Several of you asked me to tell you all about my trip to Seoul, so here's a full account :D It's long and possibly more detailed than you care about. That's because this is also partially for me, since writing it down will help me remember all the details. It's not a polished piece of writing - just a quickly-written record of everything that happened. I hope you enjoy it! Next time, come with me and we'll have another adventure!

Wednesday 3/30

On Wednesday, I had to work a half day because I didn't have enough PTO hours to take the whole day off (in fact, I had to stay late on Monday and Tuesday to make getting out early on Wednesday possible). I left work at 1:30pm, which gave me exactly 12 hours until takeoff.

That sounds like a lot, but here's the thing: I live in ia, but my flight left from JFK in NYC. Yes, there's a perfectly good international airport in Richmond, but it's always suuuper expensive to fly from Richmond. There's also a perfectly good international airport at Dulles, just outside DC, and that's usually my go-to, because even for domestic flights, it's usually cheaper than Richmond by a big enough margin to make the 2 hour drive worth it.

But this time, JFK was the cheapest, and it was cheaper than Dulles by enough to make it worth the drive and the toll money and everything... and because I'm crazy, I went for it.

My stuff was already in my car and my car already had a full tank of gas, so as soon as I got off work, I hit the road. I wanted to at least get to the other side of DC before rush hour hit.

I ended up bogged down in traffic on the Baltimore-Washington Turnpike (I hate the Baltimore-Washington Turnpike), but that was the exact reason I'd given myself so much travel time.

Around 8pm, I finally reached the MetroPark train station in New Jersey. I left my car in their parking deck while I was gone - it's a lot cheaper and safer than the long-term airport parking at JFK, plus the train tickets cost less than the tolls to cross the bridges between Staten Island and Brooklyn.

From MetroPark, I grabbed the New Jersey Transit (commuter rail) train to New York Penn Station (that's the one under Madison Square Garden). At NY Penn, I switched to the Long Island Railroad and took that to Jamaica Station, which connects to JFK's AirTrain system, which is the airport's terminal-to-terminal shuttle.

By 10:20pm, I was successfully on the AirTrain, with 3 hours left before takeoff. Pretty perfect timing, I think. (I know it was 10:20 because I texted my husband an update and the text says so :P) I found the Cathay Pacific check-in counter, and an attendant asked me if I'd checked in online ahead of time, and when I told him I hadn't, he showed me which line I needed to be in and said, "Next time, check in online." (Okay, bro, idk why you care.)

The check-in counter guy was significantly more pleasant. I was traveling with a big hiking-style backpack and a tiny kindergartener-size backpack, and he gave me props for wanting to take them both carry-on. He didn't say it, but I think he and I were on the same wavelength: carry-on luggage doesn't get lost by airline baggage handlers, so by taking everything carry-on, I was ensuring that my clothes and everything would get to Seoul at the same time I did.

At security, I forgot to pull my ziplock of under-3-ounce liquids out of my bag... and nobody cared. This is the second or third time I've done that. I'm beginning to wonder if their x-ray machine can even tell the difference between liquids and solids.

I found my gate and then bought a bottle of water and a snack to take with me.

There were enough infants and toddlers on my flight to fill an entire kindergarten classroom. One of those overcrowded ones, probably. Our flight to Hong Kong was 15 hours and PACKED but most of those infants and toddlers handled it like real troopers... plus they were SUPER CUTE and I got to watch them run around the terminal :3

Thursday 3/31

I was in the middle seat on the flight. The girl who got the window seat was possibly the only other 20-something white girl on the entire plane. She was on her way to Bangkok (maybe even in Thailand! /bad pun). I get that Cathay Pacific is an Asian airline, but I wasn't expecting to be one of maybe a dozen non-Asians on the flight. Do white people think Cathay Pacific is dodgy because it's not American-owned? Would they rather pay double to be on Delta? Or do white people just not visit Asia? What's the deal, here?

Speaking of that, if any of you are thinking about going to Asia and Cathay Pacific is offering good rates, go for it. I was very impressed with them. The staff were great. They served us both dinner and breakfast. The dinner was good - I had chicken and celery stir fry and it tasted like legit food (unlike whatever it was British Airways served when I went to London in 2009).

The seatback TVs had a fun selection of Asian and Western movies and TV, which I liked. I watched a Korean movie called Fashion King that was really fun - like Zoolander and Mean Girls mixed together... and then I watched an episode of Infinite Challenge. Infinite Challenge didn't have an English subtitles option, but I watched it anyway. The other choices included some Running Man and the MNET Asian Music Awards, but I ended up watching a bunch of Archer instead :P

I planned to sleep for the second half of the 15-hour flight, thinking it would be the best setup for avoiding jet lag, but everyone else on the plane slept for the first half and then talked through the 2nd half. I ended up only really dozing and not getting much sleep.

Friday 4/1

When I got to Hong Kong, it was something like 5AM Friday morning local time, and my flight to Seoul didn't board until 7:15AM. By this point, after a full day of work, 9-ish hours of driving and public transit, capped off by a 15 hour flight, I was feeling pretty disgusting.

