Here in Gunsan (pronounced goon-sahn), the foreigner crowd has dubbed itself, the Gunsan Goonies. I proudly bear this moniker myself, as a guest in this great little city by the sea.
I've been blessed to be sent to a city with a solid foreigner community. I've made some great friends here. Recently, I traveled to Seoul with three of my Goony friends who I first met at orientation. Really, the four of us see each other three to four times a week and more often than not, hang out on the weekends. So really it was a normal weekend but new location.
Our three main goals this weekend:
1. Shop
2. Brunch
3. Mexican food
If the traffic gods are pleased, a bus ride from Gunsan to Seoul will take 2 hours and 20 minutes. Unfortunately for us, we left on a busy, drizzly Friday night so we were on the bus longer than that.
Once we got to the Seoul bus terminal, we hopped on a subway and found our way to Dongdaemun district, where we had an Airbnb booked and waiting for us. The place was tiny but in a way that's cozy and just right for four people. It was fairly late by the time we checked in but, hey, we were in Seoul so we weren't ready to call it a night quite yet. We wandered around for a while looking for a cafe, realizing that we were in one of those rare pockets of Korea where there is no cafe in sight. Eventually we wandered our way to a Paris Baguette, where we could order warm tea. In a cute cup, of course.
The next morning, we woke up with a unanimous craving for genuine breakfast food--a delicacy here in the land of kimchi and rice.
In Seoul, finding a place to appease our Western appetite for eggs, bacon, and potatoes cooked in a breakfast manner was suspiciously easy.
We found this restaurant called Factory M, advertising brunch. We ordered two of these platters and shared. We were pretty pleased with our meal at the time, not even realizing how much more amazing our brunch would be the next morning.
For the next few hours, we explored Dongdaemun market. This is supposedly where the cool people go to shop for clothes. I only made one purchase. It's a purchase I will always be fond of:
See the middle hat? I own that! And it gets better. The inside looks like this:
Even though I didn't buy much, I had a lovely time walking around with my lovely friends.
And casually being photo-bombed by a Korean police man!
Of course we had to stop by the Hello Kitty Cafe:
I ordered a shredded pork burrito and got it in the Vatos signature style which included kimchi. I know, I know--I go all the way to Seoul in search of authentic Mexican food and I dare to taint it with kimchi. Help, I'm becoming Korean! I also ordered a virgin orange frozen margarita, which was pretty tasty. Vatos was good but we had to wait for a long time--they were packed! I've since eaten at another Mexican place in Seoul that I like better.
I've heard ex-pats say Itaewon district is great during the daytime, but scary at night. Boy were they right. I won't take too much time explaining why but just know we were ready to go back to Hongdae district after eating dinner and trying unsuccessfully to find a not-so-seedy norebang (karaoke room).
I'm so happy we returned to Hongdae for norebang time! We went to a major one in Seoul. And painted on the wall next to our room is my favorite super hero:
After singing our hearts out for a good hour, we were ready to go to bed.
In the morning, we went back to Hongdae to hunt down another brunch place. This time, it was one we'd read about on someone else's blog called Cafe Burano.
Also this time, there was no sharing. We each ordered our own monstrous plate of breakfast food and had no regrets.
Look at that delicately powdered french toast. That slice of bacon. Those breakfast potatoes cooked to perfection. The monster omelette stuffed with fresh vegetables. The...green salad? Yeah that was alright too, I guess. But look at my apple strawberry smoothie! It has a heart-shaped macaroon on top! Beautiful.
In addition to the Hello Kitty Cafe, we went to see real kitties at a cat cafe!
Gumby cat <3
