The Trek to the Kimchi Guesthouse

Let's start at the very Beginning

01/20/2014

I woke up at 7:30. I had a list of things to do before I high-tailed it to Seoul:
- Take out recycling/ garbage
- Do the dishes.
- Pay bills.
- Mend Winter coat.
- Pick up blister pads.
- Pack toiletries after using them
Nothing opened until 9 so I had a nice breakfast and ginger tea before I did the dishes. I brushed my teeth and packed it all into the side pocket of my gym bag. I put a pen in my pocket along with a small notebook because you never know when a good idea will strike. I dropped my recycling off and tossed my garbage bag into the dumpster. It rained the night before and I was banking I would see some snow in Seoul. I walked past my usual tailor who wasn't there, paid my bills at the bank and he still wasn't there when I circled back.  Thankfully there was one open a 5 minute walk away. I handed my coat off to a lovely lady, grabbed my blister pads for my new boots, picked up my coat and grabbed my gym bag at my apartment door. As my foot propped open the door I decided to go to the bathroom before I left. While taking my pants off I discovered a huge blue splotch on my leg. That's the first time a pen has ever exploded on me. I cleaned it up dismissing the hold-up as a random occurrence.

After a trip to Starbucks I picked my Happy Pass up at the ticket booth and grabbed the next train to Seoul. I caught up on some podcasts (Geeks and Beats and The Monday Morning Podcast - both great in their own way) and buried my nose in travel books, jotting down locations as I skimmed through while consulting my weathered map. Looking out the window, the lakes were starting to freeze over. In the end I decided I would be off to Gangnam a year and a half too late to do the dance. I found a guesthouse (see title) and plotted my route there, I perked up once I knew I had a place to stay. Coming in the sky was grey due to either the millions of cars or the clouds, it's tough to tell in a city pushing ten million. Sure enough, at the Grand Station in Seoul there were mounds of snow shoveled into neat little piles in the middle of the courtyard on route to the spiderweb subway system.

   
I got off at the wrong station. I was only off by one but I ducked into a cafe and mooched some Wi-Fi to figure out where I was going. By the time I got out the sky proved to be cloudy; it started to snow! Not these tiny little bits you would get in Busan but those big clunky flakes. They clung to my coat and didn't melt away. It felt like coming home. Now settled in my Guesthouse (it didn't take long) I was ready for dinner. I was feeling some soup and sides followed by some window shopping and stopping at the business building for a peek. At that moment I just wanted food to get rid of the gut rot brought on by my second coffee.