And yes, if you noticed above - Friday already. Yes, even though it had only been Thursday for an hour and a half when we took off from JFK. That 15-hour flight was paired with the fact that Hong Kong is 12 hours ahead of home... and Seoul is another time zone east of Hong Kong, so it's 13 hours ahead of my usual time zone.

I found a bathroom in the airport in Hong Kong and changed my clothes and put on some deodorant and felt so much better, though I still wanted a shower. My hair is too short to pull back into a ponytail, and it was greasy and gross, but I just had to live with it for the time being.

I connected to the Hong Kong airport's wifi and checked in with people back home. That was my plan for keeping in touch - I didn't want to pay for international calling/texting/data through my cell carrier, so I just left my phone on airplane mode for the entirety of the trip and lived off of free wifi. (Most of Seoul's subway system is supposed to have wifi, though it was patchy for me. It somehow miraculously worked every time I really needed it, but the rest of the time, I couldn't get it to connect. Some of the problem might've been my laggy phone, though, so your mileage may vary.)

The flight from Hong Kong to Seoul was only 3.5 hours (I think?) and was probably less than half full. I was seated in the middle column of seats, but there was nobody next to me on either side, which was glorious. After being packed in like sardines on the first leg, it felt almost like being in First Class.

I made it a point to NOT sleep on this flight, even though I hadn't gotten much sleep on the first flight. I was trying to put myself already on Seoul time, and it was midmorning in Seoul, and a midmorning nap didn't mesh with my new Seoul-appropriate sleep pattern, so I couldn't allow it. Right before landing (around noon KST), I took a half a pill of Nuvigil.

Nuvigil is the same drug they give to fighter pilots who need to stay awake/alert for hour missions. It was THIS CLOSE to being FDA approved as a prescription for jet lag (like, you could go get an Rx for a pill or two before a trip to avoid jet lag), but the FDA ended up not approving it. The only real reason they didn't approve it was because it would make it too easy to get - it's got great resale value on the black market on college campuses around exam time, for obvious reasons. However, I have a legitimate prescription for it already for my narcolepsy, so I take it pretty much every day anyway. So, in this situation, I get to use it for its jet lag benefits! I usually get about 10 hours of wakefulness out of that dose, so I figured taking one at noon would keep me feeling fine until bedtime :D

We landed at Incheon shortly after noon. I had a tattoo consultation in Sinsa/Gangnam at 4pm and I wanted to check into my hotel before that (and maybe even wash my hair!), but when I saw the line for Immigration, I had to give up on that plan. It took me almost an hour to get through the line, and then less than 30 seconds to get cleared.

I made my way downstairs, following the signs to find the Airport Train line that connects to Seoul's subway and looking for an ATM on the way. Pulling cash out of a local ATM is the cheapest way to get foreign currency (in my experience), but it turned out that the airport didn't have any normal banking ATMs... probably to force people to use the currency exchange counter.

I decided I'd just buy my train ticket with my credit card (no foreign transaction fees!) and find an ATM once I got out of the airport. I pulled out my phone and connected to Incheon Airport's free wifi and did a little Googling, and discovered that there was a Citibank with a Visa-branded ATM pretty much right next to the tattoo studio. Perfect! ...except that when I got to the train's ticketing machine, I discovered that it only accepted cash.

So I had to it up and give a $20 to the currency exchange counter to get a bit of local cash. They actually gave me a really fair exchange rate, but I still prefer ATMs.

I wanted a T-Money card (Seoul subways's reloadable farecard), and the subway stations have machines that sell them, but the airport didn't. So I bought a single-trip ticket with my freshly-acquired cash and headed from the airport to Sinsa!

At Sinsa, I found the Citibank and pulled out as much cash as my daily ATM withdrawal limit on my debit card would allow... and then I did the same thing with my other debit card. That gave me about W650,000. That sounds like a lot for a 4 day trip, but my tattoo estimate was W400,000 and my concert merch shopping list added up to W220,000.

I wasn't sure whether the merch table would take plastic, and even if they did, cash is always smoother in that sort of situation. Also, the tattoo studio could take plastic, but they told me that credit card payments would be subject to an additional 10% value-added tax, and I didn't want to pay an extra 10% on a bill that size. So, I definitely did need that much cash.

Side note: If you are ever in this position where you know you need a bunch of cash, especially while traveling, look up your daily ATM withdrawal limit ahead of time so you can plan around it. Depending on your bank's rules, you could accidentally get your debit card cut off as a fraud prevention measure, and sometimes they can't/won't reactivate it, so you can really screw yourself. (I worked for a bank for 4.5 years and split that time between debit card fraud, debit card back-office operations, and ATM setup/settings... I can answer more questions about traveling with debit cards if anybody's curious :D)

Other side note: Always remember to notify your bank if you're going to be traveling so they can set your cards up to work in the country you're traveling to! Usually you can plug this information in through your online banking without even having to call and talk to someone. Do it for your debit cards and credit cards - heck, even do it for the ones you don't actually plan to use while you're there. It never hurts to have a backup.

