![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_6389.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I feel like there\u2019s got to be an industry for creating end-of-vacation travel packages that help mitigate the downward emotional connotation of a conclusion to a trip.\u00a0 Not sure how it would entirely entail, but stuff like low-stress return travel, not having to do death marches at inconvenient times, and any methods of help reduce the strain of time changes and logistics.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, this is a hypothetical thought that comes to mind while mythical wife and I are en route home after two weeks without kids, as we\u2019ve traversed through Seoul, Singapore, the ambiguous open seas somewhere between Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and wherever else, before a crash course through Hong Kong, and on our way back to \u2018Murica, while trying to fight the feelings of dread of returning to normal life although we\u2019re both looking forward to seeing the girls again.<\/span><\/p>\n This was, for all intents and purposes, the first true adults-only vacation that we\u2019ve been on, since, our honeymoon, due to the unintentional expediency in which our kids came into the picture, as well as a fucking pandemic.\u00a0 Not necessarily by design, during the course of our trip, a lot of shit happened, noteworthy to me, like the Knicks winning the NBA championship while we were in the air, missing ALL of the World Cup group stage, while trying to catch some action while hilariously on the other side of the planet, Father\u2019s Day, and our anniversary, where we entered year 8 of marriage dear god where has the time gone<\/span><\/p>\n But, in true autist fashion, of course I jotted down notes and blurbs of things and thoughts that came to mind during travels because of course it\u2019s got to become shit for me to write about in the brog that nobody reads except for me.<\/span><\/p>\n The last time I was in Korea was nine years ago, when I came with mythical wife on what was her first-ever visit to the Motherland. She has since been back a few times without me because she hates traveling with me, but I was excited to return because it has been quite some time since I\u2019d been.<\/span><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t think that much would be different since my last visit, but I suppose it was naive of me to think that, because it was almost culture shock to count all the ways things had changed since my last time out here.\u00a0 If I had to try to nail the reasons, I would say that it\u2019s probably a combination of boy band BTS going globally mainstream, K-Pop Demon Hunters<\/em>, and the general mass popularization of Korean culture on a global scale, because for the most part, Seoul was absolutely crawling with foreign tourists.<\/span><\/p>\n Naturally, this is me saying that it was at times, uncomfortably and inconveniently crowded at times, and I\u2019d be lying if I didn\u2019t think to myself thoughts about how Thanos Was Right<\/em> and other nihilistic things that stem from my general aversion to crowds.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n There were times during the trip where I was thinking how foreign tourists were outnumbering the Korean locals, based on the vast variety of languages I\u2019d hear in the throngs of humanity over Korean; Mandarin, Japanese, Cantonese, Tagalog, Russian; and it didn\u2019t help that the unit we were staying in, was very evidently designed to house foreigners, based on the content broadcast on the elevators, not to mention the fact that the the only Koreans in the entire building were practically only those in working capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, just about all of the neighborhoods and different parts of town that Seoul is known for, are pretty well known by anyone who does a modicum of research on where to experience the trendy and the popular.\u00a0 So basically, Myeongdong, Hongdae and Seongsu were tourism hotspots where pretty much the United Nations converged to do their shopping, dining, shopping and general milling around like thousands of zombies staring down at their phones.\u00a0 And shopping.<\/span><\/p>\n Seriously, I came up with at least 15 different jokes and slights about how many Olive Young stores that were all over the country and how we had been inside at least 34 different locations, and how 96% of tourists were all toting their bags with the other 4% being those still looking.<\/span><\/p>\n Dear god, I hit several points during the trip where I got really over shopping, and just wanted to pretty much do anything but go into any more stores.