Lately I've become aware

There are a lot of cool things that I get to do at my job, but I get so caught up in the day-to-day that it doesn't really occur to me to blog about them or document them properly. But I was going through my photos and it brought me back to how much I loved getting to experience certain parts of a shoot, so I thought I'd gush about it here.

I think my favorite location we've ever had for a shoot would have to be this mid-century modern home along West Avenue, which we used for One Hit Wonder. We don't get to shoot on location often (at least I haven't, but we've done set visits involving road trips and everything) and I just fell in love with all of the secrets begging to be discovered in the house. It looked like a chic '70s bungalow from the outside, but there's a kind of loft leading to the bedrooms, and our area was in the basement. My parents would've loved the warm wood, high asymmetrical ceiling, and that insane glass block window. 

Part of what made the set so warm and beautiful was the production design, of course, but the house itself had plenty of character all its own. The holding area was right by this huge collection of DVDs both authentic and pirated, including countless local titles like Booba and Sigaw. I can't say it enough: OBSESSED. There are also different knick-knacks like a life-size bust of Marilyn Monroe, a sword, some vintage cameras, and elaborate miniature boats and planes. 

Not the most well-framed picture, but I wanted to show that they also had this record player and telephone. 

For this season of Bida/Bida, we literally managed to pull off an episode reuniting both Juday and Gladys and Marvin and Jolina—not the easiest feat considering difficulties with scheduling almost drove us all up the wall trying to come up with new combinations of stars and compromises. But I was almost more starstruck getting to "meet" a real, live glambot. It was super cool to see in action, and we made use of sequences that were more complicated than your average red-carpet shot for our intro. Writing this now, the way we used the robot arm actually reminds me of how it was applied to j-hope's "MORE" music video. (It's also kind of scary since the equipment is massive and heavy and makes a lot of noise and quick movements that will make you take a couple of steps back.) 

My second-favorite set from last year was this gorgeous teal greenhouse for It's Okay to Not Be Okay. The entire cast was so fun and gracious, each of them stepping into our holding area to introduce themselves, and everyone looked so good. Anne Curtis was a total sweetheart, and one of the concepts I was most proud of was this one where Anne and her character Mia "meet face-to-face." I loved getting to see what the process of shooting The Parent Trap must've been like, as well as the way Anne seamlessly snapped into character as Mia, and then as herself. (It was also past midnight, but she was a trooper and a pro the whole time.)  

This one's from 2024, but I think I definitely need to highlight the experience of getting to work with and directing KATSEYE through a few quick concepts.

Daniela was closest to me so it was easy to keep defaulting to her. For the "OA or Nonchalant" concept she took to saying "OA" like a Filipino so well, partly because Sophia was so insistent that everyone get the pronunciation right. Sophia was a true professional and leader (and theater actress offspring!) and greeted everyone in the room brightly upon entering. Manon was so pretty and refined, Yoonchae was shy and adorable but still very game, and Megan was unflappable and cool. Lara was kind of like part of the leader line and kept everyone's energy up. They were all glowing even after several hours of work straight from the airport.

We celebrated with dinner at China Blue, where I ordered the deep fried soft shell crab and shrimp with calamansi and mango sauce that had the perfect amount of kick, and I still think about it all the time.  

(We shot a group pic with them, and I was off to the side. I saved it off the Instagram of someone from another department that I'm not really close with, and in it I'm literally cut in half, but I just never got around to asking for the full high-quality photo. Still, whatever, I know what I see when I look at it, and the whole thing makes me laugh.) 

I didn’t care about little things when I was young and dumb

We never had a junior prom. 

That was the year Ondoy hit Manila and flooded my house knee-deep, causing water damage to beautiful wooden furniture we wouldn’t have it in our hearts—or pockets—to replace for years. We had a nook outside by the gate that was only there because there was nowhere else to put it, table and all, and that was where we ate our dinner, candlelit but not quite something to romanticize. This is just like Villa Escudero, we joked anyway, remembering the restaurant we had dined at that was next to a waterfall. Pretending the current at our feet was anything but rainwater and devastation. My dad and I walked around our neighborhood the next day, surveying the destruction the typhoon left in its wake. 

