Travel & Hope for the Future
It was a long and sucky year, but the few bright spots were the trips I managed to take during the year… oh, you thought I meant 2020? No, this is a post about the trips I took in 2019. 2020 was so damn uneventful that my passport had lapsed for 6 full months before I renewed it, and a fat load of good that did for me, anyway, since nobody was goin’ nowhere.
It’s been a long 2-year span that felt a lot like holding my breath. I’ve never lived in the same place for this long in almost a decade, and the itch under my skin to move has become stronger and stronger with each passing month. I used to feel so sure about myself and my place in the world, my purpose, and ironically enough now that I’m back in my home country and my home state I feel… unmoored… like I’m drifting. I look at all the people who are content with their lives and jobs and relationships and wish I could say the same, but I’m stuck here with this almighty itch to get out, whatever that will turn out to mean. I feel bad and guilty all the time like I should be satisfied with my lot in life, but I’m not sure how to fix it. My year (2019 and some of 2020) has been a lot of trying to figure out how to manage a household back at home, and what it means to actually work in the field that I trained for, about the importance of habit and intentionality. I’ve been battling some pretty big demons, especially in the winter when it’s dark when I wake up and when I get out of work.
New York City 2019
This was intended to be its whole own blog post, as in many ways it was the focal point of the year, so there’s a lot of detail where not as much detail is present .
It all started with my being served an ad for a bakery in New York City on Facebook. Offhandedly, I said to my friend, hey we should go here, thinking that it was in Washington, DC, where she lived instead of further away in NYC. I quickly corrected my mistake and told her it was in NYC, and then said offhandedly, hey we should go there sometime. A few minutes later, I said, thinking it would be unrelated, that I wanted to go on a trip for my birthday. She said, how about a trip to new York city. We could see a drag show, do a dumpling tour, and stay in a horribly aesthetic Airbnb. Thus, this Frankenstein’s monster of a trip was born.
We both planned for the trip in the best way we, respectively, knew how to. Erin, who is an engineer, made a detailed map and list of all the places we might want to see or things we might want to do, categorizing them by theme and color-coding them. Mine was a bit more haphazard, just making a list and links and diving down rabbit holes of endless listicles and articles, but I suppose I did find and book the big-ticket items, such as the Airbnb, drag show, and Broadway show. I could have planned much better, but NYC can sometimes be a trip where you’re benefited by spontaneity.
I love trains, so I booked the Amtrak right from Lancaster into New York, no transfers needed. Sure, I left work a little hastily, but sue me, it was my birthday, and the amount of time the train stops for is super short. It’s a small margin of error. I love the way your mind wanders when you’re on the train; I really get why writers love the train.
After disembarking, I headed right to the neighborhood of our Airbnb where Erin was to meet me. We’d timed it so that even though she was leaving later, since she was flying, she would meet me at about the same time. However, the Uber she took from the airport got stuck in horrible Friday- rush-hour traffic. As for me, although I’m a pro at most subway systems, it was my first try in a while doing the New York subway on my own, so I fucked up multiple times, getting on the wrong train that terminated too soon or on the express when I should have taken the local. We ended up arriving at around the same time, but I soon discovered that my Wi-Fi/cell service was pretty nonexistent. I’m not sure how this can be, but it happened anyway. It was really only a problem as we tried to coordinate the exit we were to meet at: station exits are not helpfully labeled with numbers as they are in Seoul or most other world cities. It means… so little to me when someone says this exit is on 13th street SE and this one is on 14th street NW. Just give me the exit numbers, please.
We proceeded right to get pizza, at a place just around the corner from our station, at Vinnie’s Pizza. It was a great reunion and a great slice of pizza. While I think there’s room in the world for lots of different pizza types, I’ll admit that NYC has pretty much the best pizza in the world.
We proceeded after that to Milk Bar, who I follow on Instagram and I decided I absolutely must get a birthday treat there. In my original vision of the weekend, I imagined getting one of the small birthday layer cakes. First of all, those are expensive, and second of all, if you can’t eat it all at once, we might have felt strange leaving it in the fridge of the Airbnb for the host or throwing it away. So I decided on some cake truffles and 2 cookies, which had the added benefit of being much more portable than the cake.
