^ David and Molly, Molly and David.
Cross-country cousins who made each other laugh.
Here?S to my good nephew, David, who entertained us all for two decades with his wit, charm, and winning ways. We miss him daily but continue to give thanks for every day of his sweet life.
And if you have lost a young person in your life, let me say that even though each loss is unique, I know a little bit about what that pain is like. Just remember that you are never, ever alone.
This morning we went out for coffee and pastries at Our Bakery.
Not our bakery
Our Bakery.
Get it? Koreans can be quite playful with the English language and this is a prime example.
Certainly, it?S a nice bakery. My daughter chose a croissant filled with a light chocolate custard and topped with sweet rice powder. I opted for a classic croissant and an adorable little jar of fig jam.
Sticky.
Messy.
Powdery.
Delicious.
After we ate, my daughter studied while I messaged with friends and FaceTimed with my second-born, all back in the U.S. How effortlessly we stay connected, how different the world is when we communicate literally at the touch of a finger.
As much as we all know this magic of instant connection to be real and honestly not all that new anymore, it?S another thing altogether to actually sit at your breakfast table on the other side of the planet and make it all come true. Still astonishing to me.
So in truth, this bakery - Our Bakery- does not just belong to the people sitting at the tables inside. Our Bakery belongs to the whole wide world.
* * * * *
A full accounting of my trip to Seoul:
Morning In Seoul
Korean Barbecue
Blue Buildings
Shopping At Hara Cake
Sunday In Seoul
Sipping And Shopping In Sinsa
Happy Lunar New Year From Seoul
Our Bakery
In-N-Out
Cheongdam Square In Gangnam
Cheonggyecheon Stream At Night
Gracie's Snowmageddon
Seoul Food
Flying Away
Korean Colors
Cheongdam is the name of an area in the district of Gangnam in the city of Seoul.
It is also the name of a tall building that catches my fancy every day as I stroll past.
Here?S just a little hint of what it feels like to walk by Cheongdam Square in Gangnam.
* * * * *
A full accounting of my trip to Seoul:
Morning In Seoul
Korean Barbecue
Blue Buildings
Shopping At Hara Cake
Sunday In Seoul
Sipping And Shopping In Sinsa
Happy Lunar New Year From Seoul
Our Bakery
In-N-Out
Cheongdam Square In Gangnam
Cheonggyecheon Stream At Night
Gracie's Snowmageddon
Seoul Food
Flying Away
Korean Colors
The first time I visited Seoul, I fell in love with the Cheonggyecheon Stream. Tumbling through the city center, this sweet sliver of water was once the place where washerwomen carried the royal laundry from the palace and scrubbed linens in the sunshine while their children splashed and played nearby. Over the centuries, as a busy city grew up around it, the little stream suffered, struggled .and died. By the twentieth century, it was boarded over and lay forgotten beneath the city streets.
I?M lucky. I?Ve been able to travel around my country and around the world more than I ever dreamed I would. This has been a special gift and I appreciate every minute of my trips, including this current visit to Seoul, South Korea.
Around the turn of the millennium, the Cheonggyecheon was rediscovered and restored. It now runs freely from its source, first through the concrete surround of a waterside park, and eventually coursing along a strip of relatively untamed nature, right through the heart of Seoul.
I?M especially fortunate that I travel not as a tourist. I know the people who live in the countries I visit. I eat at their tables, I sleep under their roofs, and I see them live their day-to-day lives. We talk about what matters - our hopes and dreams, our pain and fears.
And along the way, I have gathered up a clear picture of all these different people, living their different lives all across the globe. I see what unites us.
I love the Cheonggyecheon.
Love.
We all just want to be loved.
It?S that simple and that profound. We want to be supported and encouraged and valued for who we are. As we face the challenges that this world throws at all of us, we want people to have our backs. We want to be known and understood. We want the people in our lives to choose us again and again. We want to feel not alone. We like material comforts too, for sure, but what we ache for most is the comfort of someone?S arms, someone?S smile, someone?S kindness, someone?S respect.
What we all want is love.
And when my daughter, her boyfriend, and I stopped in for some shopping at the nearby bookstore, even though it was after dark and we were on our way to dinner, I asked if we could please stop by the stream for a quick visit .
They said yes. And I?M glad that they did.
So today and every day, I challenge myself to say yes to love. Maybe you would like to challenge yourself too.
And I think we will all be glad that we did.
* * * * *
A full accounting of my trip to Seoul:
Morning In Seoul
Korean Barbecue
Blue Buildings
Shopping At Hara Cake
Sunday In Seoul
Sipping And Shopping In Sinsa
Happy Lunar New Year From Seoul
Our Bakery
In-N-Out
Cheongdam Square In Gangnam
Cheonggyecheon Stream At Night
Gracie's Snowmageddon
Seoul Food
Flying Away
Korean Colors
Yesterday for lunch, my daughter and I ate in. We whipped up a meal of creamy pumpkin soup, crispy garlic bread, fresh dark cherries, and a few more of those crazy delicious fried dumplings. An interesting blend of Korean and American flavors, the plates of food crowded the top of my daughter?S tiny table and we ate every bite.
For dinner, we went out to a nearby burger place called Downtowner. American style burgers have an avid following in Seoul and this place put forth a solid contender. Both the basic cheeseburger and the standard fries were up to U.S. Standards, juicy and delicious, with an unidentifiable spiciness that we found appealing. The restaurant was trendy, popular, and packed to the rafters at 8 pm on a weeknight.
