Korea: Revisiting Namsan Seoul Tower

If you're looking for some of the most expansive and stunning views throughout Seoul, a romantic destination to take a dearly beloved one and add to the locks of love, or simply want to get some distance between you and the sea, Namsan Seoul Tower is an excellent destination to choose.  I'd actually visited the tower once before on a prior trip to Seoul, but this time I visited with my friend Carmen and added a lock representing Antho and I to the incredibly crowded walls and barricades that have come to house an insane amount of locks. A lot of love to go around! Supposedly, affixing your padlock to one of the surfaces is meant to "lock-down" your love, and give it a similar sort of longevity and durability going forward. While there are plenty of Youtube videos demonstrating how to break a lock, I can't help but feel a little cheesy at the romanticism of the idea and wanted to contribute my own small gesture towards it. Even if you have visited the tower before yourself, it's always worth taking another trek up the very-steep mountain to see it once more. 

During my previous visit, my digital camera was very very new to me, and I had a difficult time figuring out how to capture the views at night- but this time through, I'm a bit more familiar with how to operate my camera and I'm a lot happier with the results, though I'm rapidly nearing the time when I'll have to bite the bullet and invest in a newer model. Totally worth taking that ridiculously, absurdly steep hike up from the last bus stop to snap these, though, and I'll gladly do it again. Why do they drop you off so much further down the mountain? I certainly don't know, though maybe it has something to do with the deep love for hiking and mountain climbing many of the Korean natives seem to have, or simply a practical measure to keep the busses from going beyond their means...whatever the case, strap on a good pair of walking shoes and get out to the tower! There's so much to see, and it's always evolving in some new, exciting way. Any visitor to Seoul should be remiss to miss out on the stunning sights offered by Namsan tower! Even if you decide not to opt to pay for the additional elevator ride up the tower, you can take in some seriously breath-taking views of South Korea's world-famous city of Seoul. #WORTHIT

Korea: Nostalgic Views in Hwajeong

One of the best parts of living in the little make-shift office turned bedroom I had in Korea was the largely unobscured view offered by the large windows within, offering me a glimpse out onto the city of Hwajeong as the sun rose or faded into the horizon and all the various shades in between. Hwajeong, while not really Seoul proper, is still quite a bustling little suburb and full of life, so I'd often overhear whooping shouts and excited calls from people celebrating below, at all hours of the night. It was fascinating, and often quite beautiful. The trade-off was that occasionally I'd be awoken early on my day off and told that the office was needed for the home owner's work purposes and to, more or less, make myself scarce. These things. In theory, I could have found a small apartment somewhere in Seoul and rented it for cheaper than what I paid for my sometimes less-than-private space, as many of my friends and their cohorts in a different field emphasized, but my living arrangement was already predetermined in a contract that outlined my work requirements and obligations prior to my even arriving to Korea. I'm not bitter about it, though there were times during my stay where I'd get frustrated by feeling trapped in a situation that wasn't always to my benefit. The other rooms in the apartment were rented out on AirBnB for a higher rate than what I was paying, so I was getting a deal, but there were often strangers coming and going outside my bedroom, or an awkward wait for the shared restroom in the morning when several of us had obligations to tend to. Some of the AirBnB guests stayed on for a longer term, and we got to know eachother a little better in the brief encounters in the kitchen or hallways, but some nights I'd find myself answering the door to an exhausted stranger I hadn't been told to expect, a potentially spooky situation depending on the circumstances. I digress. In the end, I'm immensely grateful for having had the opportunity to live and work in such an incredible place as South Korea, and while I certainly wish I'd had more information going in, I'm still very much glad I went. 