Months later, the administration of my high school would announce that in light of recent events, they wouldn’t be holding the annual junior-senior prom. It was done out of respect for the victims, they reasoned, and there were also budgeting concerns because the school suffered its fair share of damages. 

I don’t think about it these days, but once in a while it would come back to me. At the time most of the students would talk about it like it was the end of the world. Part of it didn’t make sense to me—couldn’t there have been a compromise, especially for the seniors? Now, though, it’s just another little anomaly about my adolescence that makes for a good conversation starter: One year, we skipped the prom. As in, we didn’t hold one.

I always meant to skip my junior prom anyway. The idea of dressing up stressed me out, I didn’t dance, it wasn’t worth such a hefty expense. I thought it would be cooler to hold an Anti-Prom Party as an act of nonconformity instead. At the time my favorite movie had been 10 Things I Hate About You and I fancied myself akin to Kat Stratford, was never one to go starry-eyed when it came time for the prom scene in a teen movie regardless. Not even with Heath Ledger in a tux and Letters to Cleo performing “Cruel to Be Kind” in the background. 

But senior year was different—this time, I wanted it all. To satisfy the curiosity of what it was like, to have this last hurrah.

The truth is, I barely remember much of the prom I did get to have. I’ve lived twice the life I had at sixteen, after all. I have no idea why I don’t have a single picture either. When I look back on it, I think of how beautiful my friends all looked and how I wished I could always keep them with me. And did you really go to high school in the late aughts/early tens if your prom playlist didn’t include “Can I Have This Dance?” from High School Musical 3 and “So Close” from Enchanted? 

It was also a night of so many firsts for me. First time shaving my legs. First time curling my hair. First time wearing contacts, which I ditched within weeks and never tried again because I thought I lost one while applying them one morning and turned out it had been sucked into and stuck inside my eye socket the whole day. 

First dance after first dance, including one with the boy I’d written most of my lovelorn poetry about. We’d drifted to each other’s sides like we hadn’t even been thinking about it, pulling together into something that couldn’t decide whether it was a waltz or a slow dance. His hand hovered at my waist, but the other was warm and solid in my own, and we avoided eye contact until we had to part. Don’t ask me what song was playing—I wouldn’t have even been able to tell the morning after.

Months later I would see Prom, the utterly forgettable and mostly forgotten movie, in the cinema on my break. I was completely alone in the theater, the sole ticket sold, and it was an interesting enough experience that I started a new blog and wrote about it as soon as I got home. That blog became a place for me to develop my writing voice and document my teenage years. By then, I was a freshman in university, and it hardly even occurred to me that my own prom wasn’t even all that long ago. It had been only four months, but everything in my life was different, and for once I wasn’t dwelling on the past. 

I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to finish this. None of this had been on my mind in years, until one day I recalled that little blip when I was fifteen where tragedy struck and our prom was canceled, except the tragedy wasn’t hyperbole and had nothing to do with the prom. But there’s one thing I really wanted to write about, and it’s this: 

My prom dress was born out of a magazine clipping, an ad in Vogue for Louis Vuitton’s Fall 2010 collection. Three women primping and preening in a dressing room wearing gorgeous dresses with vintage silhouettes. One of them had her hands at her waist, and immediately I knew that she was wearing my prom dress: Sabrina neckline, sleeves up to her elbows, sheer bodice and delicate layers. 

My mom and I went to a house somewhere in Novaliches or Fairview, the torn-out magazine page clutched in my hands, so we could have a designer recreate the dress. Midnight blue lace and a bubbly, swishy layered skirt, so it would look less like I was attending a funeral. (My mom’s words.) I’d never been so excited. It turned out so beautiful. 

We borrowed a clutch from my aunt, and we searched for the perfect shoes at the mall: rounded toes, wedge heels for comfort, gleaming with gem accents all over. I would wear them around the house before the big day, head spinning with images of my new life as someone who actually wore heels instead of ballet flats and Converse. 

So much of that night was about me becoming a new person. I was graduating high school soon, I was finding my identity and independence, I was growing up. 