Okay, back to the story.

So I got my cash and then I walked around the corner and found the tattoo studio. I arrived exactly on time for my consultation appointment!

They have the chillest bulldog ever.

I sat down with Camoz (my artist) and Duke (the English-fluent manager I'd been emailing with) and we talked about my art for a bit, with Duke translating between me and Camoz.

When we were done, I headed out again. (Still hauling my big backpack, don't forget!) I went back to the Sinsa subway station and found one of the machines that sells T-Money cards and bought one, loaded some money on it, and jumped back on the subway to get to my hotel.

Checking in at the hotel was easy - I told them my name and they found it on their list and handed me a key card - no fuss. I stayed at the Film 37.2 Hotel which turned out to be basically a love hotel (if you read the reviews online, they hint at this - they say it's very geared toward "amorous couples" but is an awesome hotel... and those reviews are right on point). I LOVED my hotel room.

The room itself was gorgeous:

It also had the best bathtub I have ever seen:

And, living up to the reviews that said it was a love hotel, there was a cup full of condoms and "massage oil" on the bedside table: 

The room was stuffy when I arrived, and it seems that the hotel hadn't the air conditioning for the season yet, so I opened the window to let some of the beautiful weather inside. Again, the hotel lived up to its reviews, and I could hear the people in the room below mine having really loud with their window also open.

I took a shower and felt MUCH better. It was only about 5:30 or 6pm by this point, so I decided to go explore a little bit and see if I could find some dinner. I knew that the Lotte World Mall was only one subway stop away at Jamsil, so I went there to browse the mall and investigate their food court.

Lotte World Mall is pretty great. They have a Studio Ghibli store! And the food court had a cool Joseon gate theme.

After food, I went back to my room and finished up the April Fool's chapter for Samshin Halmoni really quick and posted it before April 1st was over. I was struggling with falling asleep sitting up while typing, but considering that it was midnight and I hadn't really slept in 52 hours, I think I did pretty well.

Saturday 4/2

I slept like a rock. When my alarm went off at 6:30am, I felt like I could use another couple of hours of sleep, but I always wake up feeling like that (narcolepsy), so I dragged myself out of bed and took a shower and got dressed.

Then I emptied out the little kindergartener backback and packed it with everything I'd need for the concert that evening, just in case I didn't make it back to the hotel before the show - the printout for claiming my ticket, my passport, my light stick, my cell phone power bank, etc.

I left my hotel and intended to stop at the Dunkin Donuts on the corner to get breakfast, but they weren't open, so I went ahead and crossed the street, which put me at the Mongchontoseong (World Peace Gate) end of Olympic Park.

The weather was gorgeous as I walked through Olympic Park to get to the Gymnastics Arena. I passed another cafe, but it was also closed. No breakfast :( But that's okay - I rarely eat breakfast on weekdays at work anyway, so I wasn't super hungry.

When I got to the Gymnastics Arena, I could see the ticketing tent and merch tent and everything all set up. It was very clear and easy to find things and navigate! There were about 15-20 people already sitting in a line in front of the merch table, so I joined them.

It was about 8:10am when I got in line, and merch sales were scheduled to start at noon. The line stayed pretty short until about 9am, when it started to grow very quickly.

I got lucky, and picked up free wifi from somewhere while I was sitting in line, which made passing the time much easier! It turned out that one of the Korean translators from my fansub group, Yowon, was about 5 people ahead of me in line, and we figured that out via KakaoTalk chat. We waved at each other and said hello, but then we both got shy/introverted and didn't talk or join up or anything.

I took a few pictures of the venue to keep myself entertained while sitting in line.

Around 10 or 10:30am, some staff showed up to manage the line, and then around 11:00, trucks started to arrive with merch!

(Yes, that's me. And yes, I know my Hello Kitty sunglasses are fab.)

Sales began promptly at noon, as scheduled. Yowon was in front of me, and waved on her way out after making her purchases. It was about 12:15pm when I was done at the merch booth. The ticket booth wasn't scheduled to open for me to pick my ticket up until 3pm, so I decided to walk back to the hotel and put the merch away. Just when I started walking, though, Yowon messaged me and we met up instead.

I crammed all my concert merch down into my tiny backpack and Yowon and I took the subway to the neighborhood where she lives to have lunch at a restaurant she likes. She said it was a Korean/Japanese fusion place, but it seemed 100% Korean to me. It was a traditional little place - shoes off at the entrance, sit on the floor at low tables and cook your food at your table sort of place.

(I wish I'd taken a picture, but it felt rude, so I didn't.)

They brought us a pot of broth and veggies that they set to simmer at our table, some water and pineapple soda to drink (yum!), a bowl of big fat noodles, rice with green onions and a raw egg on top of it, and a plate of thin-sliced raw beef - the kind that's frozen and shaved into little curls. The veggies consisted of a green vegetable I hadn't seen before, mushrooms, and a few chunks of potato. Yowon taught me the name of the vegetable, but I have since forgotten. I think it was minari?