Korea: Morning Commute from Hwajeong-shi

A necessary ritual in many modern lifestyles is the morning commute, the pilgrimage from a suburban respite into the bustling business centers of the city. My time in Korea was certainly marked with this ceremonial passage, morning and evening, as I made my way from the northern residential burb of Hwajeong down to Seoul proper to set up for the day. Every so often, I would get to work and begin setting up only for a coworker to awkwardly approach and ask if perhaps I'd misread the schedule, or maybe they had. Typically it was my fault that I'd misinterpreted my shift, and I'd end up having to find a way to fill the handful of hours at my destination until the shift began. Given how far out of the way Hwajeong was from, say, Lotte world, it didn't make much sense for me to go all the way home only to turn right back around and return, so I'd explore the nearby shopping centers or parks. As annoyed as I might have been in the moment for missing out on some additional sleep I might have garnered by staying home, it was generally a good thing that I explore these areas. The various Fun Caricature locations operating throughout Seoul are placed strategically in high-traffic touristy areas, after all, so the neighborhoods I'd coincidentally find myself arriving at too early in the day would have ample ways for me to entertain myself. 

The commute itself, though, had its own merits. While many mornings I'd take the time to catch up on podcasts, e-mails, or various threads on Reddit, the scenery wasn't unpleasant to look at by any stretch of the term. As the seasons evolved from one into the next, the scenery, too, would shift in shades and texture, providing an aesthetic affirmation of nature's workings. Depending on the time of day, I might pass a food stall with billowing plumes of dense and delicious steam flooding out onto the path, or vendors with freshly procured produce offering their wares.

The short walk to the train station, in and of itself, became a precious sort of journey. That green sign to the right in the photo above? That was my go-to market after returning home from work, as I could pop in and find most of the groceries I could possibly want at a reasonable price. E-mart, too, was just a bit further down the street on the trek home. There were several other groceries, department stores and markets all scattered about nearby, and there was a rather large one tucked into the basement level of the train station, too. No shortage of options available, that's for sure. Never underestimate the sheer convenience and walkability of the city of Seoul and it's suburban branches! It will truly spoil you to live in the area... I miss being able to walk to a store at any given time of day or night and find a hot meal or cold bottle of soju/beer/wine, or fried chicken, sweet and chewy egg bread... but I digress! I could write tomes about how tasty and bountiful the food is in Seoul...

日本 [Japan]: 春の日 Spring Day

Believe it or not, one of the most enjoyable ways for me to spend a day off from working at Tokyo Disney Sea was simply to wander around, or ride my bike through, the surrounding town of Urayasu. I was quite lucky to be given the opportunity to live, entirely on my own, in an apartment provided by the company in the residential area of Urayasu. Most Disney cast members were housed in the Disney Village, where they were insulated against the native Japanese and instead surrounded by their fellow imports. While I'm sure there's a lot to be said for that experience as well, I was very happy with my immersion. Urayasu is a smaller suburban town outside of Tokyo proper, and it's a popular choice for young families looking to settle down. Given this nature, there were many schools and family-friendly features to the area that made it all the more quaint and lovely to explore. Even in my first week I couldn't help but notice how frequently you'll see small Japanese children out and about on their own, whether they're commuting to school or simply playing outdoors. All those rumors about safety? For the most part, they're absolutely true. I never felt threatened while exploring Japan, and even when I was unlucky enough to be assaulted it was by another foreigner, not a Japanese person, so that's something. The respect the Japanese have for one another, whether it's exemplified through the use of headphones and quiet chatter on trains, or the cleanliness of shared spaces, is something to admire wherever you wind up. 

This family-forward, community-first approach means that even the youngest school children are encouraged to feel like active participants in their community. Friendly signs hang from school fences greeting the morning, and familiar cartoon characters are eagerly painted onto neighborhood flowerboxes for the enjoyment of all. The bright, primary colors provide a sharp contrast to the pastel pinks of the blooming cherry blossoms in spring, adding to the childish feel of enjoyment. It's hard not to feel carefree riding your bike through the scattered shadows of an incomprehensible burst of flowers cascading down and perfuming the world around. 

日本 [Japan]:駅のゲートを修復 Station gate repairs

I don't know about you, but it's not every day that I'm given privy to the inside of every-day machines, like the ticket gates at Maihama station, so whenever I come upon these situations I can't help but be excited and try to capture some photos to commemorate the occasion. These are machines we rely on, day in and day out, as we go about our daily routines, run our errands or dash off to explore new parts of the city, and without hard-working servicemen and women they'd rapidly decay into unusable hunks of rust, I'm sure. It takes maintenance, and lots of it, to keep a city as densely packed and rapidly paced as Tokyo (and all of its surrounding suburbs that feed the workforce into the city proper) running smoothly. My respects to these folks, who often go through life quietly tending to the gears of society without much fanfare or praise for all their diligence. 