We finished off the night with a neat little bar in Brooklyn, The Factory, where we got a cocktail each and happy hour deals of a beer and shot of our choice. It was a great way to wind down and the atmosphere was really cool.
Our Williamsburg Airbnb was absolutely STUNNING; every inch of wall space, counters, shelves, and ceiling covered with live plants, even in the bathroom and kitchen. I could have just stayed the whole time looking at these beautiful plants all day. It took us an embarrassing amount of time to get into the Airbnb, with 2 layers of locks to navigate, and we weren’t even drunk.
The next day, we tried to wake and get out pretty early. We got a bagel, a must for any NYC trip, at Knickerbocker Bagel to start off the day. This was probably a mistake because we didn’t have much room leftover for dumplings later. We tried to go to the Tenement Museum, but on pretty short notice as we were, there were no tour times left for several hours, so we ended up passing on it. We went to an art pop-up instead, so while quite strange and loud, it captured what I feel is the NYC vibe.
On the way out of the pop-up, I stopped in my tracks. Was that Round K cafe which I had read so much about that we were passing by? It totally was. When the matte-black latte had first popped up, I was tagged in so many articles about it and wanted to try it SO BAD, but I figured that I’d probably never get the chance. And here we were, stood outside the front door like it was divine providence. The matte black latte is a whole-ass Experience. It stains your teeth and consumes your mind as you’re drinking it, but I’d definitely recommend it. Erin got a lingonberry tea, and I spent about 20 minutes scrubbing my teeth so I didn’t look like I’d come out of a horror film.
We had intended to do a “dumpling tour of New York,” trying all different kinds of dumplings. However, for a tour like that you should definitely come hungrier than we were and probably have more than 2 people eating all the dumplings: even ordering the smallest possible orders of dumplings, we only managed 2 dumpling stops near the Lower East Side/ Chinatown area: one was boiled pork & chive jiaozi at Shu Jiao Fu Zho and later, soup dumplings with bubble tea at Shanghai Dumpling (it’s now been renamed Supreme Restaurant). Once again, the bubble tea was probably a mistake because we still didn’t have any room for anything more than a few dumplings.
To attempt a redemption at the dumpling tour, I would:
- bring more people
- fast for at least part of a day beforehand
- take a longer day
- drink very few drinks
We tried to find some museums, but many of the ones we’d set our eyes on were too far uptown to pop up there for just a short journey. Sometimes the museum visit has to be one of the focal points of your trip, or at least of your day, and we definitely had our energies focused on other things.
We had a weird amount of time left before the show, so we ended up watching the Eurovision final (don’t ask me who won, since we barely understood what was happening onscreen, and my entire understanding of how Eurovision works comes from that Will Ferrell movie on Netflix) in the sidewalk seating of a gin bar with pretty aesthetic cocktails. Writing this in 2021, after the year we’ve just had, it feels like another century. Remember going to places? Lol.
We caught the subway across town to the New World Stage theaters so that we could finally see Avenue Q! I’d been hearing this show quoted since middle school, and it was amazing to see all the songs that were so popular fall into place within the storyline of the show. Not to mention, it kind of speaks to a young twentysomething trying to find their way in the world, as many of us are. I can’t recommend Avenue Q enough!
The hole in my heart left when I departed from Korea is nigh on impossible to fill, but I certainly can try when Korean barbecue is at stake (no pun intended) We had awesome grilled galbi and it was the best meal I’d had in a long time. The dumpling tour, Avenue Q, KBBQ, and drag brunch the next day were my biggest asks for the trip. Everything else was just icing on the [birthday] cake.
The next day, the main event was drag brunch at Lips, on the recommendation of my Long Islander coworker, where we enjoyed bottomless mimosas, typical brunch fare, and amazing performances. I’d never been to a drag brunch before, so it was definitely a treat. At one point they called up all the ladies whose birthday it was and whose bridal shower it was to the stage. If I’d gone with another friend, I’d certainly have been shunted up to the stage, so I was grateful to remain seated. Considering the volume of mimosa I’d drunk, it was unwise to be walking around too much. We were pretty toasty by 1pm, and then turned loose on the streets.
The last thing we did was a rooftop bar for wine and a scenic view of Central Park, before we both had to go our separate ways.