Some Googling to try to jog my memory on the veggie name reveals that what we ate was this dish, although this recipe likely differs a bit from the one the restaurant used.

Once the vegetables had cooked down enough to make room, we tucked bits of the beef down into the simmering broth to cook. Yowon said she didn't like minari, but mushrooms are her favorite. That worked out well, because I dislike mushrooms, but I enjoyed the new veggie. After we'd eaten all of our beef and most of our veggies, we slid the big fat noodles into the broth. They'd been partially cooked in advance, so we gave them a minute to cook the rest of the way. They were super yummy!

Once our noodles were all gone, a restaurant employee came and took away our rice and our broth bowl. A moment later, he returned with the broth bowl, except it had been emptied and the rice had been fried in it, so now we had this great little layer of fried rice that we split between us.

Afterward, we stepped back into our shoes and made our way back to the subway station to return to Olympic Park. We got there a few minutes before 3pm, which was the perfect time to get in line to pick up my ticket from will-call. Yowon had to get in a different line to get a wristband, because she was in the standing section.

The will-call lines were separated alphabetically by surname - in Korean. There was a separate line for foreigners, but the sign that said "foreigners" was one of the only signs I saw during my whole trip that didn't have English on it, so it took me a hot second to figure out which line I needed to be in! I figured it out and got my ticket.

By this point it was about 3:20ish, and the doors opened to begin seating for the concert at 5pm. So I walked back to my hotel to drop off the merch and chill for a minute. I clocked the walk and it took 20 minutes to get from the ticket booth to my room, so I made sure to leave again by 4:30.

(Testing the tiny adorable baby lightstick!)

There were separate line-ups depending on seating sections, but I found the correct one without too much trouble. My ticket was printed in English, probably because I'd bought it on the English version of the ticketing website, and that gave a few of the staffers some trouble. I was (and still am) fairly sure the problem was that they couldn't figure out which number was my section number and which number was my seat number since "SEC" and "SEAT" were in English, and they therefore couldn't determine whether I was in the correct line / going in the correct door. Not that it should have mattered since, like most arenas, I could easily have just walked to the correct section after entering the building. Even though I was pretty sure I knew what they were struggling with, the few Korean words I know weren't applicable, so I couldn't help. They figured it out, though, and I got inside and found my way to my seat without further incident.

Saturday's concert was incredible. The production value was right up there with the best I've ever seen. They were filming for an official DVD release, so you'll see eventually. The boys were SO HAPPY to be there - so excited about finally having a comeback and a big concert and everything. The show wasn't completely sold out, but it was pretty close. Almost everyone in the standing section and the closer-up seated section had an official light stick. Almost everyone in the building who didn't have an official light stick had a similarly-colored glow stick instead. All of the lights moving to the music was amazing. There were so many bees! There were also more guys in the audience than I'd expected to see - fanboys are awesome.

Everything about the concert was great and went off without a hitch. The boys were all on point, the video graphics and audio and everything were great.

After the concert, I went back to my hotel room. I meant to go find myself some dinner, but I ended up just falling asleep instead.

Sunday 4/3

I had an alarm set for 8am or something like that, but I woke up at 7 because I'd passed out at like 11pm. So, I went ahead and got showered and dressed and everything. It was drizzly and a little bit cooler outside that day, so I wore my favorite sweater and my skirt-leggings :D

My tattoo appointment was at 1pm, so I had the morning free. Since I'm ridiculously Taeil biased, I decided to go check out the Coex Aquarium! It's at the very back corner of the Coex Mall. When I got to the mall, I came up out of the subway station and there was a big SM TOWN sign. They apparently have some kind of exhibition area there. Some girls were lined up by the door to SM Town's area, but I walked past and entered the mall without bothering to figure out what they were lined up for.

The aquarium was great. I've been to other very good aquariums, so this wasn't a first-time thing for me in that sense, but they're always super fun and this wasn't an exception. Here's the whole album of my aquarium pictures!

(Corydoras! Taeil stanning level over 9000!)

After the aquarium, I mustered up the nerve to order some breakfast at the Starbucks in the mall. Ordering food was the hardest thing about the language barrier, and since I'm quite shy, I had to really coach myself to approach the counter every time I wanted to order food someplace. Most of the time, though, it turned out that the employees spoke enough English that I could order in English.

I meandered around the mall for a little while, finishing my frappuccino. I found a giant Gundam store and a Kakao Friends store, but didn't go inside either of them.

I got to Sinsa a little bit early so I could stop at the ATM again, so I could get enough cash to tip my tattoo artist and have little cash left in my pocket after my tattoo, since the concert merch and the tattoo pretty much used up everything I'd gotten out on Friday.

I was still early. The tattoo studio didn't open until 1pm - the time of my appointment - and I didn't want to show up early and cramp their style while they tried to get ready for their workday. I was worried about timing for after the tattoo - I had a ticket for the Sunday night concert, which started an hour earlier than the Saturday night show. This meant will-call opened at 2pm, seating started at 4pm, and the show started at 5pm. It took 45 minutes to get to Olympic Park from Sinsa station, but there was another station - on a different subway line - at the other end of the block. If I used that station, it was only a 30 minute ride. While I waited for it to be time for my appointment, I walked down to that station to see how long it took to walk there from the studio.