And that's a crying shame that they aren't given more respect, too. It's not always glamorous work, keeping cities going, but someone has to do it. It saddens me so much that people, especially in my home country back west, seem to denigrate and insult these very necessary jobs that facilitate the lifestyles we're used to. The world, nor society, would function very well if every single one of us were to become doctors or lawyers. Who would ensure our roads are smoothly paved, or our bellies filled with something hot, tasty, and quick? Laborers, servicemen and women, food-workers, without them we'd all be much worse off! So, next time you see someone directing traffic, maybe give them a smile and a wave for their efforts to keep you and the other drivers safe. 

またね

Until next time!

💘

XOXO,

NAU

Japan: Urayasu life and gardens

Unfortunate, though familiar as it may sound to many of us, when I lived in Japan I found the majority of my time was utterly consumed with work.  Due to the fact that my living in the country was utterly predicated upon keeping my employment with the Arribas Brothers as an artist/performer in Tokyo Disney Sea, it should be understandable why this would be such a prominent priority, but it inevitably leads to a routine that could grow a bit monotonous if I didn't consciously strive to break free of it from time to time.  Most days involved a brief attempt to get coffee or some form of sustenance into my gullet before darting off for the bus, changing into my uniform at the employee lockers and then spending the rest of the visible sunlight hours in my subterranean drawing-den, cranking out caricatures until we were finally granted permission to shutter up for the day and go home. Arriving home late, sore and dreading the countdown until it was time to hit reset and start the routine over again, I would cook up or scavenge some food, decimate some beverages and go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Day in day out spent primarily indoors. Naturally, my days off were a blessing! Aren't they always? Since I was given the opportunity to live and work overseas, I'd try to take advantage of that fact and explore the neighborhood or city of Tokyo proper whenever I had the energy or motivation. I have to admit, some days it was much more difficult than others to drag myself out of the house and into the city, but it was always worth the endeavor in the end. On this particular outing, I stopped to compliment my neighbor for her beautiful garden, pictured above- this led to us becoming friends and going on some adventures together later on! You never know what kind of things can come together like that unless you get out there and try, you know? She invited me out to have lunch with her after our discussion about her garden, fennel, and my obviously being from out of town. She showed me a lovely little restaurant not far from our home that I never would have thought to try if not for her suggestion, so again, get out there and do the things! Talk to the people! Be brave!

As always,

💘

XOXO,

NAU

Japan: Yurakucho Food Alley in Tokyo

Throughout most of Tokyo, as is the case for probably most of urban Japan as well, you're rarely ever more than a stone's throw away from something delicious to eat. There's a lot of people living in Tokyo, like, around 38 million or so people these days. That's a lot of people needing something to nosh after a long day, yeah? My hometown of Las Vegas only comes in as averaging around 2 million residents, while my second-home in Seattle has roughly 7 and a half million residents and my beloved third home of Seoul clocks in with roughly 25.6 million residents. Suffice to say, Tokyo has a lot of residents, and those people are going to need food. Ideally, they're going to want good food, because anyone can just pop into a 711 and grab an onigiri or bento if they want low-cost sustenance.  Where, pray tell, does the average salaryman find himself stopping for a bite after an arduous day of, uh, salary-manning? One popular location is going to be Yurakucho food alley, a narrow street tucked under the tracks of the Yamanote line is teeming with restaurants on either side offering delicious bites and something to sip on, too. The typical solution to this need-to-feed (and drink) is an izakaya, where small plates are served alongside lots of booze, to help take the edge off while facilitating your buzz. If you need something a little more nourishing, there are plenty more restaurants to fill that niche, too!

On this particular outing, my friend A-chan and I opted for a grilled beef restaurant, though other dishes were, of course, available, like that big plate of gooey cod fish-sperm goodness shown above on the right known as shirako (which, yes, I absolutely ate). There were also places to pop in for yakitori, or grilled chicken, along with a restaurant serving horse, a coffee shop, and several other options tucked away into the narrow space so your options aren't limited to be sure. Most of the restaurants had a shared restroom, found not far from our seating spot at the beef place, and most of the restaurants are enclosed by sliding plastic barriers, a common trend throughout the region (as I've seen it in Hong Kong and Seoul, too). Suffice to say, if you need a tasty meal, you can't go wrong by following the hard-working salarymen who's tireless efforts keep the economy of Tokyo churning along into the narrow space of Yurakucho alleyway. Where better to literally rub elbows with the local people? 