Some more things that brought me joy the rest of the year, and the very beginning of 2020? I had the good fortune to go on a few awesome trips: most were just within the United States, but I jetted out to Toronto just one week before my passport was to expire. I’d originally intended to write a whole blog post on each, then scaling back to writing just one about the triptych of little trips I took from summer into fall (Toronto, Tampa, Rochester), but life got in the way and inspiration eluded me for much of the year, especially where writing was concerned.
Surgical Strike
My dad has this thing that he calls a “surgical strike” trip. It means you go into a city or an area for a short time, do all the notable stuff, and leave immediately before anybody notices you’ve been there. I made it my habit throughout the rest of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, because it was better for my work life to leave at the crack of dawn Saturday morning, stay for a single evening, and head out Sunday evening, never having missed a single second of work. Capitalism is a poison, folks.
Toronto
A week before my passport was set to expire, I jetted out to Toronto to visit my friends Matt and Steph, who I’d met and taught with my first year in Korea. Steph often functioned as my mom-figure while I was in Korea and Matt has served as the master instigator in my quest to go back to Korea nowadays. I woke up at like 3AM to drive to the Philadelphia airport and arrived in Toronto at 6 or 7. It was easy enough to catch the train into downtown Toronto, where I caught breakfast at the Tim Horton’s in the train station.
Matt and Steph took me walking around downtown and we got proper Canadian poutine! It was SO MUCH FOOD. While it was technically possible for me to have looked up stuff to do beforehand and plot them out on the map, Matt and Steph had it down and I didn’t really have to do anything, which was nice. We walked through the distillery district, one of those pedestrian-only chic kind of shopping and lifestyle areas. In the evening we saw the CN Tower illuminated in the sunset. After that, we caught a drink with another of our coworkers from the same school in Seoul, Maxine. It’s crazy to be able to meet these friends again on the complete other side of the world from where we first met.
All I know of apartments and houses in Toronto is from the show Kim’s Convenience. We stayed at an AirBnb whose upper few floors each consisted of AirBnb-rented rooms and a shared bathroom. We had to battle the occupants of other rooms for use of the bathroom in the morning, because obviously everybody is trying to get teeth brushed and showered and ready before it’s time to check out. It’s kind of hard to pack badly for a one-night stay but if I remember correctly, I forgot to pack any extra socks, so that was pretty tragic.
Once we got back into the city, we had the breakfast of champions, as far as I’m concerned: this watermelon ice cream filled donut-cone thing was the perfect start to the day. We ended up exploring the Koreatown area of Toronto first thing, grabbing bubble tea at The Alley and some proper Korean soup before exploring a maze of graffiti-filled walkways. It was my understanding that this area is a city-approved graffiti area similar to that one tunnel in Sydney University. If you have a designated area where it’s okay to do the graffiti, then there will be less illegal graffiti where you don’t want it. It would be a great place for selfies or photoshoots for social media, if that’s your thing.
After that, I said my goodbyes and made my way back to the airport. Although we’re all back in our homelands and not able to return to Korea yet because of the pandemic, I know we’ll all be able to reunite there again soon.
Tampa
A few months later, I went to Tampa to visit my Aunt Karen and Uncle Scott. This trip was already so long ago that in the time it took me to write this blog post, they have both since retired, moved to Long Island, and are now working on moving back to Florida after selling their house in LI. I was fortunate enough to visit them on a warm weekend in October when it was already starting to get cold in PA. Once more, this was a trip where I left for the airport at 3AM and arrived in Tampa very early in the morning. We caught brunch on the harbor and walked around a bit. I imagined living in a place where the weather is almost always nice and you could own a stand-up paddleboard and go out and just vibe whenever you want. We went to Clearwater Beach and though I hadn’t planned to go swimming, I then sorely wished I’d have brought a swimsuit because the water was just so inviting. Just a pristine, stunning beach that even though it was crowded I never wanted to leave there.
In the evening, I found a great Korean BBQ place and introduced my aunt and uncle to KBBQ for the very first time. A delight!
The next morning I got to play with my goddog, Molly, who is the cutest goddamn chocolate lab that you’ve ever seen. We took her to the dog park within the military base where my aunt and uncle lived, and I was mistaken for being in the military. I was super flattered because I don’t think I look like I’m in good enough shape for that.