Only, not just yet. My parents drove to the fancy country club banquet hall to pick me up. The first thing I removed was my corsage, as soon as I saw them. They brought me flip-flops and helped me out of my heels. My curls flattened out. I had the contact lens incident not long after. My dress was tucked away in a closet, but it might as well have been permanent storage. And as for the shoes? It wasn’t long before I never saw them again. 

I went right back to my Buddy Holly glasses and my rotation of flats and sneakers, but that didn’t mean I stopped trying to discover who I could become—they were just part of who I was, and they weren’t all I had to be. By then I knew better than to box myself in. And, wow, if that isn’t the most Kat Stratford thing of all.

All the traces and reminiscences

I take back what I said about disposable cameras while traveling. The plastic waste made my eye twitch, and I realized I could just spend P200 on a new Aquapix that I wouldn’t mind scratching up. Smaller, cuter, more film options. The one I got is lime green (or Neo Pearl Champagne), which coincidentally was the color of the first Aquapix I ever owned. 

When I went to Seoul I loaded it with Lomography LomoChrome ’92, which captured the autumn of it all pretty well. The shot above is my favorite, taken at Yeouido Hangang Park. The original composition was perfect, but I had to crop it because part of my finger was in frame. Still obsessed. 

The picture on the left was taken last February when I first went to Seoul. I found myself in the same area from the other side and unwittingly took a bookender in November. 

This little pizza nook was so cute and I wanted to step inside, but I’d already booked a ride back to my hotel. 

I’m just absolutely in love with the street that greets you from Anguk Station and the many possibilities it holds. 

Of course I had to make a diptych of both shots I took before exiting certain subway stations. I want to make it a whole series as I keep traveling to Seoul. 

These don’t have the pops of red from the floor and ceiling that the photos I took on my phone do, but I like how they have a more glitch-y feel. 

I loved walking past the row of shops outside my hotel as I made my way to the subway. There’s a flower shop, a bakery, this fruit stand, and a place that had steaming dumplings right on the street, so I’d catch their delicious scent and warmth every time I passed. 

This didn’t turn out as well but I liked the composition and it would be so fun to draw.  

More subway stairs. I like how this one has a bit more to see of the street beyond.

Flowers at a bus stop in the middle of the road as the day winds down.

Let period pieces be period pieces: On the republication of Una & Miguel

I love watching ’90s and 2000s Filipino movies centered around a younger cast, whether it’s a teen movie, a rom-com, or horror. Of course the ideal scenario is that I would find them actually kind of good, but the quality doesn’t usually end up mattering—I have a surprising amount of patience and willpower to sit through the entire thing, provided that the locations catch my eye. It’s endlessly fascinating to me to watch intently for places I recognize, places that no longer look the way they used to when I was growing up, places I miss, places I wish I’d known about. The newly opened Market! Market! in Say That You Love Me (2005), a whimsigoth cafe in Kutob (2005), the indoor amusement park Dreamscape in Now That I Have You (2004).

For me it’s a form of virtual time travel, a chance to revisit a version of Metro Manila that doesn’t really exist anymore. Captured on film, standing the test of time. They obviously can’t be changed, becoming unintentional period pieces (and unintentional odes to the era’s obsession with banana yellow and boho-chic). It’s different with books; the words can be edited to reflect what’s current and trace the shifts in how we live and how we are, disregarding the cultural climate the book was a product of in the process. 

But why would we want to? 

Published in 2002, Lilledeshan Bose’s Una & Miguel is the rare breed of early Filipino YA in a time when young adult readers weren’t even really acknowledged as a major publishing demographic yet. The title characters have a meet-cute when Miguel almost runs Una over with his Vespa, and there’s an immediate attraction, but it gets a little complicated because he’s with the popular crowd and she’s one of the outcasts. 

Not the most original premise, but its charm is that it’s set not (technically) in the halls of high school, but in a village during the summer. I read it the summer after sophomore year, when I had an almost-thing of my own with someone who also belonged in different social circles, who was never supposed to be someone I could grow close with, let alone share a pair of earbuds with, our heads tilted close together as we listened to some pop-punk ballad, both too afraid to move to ruin the moment.

Anyway. It didn’t end up helping me navigate this thing, but it did leave me with an insufferable tendency to refer to people who “conformed” as “sheep.”  

