20 May 2022
Sleepy Joe
Avoiding the crowds of Insadong
Apparently, Joe Biden just landed in town to take a nap, he likes doing that. It is live on every electronic billboard and every tv channel. In all seriousness, he is here to try and broker a peace between Korea and Japan, so he landed and immediately went to a Samsung factory to ask them if they could make a phone with bigger writing on it so he can see it.
Actually I do not know why he is here, but this guy is too old and frail to be president.
I am constantly getting public alert warnings on my phone in Korean today, I suspect some of them might be due to the Biden visit, there is speculation North Korea will do a nuclear test tomorrow to honour his visit here.
So I thought I better go and have one of my favourite things to eat, in case I get nuked in the morning, so off I went to Insadong. This is a very lively part of town just North of where I am, hundreds of fried chicken and beer halls filled with mask-less people, even quite early in the evening. Out the back, lots of business men smoking in groups talking shit about me as I walked past to impress their boss by bravely insulting the foreigner who cannot understand a word they are saying (really, I think that is what they do).
Flamboyant dinosaur, oh my.
Hmm, I do not think this park was here last time.
Mother, take note, this is the sewer that I always photograph, that you asked me to photograph this time. Feel free to look at the same photo taken on my 3 previous trips.
These were delicious.
I also like to take a photo of this building each time I come. The buildings to the right of it are new, I will do forensic analysis later with the photos I took previously. It is very important I find out if those buildings are new or not!
Insadong. Already quite busy.
I found a shop that sells everything people like to eat in Japan, including a really good and actually quite spicy, spicy ramen. I believe it was $5. The spoon however was useless, how do you eat soup with this? I was happy with the price, location, and lack of other people, the inside of the beer and chicken places look terrifying from a you will get covid 100% for sure perspective. Do you think I will stop saying covid soon? Probably not.
Here is a street full of these tents, they love to cram as many people inside each one as they can to keep everyone warm. It is important you do not let the smoke from the bbq out.
Back in Myeongdong, and it is very busy. Too busy to even walk through. I had to do a retreat to somewhere less busy. Also the guy playing the guitar on the right is making farm animal noises.
Since you can no longer see actual clouds in the sky through the pollution particles, they have put a cloud art installation in a box outside my hotel. I sat and pondered for a while, what even is the point of clouds?