Tag: vacation

Korean Stories: Shopping in the Motherland

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Prior to visiting Korea, I did a lot of cursory research on sights to see and things to do.  I found plenty of sights to see throughout Seoul and some of the other places I visited, but the things to do spectrum proved to be a very shallow well to dip into, with the most frequent suggestions revolving around drinking, eating or shopping.

I didn’t really want to drink too much around my mother, and the human stomach does have a finite amount of space in which meals and extra meals can go into at any one time, so that really meant that if I really wanted to do what the Romans Koreans did, there was a whole lot of shopping (and browsing) that was going to happen.

If anything at all, because I don’t really know how to buy things for myself that aren’t food, occasional clothing or other consumable goods, I was going to be wandering around a whole lot of shopping centers.  I had a moderate list of things that I wanted to purchase for others, but my money was about as finite as room for food in the gullet.

To cut to the chase, shopping in Korea is unlike shopping anywhere else in the world, in my opinion.  Shopping isn’t just a recreational activity done in Korea, it’s pretty much a completely essential thing done by anyone who lives and visits the Motherland.

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Visiting the Motherland, with my Mother

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If I didn’t mention it before, the trip to Korea was one that I took with my mother.  The idea was that way back when, my dad and sister went together, so it seemed like a suitable idea that this would be a mother and son trip.  My mom had recently retired, so she had nothing but time on her hands, and from my perspective, this was a trip that had to be done sooner rather than later, because I didn’t want to live my life with the regret of never going to Korea with my mom while she was still physically able to.  Not to mention, my mom had never been back since I’d been alive, so it was literally 38 years since she’d last been in Korea.

This is without question one of the best ideas I’d had in my life, and although I’m not going to sugar-coat and say it was a perfect trip, I don’t have any regrets about going to Korea with my mom one bit.  It was meaningful and memorable, and I’m glad to be able to say that my mom was there the first time I visited the Motherland.

I let my mom drive when it came to planning for the trip, since my initial idea of planning a trip to see the places of her childhood and upbringing seemed to fall on deaf ears, so it ended up with us having a few days in Seoul on our own, but then ultimately going on a multi-city tour group through the rest of Korea, back-ended with two more days in Seoul before coming home.  I’m not going to pretend like I was pleased with the idea of being on a guided tour, since typically I prefer to be in control of my own destiny, but it was what my mother had wanted, and she didn’t seem to understand that I was quite the competent planner on my own.

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Visiting the Motherland, 2016

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One of the greatest travesties in my life is that it took me this long to visit Korea.  Frankly, there’s an overarching travesty that it took me about as long to even cross an ocean in the first place, but the point remains as someone of Korean heritage and to some degree, upbringing, it does seem a little not right that I didn’t once visit Korea once until I was 34 and well into my own as an adult.

Admittedly, the idea of visiting Korea didn’t intrigue me that much growing up.  Being born in the United States as pretty much as American as American can be, this was always home to me.  Neither of my parents really talked much about Korea growing up, nor did they ever really put any ideas in my head of wanting to go.  Maybe we were just so dirt-poor when I was growing up that they didn’t want to make any difficult promises to fulfill.

A long time ago, there was an opportunity to go to Korea on some sort of church group; not that my entire family’s been tremendously religious, but it was an economical means to get there.  I’ve always been kind of nihilistic about religion in the first place, so it didn’t really interest me that much, and at that age, my priorities were vastly more interested in indulging in my no-school summer vacation, playing video games and being a slug at home.  Ultimately, my dad and my sister went, and I’ll always remember just how tan they were when they got home, and there’s a photo of the two of them riding a horse that always stuck with me as symbolic of an opportunity that I probably missed out on because of my youthful stupidity.

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The perpetual uphill plight of the brogger

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Morning #1 back from Korea; I’ve taken the rest of the week off to help me get over jet lag, and the fact that on top of Europe, on top of Korea, there’s one last weekend trip to Florida for the Disney trip that has happened every single year for the last few, for the Food and Wine Festival. 

I stayed up for nearly 30 hours with hopes of counteracting the going-back-in-time nature of going East to West, and that when I did sleep, it would be a nice snooze-fest culminating with me waking up feeling refreshed and closer to beating the jetlag than succumbing to it.  Instead, I woke up in the middle of the night once, managed to fall back asleep, until the landscapers at mythical gf’s complex decided to roll in at like 7:00 am and get to work, waking me up feeling groggy and a little cranky, although I am relieved to be back in Georgia after such a long trip still.