My cousin and I discovered our copies of Una & Miguel as a forgotten should’ve-been-classic, tucked away on the Filipiniana shelves of National Book Store’s Shangri-La branch (RIP) and marked down to a whopping P50. And when I say tucked away, I mean literally tucked away: the spine is a nondescript all-black, so you wouldn’t even know what it was until you pulled it off to look at the cover. The hidden gem of all hidden gems. 

But it wasn’t as forgotten as we’d thought, because in 2012, Una & Miguel received a second edition, this time no longer pocket-sized, and with an actual spine. The paper was no longer a very thin muddy pulpy gray consistent with recycling (was this a meta-reference to how they would end up working together at a paper recycling shop?! probably not, but that’s my headcanon now), and the text is a cute magenta! Despite being reprinted ten years after its first edition, though, this wasn’t labeled as an anniversary edition, more like it was just repackaged to be new. Young adults were finally considered a major demographic as readers, after all. 

The problem was, it just didn’t feel the same. 

And none of it was because of the redesign at all. The text, the characters, the plot, they all remained largely unchanged, as well. But Una & Miguel was defined by its pop culture references as it was by these elements. Its references are embedded in the identity of its characters: their tastes become their social currency, and that’s exactly what the plot is all about, isn’t it? Miguel and his “cohorts” might be popular, but it’s not hard to tell that Una and her friends are infinitely cooler and more secure in themselves. I don’t know what I would do with myself if I opened up a copy of Meg Cabot’s All American Girl and found that Sam’s penchant for drawing her best friend horseback riding with Heath Ledger had been backspaced to the ether.

I’ve been thinking about this for years, and now I’m finally doing it: I’ve scanned (as in re-read, but also as in used a scanner on) both my copies of this book, and I’ll be making observations on the changes they’ve made. I never meant for this to be a literal close reading/analysis of the characters and the text, but it turns out my inner English major never really left. (But also, a lot of this is just me being like “this is cool” and “this is not cool.”) 

When we first meet Una, she pretty much immediately drops a proto-stan list, which couldn’t have been a more fitting introduction. She’s a harmonica player, an aspiring filmmaker. I think the switch from Ani DiFranco to Up Dharma Down works, and I love that the Some Kind of Wonderful mention stuck around. Going from Josh Hartnett to Chris Hemsworth is a Choice, and so is not replacing Brandon Boyd. 

I miss when Beauty Bar ruled our (dream) vanities. Now that I can actually afford stuff from there and Essences, all of the fun brands I’d always wanted to try are gone. The Body Shop’s also kind of on its way out now, so today Una would probably say she’s never ordered anything from Issy and Company. 

There is mention of what year it was, and they did move it up to the “present.” A decade is a long time, reflecting changing cultures especially since our relationship with the internet shifted rapidly between 2002 and 2012. The social dynamics were different, particularly when it came to ideas of nonconformity and self-expression—but we’ll get to that. All that said, casually changing the setting like this has a bigger effect on the book than one would think.

(I also found the choice not to change “anklet shopping” funny, since they’re a decidedly early-2000s fashion statement.) 

Miley Cyrus starred in a Nicholas Sparks movie and has been recognizable as both a blonde and a brunette, so she and Mandy Moore might have more in common than I thought.

I resisted K-pop as much as I could as a teenager, only ever learning certain things through pop culture osmosis as I kept up with friends’ interests, so I probably would’ve glossed over the mention of it here. Now, though, I see it as very apt, and if the first edition had just been published a year later, the boy bands definitely would’ve been F4 and “Asian/Koreanovelas” instead.

It’s charming that they kept Marcel Marceau—this nod to a 20th-century mime artist would be just the kind of character quirk that wouldn’t be out of place on someone with a Livejournal or a Tumblr account. It also reminds me of the main character’s obsession with an old-Hollywood actress in Why We Broke Up (disclaimer: not a book I think too highly of), which I read in 2012.

I love this part for how accurate it is in describing very specific Filipino youth social hierarchies and nuances. It brings me back to the nonsense conversations I would have with friends over lunch in college, many of which revolved around these same observations since UP at the time fostered this exact ecosystem. I don’t really know how all this would hold up today, but writing this now, it does make me wonder. 