\u00a0 Hearing the word \u201cflagship\u201d next to any store got to a point where it meant \u201cshitshow of humanity,\u201d and towards the end of the trip I would have to warn mythical wife of my waning limit to how much more shopping I could tolerate, even if it basically the national pastime of Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n But, we\u2019re mature adults and have been married for eight years now, so we were perfectly capable of operating by ourselves, and we actually had numerous agenda items that were meant to be solo activities.\u00a0 Obviously, we spent a lot of time together, as well as with my mother-in-law who was with us, and with whom I really enjoyed our jet lag\/early-riser morning walks and wandering through the quiet and asleep version of Seoul, but I had the wherewithal to actually have some personal goals and activities for myself, and not just entirely be around for the ride and wing it, because as I tend to learn in modern life, such isn\u2019t always the best course of action.<\/span><\/p>\n Before anyone gets any (further) idea that I didn\u2019t have a good time in Seoul, that isn\u2019t true, and I really did have a good time there, in spite of all the observational complaints I write about. A lot<\/em> has changed, but they\u2019re not all bad changes, and in big picture, they\u2019re all financially beneficial to the Republic of Korea, so there\u2019s always that win, even if it comes at somewhat of an expense to the locals and folks like me that want Korea to feel a bit more Korea and not just some gigantic fucking shopping center.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s funny, because many of the things that I set out to do, much was influenced by random videos I\u2019d come across on the internet over the last few years.\u00a0 Like there was this video of an old school barber that did classic straight razor shaves<\/a>, and I thought it must feel amazing to do such, and I realized that I did have the opportunity to do such.\u00a0 And thanks to the power of the internet, I found his little shop in the hills of Hyochang, and I made it a priority to go visit, and in a rejuvenating jaunt of real-Korea, I was his first customer of the day, he didn\u2019t speak a lick of English, which is reason #207 why I\u2019m glad I can speak Korean, and I had the most relaxing half hour of my life, getting one of the most refreshing and relaxing shave of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n There was a completely random video fed to me by the almighty algorithm<\/a>, of this English expat who claimed to have found the best burger in the city, in Itaewon, in some shack, and that was pretty much all I needed to hear, and I had to see to this myself.\u00a0 Mythical wife and I found it, and I can\u2019t say I\u2019ve had a ton of burgers in Korea since I usually just want to eat as much Korean food as I can, but sure enough, it was a delicious burger, and speaking with the owner\/operator, he and his mom were about the sweetest people alive, and I couldn\u2019t recommend more that people should visit Burger Snack in Itaewon.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of Itaewon, it was a neighborhood I had never visited in the past, and I didn\u2019t really have a strong desire to go, since it was always described as the expat hood that was a bit rough around the edges.\u00a0 But on this trip, I found myself there quite often, because one of the high priority items on my personal list came at the suggestion of a cousin of mine, which was to get a custom suit made, because Korean tailors are not only skilled craftsmen, but also the cost is vastly better than trying to get one made in \u2018Murica.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I liked the idea of a custom suit because it\u2019s always important to me to feel connected to my heritage, and what Korean man shouldn\u2019t go through life without a suit customized for them, especially if it were made in Korea?<\/span><\/p>\n So between my initial consult, fitting and pickup, the burger, as well as one morning where mythical wife and I went to go represent our au pair and go cheer for Brazil\u2019s World Cup match against Haiti at an Irish sports pub, I found myself in Itaewon quite a few times throughout the trip.\u00a0 And honestly, yeah the place is a little rough around the edges, but compared to the vapid gen-Z swarms of humanity at some of the other trendy neighborhoods, I found it kind of welcoming.<\/span><\/p>\n I felt like, Myeongdong, Hongdae and Seongsu were for kids, and Itaewon was more for grownups.<\/span><\/p>\n And then there was the obvious reseller who marched into one of the 43 Olive Youngs I happened to be at with mythical wife who had her own hand truck, bought like 30 of a specific product, and when she wasn\u2019t hyperactively trading crypto while having to wait 47 seconds in line, she was shoulder checking people as she barged through the streets of Myeongdong.