It’s been a while since my last post, apologies; preparing for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) N2, which is the second-highest and arguably most important level of the test. If I don’t pass it, I essentially can’t get a decent job in Japan.
Study woes aside, let’s get back to this long overdue Golden Week post!
Part of my Seoul adventure was spent with one of my buddies. We decided to meet in Seoul first before traveling together back to Japan; more on that later. Our first outing of the trip was to Lotte World’s Pokemon World Adventure spring event.
For those of you not in the know, Lotte is essentially what happens if you tossed Walmart, 7-11, Best Buy, McDonald’s, and Disney into a giant blender and set the mode to “Korean”; it’s a mega-conglomerate that has ties to just about everything there is in South Korea. Lotte World is their theme park, full of rides, carnival food, and even their own mascots. This year, Lotte was celebrating another Pokemon collaboration, with the mascot for the event being…Ditto.
Yes, Ditto. Not Pikachu. Not Charizard. Ditto.
Or as he’s known in the Korean language, Metamong.
Thusly, not only was Lotte World gloriously full of Pokemon, the nearby Lotte World Mall was also plastered with imagery of our transforming, oft-memed grape jelly of a Pokemon. He even got his own special Pokemon card exclusive to the event:
My friend and I wandered around, ooo-ing and aah-ing at the Pokemon themed makeovers of the theme park, but as with most things in East Asia, the compactness of Lotte World meant it didn’t take long to see everything. Still, some standouts included life-size dioramas and photo areas of the various Eeveelutions, a Pokemon Center, and a Pokemon research lab.
However, the greatest standout of the day?
The importance of proper fonts.
Enhance zoom, please.
I said, enhance zoom!
We all know what this says. We all also know what our brains are telling us it actually says. This, my friends, is why it’s important to keep a guy on your team with both good English and font knowledge. Otherwise, you risk bleep-ing things up in a magical, milky kind of way.
My friend and I burst out laughing when we noticed and I ended up snorting some of my grape Ditto slushie up my nose, which led to another chorus of laughs. By the time I got cleaned up, we were sore from laughing and elected to move on to Lotte World Mall proper from the amusement park.
Lotte World Mall is one of Seoul’s biggest shopping malls, if not the biggest. You could spend a literal year inside and probably still find new things to do. From shopping to eating to special pop-ups and a speedy trip up Seoul’s tallest building, the building is absolutely gargantuan.
After stopping at Angelinus Cafe for some drinks, we wandered around and eventually spent some time at Arc N Book, a spacious book/stationery store and cafe, before winding down for dinner.
The next day started with a glorious tea-time at the Lotte Hotel “Must Be Strawberry: Starry Starry Strawberry” dining event. This is an annual event held during strawberry season at the Lotte Hotel, featuring a wide array of strawberry desserts, treats, and accompanying teas. Depending on the day and time, it shifts between a full buffet or a dessert tray tea time. My friend and I had booked tea time this go around, but I’d love to try the full buffet next year if I have the chance.
We started off with a rather delightful strawberry cocktail and ice cream, which was shortly followed by an absolutely magnificent platter of sweets. I had arrived without eating lunch to make sure I’d have space, but even that wasn’t enough to stave off my reduced appetite as a newly minted 31-year old. Alas, the ravages of time!
Following our tasting, we split after decided on our meeting place for tomorrow, the BlueBlack Pen Shop north of the river. More on that next time!
As for me, I completed a few errands, then scurried back home to help cook dinner. I’m quite proud of what I helped cook up, if I may say so myself.
Lamb chops, marinated with the family recipe; pesto penne pasta with my mother’s homemade pesto; her nappa lettuce boats with smoked salmon, feta cheese, and capers; and a nice mixed greens salad. We had some guests over and one of them brought a birthday cake for me, which was quite sweet of them.
I adore a good Mille Feuille (French for ‘thousand layers’) crêpe cake almost as much as strawberry shortcakes, and this was the first time I’d had one in quite some time. Humorously, I only learned the cake’s actual name after moving to Japan; all this time, I’d just been calling it crêpe cake.
With all that said and shown, that’s a wrap for the second Seoul trip report. I apologize it’s taken so long to get this out, and hopefully it won’t take me quite as much time to continue the series. Thanks for sticking around, and see you all for the next entry!