During the edit these paragraphs were mostly unchanged, and what stood out to me was the fact that they kept even “sosy.” The newer edition added an extra S and italicized the word, but that doesn’t really change the fact that nobody was still saying it in 2012.

I was 8 in 2002, and we lived comfortably but not with a whole lot, so I didn’t always get what the characters were talking about right away. One thing I had to look up was what the hell an “MD player” was, and it turned out to be a MiniDisc player. It was one of those cool in-between tech innovations of the decade—more convenient than CDs, but largely forgotten because MP3 players came not long after. So it makes sense that Miguel’s MD player was switched out for an iPod. 

My mom was in her late 30s in the 2000s, and she was young enough that she still cared deeply about music and splurged on original CDs. She was an early believer of John Mayer and Jason Mraz, and the mention of Sugar Ray here has me smiling because she loved “When It’s Over.” Anyway, I think the selection of artists in both editions represent the two periods well. (And the 2012 ones are also kind of funny, because it’s like, okay, indie girl.) 

Nothing much to say here other than “neo-feminist” being added in 2012 alongside “anti-imperialist,” which speaks to me again as someone who educated myself a lot on the movement and intersectionality at the time. Say what you will, but Rookie did so much in terms of empowering young women to embrace, learn more about, and embark on their personal journeys with feminism, and this includes giving them the voice and agency to launch their own webzines. 

VCDs are kind of on the same boat as MD players, not as popular or nostalgic as VHS tapes and DVDs, but they were pretty common in my house because they were cheaper to get authentic. Not to go on another parent-related tangent, but I got my last VCD in 2008—a copy of 10 Things I Hate About You that I asked for after watching an hour-long broadcast about the life and career of Heath Ledger, who had recently passed. My dad got it for me at the Video City in SM North. (What a time.) 

Another VCD memory: watching horror movies late at night and my cousins and I pointing fingers and arguing because we were all too scared to get out of bed to replace Disc 1 with Disc 2. 

Another one of my favorite parts, where Miguel compares and contrasts our main girl with sosy, sweet, and safe Tonette, the Pathy to Una’s Carson. It tells us a lot about how he perceives the world around him and what he considers important, even if it’s just about the girl he has a crush on. (Obviously not Tonette, and it’s not even close.) 

I think the Osbournes reference definitely should’ve been switched out since the show had stopped airing seven years ago in 2012, and it doesn’t really have cult-classic status. It could’ve been “like Cassie Ainsworth minus the hang-ups” or “like Violet from American Horror Story, but better,” but both are a little too edgy. Maybe Awkward or Suburgatory or Kat Dennings circa Nick & Norah or 2 Broke Girls? The Miley of this period doesn’t quite match Tonette’s characterization either since she would’ve been in her wild-child phase, but “Blake Lively, not on Gossip Girl, but in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” would’ve fit right in. 

“Is a dean’s lister but doesn’t have much of an opinion” is way more powerful storytelling to me than the change to Camus, and it’s one of the edits I really didn’t like. 

The text-speak in the original edition cracks me up, and it was great attention to detail to edit it out in the newer edition since it might be the most glaringly reflective of how much has changed in a decade. More than anything, it makes me think about how in sixth grade, my best friend at the time had an “Anti-TXTSPK” Friendster page. And how my mom’s texts never let this typing style go all the way through to 2021, and how dear that was to me.

Some more interesting changes and references I took note of that I chose not to scan: burning CDs, Mango always being replaced with Zara, Tropical Hut (which wasn’t edited out, I just love Tropical Hut and it was cool to read), the slang “exag.”

Revisiting the two versions of this work had me wondering if Bose herself had done the edits necessary to prepare it for republication. Based on my work and what I know about publishing, the answer should be a simple yes. She’d been editorial assistant at Seventeen and evidently knew what was cool in 2002, and I would’ve assumed that the same would be true ten years later because it’s all a matter of taste. 

Her taste was still evident in certain parts, especially when it came to music, but it no longer felt like her finger was on the pulse of the zeitgeist. The characters were suddenly not as 100% in tune with the genuine 2012 teen experience, even if it was small things like teen heartthrobs. Chris Hemsworth wasn’t quite Candy Cutie material, but Josh Hutcherson or Robert Pattinson were. 

