Top Shelf Quality Weirdness

Spoiler alert: today was a banner day for our family.  It had everything: randomness, excitement, history, fine food, and fun folks. Seoul is collectively our new favorite city in the world, sorry Tokyo.

We started the day with a quick breakfast at Paris Baguette. Jane wanted to try this bakery and today seemed a fine day for a fast breakfast. 

They had lots of sensible breakfast sandwich choices, much to our surprise. This is a major chain here and a few locations in the US, like Katy Asia Town.  Jane just wanted a breakfast without anything that tastes like fish.  Her first sandwich selection (ham egg and cheese) did taste like fish (I can vouch for her here) but her second was free and clear.

After our quick cheap breakfast, we took the subway to Gyeongbokgung Palace, a 14th century royal palace smack dab in the middle a cityscape. We emerged from the station topside into the palace grounds to find a wonderland of folks in hanboks, the traditional Korean dresses.  The majority were Korean men and women, but there was representation of every ethnicity, size, age, and nationality. Jane was entranced, and we explained that one got free entrance into the palace when wearing the hanbok.  She was excited to participate, and we walked out of the grounds to find a place to rent one for her. The rental stores were everywhere!  They were cheap and had a huge variety of styles and colors in every size, (and I mean every size).  After serious study, jane decided to buck the pastel trend and pick bold colors for her dress and accessories.  They had her dressed in 5 minutes and even did her hair, including costume and hair accessories. A mere $10 later, we were street side again with a fully-costumed and hair-styled Jane. 

The palace was jam-packed with people in period Korean costumes with their sometimes professional and other times family/friend photographers. The sun was bright and the weather hot, so we had to work at finding the right spot. Joel proved himself a masterful photographer once again, producing portrait after portrait that seemed to show Jane in a nearly or fully empty palace. Jane and I were mightily impressed with his artistic skills. Jane wanted a Korean fairytale look with serious portraits, and here’s Joel’s handiwork.  You can be the judge reader, but Jane and I dubbed him our photog hero!

To show how urban this palace really was, here are pics showing the actual situation.  It was surrounded but modernity, and the contrast charmed us.

We still had time on the rental when we decided to take a family portrait together.  We went back to the store where Joel and I got dressed up too.  We went to a Photo Booth store next door and snapped us together, silly photos that will probably make the back of our Christmas card this year.  The costumes were HOT, even with hoop skirts keeping them off our legs, and we were in a fully drenched sweat.  We quickly changed out and went for cold drinks and air conditioning.

After we were all cooled off, it was time to break the seal and experience K-beauty stores and snag some products.  Olive Young is the main brand of beauty store here, carrying all of the cutting edge products, both Korean and foreign.  They are about as common as Starbucks in the US (and here!), but right next to our hotel was the Flagship Olive Young store.  Wow, it was 2 stories of overwhelming!

We found an adult manager and asked for her help selecting products.  All of the young workers were in matching uniforms, but this woman was in a full suit and was clearly the adult in charge.  Her help made it all seem easy, suggesting products for Joel and I based on the specific skin care aspirations we had.  The prices were ridiculously cheap, a combination of the insanely favorably exchange rate and a massive sale they were having (that ends tomorrow).  After helping us,  Jane asked her for help finding products. The manager took a good close look at Jane’s face and told Jane that her skin was perfect and blemish-free.  She refused to recommend any products for her, saying she needed nothing.  Jane beamed and immediately headed up to the makeup department, instantly bored with skincare.  I could have hugged the lady right there.  She probably could have sold Jane both products and damaged her self esteem in one stroke, but she refused.

After a surprisingly cheap checkout, we headed to find a special outfit for Jane. No spoilers here, but she needed something specific for later this week.  The Korean-made clothes are cheap ($10 to $20 tops and $15 to $25 pants) and Jane was excited by the bargains. As a side note, Jane struggled to find any clothes she really liked in New York City over spring break, really anywhere.  In San Antonio, we struggle to find age appropriate clothes in her preferred style, feminine but not girly or revealing.  But here?  Wow, it’s all so cool and cutting edge!  Seoul is brimming with a youthful and creative energy, with new fashion trends and inventive tailoring sprouting everywhere in and in every price range.  From the k-pop street style to their adult workwear, there are achievable and tasteful clothes all over.  Jane is inspired everywhere she looks.

We decided to take a book break in our hotel room and do some laundry. Our hotel has free washer and dryers that even have automatic feeding detergent, no supplies needed.  I had just stained a white shirt with lipstick in Olive Young and we have weeks worth of dirty laundry.  

Here’s our hotel room with all of our shirts hanging up to dry.  We selected a family room, which ended up being gigantic, 3 times the size of the micro rooms in the hotel, judging by the floor plan.  It’s a great value, because we hardly paid more than the standard room.

For summer today, we tried Dakgalbi, a chicken stew of sorts that usually includes cheese.  It’s a popular food for millennials and teenagers, slightly spicy and filled with vegetables.

We ordered a serving size for 3, and were intimidated when this giant bubbling cauldron of food was delivered to our table. 

We ate perhaps a quarter of it before we were all full. Jane got a melon soda, if you’re wondering what the neon green beverage is. 

This meal came with a cabbage salad, but it was topped with cereal. Jane confirmed they were Frosted Flakes, much to our amusement.  

Later we realized Joel had eaten all of the Frosted Flakes and most of the cabbage. Jane and I had a hearty laugh, but he just shrugged us off with a “When in Rome…”. 

Jane described our wandering as Top Shelf Quality Weirdness, and nothing really sums it up better. Around every corner seems another amusing surprise, like pick your own octopus for dinner or a massive shop full of colored non-prescription contacts (there are a lot of those).  In tribute to todays weirdness, here’s some random weirdness pictures from our Korean Moments the last 2 weeks:

We have talked about these undies for the entire trip. They had a zipper pouch in them. Jane insists that’s where you keep your snacks. 

This shop only sold white bread and it was consistently sold out when we would pass.  It was very expensive white bread. 

This was the Lotte Hotel photo setup. 

This shop says it sells 30 centimeter ice cream. This is Jane and I both guessing how big 30 cm is. We think we have to go back there to get one eventually, just to see how big that is. 

An entry in the weird English T-shirt competition. 

Jane loves off brand toys. 

This is a very hip Korean street wear brand. We first saw this shirt in Daegu and have talked about it ever since. We would have gotten one but it’s $$$$.

Just riding a spotless scent-free Seoul subway with polite and quiet fellow Seoul passengers. 

Joel couldn’t decide what hat to get, but he loved all 3. “Colorado, Est. 1977” was a strong contender, but he chose “monotone” instead. 

Busan at night from our hotel room window. 

Off to bed!  More adventures tomorrow.