Korea: Christmas at Yonie's

While it's a bit early for Christmas yet, as we haven't even had Halloween yet, the nostalgia of winter holidays seems fitting enough to roll out this post celebrating the last (and only!) Christmas I spent in Seoul, living with Yonie. It had been quite a ride! I lived in Korea for six months, the entirety of which I spent living in her apartment, which I shared with a rotating roster of various other guests (who booked on AirBnB) along with other artists who would sometimes stop through to visit. The caricature community is a small one, after all, so most of us end up knowing eachother, especially when we tend to spend extended stays in the same countries. Sometimes this rotating company meant letting a small, quiet Japanese girl in some evening after 11pm, when the creepypasta I'd been reading had thoroughly tainted the tone with spoopies and I was disproportionately spooked by the doorbell, others it meant an impromptu evening of shopping and Doctor Strange with Yonie and Sam. Yonie always takes pride in her hostess skills and as such, she arranged quite a lot of activities for everyone throughout my time there- including this Christmas eve celebration, replete with caricature-themed (or named) wine, red velvet cake, candles and company. It was a lovely evening, and while I had a nice time with everyone, I was more wrapped up with my preparations for leaving Korea in the next 24 hours or so. This was the final stretch of my time living in Seoul, and it was a nice gathering to top it off. While at times I may not have always agreed with Yonie, like when it comes to leaving an oscillating fan on overnight (there's a Korean superstition that leaving a fan on overnight can lead to death) or the scent of cooked fish, I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity she allowed me to have and the incredible adventure I was able to embark upon thanks to her kindness, openness, and hospitality. While nothing is ever perfect, it was pretty fun overall and was absolutely a learning experience. 

Korea: Blind Alley Raccoon Cafe

Is there any animal that you feel a particular kinship with? Like, do you see an eagle soaring high above it all majestically silhouetted against the bright blue sky and feel like there's a special significance, a certain similarity shared between your personal essence and the animal? I used to think that I had that sort of quasi-spiritual-groove with dolphins, who seem to appear near me when in bodies of water they frequent, but these days I find I chalk that up more to the mind seeking to connect the dots and form a meaningful pattern to make it special rather than actually being something special. Dolphins, in all their majestic flippering and gratitude for all the fish, are also a bit rapey and scary, too. Did you know that Flipper and his friends will isolate a female from the pod and then take turns on her, gang-raping her for weeks on end and using aggressive posturing and behaviors to intimidate her into acquiescence? Like, DAMN, dolphin-dudes, chill! Any moderately attractive woman of post-pubescent age has probably, at some time or another, had to deal with the unfortunate human equivalent of those gang-rapist-creeps of dolphins, though hopefully in less full-out-forceful and trauma-inducing situations. I know I hate me some over-the-top jabronies, so my love for dolphins is dampened knowing they're those guys at the party. As if that wasn't bad enough, dolphins also have a habit of killing babies, whether it's another bottlenosed nosed dolphin or another species, and they're riddled with STDs! Yuck. Over it. 

But you know what animal is totally cute, has a super-fluffy tail, toe-beans, fancy-facial-attire, and a vaguely triangular-faced-monkey-like appearance? Raccoons, AKA trash-pandas! These little guys are vastly underappreciated! Look how adorable that sleepy little baby is up there on that railing! Don't you just want to rub his little feeties and boop that snoot?! Trash-Pandas, much like myself, are almost always up for a good snack and a nap, which I think are two traits almost any decent human can get behind. So when my friend Carmen informed me that there was actually this magical place tucked away in Seoul where you could grab some warm beverages with caffeine AND cozy up to some raccoons, you know I was on-board! 