Since it was drizzling, I got pretty damp.

Once I'd satisfied myself that I knew exactly where the station was that I was going to need to dash to after my tattoo, I went to the studio.

Camoz and I looked at the art a little bit more, then went back to his work room. He hadn't spoken any English to me during my consultation while Duke was there, but now that it was just us, it turned out that he did speak enough English to manage a little bit of small talk (he mentioned that he'd been studying English for only 2 weeks!). He asked why I was in town, and I told him it was for a concert. He asked who, and I told him Block B. He laughed, but in a good-natured way... and then he grabbed his phone, connected it to his wireless speakers, found a Block B playlist, and left it playing the whole time he was tattooing me!

The tattoo is an anklet of 7 mugunghwa hibiscus blossoms (the national flower of South Korea) connected by the dotted-line "trail" of a bee that's visited all 7. It's my subtle Block B tattoo - my 7 flowers of Korea and their bee <3 

(Here's an "after" pic so you can see the art! Also, it's a little swollen here - I swear I don't have cankles!)

Camoz really couldn't get over the bee. He kept commenting on how cute it was and then kind of shaking his head like he couldn't believe he had drawn a cute thing. I guess he doesn't do "cute" very often.

At one point, he stopped to take a quick break, and I checked the time. We seemed to be on pace to finish just in time for me to get to the concert before it started, but since I couldn't be sure exactly how much longer we'd be, I still stressed about it a little. I wasn't too worried about missing the first song or two, since I'd just seen the same show the night before, but will-call's ticket pickup was supposed to close 30 minutes after the start of the show, so I was concerned that if I missed that timeframe, I wouldn't get into the show at all.

We ended up finishing my tattoo at 4:10pm and Camoz wanted to give it a few minutes to dry after he wiped it down, and then he'd take a picture of it and bandage it up. He said he'd be back in 5... but then took 20 minutes :( When he came back, I told him I was late and I needed to go, but he didn't quite understand me. He left again, very briefly this time, and returned with one of the girls (I'm not sure if it was Arang or Angie), who had a camera. They took pictures of my ankle from a few angles, and then Duke poked his head in to see how things were going. I told him that I really needed to run and he was like, "Oh! Right!" (I'd told him about the concert during our email communication but I guess he forgot.) He told the others in Korean for me, and Camoz smeared me with ointment and wrapped my ankle up quickly. Duke tried to give me the aftercare talk while I put my shoes and socks back on, but in my hurry, I kind of brushed him off, telling him it was my 4th tattoo and I'd already brought appropriate soap and ointment with me from home (which is true, but still).

I'd paid the remainder of the tattoo cost when I'd arrived, so as soon as my shoes were on, I was pretty much out the door. In my rushed panic and a sudden spike of shyness, I didn't give Camoz the tip I'd prepared for him. It's not normal or customary to tip tattoo artists in South Korea (I checked it out before the trip), so I'm sure he wasn't expecting a tip, but I was going to do it anyway and now I feel pretty guilty that I didn't. I love love love my tattoo, though, so I'd love to get another from him in the future, so I guess I'll just have to tip him then :D

It was about 4:45pm when I left the tattoo studio and dashed down the street to the subway station. I got to the platform just as a train was arriving and jumped on it. I had to change lines, and I got unlucky: the line I had to change to was the kind that has a fork in it, and the train I got on was headed down the wrong branch of the fork. I didn't know until I was one station past the split, so I had to get off, run to the other side of the platform, wait for another train, go back one station, get off, run around the platform again, and wait for a train going down the correct fork.

Since I was already late, I thought this was the death knell for my chances of seeing the Sunday night concert. The concert started at 5pm. My ticket was at Will-Call and Will-Call was supposed to close at 5:30. It was 5:31 when I stepped out of the subway station and RAN across the plaza. I reached the Will-Call tent at 5:35 and the staffers there were all packing up and taking down the signs and everything. I showed them my printout to claim my ticket and they pointed me toward the entrance door - they'd given the unclaimed tickets to the people checking tickets at the doors! I wasn't going to be denied entry for being late! I got my ticket, got inside, and found my seat just before the boys started Hesso Anhesso, which is one of my favorite songs <3

So, I missed the first 30 minutes of the Sunday night concert, but that's just fine. I saw it on Saturday, after all. I would've been crushed if I had been denied entry altogether, but the beginning of a concert is usually the slowest part, save for the very first song (they were opening with A Few Years Later)... so I still got to see the majority of the show.

The boys were a lot more relaxed for the Sunday night show. For Saturday, they'd been pumped and excited about their comeback and happy about putting on a show and they gave it their all. On Sunday, they were just as happy to be there, and they were having just as much fun on stage, but their entire attitude was more relaxed and playful. The energy flow between the boys and the audience was a bit different, too. Saturday's energy levels were a high plateau, while Sunday's energy levels were an exponential curve. The crowd was HYPED on Saturday, but at no point were the seated sections on their feet. On Sunday, the entire arena was standing and jumping around for the last 7-8 songs of the concert.