<\/span><\/p>\n And the fucking phone zombies, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 25 times more frequently than seeing a girl adjusting her makeup on a train, it\u2019s like everyone in Seoul adopts the when in Rome mentality<\/em> and damn near everyone is walking around, aimlessly, staring down at their fucking phones.\u00a0 And while in such state, they\u2019re not walking in straight lines, watching where they\u2019re going, or paying any attention to their surroundings.\u00a0 If it wouldn\u2019t end up with me in jail, I really would love to just run around and slap phones out of hands left and right.<\/span><\/p>\n But seeing as how the city caters and invites these people in, it truly is a young person\u2019s world now, and I\u2019m just an old curmudgeon fuck stuck living in it.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/span><\/p>\n Going back to the World Cup, one of things I was looking forward to was the fact that we would be in Seoul when South Korea was going to have one of their matches, against Mexico.\u00a0 I anticipated there would be some national sponsored setup in the capital, as has been the case in World Cups past, where large viewing events would happen in King Sejong plaza.\u00a0 As a sports fan, these are things I\u2019ve seen on television and videos in the past, and I was excited to get to be present for one.<\/span><\/p>\n And it was pretty much everything I expected it would be, with an estimated 10,000+ people converging on the plaza to watch the match on gigantic building screens.\u00a0 Stringent crowd control kept flow somewhat manageable, but unfortunately, Korea would lose the match on a combination of screwing themselves with the goalkeeper losing the ball on a collision with a teammate, leading to Mexico\u2019s winner, as well as Mexico\u2019s defense denying two goals in pretty miraculous fashion.<\/span><\/p>\n But it was still a fun experience that I was happy to be a part of, even if it didn\u2019t go the way I had hoped.<\/span><\/p>\n Middling Doosan beat the higher-ranked LG Twins, 2-1.\u00a0 The cheering and fan experience really is the game-changer everyone who\u2019s ever experienced KBO say it is.\u00a0 And I got a giant beer with a cup of fried chicken and fries on top of it with a straw in it for like $10 USD.<\/span><\/p>\n KBO was fantastic.\u00a0 Even if it were an ordeal getting tickets.<\/span><\/p>\n Which is a perfect segue into my experience watching professional wrestling in Korea, also piggybacking onto seeing Internet personalities who had successfully influenced me.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how it happened, but I found out about this English female wrestler, who wrestles under the name Succubus<\/a>.\u00a0 It was easy to be drawn in since her attire was basically Morrigan the succubus from Darkstalkers<\/em>, but her videos were entertaining and her in-ring work was decent.\u00a0 Eventually I noticed that she was doing work in Korea and under the tutelage of former WWE\/ECW star Tajiri, but the big thing was learning that there was professional wrestling in Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n Back when I last visited in 2017, I couldn\u2019t even watch YouTube videos of WWE because it was flagged as being too violent.\u00a0 From then, I just accepted that Korea was a place that didn\u2019t accept much less have professional wrestling, especially since throughout the years almost nobody out there worked really representing the Motherland.<\/span><\/p>\n So not only was I surprised to learn of professional wrestling in Korea, I knew that when I saw a date that coincided with my trip, I knew I had to make an effort to go see it.<\/span><\/p>\n However, there were two challenging curveballs thrown my way with it; going back to difficult tickets, it was moving boulders acquiring tickets to this show, primarily based on the fact that the Motherland is so overboard with security, it\u2019s basically like they don\u2019t want anyone from outside the peninsula to get tickets to anything inside it.<\/span><\/p>\n Basically you have to have a Korean cell phone number which is tied into your national ID, which is like needing to give your clothes, boots and motorcycle for absolutely anything from signing up for an online account to getting tickets for events.\u00a0 And because I have neither, it\u2019s basically impossible for me to get tickets.<\/span><\/p>\n Long story short, my sister called a favor from a friend of hers in Korea, she managed to purchase tickets for me, and I was able to go; but that\u2019s where the second curveball came into play, which was learning that the show wasn\u2019t in Seoul like I thought and had originally seen that it was, but it was at their studios in Pyeongtaek, which was anywhere from 1-2 hours south of Seoul, depending on the mode of transportation.