I enjoy stories. I believe every good story has a great beginning. The origin of how Yun-Jin and I met has an interesting start. We met in Spain on the Camino de Santiago. The first time I met her was in an albergue in Pendueles, Spain. We had just finished dinner and the table started singing songs from the different countries they were from. There was Germany, Colombia, Poland, and three old Spanish pilgrims recited a dirty song in Spanish. Then when it was her turn, she beautiful sung a Korean song and won the prize of another carafe of vino tinto. She, of course, shared the prize with rest of the table.
We ran into each other the next day on the Camino. We walked together that day from Pendules to Po, I think. It was a long day. But it was full of adventure and learning from each others story and history. There was scattered rain along the path. At the end of the day we walked close to 8 hours. An ice cream truck pulled up to the albergue and we bought ice cream. We enjoyed the fact that the day was finally over, while enjoying our ice cream. I have heard shared adversity and overcoming it brings people together. I think that its true because we both recall that day vividly.
We ran into each several times, obviously, because we were going to the same place. I took different paths some days and walked at my own pace. During the last part of Asturias and all the way to Santiago, we walked together with Thomas, from Germany. It was mostly just of the three of us. It was an interesting crew. Rasmus, a pilgrim from Denmark, said we reminded him of the Harry Potter Crew. I’ll take that reference.
Fast Forward to seven months later. I’m on a Jiu Jitsu/ travel world tour. I choose to stop in Seoul to visit Yun-Jin. Food, hiking, and adventure were on the itinerary. It was an amazing experience. After getting over the initial language barrier and metro system I was able to really take it in the culture. Especially when you have a guide. It was a busy week of activities and trying new food.
We did many activities while I was there. I have to summarize a lot of it. We walked around Myeoung-Dong and had ramen at a very old restaurant. We hiked up a mountain to a Buddhist temple where they fed us lunch for free. We took a bike ride to Yangsae-Myeon and stopped by a strawberry farm. There was a night where we just ate chicken, drank beer, soju, and rice wine. We saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in a really fancy theater. Afterwards we ran into a music festival in Yeouido-Dong. There were many food trucks and we sat by the river eating poutine and steak while drinking Mojitos. It was a great week. I’m very thankful I had a local guide to take me through the city.
Currently I’m in Guam. I will go back to Seoul for three days to finish my time in Asia. I will reunite with Yun-Jin again and my long time friend Carolina. More to come.
How to get to Seoul:
Incheon International Airport (ICN) Bus 6002 can take you to Hapjeong station for $10,000 KRW.
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