Another thing I’m thinking about is: Would another refresh of Una & Miguel work today? Are there any more cool rock bands? Would Miguel be into Wallows and Geese (I hated typing these I have no fucking clue what local straight men listen to) and have thousands of Instagram followers just because he has a Vespa and that face? Would Una be listening to Soccer Mommy, Mitski, and Japanese Breakfast, and would she be a secretly popular NCT stan account? Am I just projecting and treating this as a fun creative thought exercise? Yeah, probably.

But this leads me to my answer: a mid-2020s (how the fuck are we mid-decade already) version of Una & Miguel would never work, just like the 2012 version was already barely working. They would live too differently, their DNA would have to be rewritten completely. These are not people who should know what the Omegaverse is.  

An example I keep coming back to is Jerry Spinelli’s 2000 novel Stargirl, a celebration of nonconformity and staying true to yourself and what makes you happy. Its title character wore long dresses, played the ukulele, and chose her own name. When it was adapted into a movie twenty years after it was published, I knew even before watching that it was made too late. The message, while it remained earnest and important, didn’t quite land so hard during a time when it had gotten easier to find like-minded people online and niche subcultures, well, weren’t as niche anymore. Everyone wanted to set themselves apart now, everybody wanted to be different. Stargirl Caraway became just another girl who was not like other girls.  

On the other hand, Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower was published in 1999 and set even earlier, in the early ’90s. It stayed true to this setting for its 2012 film adaptation, which worked so well not only because of the understated and realistic approach and the fact that the author himself was directing, but also because the visual style was both timeless and spoke to what teens on Tumblr were interested in: something gritty, something flawed but beautiful. 

Lady Bird itself is set in 2002, after Greta Gerwig’s own coming of age. 

If there’s anything I’ve learned from my project archiving magazines on @glossyarchive, it’s that Filipinos have so little reference and documentation available online of what life was like before and outside of social media. Most early blogs and web pages that would’ve been a goldmine to learn from and live vicariously through are gone. It would be a disservice to erase them even further by trying to modernize them for an audience that might be curious, even if they have to look up who Ani DiFranco is. Because literature perseveres and has the most impact when it captures humanity exactly as it is. If you never make anything that’s a product of its time, then why document anything at all? 

(I also have to note how progressive, and, again, forever and ever and ever, how deeply cool it was for 2002. Una had a gay best friend named Choke! There was a drag show!)

It’s a testament to how real the characters feel in Una & Miguel, to how much they mean to me and how I regard them more like old friends than some ink on thin pages, that I’m so adamant that they don’t belong in 2012 or any other time because this is who they are, this is how they’ve grown up and this is how they exist. 

I was 14 when I first read it and it changed my life. Over fifteen years later and I still resonate with Una’s independence and uncertainty. Her need to discover her own personhood, but also to belong in a community she’s cultivated and feels herself and at home in. Fifteen years later and the feelings of discovering a new crush and their unforgettable first kiss still linger. She’s a modern girl because she reflects not necessarily modern tastes, but modern and enduring emotions and experiences. 

The book should be understood and appreciated for what has remained relevant and relatable about it.  Like Stargirl, it’s a tribute to self-actualization and identity, so why strip it of what made it so fresh and authentic and ahead of its time? In the end, that’s what stays with you. 

I heard that it’s hard to cry with the sunlight in your eyes

I know: Seoul again? My autumn/birthday plans had been to come back to Osaka, but work really ramped up after June and by October I was a molotov cocktail of burnout, anxiety, and depression, and I didn’t really have the energy for the plans I’d been making. I just wanted to go somewhere cold and wear my sweaters and the super cute gilet I got on sale at Mango, and I already kind of knew my way around the city, so Seoul it was. I really went from telling friends that I didn’t really see myself going there to visiting three times in one year. 

November 10 

My first order of business was heading over to Kim’s Deli Market so I could try their adorable tomato bagel with cream cheese and pesto. It’s made with rice flour, which definitely explains this springiness and chew to it that I really liked. The color of the bagel comes from real tomatoes, and the tomato flavor shines through and complements the filling.