There were also a few technical difficulties on Sunday that hadn't happened on Saturday (good thing for the DVD filming, since that seemed to be Saturday-only). There was a little bit of minor glitching on one of the video screens, which wasn't that big of a deal, but then Very Good Rough Ver had a late start. Kyung hyped the song just like he had on Saturday, but then he got Jihoon to repeat his hype thing, which he hadn't done on Saturday. But then the song still didn't start. Jiho said something, but I'm not sure if he explained what was wrong or was just talking to the audience to stall for time. Then he beatboxed a couple bars of Boys and Girls so the drummer could pick up the beat, and then he and the others all launched into an impromptu vocals-and-drums-only verse of Boys and Girls, with lots of audience help.

After just the one verse of Boys and Girls, whatever the problem was had been fixed, and they launched into Very Good Rough Ver without further issue.

I didn't see them myself, but I heard that Winner and several of Block B's family members were in the audience on Sunday night, specifically Park Chan and Lee Taehyung. Someone said they thought they also saw Taeil's mom.

After the concert, I messaged our subbing team's concert meetup group to see if we were all free to meet up - even if just for a moment to take a proof-shot selfie and then part ways (since several had already mentioned other plans). They agreed to that plan, so we all gathered together and got to greet each other face-to-face, and then we took a picture together. (Not posting it here because I'm not sure they'd all be cool with it.)

After that, we split again. I ended up going with two of the others to find some dinner.

We took the subway to where they were staying and wandered around until we found a samgyupsal place. The owner of the restaurant knew even less English than I know Korean, but we managed to figure it all out and we got really great food!

When we finished eating, they headed back to their hotel and I headed back to the subway to find it eerily empty. Panicked that I'd missed the last train, I zoomed down to the platform. A train came and I was relieved. I got to the station where I needed to change lines and I did so without issue. That got me as far as Jamsil, which is just one station over from my hotel's station, but it's quite close and I could just take the sidewalk from Jamsil if I had to.

The other 2 people who got off the train with me who wanted to transfer to the same train as me (to go toward my hotel) were dashing down the hall, so I ran, too. One side of the gate to that hallway was closed, and there was an employee standing there ready to close the rest of the gate. She pointed at her wrist and then pointed toward the hallway and told me to hurry and run or I'd miss the train (she said all this in Korean, but I didn't need to know the language to understand her this time!)

I dashed down the hallway and jumped onto the train, which they were holding for me. I actually used my very-limited Korean vocabulary to thank and apologize to the employee who was standing there holding the train door for me.

So, I had to run and I inconvenienced the station employees, but I made it onto the last train from Jamsil to Mongchontoseong :D

When I got back to my room, I finally got the chance to take the bandage off my tattoo, wash it, and put fresh ointment on it, which felt awesome.

Here's another pic of the tattoo, showing the flowers on the opposite side of my ankle from where the bee is... (Again - swollen, swear I don't have cankles :P)

Monday 4/4

I woke up with my tattoo stuck to the bed sheets, and it left a perfect stamp of itself on the linens. Oops.

I got up, showered and washed my tattoo, got dressed, and came up with a vague plan for the day: I would go check out Gyeongbok Palace before lunch, and then if I hadn't come up with a better idea by after lunch, I'd go check out Seoul Land and see about riding some roller coasters.

I made it to the correct subway station for Gyeongbok Palace and followed the signs (and random artifact displays) toward the correct station exit. As I neared the exit, a guy asked me - in English - if he was going the right direction for the Palace. I said, "Yeah, I think so." And then after a moment, I followed with: "I hope so. I'm just following the signs."

He stuck with me.

He told me he was supposed to meet his friend, but he was early, and he suggested that he and I walk around the palace together, since we would both otherwise be alone. He was really friendly and easy to talk to and comfortable to be around. His friend eventually canceled on him altogether (they were apparently really hung over from the night before), so he and I ended up exploring the entire palace together.

My new friend asked me what else I had done during my trip in Seoul, and I told him about the concerts and the tattoo, and showed him my tattoo.

I learned that his name's JunHo, he's 22 and was in the last couple days of a brief vacation from his mandatory military service, which he'll be done with on June 1. He was born and raised in Seoul, but had never seen this palace before because he'd just never made a point of it. He doesn't have anything solid in place for after the military, but he dreams of being a tattoo artist, so he tries to work on his art when he can, and he's going to try to get an apprenticeship.

I don't have a pic of JunHo from the palace, but he took one of me:

My wifi wasn't working, but of course his data connection was, so I got him to friend me on Facebook and I told him that if he's ever in DC or NYC, I'll show him around. When we parted ways in the subway station, we agreed to be in touch later in the day (when I got back to wifi after Seoul Land) and we'd try to grab a drink or something.

