Reflecting on Seoul

In May of this year, in celebration of our birthdays, I embarked on a trip to South Korea with my then fiancée and her twin sister. We spent the majority of our ten days in Seoul - hence the title of the post - but I'll dedicate a little bit of time in the future to reflect on our only other stopover, Busan. While not a whirlwind trip (we're normally the sort of people to maximise every day away, leaving us more tired than when we left for our "holiday"), I still racked up a fierce shutter count (anxiously taking two photos per image will do that), and want to take some time reminiscing on what we got up to.

When I started this blog, my intention was to live a little more in the moment. If I was going to discuss trips, it'd be adventures in very recent memory, the sort with photos still burning a hole in my SD card. This self-defined ruleset was created with good intentions - I wanted to keep myself shooting, taking in what there is to appreciate in my immediate surroundings, instead of obsessing over things in the past.

However (as if I've stuck to this rule so far), our holiday coincided with another change in my life - I stopped using Instagram as a quasi-portfolio. My desire to post every few days had completely evaporated, and, outside of a group chat or two, I was no longer sharing my photos with anyone. As a result, my images of South Korea have been rotting in my iCloud library, hidden from the light of day... until now.

From the first day in Seoul, I was in love. If you're in the mood for a city that just throws you into an everlasting loop of eating well, getting a cold drink, and a worrying amount of shopping, this is the place for you. We had a full day in Hongdae, but it was pretty clear by the end that we'd barely scratched the surface of what could be done in this little slice of Seoul.

The Kodak photobooth was the first of many photobooth stops on our trip. Before Seoul, I was convinced that I wasn't desperate to collect a bunch of little pictures of myself taken on a crappy webcam in a big box. Now, I get it. Even just the act of piling into the booth, trying to fit three people into one frame, is a hoot - and you get a little thing at the end!

Speaking of little things, too much of this trip was spent inside different branches of Butter Shop - for those Brisbane-bound, think Mooii, but on crack. I'm not one to gamble, but I am a sucker for a good blind box, and Butter delivered them by the bucketful. There were a lot of classics - who can look past a $12AUD Sonny Angel? - and some that I'd never heard of before, like the Maltese series that I quickly became obsessed with.

Day two was conceived with the grand notion that we‘d both have a full morning and catch the train to Busan. Needless to say, the morning was for utility only - we dropped our bags at our next hotel in Seoul, and then we got the train to Busan. Much like in Japan, the high speed rail experience was fantastic, and much more comfortable than flying.

There’s a lot more to say, but I’m currently in Vietnam, and trying to finish this post on my phone has been a dreadful experience. I wanted to try and get all of Seoul into one massive post, but the lack of any posting over the past two weeks has been plaguing me, and I just want to get something out… apologies for my one reader, but you’ll need to wait a bit longer for the rest!

What I'm listening to: "no scope” - crushed
What I'm reading: ”The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam” - Christopher Goscha (as mentioned, we’re on our honeymoon, and I’ve realised that I know so little about where we’re holidaying! So far, an engaging read.)
What I'm playing: Switch 2 version of Breath of the Wild (arguably my favourite game ever, and falling in love all over again at 60fps)