When you visit a country for a long time, you always think you have plenty of time left for everything, and find yourself going "oh well, we'll come back and look at this more closely later, I have plenty of time".
Which is such a lie.
And you generally only realize that on the very last week. This trip was the same for Rosemary, for what concerns me anyways. There were many things we expected to be able to finish, re-do and re-visit. At least we got a couple things down even on the very last week, running from bus to metro and through the streets of Seoul. We did a good job, I think, with most of the things we wanted to get done.
On Monday night, I got Rosemary to try on my hanbok, something I realized, I had completely forgotten, even though being in Korea, that was one of the interesting things I could get her to do for free. I was missing the ribbon for the hair, but she has a huge red bow so we just made it into a modern pink hanbok. Was so fun to do her hair since it's already so long and black :)
The seated pictures look okay, but on the standing ones we can tell really easily that my hanbok is currently stored in a suitcase instead of being hung nicely in a plastic wrap. I have no long wardrobe and it's quite bothersome to have the messy-looking folded bottom part of the dress when I look in my wardrobe otherwise. Oh well.
I will never forget the.... grace.... displayed in this beautifully feminine dress.... when Rosemary stood up from my temporary bed on the floor...
Anyways. After the pictures, Rosemary started being obsessed by the idea of wearing a decent in-a-real-setting-with-decent-lighting-and-actually-nice-hanbok, so we decided on going to the Korean photo studio I had been with Heather previously. I personally did not see anything wrong with going a second time, I would just pick a different costume. I love costuming anyways :)
The store closed at 7h30. I finish work at 6 but had left at 5h15 for the purpose of going there with the valid excuse that my friend was leaving soon. There were no other days we could have YES, busy week. So I took a bus to Seoul and we agreed to meet at Anguk station, near Insadong. Traffic jam got me some 15 minutes late so I got to Seoul station around 6h15. I was at Anguk station around 6h35. We arranged to meetup there, but we missed each other's text messages and were at different exits. We went back inside the station and got on our way to Anguk. It was past 6h45.
And then, I went on the opposite direction. 6h53.
We came back to the right spot, but while I always seem to have walked in the exact same direction every time I went there, I seemed to have missed the fact that there are in fact a LOT of streets that look the same in Insadong. Anyways. The way I was sure the place was at didn't look at all like the right spot. But I was so pissed. So was she. But then, had I been right and had we turned away looking for the place, or asked around, there might just have been more confusion and we didn't have the time to ask around. I felt like we were at the right place. So I kept walking. And walking...
7h05.
And walking.
And Rosemary was sure we were nowhere near. And I believed her. Still, I kept walking. 7h15.
We got there. Yes, I was right!! But would they take us so near their closing time?
They did. Maybe they didn't have too many people that day? In any case, we got there and both got turned into princesses. Then we took studio pictures, and after, instead of letting us take pictures freely, as they usually do, they helped us strike poses and took pictures for us. That was obviously cuz they were anxious to close, but that helped.
After the shooting, we laughed at Rosemary's overly drawn eyebrows that, while being perfectly fine for the lighting in the photos taken by the professional photographer, looked really intense in the pictures we took after.
"Oh, that's really dark...", said Rosemary to her makeup artist.
"Is it too dark?"
"No, it's okay, it just looks like I have two dead caterpillar on my face but..."
"Oh, okay then."
She kept painting her face...
That was the day where Rosemary learned that sarcasm goes undetected in Korean land... at least for some people...
We made it into a great day by having dinner in a cute place with pretty Angela that I hadn't seen in ages! :)
The plans we had for Thursday were really cool. A friend from University I had met in China had this event at Octagon with his company, and we were going to chill there and end Rosemary's stay with a bang.
We got dressed, got on the bus to Gangnam, then on a cab to Octagon. We got there late, around 11h30, too late for other metro/busses. But. When we got there. All pimped up. We realized I never thought to tell Rosemary to make sure she had her ID. Silly eh? One would think that people don't need to care about that after they passed the 25 years old line... While I always do bring my IDs in clubs, cuz it SOOOOO infuriating when once in a while they decide to be stupid and ID you, I never thought of telling her. And well, we were doing to dance all night, so she travelled light. And had left everything at my place.
... tried everything.
Ended up getting back home in a cab. Rosemary was sulking. With reasons, but sulking with a big S. We had the V.I.P. bags that were handed to us before we got IDed, and decided to wear that S*** and get some food. Angry and hungry does make a good couple. And Rosemary was both.
Fortunately for us, her hunger was more intense than her hatred for Korean wannabe high class clubs, and we had an ok end of day.
STILL.
What a FML way to end her up to that point almost flawless trip to Korea.
On Friday we went to Dongdaemoon (or was it namdaemoon? darn it I can't remember) Anwyayyyys the one that closes REALLLLY late at night (open from 10PM to 2-4AM) and realized that we should have gone before. So many cheap clothes all over the place. That was blissfull. Haven't gone since then, and when I went I had no money to spend, but that was fun anyways!
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