Before Seoul Land, I went back to my hotel to eat some lunch. On the way, I stopped at Lotte Mart and grabbed some instant ramyun.

I accepted JunHo's friend request on the hotel wifi, and we talked a bit on fb messenger. He was supposed to spend the night with the friend who'd flaked on him, and now he wasn't sure what his plan was... (I edited his surname out of these screenshots)

Around this time, I started cursing about why this sort of thing never happened when I was single! XD Meeting a cute, easy to talk to soldier in a subway station and enjoying a beautiful, sunny day together at a gorgeous cultural landmark... and then he wants to have a sleepover at my love hotel?

Of all the times to be married! *shakes fist at universe*

Oh well. C'est la vie, I guess.

So, since my phone was on airplane mode for the entirety of my trip, the clock on my lock screen never updated to KST. My local time at home is 13 hours behind Seoul, so if I just swapped AM/PM in my head, my phone clock was only an hour off. If I unlock the screen, I've got a few "world clocks" showing different cities, one of which is Seoul, so if I just unlock my screen, I don't even have to convert the time in my head. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but while I was eating lunch, this all slipped my mind. I kept checking the top corner of my phone display for the time while I was chatting on fb, and since it wasn't my lock screen, I forgot it was an hour off. So I started thinking it was an hour earlier than it actually was.

I left my hotel thinking that I was going to get to Seoul Land shortly after 4pm, which is when the late-afternoon admission discount kicks in. But, since I screwed up the time, I actually got there closer to 5:30pm. It turned out that they had a foreigner discount - I didn't ask, but since I'm white, they assumed - so I only had to pay W15,000 admission.

Seoul Land was pretty much deserted, and some of the bigger rides were still closed for the winter. I hadn't thought about that. One of the roller coasters was running, so I rode that. It was a good steel coaster with a couple of medium drops and a corkscrew. Nothing super impressive, but I'm spoiled with Busch Gardens Williamsburg just an hour down the road from home.

Everland is supposed to be better than Seoul Land. Next time I go to Korea, I'll have to verify that in person!

I also rode the Top Spin. The Viking Ship wasn't running, so I didn't get to ride that, which is a shame because that's one of my favorite ride types (aside from the biggest, baddest roller coasters I can find!).

Once I felt like I'd gotten my money's worth out of Seoul Land, I started heading back. On the walk back to the subway, my phone started making a bunch of fuss in my pocket. I pulled it out and realized it had found a random wifi signal and was getting all the notifications I'd missed while I'd been away from wifi. I stopped in my tracks to avoid walking out of the range of wherever the signal was coming from.

One of the notifications was a message from JunHo:

So I headed back to the subway. 

I got to Cheongnyangni station on time, but it's a very big station and it seems to be a subway station and city-to-city train station combined - they share the name but they're actually more like two connected stations instead of one big station. I figured all of that out the hard way, though. I followed the signs for the exit and I found exits 1, 2, and 3, but there was no 4! I was in what looked like a big waiting room for people waiting for the city-to-city train and I ran all over that room looking for a station map that would show all of the numbered exits, but I couldn't find one. Finally, I went back down to the subway platform because I'd literally exhausted all other possibilities, even though it felt like it couldn't possibly be right. Once I got down there, I headed to the other end of the platform and found some stairs. I walked past an underground direct-from-the-station entrance to another Lotte Mart and up several more flights of stairs and finally found exit 4! I ran up the stairs and JunHo was standing there waiting for me!

I was 20 minutes late but I made it!

We walked three or four blocks down to this place:

(I found this picture on Google after the fact - it was nighttime when we were there.)

JunHo's friend YuRim was already there waiting for us. I think the two of them had already had a beer or two and some food before I showed up, and I felt a little bad that JunHo had waited at the subway exit for me for so long while I ran around lost, because it meant YuRim was stuck sitting at the table in the bar alone for probably 30-40 minutes... but they didn't hold it against me :D

I hadn't had dinner, so I picked some chicken thing off the menu (which turned out to be like spicy popcorn chicken and was really yummy!). I'm not usually really into beer - I don't like hops - but since we were at a place that called itself a "beer house", I figured I should at least sample their wares. JunHo recommended some cream beer that was a special on the menu and I said, "Okay. I trust you."

He goes, "You'd better!" and jumps up to go tell the girl at the bar to bring us a round.

We drank and ate the spicy chicken poppers and had a great time. JunHo told me about his girl problems - he apparently has a crush on this blonde/blue eyed girl named Morgan (maybe he has a thing for the blonde/blue eyed girls and that's why he talked to me in the subway?) but she has a boyfriend... and then YuRim said she can't forget her first love, who was a girl she went to school with who's apparently seeing somebody else now. She said she keeps a pic of her in her purse and pulled it out so we could see. She was really cute!

JunHo also casually dropped into the conversation that when he has feelings for girls - and sometimes guys - he has no trouble telling them how he feels.

(Meanwhile, I'm low key internally screaming again about being married.)

