Annyeonghaseyo Seoul!

The man didn't understand why I left the Kindle at home. My iPad has like...zero e-books. Different gadgets for different purposes. There's something gorgeous and luxurious about thumbing through the thin pages of the magazines and journals while travelling.

As autumn arrives, we step into Seoul. A last-minute trip. Air tickets were bought only 3 days ago. Hurhurhur. The friends influenced us. They mentioned it some weeks back, but we forgot about it. Then on Monday, they asked, "We just bought our air-tickets. Are you coming to Seoul with us?" So we made a snap decision. Yes! We're all on different flights though. But staying in one hotel. I feel like we're living in a uni dorm all over again! Albeit a fancy dorm. Hahahahah. This trip would be a hoot. People, let's try not to get drunk more than once on makgeoli and shoju.

I've no love affair with K-pop, K-drama or its food. So I'm not like an incredibly excited fangirl going to a favorite city. (I'd love to have a chance to visit North Korea though.) Korean is one language that completely escapes me. Don't quite have a feel for it. I've no hope of ever learning its squarish forms of writing. The speaking of the language isn't that tough. But I'm not picking it up as fast as I normally would because I'm not consciously bothered to remember phrases.

While I look forward to checking out the city's pottery studios, ceramic and porcelain tea wares, its tea doesn't totally excite me. Running down the list of Korean teas with people familiar with them, made me realize that I'm not going to like most of them very much. Most are herbal, fruit and berry teas. Of course I'm not going to touch a drop of any ginseng tea thingy. Ginseng doesn't agree with my body. What I hope to taste, is its hwang-cha, a yellow tea similar to an oolong, and some of its green tea.

It's been a decade since I last visited Seoul. The man is a more frequent visitor since work takes him on week-long jaunts every quarter for the past three years. It'll be nice to explore the city together, and also see it through the eyes of the Korean friends who live in Seoul, and those who live overseas and return once in a while to the city they don't call home, but ethnically rooted to it.