On often say that Seoul is a city where everything moves fast, though that still assumes you actually have things to do. As you can probably imagine, during this second stay in the Korean capital, the excitement of novelty had faded a little. I should point out that I’m only speaking from my own personal experience here.
I tried meeting people since I had chosen not to stay in a hostel. However, as you might expect, you are on vacation and just passing through, while locals have jobs and don’t necessarily have much time to give you their attention. I’m not saying I saw nothing at all. But time can sometimes feel a little slow when you have no specific plans, when you are alone, and when tourism is not really your main passion.
However, I met a Korean woman at one of those local/foreigner gatherings. She introduced me to a small café hidden at the turn of an alley, up a little staircase, almost as if it were nothing special. The place was ridiculously small for a café, barely bigger than a small French dining room. And yet, it felt like a cozy little cocoon, the kind of place you only see in movies or TV shows.
My guide for the day had brought some work to do for her classes, while I had brought things to study Korean or maybe get some writing done. Most of the walls were covered with sticky notes, and they held my attention much more easily than the grammar rules in my textbook. Dates, thank-you notes, writings in different languages, and smiley faces bloomed across those little pieces of paper. After an hour and a half, maybe two, and a bit of chatting, we left the place.
After that somewhat productive work session — at least on my side — my guide for the day and I continued exchanging small talk until I shocked her by admitting that I still had not tried Korean karaoke. To be honest, I had never really done karaoke at all, unless singing along with karaoke videos at home with friends counts.
No matter. The young woman was determined to fix that. As if the universe wanted to prove her right, there happened to be a karaoke place on the very same street. And can you guess what happened next? We went there, of course.
The evening was really enjoyable. Since my Korean was more than limited and I do not really listen to K-pop, I put all my faith in ABBA and their songs from Mamma Mia, which were heavily represented in the song menu. We sang, laughed, and hit quite a few wrong notes along the way. At the end of our little break from reality, we walked back outside, said our goodbyes, and each went our separate ways.
I never got the chance to meet her again. But that is one of the risks of traveling. Encounters that last only for a moment, but moments that somehow do you good.
Because of my growing sense of loneliness, after one month in Seoul, I decided to move back into a hostel for the ten days I had left before heading south across the peninsula. On top of that, I had started joining a study group through Meetup that gathered in cafés. There were more foreigners than locals, but getting some kind of social life back was exactly what my heart needed.
I’ll stop here for today and see you again next week to finish this chapter on Seoul and continue the journey.
Chapeau Rouge et Livres en bottes 