Seoul, South Korea 5/13/2025

My last full day of fun before I head into the work part of this trip. I had so many things I wanted to do that I simply just will not have time for, but that is the nature of traveling. You prioritize some things over others, and I have no regrets about the things I spend my time focusing on. I woke up early as usual and had the chance to check in with some humans stateside and update them on my adventures thus far. Then I wandered my happy self over to Onion, a cafe I knew I wanted to check out. They have so many delicious pastries, but I got the classic little mountain of sugar they’re known for, and a great little strawberry snack. I was fully on a sugar overload to start the morning.

It was chillier than I anticipated, and since the homestay was only about a 10 minute walk back up the road I wandered back to grab a jacket. I stopped at a little art studio I had seen the day before, and picked up a beautiful water color painting that a local man does using knives. I am SO excited to add this piece to my collection. Becuase I bought one of his larger orginals, he also threw in a small pack of prints for free.As I walked in at 9:00am and the wonderful owner of the Inwoo Guesthouse was making breakfast, so of course I had to have a second breakfast. This was a small bowl of soup called Tteokguk, which is usually served on new years to symbolize new beginnings and the start of new adventures. It was delicious and fully worth a second breakfast. I checked the time and figured it would be good to call back home and chat with my mom for a bit before heading back out for the day of adventure. .

First on the docket, the interactive Pixar exhibit that is currently in Seoul. This is a pop-up that is only there temporarily and just opened a week ago. They have created life size versions of different pixar movies so you can feel like you have plopped yourself right into the movies that represented my childhood. Highlights of this for me were walking through Andy’s room in toy story, except we were toy sized amongst the huge bed and toy chests, as well as the Inside Out control room filled with the core memories. I often use Inside Out as a reference point for work when teaching staff about how we can teach emotional regulation to children and help them better understand their emotions. This exhibit was obviously incredibly crowded, so I learned the best way to really experience it was to zoom through the first couple rooms so the crowds were behind you. As someone traveling solo, there’s not nearly as many opportunities to pause and get photos, so I find myself better off to set up my phone on video and hope no one walks in front of it. Super cool exhibit and a unique thing to do in Seoul.

Then the goal was back to Gwangjang market to attempt to get the food I couldn’t the day before. It was phenomenal, but I was atrouciously dehydrated since many of these stalls specialize in their one food, and you can maybe buy a beer from their stand. The mung bean pancakes were delicious, but I could only eat about half before the need for water was too great. It was even more crowded today than it was when I went yesterday, but I am happy I made the trek back.

I spent the rest of the afternoon roaming around Seoungsu. I was motivated to not be late to any appointments today since I have been struggling with that the past few days, so I figured bop into the neighborhood I have to be in and spend the day there. This is where I ended up in the 5-story Olive Young. Olive Young is Korea’s version of a Sephora but so much better. The amount of skincare and makeup you can get here is paradise. I purchased far too many things here, but I will be thrilled to have excessive amounts of facemasks when I am back stateside. Turns out it looked way scarier in my shopping bag than it was at the register, as I didn’t spend nearly as much as my brain was preparing for. Catch me and the girls with glowing skin all summer long at the courtesy of Korean Skincare products.

I had a nail appointment in the afternoon with a studio I had found online. I am a sucker for a cute nail set, and I was blown away by the artistry this woman was able to create. Beautiful flowers, interesting textures, things I never would have anticipated getting on my nails until she started to do it. The whole process took around two hours as she hand painted each and every one of my nails. I had about an hour to kill before my final appointment, so I wandered around the area searching for coffee and food.

Sometimes when I am in a foreign country I just need a change of pace. I’ve had so much soup and kbbq and local foods, that when I saw a little Italian place, pasta seemed perfect. I was actually shocked by how incredible this pasta was. It had huge slices of garlic in a great rose sauce. As an Italian, I am particular about my pasta. This place did not disappoint. It was quick and delicious. I also ordered a matcha to go with my pasta even though that makes no sense, but I was sleepy and I am addicted to matcha.

Then, the thing I have been SO excited about and telling everyone I was going to do on this trip. Rettre Seoulsup is a perfume workshop. I sent them a picture of me on the Hi Giang Loop in Vietman. One of my favorite memories. They have you fill out paperwork about how the photo makes you feel and what scents you associate with it. Then, they take you to a curtained room that matches the vibe of your photo and hook you up to a brain wave machine. My room was blue skies and green grass, mimicking the outdoorsy energy of my submitted photo. They then have you smell 7 different scents while you look at the photo and measure your brain wave activity in response to the scents and photo. They consider both the visual and olfactory response to it all and then assign each scent a number 1-10. The higher the number, the stronger response your brain had to it. Then, you take between .3 and 1.5 grams of those different scents and mix them into a perfume bottle to make a custom scent associated with that memory. To absolutely nobodies surprise, my brain had the strongest reaction to the smell of basil (score of 9). Other scents that were mixed into my perfume were sandlewood(4), pine(5), pear(6), royal water(8), greenleaf (4), and verbena (6). I absolutely love the scent it all came together to create, and I am so exicted to have this as a unique souviner to take back home.

I made my way back to my homestay after a long and incredible day! Only to realize at some point, I had lost my room key. And I had no way to get into my room. The owners don’t actually live at the homestay so I started to go into a full sense of panic being locked out. I am so thankful that for some reason, there were people back home who were awake and able to talk me through what was a very scary and stressful situation. As a solo female traveler, not much is more anxiety inducing than being locked out at 9:30PM with no idea how to get safely back into your room. Luckily after about 45 minutes of a mental breakdown I as able to get ahold of the owners through their doorbell camera and they literally sprinted over to the homestay with their master key to get me in. When they arrived I was fully in tears because I felt so guilty and I was so stressed out. The owners were so sweet though and kept telling me it was okay and not to be worried. I ended up being charged 10,000 won to replace the key I lost, but in the grand scheme of things that is $7. I would’ve paid significantly more. It was one of those moments that I was so frustrated with my own stupidity, but the grace and support of my people and the owners got me through it. So yes, another day, more mistakes. But I know I will look back at this and laugh. All good stories come from a place of what happened, and how did it actually end up okay.

So that was yesterday. Today was incredibly uneventful, thank god. Now I am sitting in my hotel at USAG Daegu after a long day of trains and travel to get myself to my next destination for work. I’ll wake up bright and early tomorrow and go do my job, the actual reason I am in Korea in the first place. So stay tuned for this weekend, where I will get to explore Daegu a bit and see a different part of Korea!