So, with a little bit of breakfast and my first good cup of coffee in a long while, I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to do next with myself.  Do I try to write about Korea?  Do I edit photos?  Which ones?  Europe, or Korea?  I can’t edit photos on this raptop; I don’t have my old baller work raptop to do that on anymore, so I can only edit on my PC at home.  But I’ve also got nearly 2,000 photos over two trips, and I haven’t touched a single one.  What about the list of thoughts and observations that served as the mental list of things to write about once I got back?  God damn the list is really fucking long.  Do I write about Worlds?  Virginia Tech’s annual delving into the National rankings before they fall out again?  The Cubs taking out the Giants?  The obvious ambiguity of the Miami coroner not revealing Jose Fernandez’s toxicology reports?

Here’s the thing though: not a single one of these things that I feel like I need to do, are things that I’m required to do.  Nobody reads my brog; it’s down, still, and I’m beyond my wits end with that fact.  I can’t even read my own brog.  So why do I feel like I should spend so much of my time brogging?  I mean, that’s what I do, I write in my spare time because that’s what I’ve always done, and although I might not appreciate it at the current, I know I’d appreciate it all later, because I’ve been chronicling my life and thoughts for the better part of the last 17 years or so.

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Let’s just get this shit over with

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The San Francisco Giants have made it into the playoffs in spite of a shoddy second-half record on account of a shaky bullpen.  The NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers simply couldn’t step on their throats hard enough to keep them out of the playoffs, and they’ll have nobody to blame but themselves when they sitting at home while the Giants take out whichever team is unfortunate enough to make it out with the American League pennant.

That’s right, it is a foregone conclusion.  The MLB Playoffs don’t even have to be played really.  It’s just a formality at this point. 

Being an even year, and the Giants have gotten into the playoffs, it’s a lock, a guarantee, that the Giants are going to win the World Series.

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Irrational anxieties

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Normally, I don’t often state my travel plans, fearing for jinxes or security vulnerabilities involving my home or belongings.  But lack of brog, etc, etc, no worries about anyone reading this until way after the fact.

But I’m going to Korea in a few days, and I’m undoubtedly excited to visit the Motherland, but at the same time I feel a tremendous amount of anxiety and concern for the home I’m leaving behind while I’m on travel.  Some of them are valid things to worry about while I’m away like my outstanding assignments are in good places for my co-workers, the health and well-being of those I care about, the safety of my home and my dog.  Or the perpetually escalating tensions between North and South Korea and the United States’ involvement, leading to some military firepower demonstrations from all sides this fucking week of all times, seem like something to fret a little bit about.

Some are less valid, like that I’m perpetually forgetting something, and no matter if I make lists, check and recheck the things I’m packing, I always feel like I’m forgetting something.  I mean, all I really need is clothes, toiletries, my passport, comfortable footwear, cell phone and my camera, and I should be mostly all set.  But I stare into my suitcase, and I’m 100% convinced that something critical and important is being forgotten, and it’s going to drive me nuts until I’m at the point where it would be too late anyway.

But the most irrational of anxieties I feel, is the feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out) of all the things that will inevitably be happening in the States while I’m away.  Like, I’m going to Korea, and visiting the country where my parents are from; I’m going to see all sorts of new and amazing things, historical, cultural and whatnot, and there’s a part of me that’s butthurt because I won’t be able to indulge in television shows like American Horror Story or Luke Cage when they’re fresh and new, and I’ll be two weeks behind when I get the opportunity to indulge.

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Things that made me think Europe is overrated

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One thing that lots of people do that I think is a little obnoxious, is thinking that the way things are done in America are all flawed, and that they are undoubtedly and unmistakably better in other parts of the world like Europe or Asia.  I’m not going to pretend that America does everything right, but spending lengthy times abroad is an easy way to make comparisons, and discover that America sure gets a lot of things pretty damn right, and often.

European airports.  I challenge any person who loves to bitch about how chaotic, hectic and for whatever reason that doesn’t imply veiled racism “difficult” Atlanta Hartsfield-Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Nail Emporium and Hot Wings Shack Airport, to spend a day waiting for a flight in a European airport. 

Including last year, my frame of reference includes airports in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin and Milan, and all of them suck, compared to Atlanta Airport.  And it might be home to me, but Atlanta Airport is far from the best airport in the United States.

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