chatting for a bit, we went back out into the cold to find someplace to eat in her neighborhood. I picked a restaurant that caught my eye (it had a big red sign with a white house painted on it) and so my first meal in Korea was galbi-jjim, which is a spicy stew that has braised short ribs and other goodies in it.


We stopped at a local grocery to get some snacks (honey butter chips, Jeju hanrabong oranges, and ginger & balloon flower tea for me), before calling it a night. Ande offered to let me have her bed but I was so enamored with her heated floor (apartments in Korea have heated floors, y'all!) that I just rolled out a couple of her blankets and a pillow and slept on the floor that night and all the other nights of my stay.

The next day (Saturday) was my first time experiencing Korea in the daylight, and rather than rushing off to Seoul, Ande showed me around Suwon! More on that tomorrow. I managed to take a lot of photos and keep notes every day while I was in Korea, so I'll be writing one post a day until I'm finished recounting my trip. Hope you enjoy!

In the meantime, photos can be found here:

Korea 2018 photos

BOOKS! (Middlesex + The Other Wes Moore)

My original plan for the end of last year/beginning of this year was to wait until I'd read four books before writing another review. That way I could boost my reading numbers and also knock two reviews out in quick succession. But that's already taken longer than I'd like (one more book to go!), and I'm venturing out of the country the day after tomorrow. So rather than potentially not writing another review until March, I'm going to write one now. My last read of 2017 is a novel that I bought during my trip to Mackinac Island a couple years ago. My first read of 2018 is a memoir that was recommended to me by my aunt.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Cal Stephanides, born Calliope, is a Greek-American intersex person who grows up in Detroit during the 1960s and '70s. Due to a history of incest in his family, a genetic mutation is passed down through the generations until it was expressed in Cal. He is born with both male and female reproductive organs, but he isn't thoroughly examined at birth and so is raised as a girl until puberty. As his body exhibits more male characteristics, he decides to present as a man and runs away from home instead of being forced to have "corrective" surgery to help him present as a woman for the rest of his life. His story and family history are narrated by present-day Cal in 2001, who works as a foreign service officer in Berlin. The title Middlesex is a double entendre that references the street that his family live on after their white flight from Detroit to Grosse Pointe, and also references Cal's identity as an intersex person.

Rather than focusing on Cal right away, the first two parts of the novel give precedence to his lineage, including his Greek grandparents' flight from Turkey and the establishment of the Stepanides family  in Detroit. While the first 211 pages might seem like an extended detour, I was enthralled by all of the history I read. I had no idea that Greece and Turkey had such strong contention, or that the Turkish (likely) set the Greek and Armenian sections of Smyrna on fire after WW1. Or that the Ford Motor Company gave itself authority to control every aspect of their workers lives via their "sociological department" in order to find excuses not to pay all workers five dollars a day. And I knew that the Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit, but I hadn't realized how much its ideas had in common with current hotep ideologies. When we finally do get to Cal's childhood and adolescence in parts three and four, still more lessons await.

Back in college I'd heard a couple classmates speak highly of Middlesex (it won a Pulitzer!), but I hesitated toward reading it because I figured the content relating to gender identity and genetics would be way over my head. Granted, the novel is somewhat long and occasionally complex, but it's also one of the most easily readable novels that I read in 2017. The only disappointment I have with Middlesex is that we don't get to witness Cal's young adulthood. Jeffrey Eugenides does such a delightful job of taking his time with each phase of Cal's younger life, but the novel ends with his eventual return back to Grosse Pointe. We get some initial reactions from his mother, brother, and grandmother when "Callie" is now "Cal", but most of the events from 1975 to 2001 are left to our imagination. While I don't think that this novel needs an extra 200 pages, part of me still would've liked to journey through Cal's teens, 20s, and 30s.

If you love the city of Detroit, immigrant stories, gender and sexuality studies, or fiction-written-as-biography, then you'll thoroughly enjoy Middlesex.

Favorite quotes:

"It spread in the space between her panic and grief... it was happiness. Tears were running down her face, she was already berating God for taking her husband from her, but on the other side of these proper emotions was an altogether improper relief. The worst had happened. This was it: the worst thing. For the first time in her life my grandmother had nothing to worry about" (216-217).

"Normality wasn't normal. It couldn't be. If normality were normal, everybody could leave it alone. They could sit back and let normality manifest itself. But people—and especially doctors—had doubts about normality. They weren't sure normality was up to the job. And so they felt inclined to give it a boost" (446).

The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore

My aunt worked for decades as a social worker and now runs after school and summer education programs at a church in Louisville, so she interacts with young people on the daily. Some of these kids come from the hood and might be classified by outsiders as "troubled" or "at risk", and she's dedicated her life to being a source of stability and guidance to them. So I was hardly surprised when she told me to read The Other Wes Moore. She even tells the kids she works with to read it too! This is another fairly easy read that can be completed in a day or two, though I certainly wouldn't advise rushing through it.

Two black kids named Wes Moore grow up in Baltimore around the same time. Both are raised by single mothers. Both have trouble in school and run-ins with the law. One goes to military school and is a Rhodes scholar, becomes a youth advocate, and writes this book. The other gets convicted for killing a cop and gets a life sentence in jail. When Rhodes Wes hears about the other Wes' story, he writes him a letter which begins their years-long relationship and the process of writing this book. But while one might be seen as the "respectable" or "exceptional" black man that non-black people are eager to celebrate, and the other is seen as the stereotypically no-good and inherently dangerous black man that non-black people are eager to denigrate, Wes Moore steps in to say, "Not so fast". He writes this book not merely to compare their diverging trajectories, but to point to how similar both men are. Rhodes Wes could've easily ended up like the other Wes, and only a handful of pivotal moments and life-changing encounters made the difference.

On the one hand, The Other Wes Moore is a cautionary tale about choices and consequences, with a tinge of bootstraps ideology. But it also treats poor and criminalized people with dignity and understanding, and calls on all of us to create environments where young people can expect more for themselves. If you care about young people and under-served communities, then read this book.

Favorite quotes:

"My father had entered the hospital seeking help. But his face was unshaven, his clothes disheveled, his name unfamiliar, his address not in an affluent area. The hospital looked at him askance, insulted him with ridiculous questions, and basically told him to fend for himself. Now, my mother had to plan his funeral" (14-15).

"I learned that the way many governors projected the numbers of beds they'd need for prison facilities was by examining the reading scores of third graders. Elected officials deduced that a strong percentage of kids reading below their grade level by third grade would be needing a secure place to stay when they got older" (54).