February 25, 2024

My time in Korea this time will not be like my other trips here. It is not going to be really travel-blog-like either because I’m not really here to sightsee but to see firends. There won’t be lots of pictures of different places like I have from my other trips to South Korea but only about reuniting with people whom I hold dear.

It’s not like I’m not doing that for Indonesia, I am visiting my olderdaughter there; however, I will still be doing a bunch of interesting and new things while this brief Seoul visit is about visiting and revisiting nothing else.

As I mentioned in the first post about this trip, this time away was not about visiting Seoul at all. However, once I figured out I could spend a couple of days here and not impact how much time I thought I could take off, I contacted my friend, Seunghye.

Seunghye is a faculty member at the unviersity where I work. We were introduced by another faculty member after she found out about my first trip to Seoul in 2013 to study Korean at Seoul National University in one of its summer programs. We have been friends ever since.

She and her husband were both born and raised in Korea but have dual citizenship . Several years ago, the Boston company where he worked was sold, and he was transferred to South Korea, so they only got to visit during university holidays/breaks. During this same period, her mother’s health started to decline. Last year, she took a leave of absence to come to Korea to take care of her mother. So I haven’t seen her since she left the States last summer.

I met her mother during my trip to Seoul in the summer of 2017. Before moving back here last year, Seunghye would always come to do research and to visit her mother in the summers. Our trips overlapped that year. Shortly after I arrived, I met her and her mother for lunch.

At the time, I knew how to speak some (okay a little) Korean. We had a great lunch though. You know I love her mother because she kept talking about how young I looked. She also thought I was smaller than she expected. She has an image of Americans being really big, and Seunghye is taller than me. She was also impressed that I ate and liked Korean food (I ordered bimbimpap) and that I ate kimchi. Moms the world over love to watch people eat!

Seunghye and I even took a train trip to Busan that summer.

After that, her mom always asked about me when they spoke, and I always asked about her. Her mother even treated me to a meal when I came again to study in the winter of 2019. Unfortunately, I can’t find those pictures, which is making me sad. I realized recently that many of those pictures from my 2019 trip to Seoul are lost somewhere in the ether. Maybe Alex will help me find a way to find them in the Cloud.

I remember that I was struggling with studying that winter. The Korean course was really too intense for me. We covered the same amount of material in three weeks that we had covered in the five weeks I had studied in 2013. I had still been taking lessons at the time, but it was all too fast. I was also trying to keep up with work. I was attending meetings by phone even though I was 14 hours ahead. I remember calling into an exec staff meeting the night before my midterm. I couldn’t miss that meeting because we were reviewing personnel requests. No surprise. I did not do as well as I had hoped on that exam.

Seunghye’s mom felt so sorry to me and for me studying alone here in Seoul that she invited me to dinner with two of her granddaughters who both speak English. She kept ordering me more food, and I remember that Seunghye was jealous when her niece video messaged her because her mom fed me both bulgogi AND galbi! It’s the kind of thing my mother would have done–take care of me during my struggle. I felt so grateful; even as a woman in my 50s, I was still a miserable student needing comfort from a parent, and Seunghye’s mom did that for me.

I always intended to come back to Korea. The plan was to keep enough money aside to go to the UK on even years and Korea in odd years, and I was successful for a bit: 2017 and 2019 Seoul/ 2016, 2018, and 2020 London.

Well, we all know happened that spring of 2020.

I could have come back last winter. That would have put me back on the rotation, but I needed a different kind of trip for my return to traveling abroad, something more restful and less anxiety inducing.

I didn’t want to study either, especially since I knew I would have to start from scratch. I had tried to keep up my Korean studies with the new responsibilities of my administrative position. I even took lessons through the Korea Society remotely when we were all shut in, but it was a real struggle. I realized that studying Korean wasn’t fun anymore when I noticed that I was having stomache aches before every lesson. The relief I felt when I dropped out of my class was palpable and sad.

Work struggle after work struggle seemed to pile on. I also stopped blogging about Asian dramas as well because I just didn’t have time, and I felt that my postings there were getting sloppy because I didn’t really want to watch the variety of dramas I thought made a good breadth of reviews. I couldn’t stomache serious quality dramas because realism was too real. It was a sad time for me feeling as though I was giving up lots of things I used to love–giving them up and over to relieve some of the physical effects of the anxiety that they caused.

Coming back to Korea last winter would not have been relaxing: in my state of mind and knowing I was less prepared to study than before, it would have felt like a failure.

But a year makes lots of difference. I also knew that I wanted to see Seunghye’s mom again before . . . I couldn’t. It’s not just that she has struggled with health issues this past year but that she is in her 90s now. This chance was a gift that I felt like I might not get again. It’s why the snow and the delay worried me so much.

So pre-trip I masked up and washed my hands like it was 2020 again. I could not afford to get sick. I didn’t want to have anything go wrong with me coming here this time. The place where Seunghye’s mom lives now makes every visitor take a COVID test and takes their temperature upon arrival. You are not allowed to visit any resident not just if you have a positive COVID test but even if you have a slight fever.

I took the subway from Seoul to Suji where Seunghye lives with her husband, John. It’s about an hour by subway but a very easy shot. I take line 3 from Anguk Station to Sinsa and switch to the Shinbundang line to Seongbok station. That’s the part of the ride that is the longest.

But can I tell you how much I love the subway system in Korea? I didn’t take many pictures because I was in a hurry and it was crowded on the way back, but I did take some to try to show people what is so great about it. First, it’s clean and bright. Not like the subways in Boston or Philadelphia. Signage is also really good.