<\/span><\/p>\n Traveling to smaller parts of the country isn\u2019t something new to me, I did have to kind of blindly navigate from Busan to Gyeongju on my own a decade ago, but Pyeongtaek is a much smaller town than either, and I had concerns over what transportation would even be available to me, and the challenges of getting in, and back out, to Seoul on the same day.<\/span><\/p>\n I managed to accomplish all of my traveling goals without having to throw in the towel and hail a costly cab ride, but it did come with its own anxiety, frustration and being completely over Naver Maps, the preferred map app of South Korea, because if you\u2019re basically not heading in the cardinal direction of where you want to be going with a running start, you\u2019re never going to catch their real-time route instructions.\u00a0 But I did learn that going two hours from Pyeongtaek back into the heart of Seoul cost just a hilariously low 2,500\u20a9 ($1.85) on their metro train service.\u00a0 Also, I got a ride to the train station from one of the family members that ran PWS Korea, so that was a fun little story to come from this experience.<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, back to Korean pro wrestling, imagine my general amusement upon seeing what the Pro Wrestling Society: Korea crowd was like-primarily dads bringing their 8-12 year old kids, and then 44-year old me.\u00a0 Granted, every seat in the house was taken, but it was admittedly funny to see what target audience wrestling is in Korea compared to the US, where it\u2019s thousands more like me, albeit way less hygienic and more autistic.<\/span><\/p>\n The talent level was a little green, but most of the workers understood how to take bumps, and I appreciated them understanding the importance of entertaining the crowd, and pretty much everyone showed a good balance of in-ring work, and doing crowd work.<\/span><\/p>\n To get my money\u2019s and travel\u2019s worth, I hung out after the show where they did meet and greets with the fans, and I was able to chat with all of the performers, and basically thank them for their work and that I appreciated them for building pro wrestling in Korea.\u00a0 It felt surreal speaking Korean to wrestlers seeing as how I didn\u2019t know they existed not long ago, and the English-speaking workers were all seemingly thrilled that an English-speaking American had come all the way out to Pyeongtaek to catch a show.<\/span><\/p>\n And of course, I was pleased to speak with Succubus to tell her that I was a fan, and that she was how I learned of PWS Korea in the first place. She was quiet and pretty reserved, but she let me hold her PWS women\u2019s championship blet when I asked for a photo.<\/span><\/p>\n Can\u2019t really figure out a clever segue to this last pop-culture encounter, but on a requisite trip to a night market for food, we went to Auntie Omakase\u2019s stall at Gwangjang, she of popularity from Netflix\u2019s Culinary Class Wars<\/em>.\u00a0 Clearly, business has been booming since her run in the show, and I\u2019m happy for her and just about every single contestant who\u2019s managed to parlay their show appearances into endorsements and general profitability, and sitting there eating her cooking, it\u2019s pleasing to see that it hasn\u2019t gotten to her head.<\/span><\/p>\n After our meal, mythical wife and I thought it best to patiently wait for an opportunity to speak with her and ask for a photo, instead of being the shitty tourists that just shoot without consent, although she seems to be unfazed by it.\u00a0 But when our opportunity arose, she was absolutely lovely and gracious, and I could tell her in Korean that we were fans, and we\u2019d also been to Chef Edward Lee\u2019s joint in Washington DC, and that her food was way more quintessentially Korean than his, and she seemed to be tickled by the comp.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of the night markets, I was surprised to hear that they closed as early as they did, considering that when I learned about them in the first place, they were known for operating into the nights, mostly on account of Seoul\u2019s general reputation of being a night city.<\/span><\/p>\n Frankly, it really only felt like only certain parts fit that description anymore, like the trendy neighborhoods, where the large crowds support all the food stands and markets.\u00a0 Dongdaemun, Insadong and all the tiny little alleys where thousands of small businesses operate, seemingly all close up shop and go dark, leaving pretty much nothing but GS25s, CUs and 7-Elevens as the only places open.<\/span><\/p>\n However, mythical wife and I found some salvation in the Jongno Pocha district, which has apparently become a thing.