Day with Ayumi-chan

While staying in홍대 (Hongdae) at a guesthouse, I met many people, including a girl named Ayumi from Japan. She was staying at the guesthouse until her friend came from Japan to meet up with her, so we were both there alone.

Although she didn't speak a lot of English, I didn't speak a lot of Japanese and we both didn't speak a lot of Korean, we bonded with each other over the time we spent in the guesthouse. On this day, we decided to go out together for the day.

First, we just wandered around 홍대, getting to know each other as best as we could and we also tried to look for a coffee shop. Doesn't sound like much of a challenge? Hardly anything is open before 10am in 홍대.

After finally finding a place to have coffee, it was already lunch time. We walked for a bit before we passed a Japanese food place. I could tell she wanted to eat there, so I suggested it and her whole face lit up. She recommended something to me, and I ordered that, but it turned out to be something different and it was unbearably spicy.

We left 홍대 and went to 인사동 (Insadong), where she helped me to pick out some gifts for my family back home. 인사동 is a more traditional area with a lot of culture and a lot of the souvenirs are historical.

We went shopping for a bit in 명동 (Myeongdong) and I found out she really likes the same music as me. After trying to talk about it and pointing to virtually every image we could find around us, we laughed a bit and headed back to the guesthouse, but we ended up getting lost. By some miracle, we bumped into a older Korean lady who also spoke English AND Japanese! Sometimes I wonder how much of a coincidence that was.

The next day, Ayumi had to leave and although we had no common language, she cried and through a translator, she told me that if I ever visited Japan that I had to see her.