I spent the afternoon at Seoul Grand Park looking at art, then went to a 10CM concert.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job as a Fulbrighter, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

So I mentioned the new job, which is actually moving to South Korea on a Fulbright award. I’m doing documentary poetry work here in Korea for the next eight months (at the time of typing this), which means beyond my working hours I’m going to try and travel around the country!

This weekend I had impulsively bought tickets for a 10CM concert at Olympic Hall, despite knowing very few of his songs, and then decided later on I wanted to go to Gwacheon. I’ve only ever been to Gwacheon once, when my host family in Korea dropped us off at Seoul Land for a day of fun and adventure, but I wanted to see if there was fall foliage yet at the beginning of October.

So I told my host mother and she decided to join me for a little girls’ date. I ventured to Seoul Grand Park from my apartment, which honestly wasn’t too far, and then we met up right in front of the Elephant Train.

Let’s get into what we did on this day!

MMCA Gwacheon is at least going to once if you’re a fan of Korean contemporary Korean art.

One of the bigger reasons I wanted to venture to Seoul Grand Park is because I also wanted to go to the MMCA Gwacheon. I had been to the Seoul branch already, and the one in Deoksugung, but I wanted to check out the Gwacheon branch because they had some pieces that looked interesting to me.

I met my host mother at the Elephant Train and was dropped off not far from the museum. We ate lunch at the restaurant on-site, which was surprisingly pretty tasty and quality. I would hope so as it was a bit on the pricier side, but I was happy with the food as we talked about life lately.

Then we ventured through the exhibition halls. We were able to see everything in under two hours, even though there was quite a bit to see throughout the galleries. One of the highlights was the Kim Whanki exhibit, who I didn’t know beforehand, but my host mother happily told me that BTS’s RM likes his work.

Interestingly I had also seen some of these paintings in the United States before in general throughout these halls. Some had been in the Korea room at the MET when I visited, but others were a part of a 1970s/1960s exhibition on Korean artists at the Guggenheim. It was the first showing of its kind when it was there in New York, so I was excited to see these pieces again.

The rooftop gardens are also gorgeous in this space. I would highly recommend visiting them and snapping a few shots of the rolling mountains and the gondolas taking people up and over the park.

10CM is worth seeing live in person if you enjoy his music!

At 4PM, after grabbing some coffee and talking more, my host mother and I parted ways. I was headed to Olympic Park from Seoul Grand Park, which is about 50 minutes. I had to pick up the tickets for the 10CM fan concert, as in Korea you need to usually pick up your tickets in advance if you didn’t get them shipped.

I unfortunately did not have time to go around Olympic Park, which I wanted to do originally. I’ve heard the fall foliage and flowers are gorgeous there, but I decided that needed to be another day because of the fact I was running to this concert.

Jamsil Tower was really pretty in the distance though! If I wasn’t in a rush going home too, as I needed to call my parents by a certain time, I would have stopped to take some night pictures. But for now I picked up my tickets, asked a worker to help guide me to my suite, as I was confused by the seat numbering system, and then got comfortable.

I’m used to uncomfortable Broadway theater chairs, so the theatres and venues in Korea have been a pleasant surprise. 10CM was great, and this concert was themed around the songs he usually doesn’t perform. I didn’t know most of them, but it was a good time and I was happy I went to this concert. I wasn’t the only foreigner there too, which is always a good sign, too.

I then ordered Indian food from Coupang Eats, so when I arrived home I downed my butter and tandoori chicken while talking to my parents. That was the first time I had Indian food in Korea, and of course it was too sweet. I passed out not long after that.

And that was my day! It was a lot of fun, so I can’t way to do something like this again.

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