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived most of the fluffy little cuties were quite sleepy and settled in for a nap, high above the reach of most visitors. There was one very happy, very friendly little corgie romping around who was more than eager to step in for pets and appreciation, so I found myself spending more time with that little sweetie. As much as I love the raccoons, I also understand how anyone can wind up cranky when woken from their nap prematurely, so better to let them get their Zs. 

Korea: 설렁탕 Seolleongtang, again, because it's delicious AF

South Korea is something of a wonderland when it comes to delicious food, regardless of your preferences! Are you a total carbohydrate fiend who can't get enough of the starchy stuff? You'll be pleased to learn that there's not only the spicy noodles you've probably heard about or seen on places like Youtube (or even here on my own little blog *blush*), delicious things like steamy jjampong loaded with seafood and vegetables in a warming red broth or chilled mixed noodles like bibimguksu, but there's plenty of non-spicy options to get your fill, too! One of my favorite hot noodle dishes combines a rich and milky beef broth with ultra-tender pieces of beef, chunks of aromatic vegetables and silky mushrooms with thin wheat noodles to slurp it all up with. This delicious, warming, soothing cauldron of goodness is known as 설렁탕 Seolleongtang, which can be found throughout much of Seoul as well as in any community stateside with a large enough Korean population. If you're out somewhere where you're unable to find this delight served in a restaurant, you can always opt to make it yourself! It's a labor of love more than anything else, as the ingredients used aren't especially scarce or rare for the most part, they just require a long cooking time to extract all their goodness into that unctuous, ridiculously-good broth. A point of note is that in many recipes for seolleongtang salt is added at the very end, as in by you at the table, so don't be surprised if you eagerly dip your spoon in and ladle up a big unseasoned slurp of soup! It's okay, my dears, don't fear. Happens to the best of us sometimes when we get over-eager about our tasty treats, right? Once you regain your composure and whereabouts, you should find a small bowl with a salt and pepper mixture to add seasoning to your preference. This is pretty ingenious, really, as it prevents the dish from being overly salty when reduced further and allows salt sensitive patrons to limit their sodium intake, or for those without any sensitivity what-so-ever there's the freedom to go as hog-wild with your salt as your heart desires. You do you, booboo. 

Japan: Salarymen and Sakura

Time is a peculiar thing, isn't it? We often look at it as this linear thing, one event sequentially leading to the next, from point A all the way through to point Z, or point Zed, depending on your preferred parlance. Then there are those, whether they be authors of fictitious works like Kurt Vonnegut and his Billy Pilgrim (who became unstuck in time), or scientists who ponder quantum entanglement and what these things mean in the larger scheme. While conventionally time is viewed primarily in this linear fashion, I'm much more fond of Vonnegut's approach myself. In Slaughter-House five the main character, poor bumbling Billy Pilgrim, was abducted by the strange species known as Trafalmadorians, who are not limited to the third-dimensional perspective on time and it's passing. This abduction, coincidentally, leads to Billy becoming decoupled from our hindered human view of the timeline, offering profound insight and also a fair bit of awkwardness, as he has no foresight of when he's going to wake up in the course of his life prior to it happening. This non-sequitur style of timing, however, gives Billy an incredible perspective on time and life, perhaps an unintended gift from his abductors. To quote from Vonnegut:

"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist."

What, if anything, does all this have to do with cherry blossoms and businessmen, you may be wondering. As of the time of this writing, my time in Japan has already slipped into the past by several years, and every time I'm reminded of this fact, that I lived in Japan 4 years ago now, it seems so surreal. It feels like only yesterday I stepped foot off the plane in Narita, unsure of what came next. The lessons and experiences I gained while living in Japan, while separate in the timeline, are still with me. An appreciation for the changes of the seasons symbolized perhaps most abundantly in the short-lived flowers of the cherry blossoms lives on in me to this day, every day. I thrill at the changing shades of autumnal leaves, do a little happy dance when I find the first matsutake mushroom making an appearance or the first blooms of spring breaking through the monotony of a winter's day. In this way, I like to think I'm a little bit like Billy Pilgrim, the confines of a three-dimensional experience of time dissolving around the edges slightly, reconnecting me to a previous time in my existence. In a very real way, the blog serves that function, too, by allowing me to create a sort of time capsule of photographic and literary evidence of existence. It's not much, but so it goes. 

