October 19th, 2023

Day 1

Today I was supposed to meet with Kihyun all day, but silly me, I really thought that I would arrive on the 18th, which would give me a full night’s rest and look sharp as hell the next morning. After I realized that I will be arriving by 5 PM on the 19th, I let Kihyun know, and she offered to pick me up at the airport. She lives in Incheon, which is the city where the airport is located at; still, she is going to take the subway to the airport, pick me up, take an hour long taxi ride with me to Seoul, and take the subway back, which adds another 90 minutes to the tally. I am really surprised and happy that she would do that for me. Since she arrived like 30 seconds after the plane has landed (as soon as I turned off airplane mode), I was going to rush through everything so she wouldn’t wait for me. You see where this is going.

Everything went smoothly at the customs counter, and I waited at the carousel for my luggages. The golf bag and one of my luggages arrived very soon, so I was relieved that I could get out fast. Except it took another 10 minutes for my last luggage to arrive, and it arrived with a lock on it.

I literally puffed air from my mouth after I read what’s written on the lock. I kinda knew it was going to happen, because in that luggage I have 5 boxes of cigars which is more than what Korea allows but is less than what China is allowing us to bring. Don’t worry, I don’t smoke. It’s for my brother in law, again. However, this means that it will take another 30 minutes to finish. The lock itself looks flimsy though, I can probably cut the wire really easily with a wire cutter. But I don’t want to risk jail time in Korea, plus I don’t have a wire cutter in my luggage that day.

So I went to the area where they inspect your luggage. I told them I am bringing this to China and showed them my itinerary. One of the guys asked me if this is weed, which is understandable, since I am an American lol. They’re all very nice though, so there is nothing to get defensive about. The guy told me that they will have to hold the cigars in the airport until my flight back to China, and I could keep one of the boxes because it has been opened. That is a little stupid, but I am not going to fight a customs officer in a foreign country. Again, I don’t want to go to jail in Korea. So I very “happily” agreed to let them hold my cigars for 14,000 Korean won, which was about 10 dollars. He gave me three stacks of paper explaining what is going to happen and how do I get my stuff back. I thanked him, grabbed my stuff, and rushed out to see Kihyun.

Kihyun has been waiting for me for a very long time. Do you recall seeing an extremely pretty girl at the airport waiting for a really nothing kinda guy, and thought to yourself how weird it is? Yeah that’s us. Thank God she didn’t wear her heels, as she would dwarf me if she did. We went to the taxi station and tried to fit my luggages in a normal taxi. My plan was to put my backpack and the carry-on baggage into the trunk, the 2 checked baggages and the golf bag on the backseat with me, and Kihyun would be in the front seat. She didn’t want to sit in the front seat alone, so we just went for the van. They’re called Venti in Korea. They are actually not that much more expensive compared to a regular cab. It would take 50,000 won without traffic and 65,000 with traffic to get to my hotel from the airport, the venti is around 75,000 to 80,000, which compared to the U.S., is honestly not that expensive.

We got to my hotel, put my stuff inside, and went out to eat. We are going to Itaewon, the district with a lot of foreigners, and the tragedy that happened a year ago with the stampede. Since I knew how to call a cab through Kakao T from the last time I was in Korea, I just opened the app and clicked on taxi. However, it kept showing me an error message and told me to try again later. I tried again later and later and after but to no avail. Since Kihyun is Korean, she just waved at an empty taxi and told the driver the way. I am so glad she could speak Korean. If it were me, I would probably die there.

We arrived at the place. Since the only thing I know how to say in Korean is hello and thank you, and I read 0 Korean, Kihyun led the way. I have no idea where she is taking me, so I just followed her.

We walked to a giant black wall somewhere, and she asked me to hold a big-ass pen that’s hanging on the wall while she videotapes. After I put my hand on the pen, she asked me to pull down on it, I did, and holy crap the wall next to me opened. Turns out these types of restaurants with hidden doors are very popular in Korea. Who knew.

Restaurant name: 교촌필방

Address: 127 Bogwang-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea

We got in, and the decoration of the place is fantastic. I didn’t take pictures of the interior while we were in there, but there are even hidden walls within the restaurant itself. There is a wall that is lined up with shelves, and one of the shelves open and has another room behind it. Holy crap right? I see a white guy trying to pull on it to open, but it wouldn’t budge. Lol.

Kihyun really wanted me to experience the Korean experience with fried chicken and beer; but since neither of us are actually good at drinking, we just ended up ordering sodas. I mean, alcohol does nothing to me, it just doesn’t taste good to me; but I didn’t want to get Kihyun’s parents mad at her for drinking.

The soda we ordered tastes kind of like sprite, just stronger. She’s never had it before too, and I am glad she picked this one. Food arrived later on. She ordered a huge platter.