These back-to-back meals, both delicious and satisfying in completely different ways, shed light on the range of dining experiences I?M enjoying here in South Korea and give new meaning to the phrase In-N-Out.
* * * * *
A full accounting of my trip to Seoul:
Morning In Seoul
Korean Barbecue
Blue Buildings
Shopping At Hara Cake
Sunday In Seoul
Sipping And Shopping In Sinsa
Happy Lunar New Year From Seoul
Our Bakery
In-N-Out
Cheongdam Square In Gangnam
Cheonggyecheon Stream At Night
Gracie's Snowmageddon
Seoul Food
Flying Away
Korean Colors
One last day of delicious eating in Seoul.
A Western breakfast of Eggs Benedict on smoked salmon at Oasis Cafe. Elegant, understated undeniably influenced by American tastes but unmistakably Korean as well.
One more round of Korean barbecue for dinner. This time beef rather than pork, but all you can eat. And oh, boy, did I eat. Side dishes of milky corn and grilled rice cakes rounded out the feast. For dessert, we trekked up the block to Shake Shack and ordered a trio of black and white shakes. Eighteen hours later, I?M still full.
My stomach wants to stay in Seoul forever.
* * * * *
A full accounting of my trip to Seoul:
Morning In Seoul
Korean Barbecue
Blue Buildings
Shopping At Hara Cake
Sunday In Seoul
Sipping And Shopping In Sinsa
Happy Lunar New Year From Seoul
Our Bakery
In-N-Out
Cheongdam Square In Gangnam
Cheonggyecheon Stream At Night
Gracie's Snowmageddon
Seoul Food
Flying Away
Korean Colors
With the door clicking shut behind me, with a particular automated click that always sounds like Korea to me, I begin the task of wrestling my bags down the hill to the taxi stand.
I travel light. Just a carry-on size roller bag and a backpack. But I am also bringing back a huge hard-sided suitcase on wheels and a medium sized duffel, each stuffed to the brim with belongings that my daughter is sending home with me.
All of these bags generate considerable gravity and I muster up all my wits to keep them under control. One errant move and I can see in my mind's eye a bag careening down the steep street, crashing into a parked car and exploding open, sending my daughter's beloved possessions into the air.
I'm being real careful.
I find a taxi waiting at the curb, just as I hoped I would. The driver is a polite older man who looks at my bags and silently groans. He begins the process of stuffing them here and there into the cab, but this proves to be no easy process. I take mercy on him and help rearrange them so that all the doors and the trunk can actually close.
After studying the maps and instructions in Korean that my daughter and her boyfriend prepared for me, my driver's light bulb goes on, and he says to me, "You go airport?"
Yes!
Well, technically, he is taking me just a few miles to the COEX City Terrminal, which is kind of a remote airport check-in location. At the Air Canada counter, I present my passport and explain that even though I bought a ticket through to Seattle, I'm going to fly only into Vancouver. Rather than wait through a double digit layover in Canada, just a few hours from home, my husband is coming to get me in Vancouver.
My able agent gets this all sorted out, hands me my boarding pass, and takes the two heaviest bags off my hands. Whew.
Now I'm off to the upper level of the terminal to buy a ticket for the limousine bus to the real airport in Incheon. I see a row of four kiosks where I can make the purchase, but despite my best efforts to unlock one in English, they all speak to me only in Korean.
So I seek out help at the information desk and a young woman comes to my rescue. To my great surprise, there is a seat available on the bus that leaves in fifteen minutes and in the blink of an eye, I find myself seated front and center, heading for the open road.
Incheon Bridge connects the mainland to Yeongjongdo Island, home of the airport.
We crawl through city traffic, winding along with the Hoh River, and eventually pick up speed as we leave Seoul behind. One very comfortable hour later, we cross a sliver of the Yellow Sea to the man made island where Incheon International Airport sits.
Once inside Terminal 1, my brain needs a few moments to comprehend that because I'm already checked in, I can proceed directly to security and passport control. The South Korean bureaucracy functions efficiently, and in a very few blinks of an eye, I'm seated at my gate.
Gate 22.
Well. I've got hours to go before boarding, so I entertain myself by alerting my family to my progress, eating a sandwich, viewing an ancient episode of Star Trek, and watching two adorable Indian-Canadian girls romp up and down the mostly empty rows of seats.
Just below this window stood a mob of cranky and impatient people.
As the seats slow fill up with my fellow travelers, I remind myself that my time in South Korea is quickly coming to an end. I stare out the windows at the mountains in the distance and the clear blue sky, I try to capture and calibrate exactly what it feels like to be here.
It feels good.
And then finally, as the long line of antsy travelers slowly snakes into the plane, I find myself walking down the jetway in the exact moments that the sun fades into the horizon and disappears.
How perfect.
<3
Then I board the plane, sit down in my seat, and fly away.
* * * * *
A full accounting of my trip to Seoul:
Morning In Seoul
Korean Barbecue
Blue Buildings
Shopping At Hara Cake
Sunday In Seoul
Sipping And Shopping In Sinsa
Happy Lunar New Year From Seoul
Our Bakery
In-N-Out
Cheongdam Square In Gangnam
Cheonggyecheon Stream At Night
Gracie's Snowmageddon
Seoul Food
Flying Away
Korean Colors
