Korea wedding trip day 6: once more into the pig

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It's our last day in Seoul, and we have a couple of stops to hit before flying off. Coffee is usually the first order of the day for Foursheets, and I honestly felt a little lazy this morning. Since there's a branch of A Twosome Place right in the lobby of voco Seoul Myeongdong, I figured we should just get our coffee and breakfast right here.

I got myself some kind of a bacon and cheese bagel, which was OK. I don't expect amazing bagels when I'm in Asia...

...but this coffee... This was REALLY SHIT. Totally bland and tasteless. This was most definitely the blandest coffee I can remember ever having. Together with our experiences over the last few days, it makes us wonder... do Koreans actually know to make coffee? I don't remember the coffees I had in Seoul last year being anywhere nearly as bad, and I know that this is a chain and all... but still!

Korea wedding trip day 5: my kind of Sunday roast

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I knew that on this trip, Foursheets' first return to Seoul since 2017, I would have to take her to Born and Bred. We were lucky enough to have been introduced to Sang on that trip when he was still personally cooking at the old private counter inside Majang-dong, and we've been fans ever since.

Shortly before the pandemic struck, Sang opened his Kingsmen-inspired new multi-story building. I wasn't able to join a group trip in late 2019, but did get to come with The Man in White T-shirt last year. This was the first opportunity for Foursheets to come see it for herself, and I roped in Kutsuyama for our Sunday dinner.

Chef Min had moved to the original counter back inside the market, as the place has been rebranded Born and Bred Original. The place is closed for a private event tonight, but he was very kind to spending some time here tonight to make us feel welcome. Sang had told me last night that the big building still serves up his menu, but the new menu at the "Original" is all Chef Min... and he admitted that Chef Min's menu may be better than his own. I guess we'll need to come back to Seoul for that!

As we were the last people to be seated, we were at the far end of the semi-circular counter. The chef started by presenting the two best cuts of beef to us as he began to cook them over the charcoal grill.

Korea wedding trip day 5: Pyeongyang in Dongdaemun

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After spending the first few nights in our spacious room at Hotel Sunbee Insadong, we decided to check into voco Seoul Myeongdong to be closer to heart of the city. The room was definitely smaller, but now we have a view of Namsan and N Seoul Tower.

After days of traveling everywhere by taxi, we switched to public transport today since there is a bus stop right in front of our hotel entrance. It wasn't long before we got off at the designated stop, with a short walk to our lunch spot.

Pyeongyang Myeonok (평양면옥) is an institution in Seoul, with a history that apparently goes back three generations. The original location is too far south and even the second location in Uijeongbu (의정부) is a little out of the way, so we visited the one in Jangchung-dong (장충동) for the convenience. We didn't get here as early as I wanted to, so we ended up waiting in line for just about 10 minutes.

Korea wedding trip day 4: missed it, again

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We missed the wedding.

Yes, THAT wedding. The one we flew into Korea for. The one we planned this trip around. The whole point of this trip. We missed the ceremony.

We didn't realize traffic would be so bad on Saturday afternoon, and it took us an hour to get from lunch in Gangnam back to our hotel. After quickly changing into something more formal, we called a taxi to take us to the wedding venue. That's when the downpour started, and it really was coming down hard. It took the driver 50 minutes to get to our hotel to pick us up. We got into the car just around the time that the ceremonies began in the rain.

We were more than a half hour late in arriving at King Sejong Memorial Hall (세종대왕기념관), and the ceremony had just finished minutes earlier. The bride and groom were starting to take group photos with the guests, and I guess at least we made it for that! This was pretty much what happened to another wedding in 2001... when I flew across the Pacific Ocean, met up with the bride and groom before the wedding, only to arrive in time for pictures post-ceremony. Oh well.

Korea wedding trip day 4: back in the Garden

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We decided to sleep in this morning. After a few stressful days of working from my hotel room while on vacation, we finally got to relax a little last night... and needed to catch up on a little sleep. So... we arrived at Starfield Coex Mall about an hour later than I had originally planned. And also too late for Foursheets to sit down for a cup of decent coffee, wherever that may be.

The first order of business, though, was for Foursheets to see Starfield Library. More than 90% of people passing through here at any given time are tourists just looking to snap some photos and videos, and that is also true for us. While strolling around the library, we ran into an elderly couple who traveled from Taiwan with their bichon frisé. Pretty amazing that they brought their dog on their travels with them, and we couldn't help but think of how much we miss our asshole Kuma while playing with the doggo...