I hadn’t been planning on staying to eat, but it was early enough and I liked the idea of spending some of my day in the quaint little shop. I also ordered a fizzy mixed berry drink, as well as a chocolate conch bread to go. I had some of the conch for dessert that night, and finished it off for breakfast the next morning. The sweetness was deep and dark, and I liked the play on textures with the soft bread, smooth cream, and chunky chocolate piece inside.

I had trouble locating Your Mind at first. It was in a quiet neighborhood, on the second floor of a gated building with all these indie lifestyle shops, and there was a huge yard full of fallen autumn leaves. I have to admit that stepping through the gate reminded me of the houses in K-dramas. 

A major point of this trip was to collect zines and prints by local artists, and this was the shop that stood out to me the most when I was doing my research. 

I often wish I were better versed in Korean, especially when I read about j-hope lyrics, but on this trip I  felt particularly regretful that I couldn’t buy all these beautiful books because I couldn’t have understood them. 

I set a budget for this trip, but it felt good to just gather all this printed matter in my arms and pick up whatever I wanted without looking at the price tag. I finally got some TABACOBOOKS stuff, and the bookmarks I got were so sweet and cute. There was also a wall of artists’ calling cards for ₩500, and of course I was happy to find one by LEEGOC. My favorite out of this haul is Heeda Garden’s Sleeping Gypsy, a gorgeous and whimsical book of sketches, photos, and collages from trips to different cities. 

I passed a streetside samgyeopsal cart on my way to pick up dinner, and I didn’t get any, but I savored the smell of it and wanted to remember that. 

Before I went to bed I got in the tub with a bottle of Soak’s bubblegum bubble bath in warm water, and I put on “Salt” by Rainsford, which is kind of about having a bath while you’re lonely and heartbroken, but not really. 

November 11

I think the Mango straight pants I got myself last Christmas cut such a pleasant silhouette with my sweaters and the oversize sling I bought so I could stuff the art prints I was supposed to hoard at Nuunu in Kyoto into it. (Never say never—I’m kind of already planning to go ahead with the Osaka trip next May.) Olive green is truly my color of the moment. 

I went back to Anguk Station so I could buy more art prints at Object, but this branch was being renovated, so I drowned my sorrows in apple iced tea and banana split Dippin’ Dots at the 7-Eleven next door. I’d been looking in the freezers for the packaged kind and was delighted to find that they were being served scooped into cups at the counter. 

This is my favorite shot out of this entire trip, I think, and it makes me want to kick myself again that I decided to leave my Canon G9X at home. 

I’d let go of my Telfar eggplant dreams a long time ago, but I chanced upon this Fennec bag online and fell in love with it. I’d been planning to buy it when I got home, but I decided to hunt for it at the Lotte Department Store since, hello, I was already in Seoul anyway. I ended up getting it with a great discount thanks to the Black Friday sale and the tax deduction. 

The department store was in a very commercial part of the city. I could have crossed the street and explored more of Myeongdong, but I don’t think I was ready for that quite yet. It reminded me of the city center in Kuala Lumpur, and there were all these Christmas lights and decorations at the entrance with seasonal music blaring, so it opened up this whole can of emotional worms that I needed to get away from but also wanted to wrap myself in. 

I decided to take a bus—but I got on the wrong one, so I got off as soon as I saw a Lotteria and got a late lunch while I figured out my next move. 

I’d also bookmarked Storage Book & Film on Naver Maps when I was looking for places to get zines, but I didn’t prioritize it since it seemed difficult to get to. But when I went to check the map to see how I could get back to my hotel, the little yellow star marking its location was right next to where I was. So I figured I might as well go. 

The bus that passes right by it was small and green, and there was a stop right in front of the Lotteria. I tried to ride it, but it was late afternoon and each one was full. I booked a ride instead, and then I discovered that my initial plan of walking to the bookstore from the nearest train station was never going to be the right choice: it was on a very steep hill. 

Still, I’d made it, and it was well worth the detour. I got another bunch of travel zines and some bookmarks and postcards, including one for Storage itself. The checkout counter was behind a curtain, so I couldn’t immediately see who was ringing me up. They had short hair, so I assumed it was a man. But when they handed me my card back along with my paper bag, they finally looked up, and I came eye to eye with the most beautiful, soft spoken butch I’d ever seen in my pathetic gay life. I had never witnessed features this distinct and delicate in all my days. A face you could never forget, but if I’m being honest, I’m not really able to picture it clearly anymore in my mind—but I like the romance of keeping it in that moment and only then.