\u00a0 Whereas I was lamenting on the seemingly diminished street food and tent tavern culture that I remembered so fondly, the Jongno Pocha district is a place where all sorts of open air and street vendors all open, and create a lively atmosphere of food, gathering and good times, and where we got to have a nice final meal and drinks, before we closed the door on our Korea leg of our vacation.<\/span><\/p>\n That is, until we made the best of a six-hour layover, left the airport and went into Unseo, a small town right by the airport, where mythical wife hit up her 64th Olive Young, and then we had our actual fine final meal of Korea before getting onto our flight home where I\u2019m 2.5 hours into the 9 hour flight writing all this bullshit down.<\/span><\/p>\n As much as I did actually enjoy my time in Korea, one of the prevailing thoughts I had was that shit current iteration of Seoul, is probably not the place where Koreans like me, who weren\u2019t born in Korea, should probably go to, to try and do any modicum of Seoul Searching<\/a>.\u00a0 The city\u2019s always been at global status, but now it\u2019s at this current state of where it\u2019s so tourist popular, that all the visitors kind of strip away its identity and it doesn\u2019t really feel like a place to immerse in Korean culture, because there\u2019s so many others around at any given time.<\/span><\/p>\n All the same, I\u2019m already missing the place while on the way out, and I wonder at what point in the future, that we bring the kids out to experience the Motherland themselves.\u00a0 The very thought both excites and scares me at the same time, but until next time Korea, vaya con dios!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I feel like there\u2019s got to be an industry for creating end-of-vacation travel packages that help mitigate the downward emotional connotation of a conclusion to a trip.\u00a0 Not sure how it would entirely entail, but stuff like low-stress return travel, not having to do death marches at inconvenient times, and any methods of help reduce … Continue reading Seoul Searching, circa 2026<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,62,151,100,56,103,41,177,129,83,99,156,58,69,65,146,166,54],"class_list":["post-51294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-baseball","tag-blets","tag-comparison","tag-food","tag-motherland","tag-movies","tag-mythical","tag-nostalgia","tag-observations","tag-reminiscing","tag-social-media","tag-sports","tag-television","tag-travel","tag-triggered","tag-vacation","tag-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51294"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51312,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51294\/revisions\/51312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_6487.jpg\")
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Frankly, one of the prevalent thoughts I had while in Seoul was how I\u2019ve often heard<\/em> about obnoxious Gen-Z behaviors and habits, but for whatever reason my life in the burbs of Atlanta, I never see any of it.\u00a0 But on this one trip to Seoul, I felt like I saw examples of all of them, from all the obnoxious wannabe content creators, carting around their own tripods and camera stands for impromptu videos or posed photos, with absolutely no regard for the people around them, to learning of the existence and subsequently getting the piss annoyed out of me by little keyboard clickers, which seemingly have replaced fidget spinners for ADHD twats.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_6531.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_6502.jpg\")
Speaking of sports, after years of watching highlights and hearing about it, my family and I got to a Korean Baseball Organization game, catching an LG Twins and Doosan Bears game at Jamsil Stadium.\u00a0 Honestly, I knew about the general level of skill to expect going into it, but I was mostly looking forward to the food experience, since I\u2019ve always heard that the food options are vastly superior to the atypical crap available at American baseball joints, as well as vastly cheaper, not including the highly favorable USD conversion we enjoyed all trip.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_6601.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_6626.jpg\")
It was cool to see Succubus perform live, after just seeing her reels and highlights over social media in the past.\u00a0 She\u2019s probably more experienced than most of the roster, and it showed, because she had a ring awareness, fleshed out character and aura that most others on the roster did not have, and her match against PWS Korea founder Shiho, who also has some Japanese experience, was easily the best match of the show.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_6461.jpg\")
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