After the beers we decided we wanted soju (the other two asked if I'd had soju before and were a bit stunned when I told them that it's easy to get at home). The girl behind the bar brought us a bottle of raspberry flavored soju and it was really delicious. We passed the bottle around, filling each other's shot glasses over and over. Next thing we know, we've gone through 2 bottles of raspberry soju.

The other two had each stepped out to go to the bathroom at some point, so when I had to pee, I asked JunHo to point me in the right direction. He takes me outside and into the stairwell between the beer house and the building next door and points to a door on the landing. It turned out to be exactly the sort of bathroom that you might find at the kind of gas station where you have to get the key from the attendant and then walk around the outside of the building... except it was also a squatty potty. I barely remember it because of the soju, but that was my first (and, so far, only) experience with a squatty potty.

When I returned from the bathroom, JunHo and YuRim were sitting out front of the beer house having a cigarette. We stood outside and chatted while they smoked. Then we went back inside and had a third bottle of raspberry soju and took some drunken selfies to commemorate the occasion.

We paid for our food/drinks and then walked back toward the train/subway station. We said goodbye to YuRim on the sidewalk and she headed down the stairs into the subway station, then JunHo and I walked across a little plaza and entered the train station so he could catch his train to his parents' town.

When we walked inside, I realized we had just walked through the exit 1 door into the waiting area where I'd originally been when I was trying to find exit 4! I was like, "This is where I was when I was lost!" and we realized that, if I had only known, I could have just used exit 1 and walked across the plaza instead of wandering underground through the station looking for exit 4!

I had plenty of time before the last subway train, so JunHo asked me to sit and wait with him in the waiting area until it was time for his train, which was really only about 20 minutes. My memory of this is also drunken and hazy, but I think we talked mostly about NYC - he's never visited, so I was telling him about all the places I'll take him to if he ever does visit.

We agreed that the day was awesome and we were both glad we'd encountered each other in the Gyeongbuk Palace station that morning, and promised to keep in touch. He gave me a hug and then we both headed to our respective train platforms.

As I navigated - solo - down to the subway platform, I really realized how drunk I was. I got on the train and there weren't any free seats, so I stood near the door and held onto one of the poles and just closed my eyes, feeling myself kind of float and sway as the train moved. It was actually fairly enjoyable, but I'm sure everyone around me was like, "OMG look at this drunk- foreigner."

I had to change subway lines along the way, and as I swerved my way through the station and up the stairs to the other platform, I passed a girl who was clearly way more drunk than me, and I felt a little vindicated.

I made it back to my hotel in one piece and checked in with both my husband and JunHo to let them know I was safely in my room for the night.

Tuesday 4/5

I woke up still drunk.

There's not much to tell about Tuesday, really.

I took my time getting moving, playing on my phone while I had some food/drink.

I drank both of the cans of apple Tropicana Sparkling that I had in my mini-fridge, which probably wasn't the best way to re-hydrate after a night of drinking because of all the sugar, but they taste so damn good. I also had a bowl of instant ramyun, which was likewise probably not the best breakfast after a night of soju, but it was what I had in the room and I needed to either eat it or throw it away.

After that I took a shower and spent some time packing all my stuff up, then I set out to head back to the airport, which meant an hour and a half on the subway (two line transfers). I changed trains at Hongdae, which was the closest I got to actually seeing Hongdae. That'll have to be an adventure for my next visit to Seoul.

At the airport, the check-in line was brutally long and by the time I got to the front of it, I was so worn out that I just checked my bag, which I usually never do, but I didn't want to have to lug it around anymore. My laptop and all of my concert goods were in the bag, so I would have been crushed if the airline lost my bag forever (always my fear)... but, I reasoned, the risk of that is relatively low.

(Goodbye, Seoul! I'll be back!)

I went back the same way I came - changing planes in Hong Kong. I had a pretty quick connection this time, and they actually had an airport employee waiting at the end of the ramp for me when I got off the plane, because apparently I was one of four or five people with really quick connections, and I was the only one going to NYC (and had the quickest connection of all). It was still plenty of time to get up to my boarding gate, but they wanted to make sure they pointed me directly there so I wouldn't have to worry about finding my way on my own (which would have been easy, but still). I appreciated it, since it took all the stress out of the quick connection - I had time to pee and go straight to my gate and I had someone point me in the exact correct direction, and I knew the airline was aware of my quick connection and they were looking out for me.

(Successfully on my plane in Hong Kong!)

I worried a bit about my checked bag successfully making the quick connection, but it was just fine and it showed up in the baggage claim carousel in JFK without any issue.

Then, it was just a matter of retracing my steps from Wednesday: take the AirTrain back to Jamaica, grab the Long Island Railroad to NY Penn Station, switch to the New Jersey Transit train and get off at MetroPark. When I got back to my car in New Jersey, it was about midnight, and I had to be at work at 8:30am (no rest for the wicked!).

Finally got home around 6am, took a shower, ate some breakfast, and chilled for a little bit, then headed to work. The Nuvigil got me through the day again, but not as well as it did on the first day in Seoul, when I had the excitement of being in Seoul to sustain me.