The dark brown ones on the top left corner of the picture are soy sauce ones, the ones on the right corner are honey, and the rest are flavorless. For the flavorless ones, you are supposed to use the pen brush and brush sauce onto them, which is super cool. However, one problem arises. Why don’t you just dip it into the sauce? I mean I get why, it is for the presentation, but it just takes way too many steps for something as simple as dipping it into the sauce. In Chinese, we call it 脱裤子放屁, which roughly translates to “take one’s pants off in order to fart”, which means it’s redundant. I probably don’t need to explain to you the mechanism of a fart, but you don’t need to take your pants off to fart that’s for sure. Why am I typing so much about farting.

Even though the food is pretty good, since I had too much airplane food plus it’s late at night, I only ate like 4 while Kihyun ate more (haha). While she was in the bathroom, the waiter asked if everything was okay, and I asked for the check. I forgot that you have to pay by the register in Korean restaurants. I followed the waiter to the cash register and paid, while another waiter ran towards me and hands me Kihyun’s coat. Turns out they thought we were done eating, apparently in Korea after you pay, you just leave.

I returned to my seat to wait for Kihyun, and after she came back, she’s ready to go and was going to pay. I told her I already paid, and she didn’t seem too happy about it; but what’s done is done. We got out, and went to a coffee shop type place where it’s takeout only. To the people who know me well, my stomach is the worst. For this exact reason, I have purposefully bought a bottle of Pepto Bismol for my trip to Korea, but I just forgot to drink it before leaving it for food that night. After she fought me off on paying, I went back to the restaurant we ate earlier to use their bathroom. After I returned, the drinks were still not done. Kihyun told me that they just had a big online order and just started to make ours. We ordered her favorite, the Sweet Potato Latte. I did not know stuff like this existed at all, and I expected some sort of coffee, even though I knew full well that latte only means milk in Italian. After ours were done, I tasted it, it really is good.

After we got our drinks, since I know she has strict parents, I thought this was going to be it and she has to go home, but she took me to a karaoke place.

Name: 노래야노래야코인노래연습장

Address: 58 Itaewon-ro 27ga-gil, 이태원제1동 Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea

I have no idea if the above information is correct, but it is the only karaoke place I could find using Navermap after the fact. This karaoke place has around 10 rooms on the second floor, and each room is about 1 m * 2m, which is rather small, however it sits around 5 people comfortably. We picked a room, and picked the 30 minutes option, and I put my card in while she was looking for her wallet. She got mad again, and since she is working out now, I am glad that she didn’t punch me.

I snapped this picture, and just as I was about to record her singing, she pushed my phone away. What a shame. You’ll know why on the 22nd, the 4th day.

We each sang a couple of songs, and the 30 minutes was up. She wasn’t done singing, so she ordered another 30 minutes. This time she was able to push my card away while she paid. My stomach decided to embarrass me again, so I went to the bathroom in the karaoke place. After I’m back, we sang a couple of songs, and decided to call it a night when the time was up. It was 11:30 PM, so her parents are not very happy.

She checked on her phone, and apparently there are no more subways, and the only public transportation left takes 1 hour and 28 minutes for her to get home, which is not good. I offered to call a taxi for her, so I booked one on Uber, yes, Uber. Uber works in Korea. I learned that while researching online on how to fix the Kakao T thing. My original plan was to call a taxi to my hotel, and then Kihyun can take the taxi back to her place. However, I just then realized that Kihyun isn’t comfortable taking the taxi alone, so when the driver arrived and denied our request to extend it to Incheon, I was kinda glad, well, one because we can cancel, and one that I had to run to the bathroom one more time.

After I got back, I told her that I am going to take the taxi with her to Incheon, drop her off, and then take the taxi back to my hotel. She said no, since we literally just got back from Incheon, it will take too long for me to get back to my hotel. Kihyun reassured me that it would be fine and she is okay with it. So we called a taxi that had the route of “here—my hotel—Kihyun’s home”.

While we were on the taxi, she told me how her parents are concerned for me because of my stomach problems. Guess Kihyun told her parents what was going on with my insides. She also told me that her mom is angry that she is letting me pay for taxi, and that she would rather drive all the way over here to pick Kihyun up than to let me pay for her. It almost sounds like her mom hates me, but it really was not, she is just a sweet lady that doesn’t want to burden me. But for us East Asians, we can’t let a girl pay for stuff when we’re out. Plus, it is really nice seeing her, I didn’t really care.

After I got to my hotel, Kihyun reassured me again that she is okay taking the taxi home by herself. I was kinda worried for my stomach so I got off the cab. But if there was no stomach problem that day (I think it’s the fried chicken at night thing with all the plane food mixed together), I would ride with her though. It’s just good manners.

I slept like a freak’in baby after I got her text saying she got home.