a moment in time. haeundae.

coffee with good people at three AM.

what a blessing it is to be called up at three AM while wandering around hongdae, and have your friend invite you into one of your favourite cafes after hours. (friends i met through very random circumstances, which all come back to me being one of the few - i think - white girl baristas in tokyo). seated at the counter at ZOMBIE coffee, i was treated to a practice run-through of barista jeon sumin's set for the korea barista championship. basically, coffee heaven.

things i learned from this amazing night? a combination of single espresso, single cappuccino, pour over and black tea consumed in a span of twenty minutes results in very jittery legs and  conversations held in a mix of japanese, korean and english, poorly punctuated by awkward laughter (much like the poor punctuation of this run-on sentence!)

seriously though, i've been fortunate enough to meet some truly amazing people in this city.

ZOMBIE COFFEE mapo-gu seogyo-dong 362-12 

1N2D to busan! (did you know the KTX has wifi? ㅎㅎㅎ)

some things look beautiful even in the rain.

out and about in samcheongdong

rainy day walking around the tiny backstreets in the hills of samcheongdong. the old hanok houses are so beautiful, i envy everyone who lives here.

FAN records, samcheongdong. opened just three months ago, FAN records wants to introduce the world to the korean indie music scene. the shop is located on a small side street in samcheongdong, a historical neighborhood that is also one of seoul's most popular tourist destinations. (it's also my favorite neighborhood and nothing delights me more than new discoveries tucked away amongst the old hanok houses) the owner is an interior decoration and graphic designer, and designs all the tote bags and tee shirts sold in the shop. he also makes coffee (thankfully, because i was in severe need of one when i came across the shop this morning)

MASTERPIECE hair salon, owned and run by lee young hyun. as fate slash competitive real estate prices would have it, my former favorite hair salon (near ewha university) was closed down. which put me in a bit of a predicament because i always wait to get my hair done until i'm in seoul - no really, i haven't gone to a hair salon in tokyo in almost three years because i always time getting my color touched with when i'm in seoul. fortunately, geniejoo found an alternative in MASTERPIECE, a small salon in sangsu which opened barely three months ago. MASTERPIECE is run by lee young hyun, who has to be the most detail oriented hair stylist i've ever had the fortune to meet. she's also super sweet and fun, and has a good ten years experience under her belt. also her salon is so nice -- i'm a sucker for the concrete walls and pretty flowers combination. ( it's also located next to cafe futuremine, which genie wrote about here http://geniesnotebook.blogspot.kr/2014/02/space.html?m=1 which is just further proof of all the good things you can find in sangsu) MASTERPIECE 1F, 310-9, sangsu-dong, mapo-gu +82 02 332 3198

it seems rainy season has just started in seoul (aka i'm bad at timing my trips because rainy season ended t h e day i left tokyo)

the scenery on the stretch between yeongjong and cheongna station on the AREX has fascinated me since the first time i went to seoul in 2011. it's so strangely beautiful, especially with the mountains in the background shrouded in mist. i'm back in seoul for my summer vacation, and am hoping to update this blog frequently again. i hope those of you who are still following will enjoy new updates!

33. this is nothing

sometimes amazing this happen to me in this city; meeting really amazing people and getting invited to showcases by really amazing bands. sometimes these really amazing things happen and then i'm a lazy bum and don't tell you about them until two or so weeks later. oops. in the time in between i've made some important life decisions (no joke, really!) and helped out with some fun projects and tried to make sensical conversations in korean with ten-year olds. but mostly i've just been lazy. 

anyway, this is fantastic drugstore (판타스틱드럭스토어). they were on MNET's TOPBAND show if any of you are familiar with that, and just released an ep in korea titled THIS IS NOTHING. i got to go to their release showcase and now have a girl crush on their drummer. 

32. to us in our twenties

yesterday a friend texted me unexpectedly and asked if I wanted to tag along to the evenings MNET 20's CHOICE awards; being an incurable k-pop fangirl, how could I possibly say no? it was interesting experience to be honest, aside from being kick ass awesome fun. MNET had invited a number of foreigners to the event to reflect the diversity of k-pop fans, and we were asked to show up pretty early on which meant we could watch the rehearsal as well! pretty neat considering i had to leave early, so at least i got to see SNSD's taetiseo do their warm up, even if i missed the actual performance. (major SNSD fangirl here!)

personally my favorite performance was busker busker's; their song cherry blossom ending has been massively popular since this spring and it's a great sing-along song for this kind of event. the crowd was mainly just a really chill gang of pretty korean people in swimwear (to go with the pool party theme), which was kind of great because it meant i didn't have to worry about getting pushed and dropping my camera in the water as i was wading around in the pool. (if you watch performance videos and see an awkward blonde girl up by the left side of the stage... yeah.)

so, thanks a million to alex again for the invitation! i had a blast, and will be posting more shots here later~

31. saturday in the park

in which it becomes obvious that I'm worse at filming than I am at still shots - but my general policy if learning by failure (it would have to be, considering the amount of failing I do in life), and so I hope to slowly be working myself up so I can show you something nice from Seoul in ten weeks time.

anyway, it's officially the end of my first full week back in town, and I think I've rounded it up quite nicely with two nights in Hongdae. this is a real cool instrument band that was performing at the playground in on Saturday evening; electric keyboard, guitar, trombone, clarinet, sax, bass, drums and even a melodica, oh my! didn't pick up their name though, unfortunately, but man I miss this kind of thing when I'm in Tokyo. don't be surprised if I hang around every weekend from now until I go home; creature of habit, that's me.

30. let's not call it a comeback

but I'm back in Seoul for the summer.

the plan is to actually learn some Korean this time around (oops about that last fall...) and have amazing adventures with amazing people™. kicked it off this weekend by wandering around Samcheongdong to re-discover my favorite neighborhood in the city; even with the weekend influx of tourists it has to be the most calm place in the city for me. I wish I could properly describe just how wonderful it felt to walk around and still remember how to get from one side of the maze of hanoks on the hill, and over to the other side without getting helplessly lost. I popped by a few of the galleries, even managing to get student discounts everywhere with my old Ewha card. score!

the weather's still a bit hard for me to adjust too - I came to Seoul now right after spending almost a month and a half in Europe being continuously rained on 4/5 of my trip. I'm not at all acclimatized to to the humid heat that engulfs big cities like Tokyo and Seoul in the summer (not entirely sure my Norwegian skin ever will. not to say that I can survive a Norwegian winter either at this point.) though as long as I get my fix of fashion, friends and music, I think I'm in store for a great summer. (all photos taken with Nikon d3100 + 50mm f1.4)

29. d'industry55

the nicest cafe ever on a little side-street in Samcheongdong. beautiful furniture and minimalist design, with delicious organic muffins (ours were fig & pumpkin!)

28. fall

in early november, the lovely Hanna came to visit in Seoul. it started getting cold, and the autumn leaves were amusingly huge. it's even colder now, and I'm leaving soon. (I'm so behind on everything.)    

27. thirty six hours in busan (4)