Manila, 15 February—I sort of hurt my wrist while on vacation, holding on to heavy jackets and miscalculating my attachment to bus handles, so this installment is about to come to you very, very slowly.
First off, apologies that I skipped last week’s letter—it was a busy weekend that was half-Komiket 2020 and half prepping for our brief trip to Seoul.
A brief paragraph about Komiket: It was the event’s first time at SM Megamall and I’m glad to say it was a rousing success! I think it’s my third time PA’ing for these guys right here, and I’m so proud.
I’m just flabbergasted at how creative and hardworking these guys are. There’s an upcoming con—Stickercon MNL—at the end of the month, and we’d love to see you there as well!
All Seoul’d Out!
ANYWAY. Happy to report that I have now traveled abroad for fun. It’s been a while since I last traveled abroad—I only ever traveled abroad for work, and the last time I did was when I traveled to Singapore for a coverage in 2016. That was actually a fun coverage—granted, it was my last foreign assignment for PDI.
Since then, I haven’t had too many opportunities to travel. My passport remained in my drawer unused for three years—until C and I decided to target a few foreign trips for 2020. Why not right?
While I still travel for work these days, they’ve been mostly domestic, and mostly to places I’ve been to before, so it’s somewhat automatic. The familiarity is comforting, and that’s probably why I’m not very much of a traveler.
To be honest, traveling to new places makes me anxious, and a part of me agreed to travel to Korea because C has been there before a number of times. Besides, I have a handful of friends who are so enamoured with it; I just decided to see for myself why, finally.
For a starter trip, we skipped all of the usual haunts—and for one very vital practicality: Big tourist crowds scared us, virus-wise. Also, it was still winter, so the temperature played between 0 to 7 degrees while we were there, which limited the number of outdoor activities we could engage in.
So here’s 10 things we did instead:
Visited Starfield Library [map]
Visited the Statue of Admiral Yi Sun Shin (az an ML player, a must) and Statue of King Sejong the Great at Gwanghwamun Square [map]
Walked along Cheonggyechon at sunset [map]
Played with cats in Myeongdong [Godabang Cat Cafe map]
Visited Dongdaemun Design Plaza [map]
Walked across Seoullo 7017 [map]
Ate chicken and beer [Mexx Myeongdong map]
Ate bread at Namdaemun market [map]
Ate spicy chicken galbi with cheese [Yoogane Myeongdong map]
Went grocery shopping at Lotte Mart near Seoul Station [map]
Insert the requisite ang galing ng bus system nila, gumagana, one beep card for all, on time dumarating at umaalis, sasabihin ng Naver sa ‘yo kung maluwang, etc etc.
A word about the weather: February is still somewhat winter, but we got lucky I think because the season was already slowly turning. Had we planned a bit earlier, we would have been hit by minus-12 weather. (It was 3-deg when we got there. Verdict: Poland in December still worse LOL.)
C kept saying this was the most chill vacation she’d ever been on, in the sense that there’s no hour-on-hour itinerary and I think I’d like to take pride in the fact that I’m not a stressful vacation buddy haha. Also, for me, it’s mostly about the company :) Because I’d never traveled abroad for leisure before, this also means it’s my first time to vacation abroad with a significant other, and that’s a milestone marked for me. Who says you can’t teach an old cat new tricks? :) Mixing my metaphors, I know, but maybe—just maybe—there’s hope for me yet.
Anyway, some additional hacks:
We loved the fact that Korean cable has a channel specifically dedicated to pets, Sky pet park. We had that on throughout our trip, and it was adorable.
Struggling with Google maps? Download and navigate with Naver map instead.
This is by no means a definitive guide; just me trying to write down things so I wouldn’t forget. Also: We plan to go back! Hopefully to visit Hongdae and try out the bar scene on a weekend HAHA.
Thanks for making it this far.
don’t wanna be,
K
(All by my shelves~)