(But of course I’ve already scrolled down the bookstore’s Instagram feed and tags in case I could find her in the periphery of even a single photo.) 

I walked downhill until I reached a bridal shop with a pride flag and the Palestine flag in the window, which made me so happy. I booked a ride from there and just watched the skies darken out the window. For dinner I got toowoomba pasta from the GS25 around the corner. 

November 12

At noon I was set to watch a screening of Hope on the Stage The Movie, and all I had to do was literally cross the street to the CGV near my hotel. I still find it so amusing how convenient this ended up being for me, and I got my ticket through an automated kiosk.

There were only two of us in the theater. When it was over and we were waiting for the elevator back down to the lobby, she turned to me and said hello, and she knew enough English that we were able to make small talk about the movie and where I was from and what I was doing in the city. I found her really nice and she helped me through the process of claiming the really cute commemorative ticket, which was most of the reason I even made time to see the movie in Seoul. (I already had plans to see it back home.) I think we both wanted to talk more, but she was pretty shy and so was I, and we never even got each other’s names. It’s a memory and interaction I treasure anyway. 

Next time I would love to catch a rare movie that I wouldn’t have gotten to watch elsewhere, but unfortunately they don’t provide subtitles for titles that are local to them. 

Since February I’ve been trying to find the most convenient and walkable way to be by the Han River, and so far it’s been Yeouido Hangang Park, which is right by Yeouinaru Station and also has a Hangang Bus dock. I didn’t have time to go on a boat ride, but it was enough for me to sit on a bench and admire the river while I listened to my current heavy rotation playlist. (“unlearning you” by Crying City is at the top.) 

When I’m back I’ll be taking the water bus, and maybe braving a stop at Euljidarak so I can try their bolognese with a pretty scoop of whipped cream. 

I did take the bus after, though. The right route, this time, a 40-minute ride back to my hotel. I got to take a seat early and admire views of the city I hadn’t gotten a chance to glimpse since I was always on the subway. It was a late Wednesday afternoon, the sun starting to dip, casting a poignant glow over the buildings and storefronts we passed. 

I turned out all the lights in my hotel room and watched the walls grow darker. I went to get dinner later, a warm bowl of tuna mayo and egg rice with extra umami from nori strips. It was a short walk from my hotel but the brightness of the lights against the night sky and the perfect temperature made me wistful. It was 8 p.m. and I had to be up by 3 a.m. to make it to my flight at seven, but I felt a pull—a yearning—to explore one last time. 

I finished my dinner and went back down so I could take a walk. It was the rightest amount of cold I’d experienced out of the entire trip, feeling like the autumn chill was just dusting my cheeks, little kisses of it here and there. I walked aimlessly down the side street behind the building with the CGV. It’s right by a university, so there were a lot of places open late and students milling about and dragging each other to neon-lit arcades and busy coffee shops. 

I stayed out for an hour, and then I crossed the street back to the hotel. I’d left the window open so I could be welcomed by the flicker of streetlights. I kept the curtains drawn apart while I finished packing, and it wasn’t long before I had to say goodbye to the view, too. 

At the airport I sat at the Hwangsaengga Kalguksu close to my gate. I ordered what I thought was going to be a quick snack of mandu, but the dumplings were massive. They were very good.  

On this trip I made a list of places I wanted to visit, but it was mostly unplanned. I made sure not to let the pressure of “making the most of it” hang over my head, and I just went with whatever I felt like doing. It was never going to be a montage of those “Seoul’s best-kept secrets” I’d been bookmarking—and it still made me happy and healed me regardless. 

I’ve been learning lately that for now, I’m kind of an escapist when I travel. I established long ago that I’ll never be a traveler or vagabond, more of a city-dwelling vacationer, but where my heart is at these days is really just getting out of my head, getting on a train, seeing what I can do and where I can go to let go and have fun for a little while. And for me, that’s not always found in bucket lists and best-ofs. 

More than anything, it’s just about having a nice day.