We arrived in Korea the evening of June 2nd. It was about 10:00 when we got into our room in Hongdae. We had talked earlier that day about just getting to our room and then crashing so we could get up and start our day fresh on the 3rd. Well, that didn't happen, because contrary to what you may think, you don't get onto Korean time from American time in just 8 hours. It took us a whole week! Because we were WIDE awake, we decided to go take a stroll through Hongdae. Teppy had her rented Samsung Galaxy Note with a great GPS feature, so she brought up the location of the Eat Your Kimchi studio and we headed over there. Hongdae was pretty cool at night! It was seriously crowded, but to our dismay, seriously crowded with everyone 20 years younger than us. It was still cool to see though.
We meandered through the streets of Hongdae and finally found the eyk upper floor studio. We did a little happy dance, gave each other high fives, and took a lot of pictures. Obviously, there was no sign of Simon and Martina, as the lights were dark upstairs AND their cute little eyk mobile was not anywhere to be seen. We still felt a sense of success, however, and began our journey back to our room feeling fulfilled.
3 days later, June 5th, we found ourselves once again wandering through Hongdae. We had just had breakfast at the Coffee Prince coffee shop and wanted to do some local exploration. We wanted to find the children's park and get the penis ice cream cones we had seen Simon talking about in one of their v-logs. Somehow, we ended up over in front of the eatyourkimchi studio again. We took some more pictures, but still no sign of Simon and Martina. We were totally ok with that, because we actually FOUND their studio. We read on the internet that several nasties (that's what they call their fans...nasties) at various times had gone to Seoul and not been able to locate their studio. (Um, hard to believe because it was really easy, so sucks to be them I guess) Finding their studio was success because we had pictures and could use them as a talking point later when we reminisced about the trip.
After taking our photos, we walked around parking lot street (a name for a street close to the eyk studio that Simon named because cars are parked in the middle of the street) and window shopped and took more pictures. We still hadn't found the children's park so that was our goal. We began walking away from the block where their studio was when I spotted a western looking man. I asked him if he spoke English and he said he did. I asked him for directions to the children's park. He pointed out that we needed to turn back around and go the opposite direction (which, coincidentally, would put us right back in front of the eyk studio). Ok, since we had already been past the eyk studio like 3 times that morning, we weren't stopping for pics and we definitely weren't looking for Simon and Martina anymore. So, it was kind of surreal when I almost walked into a girl with pink hair. For a second, it didn't register who I almost collided with until I looked up and noticed Simon. Teppy was clueless what was happening and had no idea we had literally just run into Simon and Martina...and Spudgy!!! The first word out of my mouth was "Simon!!!" and then of course I said Martina's name. I explained that we were nasties and asked if they could take some photos with us. They were really nice and agreed to it. Teppy talked to them a bit while I dismantled my camera equipment. She told Martina that she was the one that had sent them the cheese heads and rumchatta drink last year. They also talked about where to get vegetarian food closeby, the seediness of Itaewon, their trip to China, Spudgy, Croatia, and a bunch of other stuff I can't recollect. I was babbling something to Simon and I have no recollection what. I wish I had written this blog immediately after it happened, because I am sure I missing other details. Still, we got to meet them and they were nice, and it was cool, and we were thrilled and here are the pics: