T-Minus One Week

Did you miss my outrageously long blogs? Have no fear, they have returned with full force this week. I feel like just yesterday I was walking to class for the first time, so how exactly are there only 7 days before I’m back in the states? It blows my mind how fast time has gone by. This past week we’ve been hounded with prepping for finals, but somehow we also managed to squeeze in a weekend trip to Tokyo.

December 7th

After wrapping up classes on Wednesday, my friend and I returned to the area around Hoegi station to try Kota, a Mexican restaurant that came highly recommended on Naver (4.91/5 stars type beat). My friend and I both ordered the chicken quesadilla, which came with chicken (duh), grilled vegetables, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, BBQ sauce, and sour cream. It was definitely a messy eat, we had to resort to using a fork and knife, but it was delicious. After finishing up and roaming around a bit more, we returned to the bakery whose amount of pastries had overwhelmed us on our last visit. This time we were determined to get something. After a serious deliberation, my friend and I decided to split this giant chocolate swiss roll. It was the right choice. However, I would not recommend attempting to split pastries with chopsticks and a tiny spoon, it definitely made us work for our dessert.

December 8th

Thursday we returned to one of my favorite places in Anam- Norang Tongdak Chicken- for lunch to show our friend the infamous Han chicken dish. This time we also got these mini corndogs. As always, it was amazing, but probably a dish meant for dinner rather than lunch. Even with three people, we somehow managed to eat less than last time.

That night for dinner, we returned to another one of my favorites in Anam, Biya, to show our friends budae jjigae (army stew). I already knew the restaurant had won over my friends when I saw their expressions as they brought us tater tots. We got the same thing as last time, stew with ramen, sausage, spam, rice cake, and leeks among other things. I am happy to say it was a hit. The manager also gave us (what we think was) free soda with our meal, he seemed really happy that we were there and enjoying the food. As we were leaving, he gave us this candy called Damla, which was basically a soft fruit candy. Standing outside we all ate it and immediately became obsessed. Over the next couple of days, all of us would try to find more of it in the convenience stores but with no luck.

December 9th

Friday, my friend and I got up at FIVE in the morning to head to the airport to get to Japan. After the two-hour journey to Incheon, exchanging some won for yen, and grabbing a mochi donut from Dunkin’ (it was delicious), we headed through security. There was apparently someone famous in line behind us because all of the sudden a group of people came rushing up. It was really weird to see, in real life, people just stand there and video someone just standing in line to go through airport security.

It was a pretty quick two-hour flight before we landed in Japan at Narita airport- two hours away from where we were staying. Japan is known for some of the best and most extensive public transportation, which I can confirm. However, it is a lot to figure out. There are several different companies that run lines throughout Japan and Tokyo, apart from the metro lines, and like infinite options of passes you can buy to travel on them. It probably took us an hour to not only figure out the pass we needed but also to find where to buy it. But we did, and then began yet another two-hour journey to pick up our portable wifi, as our Korean sim card wouldn’t work there. After we picked it up and checked into our capsule hotel (more on that later), we walked around the Shinjuku area a bit. As we were walking around, we began noticing a lot of signs were in Korean, and there was even an Art Box. After seeing like the fifth Korean restaurant and K-pop album store, we came to the realization that we had somehow managed to book a hotel in Koreatown.

For dinner, we went to a nearby restaurant that had a delicious picture of cheese okonomiyaki outside. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savory pancake, typically made of cabbage, meat, seafood, flour, and egg cooked on a grill and topped with okonomiyaki sauce and Japanese mayo. The one we ordered was filled with mozzarella cheese, and we also got some fried dumplings. Funnily enough, when we sat down, the owner of the restaurant came up to us and asked us if we went to Korea University (we were wearing our letterman). We come to find out that she grew up in Korea, went to Korea University for undergrad, and then moved here during graduate school. So at this point, we’ve had conversations in Japanese, Korean, and English (she was fluent in ALL three). It was a crazy coincidence, but really cool to see the kind of connections you can make all over the world. While we were eating, she dropped off a potato dish for free because she was happy to hear some Korean from us. When we left, she zipped up our jackets (it was cold) and told us to enjoy Korea for her.

