Goodbyes & Other Events
Here for you to read are some of the events that transpired in my last few weeks before I was bound to leave Korea.
My friend was staying with me in my apartment since her contract for her place had come to an end. So, we ended up going to some cafes during this time. One of those cafes was located close to my apartment. It looked very new and had a limited menu.
Yet another cafe was Momong which was also quite close to my apartment. It had calming music and some delicious-looking desserts. The ginger tea was very good.
One evening, Lily and I made a reservation at The Xef; a Spanish cuisine place. The seafood paella was to-die-for. After, we relaxed at a cafe and ordered some apple tea and a croffle.
At the last minute I decided I wanted to try and get LASIKs done. My friend got hers done a few weeks before and it motivated me to look into it. She had gotten hers done in Daegu, but there was a Seoul branch that I made an appointment at. I spent two hours at the eye clinic. Like the hospital, you go to several different stations on different floors and they do all the different eye exams. Finally, I was told that I could get LASEKs done since my eyes are dry and I have an astigmatism. This whole time everything was in Korean and it had been fine but when I met with the lady who was telling me my options, I had such a hard time understanding what I was supposed to do. I just agreed what they suggested; the regular LASEK plus some add-ons. LASEKs is different than LASIKs because they take the whole flap of skin off the top instead of putting it back on once they are finished. This means that LASEK also takes longer to recover from. Since I was scheduled to leave soon, they told me I could come in the next day and get the surgery done.
After the consultation, I met up with Lily and Nazeerah (Nazeerah was super supportive and had come with me for the appointment) and we went to Vrew Coffee. We also got some dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
The next day, Nazeerah and I went to the clinic where there did some more tests and told me what to expect for after the surgery. They told me the dos and don’ts (i.e. no skincare, no getting water in my eyes, wear sunglasses outside, etc.) Then I was taken in for surgery. It was kinda painful even when they had numbed my eyes. I was so glad we called a taxi to go home since I could barely keep my eyes open. The next few days to a week I was so fortunate to have Lily and Nazeerah there to help take care of me and put all my eyedrops in (three different types of eyedrops) and entertain me (play guessing games and watch movies {they watched and I just listened lol}). I don’t know how I would have survived without them there since I couldn’t even open my eyes.
Chris came over one of the nights I was packing up my apartment. It was fun hanging out with everyone and chatting. We ordered some chicken from that place in Itaewon.
I needed to buy one more souvenir for my sister in Sinsa so Nazeerah and I went there to walk around a bit. We went for some pizza at Maddux’s, then went to Apple because Nazeerah was replacing her phone battery, picked up my sister’s item, and then headed back to my place. A fun little outing since I’d been stuck inside recovering for so long.
Since I was leaving soon, I took some of my stuff to the post office in a suitcase and packed it into boxes. The post office has recently started filling out the box labels online which has created lots of problems. I was shipping two boxes so I filled out two separate ones. When it was my turn, the lady told me that my card that I had entered into the form wasn’t working. By that time, lots of people were waiting in line so she asked me to step aside. I had to wait a long time until she finally called me back up and got it all sorted out.
As a treat after that ordeal, I went to A Float Hour and got a delicious blueberry ade.
While my eyes were healing, they temporarily put some lenses on my eyes during the surgery. After a week, I went back in to have them taken off. Let me say, it felt like my eyes were fresh from surgery again because they hurt and things were blurry. They gave me a bunch of eyedrops when I told them I wouldn’t be able to come back in because I was leaving soon. After that was finished, I met up with Lily and walked around COEX.
I packed up my things and moved to Hotel The Designers. It was bittersweet to be leaving my place that I’d been living in for a year.
That same day, the Line 4 Gang (Lily, Chris, Brixton, and I all lived on the subway line 4) met up for the last time. We met up in the Anguk area and decided to go to Sudal Cafe (sudal means otter in Korean) while we waited for Oreno Ramen to open for dinner. The perfect cafe for Brixton because he loves otters. Loved the music and the items on the menu.
After dinner, which was exceptional, we went to Insadong to look in the shops, because Chris was looking for souvenirs. We stopped in O’Sulloc, which is a tea store, and I ended up buying some tea. After the shopping, we saw a street vendor selling egg bread (계란빵) and couldn’t resist. I will definitely try to make it once I get back home because I couldn’t imagine living without it. We popped briefly into an exhibition that was going on. It was very small but had some interesting stuff. Our last stop of the day was Cerulean Cafe. It was another modern traditional building. The music was on point and everything was delicious.
We got into the subway and continued back home. Brixton continued on and we transferred. It was sad saying goodbye. Chris and Lily said goodbye since she was going back to her apartment. They were hugging and crying for a few minutes which definitely made me feel more sad. Chris and I went back to our station and when it was time to say goodbye I was tearing up. I was to meet up with Nazeerah and her boyfriend right away, my first time meeting him, and I burst out sobbing. Assuredly, not the best way to meet someone.
The next day was another goodbye party; a university reunion. In the morning, I tried out the cafe in the hotel before heading out to meet everyone. The cup was huge! Lily and I met up with Doyeon and Monica at Colline Cafe in Hongdae. A great place to catch up with old friends.
We had planned to eat samgyeopsal but those plans fell through so we decided on charcoal cooked dakkalbi. That meal was heavenly. We ate so much food. Besides the dakkalbi, we also ate potato jeon, kimchi jeon (a unique take with small shrimp), and jumeok bap 주먹밥. We were all so full after the meal that we could barely move.
To feed our dessert stomach, we went to a tiramisu cafe. They had a pistachio tiramisu. Chris actually came to join us and say goodbye once more.
Yet another goodbye reunion party took place with my friends that I had made in China. We met at A Twosome Place for drinks while waiting for one of our friends and then proceeded to a very fancy jokbal (pig’s feet) restaurant. The food was amazing and the waiters showed us their recommended way to eat it.
We walked around to digest our food and settled on going to noraebang next. I think we were in there for several hours. We sang so many good songs; Brian and Ednauh sang and rapped “Lighters”, we all sang some top Korean hits, and also some classic Chinese hits. Our throats were raw after all that singing.
To commemorate our time together, we went to a photo booth and took several photos together. My friend gave a whole speech about making sure I stayed healthy so I wouldn’t get sick and to make sure to come back soon.
One last goodbye party was with two of my colleagues from Yeoju. I took Lily with me to meet them and it was a blast. I was originally only planning to meet Guhee because Bok Bin said he couldn’t, but when we were driving to a restaurant he said he wanted to be picked up; Guhee said he was just playing hard to get. The restaurant we wanted to go to ended up being closed so Bok Bin gave us choices: Case 1: fried, Case 2: boiled, Case 3: grilled, Case 4: alive". When Lily prompted him for another case he said, "Raw.”
We chose a BBQ restaurant to eat dinner at. While Guhee was trying to park her car, Bok Bin was being a backseat driver and telling her not to crash into anything. There was a BMW there and Bok Bin joked and said that wasn’t anything because he had two. Guhee told me a saying in Korean and it basically meant “Everything that comes out of his mouth is lies.” While Bok Bin was cooking the meat, Guhee told him to cook it well because it was still bleeding.
While we were driving to a cafe, Bok Bin plucked up Guhee’s purse and said, “Prada, my gift to you,” and handed it to me. Since we were leaving on our flight soon he said I might die. He was looking at my phone and even tried to take it, and Lily said I’d give it to him in my will if I passed away. Overall, a very fun ending to all the goodbye parties.