Korea: Roasted bird and fire's goods

There are few things that harken back to our primordial days as proto-hominids quite like fire-grilled foods, whether it be slow-roasted rotisserie style duck (like above) or crispy crackly fish on sticks broiled over charcoal, charred and oh-so-creamy eggplant grilled whole, sweet and softened onions in kebabs next to blistered tart and juicy cherry tomatoes and hearty chunks of flavorful meat, or full-on-whole-hog slow-cooked to crispy, succulent perfection. All humans hark from a time where the invention of fire served as the literal spark for that catalytic change from beast to a beast with a torch and toasted foods. With fire, we were able to spread from the milder climates of the fertile valley or whichever particular garden our species sprung up in and spread out into colder reaches. With fire, we were able to cook our food, as my quixotic rant above demonstrates, but this also meant making some foods accessible that previously hadn't been, along with improving the overall quality and safety of the food. Cooking makes a lot of foods more easily digested, after all, freeing up more of our energy towards things like growing our brains to adapt to our evolving lifestyles, or experimenting with tool-making.  Fire provides light, and warmth, and all those cozy things that make surviving a harsh, cold winter more bearable, too. 

Is it getting cold where you are, yet? Winter was beginning to sink her claws deep into Korea by this point, though snow hadn't fallen enough to stick just yet. A flurry here or there, though, definitely added a romantic touch to the days, especially when I worked at the Ssamji location, though the outdoor nature of that location meant we had to take proactive measures to keep from freezing our hands to inoperability.  Even with our blankets and scarves and portable space-heaters, the cool seeped into your bones over time, making warming foods all the more necessary to get through. And what more warming or soothing foods than those roasted over a fire or in an oven? Roast bird and breads are a popular pairing the world round, even in a country that came upon bread later in the society's culinary evolution such as South Korea. These little loaves of bread had sweet beans and nuts, a lovely treat to round out a cold evening!

Korea: Midnight snackies & Korean convenience food love

While big sexy dishes like their fabulous fried chicken and grilled meats tend to steal the show when talking about Korean food, there's a lot of other areas in which the South Korean food scene excel. One especially under-respected arena in both Japan and South Korea are their highly innovative approach to baking and bakeries, where uptight beliefs about traditional techniques can be tossed aside and unusual (at least compared to those who view French baking as the standard) combinations proliferate. Red beans and cream cheese? Sure! Handheld pizza with corn kernels and spinach? Why not! For a savory food lover like myself, who will generally reach for something salty or cheesy long before eating sweets, this seemingly endless variety of handheld baked savory goodies is a blessing. Any grocery store, whether it was the smaller farmer's market near the train station I loved to frequent, or the larger supermart buried underground down another corridor inside the train station itself, there was a bakery doling out goods. Heck, if I walked outside of the building I lived in with Yonie, there was a small standalone bakery just across the street churning out wholesome loaves baked in-house to fancy fruit-decorated cakes for special celebrations. Some of the best, though, were the ones you grabbed while hauling through the train station during the morning commute, heated to steamy eggy goodness as you mow through it waiting for the train to arrive... 

Speaking of which, coincidentally, brings me to another arena in which South Korean ingenuity avails: Convenience foods. Not only is there a convenience store nearly a stone's throw away from you at any point in the city of Seoul, but they are replete with an incredible array of ready-to-consume or can-be-consumed-after-minimal-effort-exertion foods, from hot and cheesy pizza buns to questionably made tubes of meat-like substance ready to squeeze into your face hole as your drunk ass stumbles home. There's also plenty of desserts, too, like this tasty little Cookie and cream parfait I devoured one chilly evening on my little sofa-bed in Hwajeong. Not the most glamorous thing, but tasty enough and undeniably convenient! Plus, it was marked down because with the cold weather rolling in ice cream sales had tanked. Is it weird that I like to eat ice cream when it's cold out? Maybe it's because I'm from a place where the summer temps are routinely over 110 degrees, so ice cream on a hot summer day doesn't stand much of a chance...

So, while it's maybe not the kind of thing you're used to finding at your local bakery or convenience store, don't be afraid to try new things when traveling! You could miss out on some real hidden gems!