After dinner, we walked around aimlessly, turning wherever we thought looked like there would be something interesting. Almost every street we walked down was busy, full of bright lights, and colorful signs. Some of the highlights were a Sanrio store (the creators of Hello Kitty), absolutely gigantic arcades filled with crane machines, and people busking on the main street. When we were dead on our feet, we walked back to the capsule hotel. The setup was pretty cool, the main floor had the check-in desk and a seating area with drinks, and an 8-story high view of the city. When you checked in, you were given slippers and towels, and you could also pick up a pajama set they provided. They had separate elevators and floors for men and women to use. On the capsule floor, you got a locker to keep your luggage and a separate room had a row of capsules. On the floor above, you could access the shared bathroom. They provided shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toothbrush and toothpaste, and even hair dryers. The capsules themselves were pretty roomy, I could sit up in them with no problem. You could dim or turn off the light in your own capsule and there was a little curtain you pulled down to block off the end of your pod. Overall, it was pretty comfy as long as you’re not prone to claustrophobia.

December 10th

On Saturday, we started out by heading to Shibuya crossing- the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing. I’m not gonna lie, it was a little underwhelming. This could be because of COVID and Japan only just reopening, or it may be more impressive from a higher vantage point. However, it was still really cool to walk through. After wandering around the area, we stopped at Krispy Kreme to try their holiday donuts for breakfast. I got the snowman donut, which was filled with chocolate cream and decorated with white chocolate and a strawberry glaze. It was delicious.

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After eating and looking around, we made our way to the Imperial Palace. We started out in the East Gardens, which holds the Edo castle ruins (built in 1457), the Fujimi-yagura Guard Keep (you can apparently see all the way to Mt. Fuji from the top), and various garden areas. There was even a persimmon and apple orchard that included two trees planted by the Emperor and Empress themselves. One of my favorite parts was the defense walls, as weird as that sounds. Each stone in the walls was taller than me, and they all fit together so seamlessly. From our estimate, they were at least four Kathryns tall. The whole place was gorgeous. Once we walked through the whole garden, we attempted to find the entrance to the actual Imperial Palace area. This led to a long walk around the circumference of the palace grounds, on which we discovered that to get into the palace area you had to be on a guided tour, which had ended for the day. Despite this disappointment, we did get a beautiful view of the moat surrounding the palace and got to enjoy warmer weather than we had grown accustomed to in Seoul.

For lunch, we made our way to Tokyo Station to eat at Ramen Alley. Ramen Alley is an evasive corner tucked away from the chaos and enormity of Tokyo Station, but it is highly recommended as one of the best places to get ramen. It was so. difficult. to find. But, thanks to google and determination, we finally found it. After browsing the options based on the pictures outside each shop and the length of the lines, we decided on Hirugao. To order, you went to the front of the shop where they have a machine with a button for each menu item. As you enter your cash, it’ll show you which items you have enough money to buy. When you click the button, the machine disperses a ticket for your item and your change. Then, you go to the end of the line with your tickets. Once you are at the front of the line and space has opened up, a worker will take your order tickets and show you to your table. Every single shop was busy, even at 3 PM, so we tried our best to be fast eaters. I got the creamy chicken ramen with soft-boiled egg, which also came with the most tender slice of beef ever, seaweed, and green onions. It was without a doubt the best ramen I’ve ever had.

Once we gulped down our ramen, we headed over to Character Street, another corridor in Tokyo Station, that was full of different shops. They had LEGO, Disney, Studio Ghibli, and Rilakkuma stores to name a few. But wow it was busy. We then traveled a station away to a mall in the Ginza area, where they had a two-story Sanrioworld store. The store was borderline overwhelming with all the options. My friend was very excited to see all the Pochacco merch they had, since he isn’t always adequately represented outside of Japan. I personally love Gudetama, whose description is literally “unmotivated lazy egg who never has a positive word to say about anything”. Amazing. By the time we finished exploring the store, we were exhausted. The serious amount of walking was beginning to take its toll. So we found a nearby bookstore cafe to relax at. While there, I tried the matcha mochi ice cream, which I was told I had to have in Tokyo. I’m sure it was good, but I am realizing that I don’t think I am personally crazy for matcha flavor.