What you will notice from the pictures is that the train tracks are not accessible to passengers. For the majority of the stations this is true. When a train arrives, the doors of the train slide open and these do, too. Never a fear of being tossed onto the tracks. The other item I like are the spots of the floor in front of the doors. As you can see, there are two arrows pointing towards the door. Each represents the first spot for the first person in line to get on. Everyone else is supposed to line up behind that person, and people do!

The other sign contains numbers which let you know what door this is. Savvy subway riders (I’m not one of them) know what door to line up in front of to get on the car that is closest to the exit or transfer they need at their next stop. There are apps that will tell you this, too, but I haven’t figured them out.

There are lots of other reasons to like the system here, which has expanded quite a bit since I was here last, but I will have to leave more discussion of the subway for another trip.

I met Seunghye outside of exit 4 at Seongbok station, and we sqeeled like schoolgirls. Everyone was staring because we were so loud, but I didn’t care. It was so good to see her face in person after such a long time! We stopped to pick up some snacks for her mother, and Seunghye insisted I buy something to eat for breakfast the next day. Then we headed over to visit her mother.

The place is really beautiful, and the staff friendly and helpful. Seunghye feels really fortunate to have found this spot for her mother. I was happy, and her mother was so thankful that I had traveled so far and wanted to see her. Apparently, even Seunghye’s brothers were surprised, but I can’t explain how overwhelmed I felt seeing her again and getting such a warm hug from her and the delight on her face from seeing me. I felt so warm being able to sit there holding her hand.

She even gave Seunghye money to take me to lunch! Typical mom action.

You know I love her because when I apologized for forgetting my Korea and gaining so much weight since the last time we met (pre-COVID me was in shape), she told Seunghye that I looked lovely and that my curves were glamorous. “Curves.” Oh, Eomeoni, thanks for calling that extra I’m carrying around curves and saying I’m glamorous. Moms always think you are beautiful. 😀

At the end of our visit, after we saw her go up the elevator with her caregiver, both Seunghye and I cried. I’m crying right now as I write this. It was just so wonderful to see her and to give back to her a fraction of the comfort she provided me when I was here last and feeling so down.

But of course, we had to follow what mom says. Seunghye took me to lunch. The first place we went was closed, so we ended up at a place called Sandeul-Ae for a very traditional Korean meal.

Don’t ask what all the side dishes are called. I don’t know. I do know that the main dishes were fish and bulgogi. I also know that I ate a lot and laughed a lot with Seunghye. We did talk about serious things; how could we not after seeing her mother. But it was so good to see her again in person.

After lunch, we went back to her apartment. Her husband’s company helped them find this place, which was great since it can be especially hard to find a good apartment when you aren’t in country. I don’t think that is just true here but anywhere. I know how hard it is to find an apartment when you live in a different state; I can’t imagine what that’s like looking for an apartment in a different country.

Her apartment is really nice in a great location, but I’m not going to lie. My favorite thing about it is that they have a bidet with a heated toilet seat. Why would they ever come back to the States?

We sat for awhile and had tea, then we decided since the flurries had stopped to take a walk around her neighborhood since I haven’t seen many other towns in South Korea outside of Seoul.

She lives in Suji, and close by her apartment is a park along a small river where she and John take their after-dinner walks. It would be the perfect place for me to ride my bike!

It was a dreary day, but I could picture how pretty this is in the spring. And I know my mom will remark how clean it is.

I needed to get cash to upload my T-money card at the machines in the subway station. I hadn’t bother to exchange money yet because I had been in such a rush the night I arrived. I was pretty sure I had enough to get back, but I wanted to make sure I had enough money to use my T-money card for the bus to airport. So on the way to the subway, Seunghye exchanged money for me at her bank’s ATM.

I also wanted to get pain patches while I was here. Korea had pain patches way before they arrived in the US. I saw them in dramas for years before I saw them on our shelves. I bought a box of 6 at CVS last week, and it cost me $9. I was able to buy two different kinds at the pharmacy here on the way to the subway station: a 40-count for ₩13,000/$9.75 and a 10-count large size for ₩3,500/$2.65.

I really wasn’t intending on buying anything else, but then I saw that there was a Lotte Mall near the station, which I hadn’t seen when I was waiting for Seunghye. I tentatively asked her if there was a Lotte Mart in the mall. Seunghye looked at me as if I had two heads because of course there was a Lotte Mart in the Lotte Mall. Lotte doesn’t do things halfway ever. She wanted to know if I needed groceries, but I didn’t. I was just on a mission to buy . . . cereal.

There is this cereal which I love by Post that I had for the first time in Seoul but have never seen in the US. To be fair, I couldn’t find it anywhere else in Seoul but in the Lotte Mart either. On past trips, even though the was a small grocery store right around the corner, I would take two lines of subway to go to a Lotte Mart to get this cereal. So of course, I was determined to see if this Mart had it or even if Post still makes it.

They did. They even had the gochuchang potato chips that I love (sorry, Lays), which they don’t sell everywhere either. I can sometimes get these at H-mart at home, but not always. And they cost over $7 a bag. You got to really want chips for that amount. They were only ₩2,500/$1.85 here.

To get to the Lotte Mart, you have to go through the foodcourt. What did I pass? A chicken stand. Do you think I was going to leave Korea and not get Korean fried chicken? Do you know me at all? Besides, I did need something for dinner.

Afterwards, we really did go to the subway station, and we parted ways, promising to see each other the next day.

I have a new mission: to stock up on tea.

I was feeling very good and very tired at the apartment thinking about what a great day it was. Finding both the cereal and the chips, seeing Seunghye and seeing her mom. What a day full of gifts!

I had every intention of writing and posting about it yesterday, but I kept falling asleep while trying to write.

And once again, I will write about today tomorrow. I think I’ve established a pattern.