After that we went to the Plant Museum, a museum on the campus of the University of Tampa centered around the Gilded Age era Tampa Bay Hotel and how Tampa, the city, was manufactured as a railroad terminus to sell the superwealthy more train tickets and luxury train cars.
The last item of interest was riding on the tram car to Ybor City and having brunch at the Columbia Restaurant. The whole brunch was amazing, from the mimosas mixed tableside to the soup and sando combo to the cafecito con leche, but I still keep coming back to the memory of this insane bread that they had there. Insanely crunchy and flaky outside and soft and fluffy inside. If you’d told me that the only thing brunch was was coffee and that bread, I would still have been a satisfied customer. The inside of the restaurant embodied old-world Spanish charm; we sat in a historic courtyard where the lighting was beautiful and a fountain was gurgling. I felt like I was on the set of Zorro.
One of my most favorite challenges of these surgical strike trips was to be as nonchalant about them as possible when I was asked about them at work. “What did you do this weekend?” “Oh not much, just popped down to Tampa for an evening and then came back!”
Rochester
The final of this triptych of smaller trips that I took was to Rochester, NY, to visit my friend Earl. We were chatting one night and joked about sending some stupid food item by mail, something like that, when I looked it up and discovered that Rochester is ONLY a 5 hour drive from Lancaster. That’s the crazy thing about Americans, is that that was a pretty doable drive for most. And I even did it after a full day’s work. I keep thinking about that drive. It was before I had a GPS system in my car dashboard (as I do now), so I had to balance keeping my phone charged up for GPS with worrying about the Wi-Fi/ phone service cutting out and therefore losing my directions. In addition, as another battery and data-saving measure, I never play music from my phone while driving, so I rely solely on CDs and radio. As you have to basically stop the car to change the CD when driving alone, on long trips I’m mostly playing the radio. So I remember on this drive seeing small towns coming up and tuning to all of their radio stations as soon as the signal came through, and then being stuck with country or worse in between. I remember the dark, lonely, and twisty roads and wondered how I stayed awake and focused, but the drive was really no hardship at all.
I got into Earl’s house late Friday night, so it was enough to reunite, meet his cat, Lady Madonna, and then conk out immediately.
In the morning, we got coffee and brunch at Glen Edith, which was a café after my own heart. We proceeded to the Memorial Art Gallery, a gallery on the University of Rochester campus, just to get a little look around. We got another coffee at Earl’s favorite coffee shop, Starry Nites, which has since gone out of business. It reminded me a lot of my hometown café where I work now, where it was common to just camp out with books or to chat with your friends for hours (in the before times, of course).
We also parked somewhere in downtown and then walked over a huge gorge to see High Falls. When Earl told me “there’s a waterfall in the middle of downtown,” I’m not sure what I expected, maybe some 15-foot drop in a small city park, but High Falls was way cooler than what I’d pictured. As we walked over the bridge, I got a good glimpse of the Genesee Brewery, which is notable because I know from my dad’s stories was my grandfather’s favorite beer (not because he was from Rochester, but because he went to school in Rochester). It would have been cool to go on a brewery tour, but it didn’t look very open and we had lots of other stuff to see that day. Earl took us to a secret overlook where there were butterflies drifting into the shot and he got attacked by a bee (but remained unharmed).
After that we went to Ontario Beach Park to walk around on the beach and walk out on the jetty to the lighthouse and back. It was easy to imagine it being a nice place to get some sun or take a picnic in the summer. After that we went to the flagship Wegmans grocery store. For those in the know, Rochester is the birthplace and home base of Wegmans’ grocery stores, and this store was the size of a small town. You could definitely get lost in there but while lost you would never have to ever cook again, given all of the dine in, take-out, or heat-and-eat options there.
Another thing I keep thinking about is Rochester garbage plates, which is exactly what it sounds like. While it’s really the ideal drunk food, we had it stone cold sober and it was still AMAZING. We went to Dogtown Hots, which is Earl’s favorite, however I read that Nick Tahou’s is the original and the only place that is legally allowed to call it a garbage plate. Anyway, I want to try making a garbage plate at some point because I keep craving it in the pandemic.