We spent a cool two hours in the cafe relaxing and politely eavesdropping on the conversation between a Korean and Japanese man next to us (in which the Korean man had to tell the Japanese man not to go to North Korea because they won’t let you leave). Once we got our energy back up, we went to the Akihabara area. Akihabara was originally known as a major shopping area for cheap electronics, but now it’s more popular for its anime and video game stores. Here, we found so many gachapon, which are very popular machines in Japan that dispense capsule toys, typically character figures from a game or anime. My friend got a Kirby one, and we both got a Sanrio one.

On our way back to the capsule hotel, we figured that since we weren’t super hungry but needed to eat, we should have a dinner of champions. In other words, we got a mish-mash of interesting Japanese food items from various convenience stores. We got a marble cake, butter rolls, coffee pudding, maple syrup chocolate, round KitKats, cheese corn twists, and Koikeya pride potatoes (some sort of lemon pepper chip). It was probably more dessert than dinner, but regardless, it was enjoyable. Our ranking is as follows: butter rolls, cheese twists, marble cake, pride potatoes, round KitKats, maple syrup chocolate, and finally, the coffee pudding. So maybe it wasn’t very Japanese but it was all from Japan and unique to Japan, so I think it counts. I mean maybe not the marble cake. But you get my point. Food in Japan? Is Japanese food.

December 11th

Sunday morning was our last day in Japan, and while our flight was only at 4:30 PM, we wanted to make sure we got there early since we didn’t know what security would be like. This was honestly such a long day, not to mention we had managed to walk 20 miles in the past two days. We had the 2-hour subway/train trip to Narita airport, the 2.5-hour flight back to Incheon, and the 2-hour subway back to Anam. All in all, we were only back at the dorms at like 11 PM and we had class the next day. Needless to say, I think we both slept very well that night.

December 15th

Thursday I had my second-to-last final, the written portion of my Beginner’s Korean test. But more importantly- it was snowing! It has snowed here a couple of times so far, but it was like really snowing this time. And I was actually walking in it while it was coming down, which is something I am not used to. It felt like a movie, sitting in a cozy cafe drinking hot coffee while it was borderline blizzarding outside. Maybe I’m being dramatic, I was told my Texas was showing. Regardless, it was so so pretty and made me smile every time I looked at it. Later in the afternoon, I went to the area around Hongik University with my friend to get her tattoo touched up. It was even prettier there if you overlooked the gross slush that was on the roads. For dinner, we met up with some friends at Jinmi Restaurant, a Korean restaurant in Anam. I ordered jeyuk bokkeum, which is Korean spicy pork stir-fry, although it wasn’t spicy to me.

December 16th

Friday was a laidback day, so I let myself sleep in for what felt like the first time in forever. In the afternoon, my friend and I wandered through Anam in search of a cafe to study at. Since its finals season, all of the nearby or popular cafes were absolutely packed. So we headed to Cafe Baum, a little bit farther away from the university. I got a vanilla bean latte and a chocolate souffle cake, which was delicious. After studying for like 4 hours, we headed to our favorite pizza place, Red Cap Pizza, for dinner. When we walked in, we were immediately greeted with a delicious garlic smell, so of course, we had to order garlic bread sticks. You can only imagine our disappointment when we realized they were SO sweet and SO garlicky. The kicker is, we should’ve known better. We are well aware of the tendency of restaurants to make garlic things very garlic and to make everything sweet. But for some reason, after almost four months here, we clearly still hadn’t learned. Thankfully, the pepperoni pizza was as good as ever. We finished up the night with a stroll around Daiso. And guess what. We found the Damla candy!! We, of course, immediately shared the news with our friends, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that Daiso found itself sold out of Damla in the next day or two.

Tips, Tricks, Tokyo, Texas

Some quick tips now that I’ve gone to Japan: do your research. If possible, pick up WiFi at the airport. Get some good walking shoes. If you’re staying in Japan for a couple days, get an IC transit card. And probably stay for more than two days- Tokyo itself is huge and there is so much I wish I could’ve seen outside of Tokyo. Apart from Japan, I am writing knowing that in just one week, I will be back home in Texas. I think all of us are getting excited to go back home, not that we won’t miss Seoul. Even just having my last classes and hearing my professors say bye has made me sad. But there are certain comforts of home that I think we are realizing we miss, and I think the holiday season only makes it that much more evident.