I’m definitely muddling the timeline, but we also went to the George Eastman Museum, where we learned about the history of photography and the Kodak company. There were two exhibitions going on, one was to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and one was the art of Looney Tunes. I know a lot of people who don’t think people over the age of 12 or 14 should watch cartoons or animation, and I think that’s bullshit. Many forget the artistry that goes into animations, whether old ones that were painted frame-by-frame on the plastic sheets or the new ones that are computer generated, it’s an art form all its own, and adults should be allowed to appreciate it, too.
In the evening, since we weren’t really hungry after the huge garbage plates, we went out for dessert and cocktails, which feels weird to write about in 2021, after the year we’ve had. I had my once-yearly absinthe cocktail and we proceeded to have a “snack party” late that night and watch YouTube videos until we were too tired to keep our eyes open.
The next morning, we went to another of Earl’s favorite cafes, and then proceeded to another place I keep thinking about: ARTISANworks. ARTISANworks reminds me a lot of the avant-garde art compound I visited in Shanghai. It was a huge warehouse absolutely packed to the brim with artworks, historical curios, knickknacks, and other collected items. Each room was stuffed with things to look at, and as you walk through the rooms, the view changes and new things appear to be discovered. Art collectors can buy pretty much anything in the collection, they have a number of artists in residence at one time, and you can also rent out individual rooms with catering and stuff for special events like weddings and galas. I don’t think I’m kooky enough to have a wedding there, but I was still enamored with the concept. You could easily spend a day there every weekend of the year and still not see everything.
For my last meal in Rochester, I demanded of Earl that we eat at the Chinese place directly next to Dogtown Hots, Han Noodle Bar. We got these amazing bao buns and dandan noodles, and then afterward headed to the Starbucks across the street. As Earl and I both worked at Starbucks, we’ve got a lot of opinions on Starbuckses. This one was in a cute old house with many floors open to the public, and it seemed another nice place to camp out and study all day. From there, I departed for home once more.
Aside from these “bigger” planned trips, I also managed various family trips in 2019 and for the first 2 months of 2020:
- our once-yearly (until 2019) family reunion at Myrtle Beach
- a “hobbit hike” on the Appalachian trail with best friend Juliet where we brought wine, cheese, and bread to the top of our hike and ate it at the overlook
- Baltimore to watch Hamilton, the musical
- Longwood Gardens with my aunts and uncle from Pittsburgh
- DC with best friend Erin for the Korean spa, Korean BBQ, and matcha ice cream
- Baltimore to celebrate younger brother Tom’s finding a job
- DC for a hockey game
- Salisbury for Tom’s graduation
- Pittsburgh for my friend Becca’s wedding shower
- NYC for a food tour, visit to the iconic Guggenheim Museum, Korean BBQ again, and brunch and a walk on the High Line with our cousin Mike and his girlfriend Corey
- Pittsburgh to take my Gram to Phipps Conservatory. Since then, Gram has become much less mobile, so it was amazing that she was able to go around some of the rooms and take in the lovely scenery, even if for a short time. I’ve spent many days at Phipps in my time at Pitt; taking off your jacket and enjoying the warmth and happy plants, even in the dead of winter, are healing to the soul. In addition, we also reprised our trip to Dobra Tea, where the last time I’d been there was on the day of my graduation. We also went to Five Points Bakeshop, finally made it to Randyland, and returned to the Mattress Factory. At the time, we were already starting to wonder if it was safe to travel, but we made it in in time before everything was locked down.
We have a family Christmas letter every year where each family member writes a paragraph about what we did that year. In 2019, when I sent it to my mom to be included in the letter, Gmail very ominously suggested that the title of the email should be “the end of an era.” It wasn’t the end of an era yet when I was sending it, but it turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m still trying to suss out what this omen means for me in 2021, but that vibe just crystallized throughout the rest of 2020, and intensified even more recently.
Where I’m going next? Whenever “going” is a thing again, my soul tells me to go far. Even if it’s only possible to go to a new town, that will have to suffice too. My new year’s resolution for 2020 was to become happy and confident that what I’m doing is right, which is still, in 2021, as elusive as ever. (My resolution in 2021 is literally just to drink more water)… At any rate, we’ll see how that goes.
Part 1: Art & Hobbies // Part 2: Job-hunting & Worries // Part 3: Moving & Shaking // Part 4: Travel & Hopes
seoulraps 