Happy New Year to the official readers of official GF. ☆
The first week of 2026 has been good to me, and I hope it’s been good to you too!
I wanted to start the year with a post I kept in the vault for a while, a story from my strange summer of 2025.
This is for anyone who has ever felt weird, out of place, or lost in a new space.
Hi Kaze!
I saw quite a bit of Japanese music around Seoul and lots of fandom in Korea.
Even though summer feels like a blur now, maybe due to too many Strong Zeros, I learned a few important lessons.
- From Tokyo to Seoul
- First Impressions
- My Accidental Suburban Getaway
- Casual Love
- A Soft Power Shift
- My Quiet Revelation in a Seoul Mall
From Tokyo to Seoul
I was supposed to spend three nights in Korea for business.
My roommate at the time wanted to travel with me so I said, sure why not! Two is better than one.
Unfortunately, this person was a product of rigid societal pressures in Japan and under huge stress from overworking. Planning the trip with them was like pulling teeth.
After staying up all night to catch the first train to Narita Airport, I got cold feet and missed the flight.
Eventually, I sucked it up and made it out a day later.
The truth is, I knew nothing about Korea. Nothing about its history or its language. Not even the “must visit places”. I didn’t have the energy or space to research. That summer, I was just trying to keep up.
I dread the train route, the Keisei Line, to Narita Airport.
It passes by what used to be my teenage home in Chiba. Much like the train rushing through the rice fields in the little town, I put it all behind me and made it out. The midday sun in Seoul welcomed me.
First Impressions
I took a taxi into the city. The driver didn’t speak English, but we got by with hand signals and facial expressions. It was my first time in a country where I couldn’t speak the language. The feeling that I was a burden started to slowly fade.
It didn’t take long to notice the differences. Seoul felt open and spacious, even in the busy downtown areas. No human Tetris like in Tokyo.
The fashion was less cutesy and more athletic, sexy, and bold. I’d gotten so used to modesty being the expectation in Japan. I started to miss being able to wear yoga pants without judgement.
I quickly realized the quality of coffee and pastry in Korea. Even Starbucks had an elevated menu with fancy stuff like Citrus Espresso and Sea Salt Caramel Cold Brew to match the surrounding bakeries.
After all the deep thinking (including Starbucks and yoga pants – we love a little basic white girl), my 24 hours in Korea officially began.
My Accidental Suburban Getaway
Since I hadn’t done any research, I ended up accidentally booking a hotel an hour away from the city center.
The taxi to the hotel was long, but the view made up for it. Watching Seoul grow smaller in the distance, I finally put my phone away and just stared out the window.
Somewhere on that ride, I started thinking about how little I knew about Korea, and yet, how much I unknowingly loved it.
My favorite movie is Parasite. My favorite artist to debut in the past few years… NewJeans. K-pop Demon Hunters is kind of a banger, too.
None of this was “on purpose”. I didn’t seek out Korean media at all. It just so happened that there are a lot of great things that come from Korea, and I thought about that on the taxi ride.
Casual Love
I’ve spent most of my life between Japan and the U.S. I even work in the “global department” at my job. Supposedly, I was a pro at being international.
But in Korea, for once, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I had to rely on people and my best guesses to get around.
Still, everyone was kind.
We met a taxi driver who lit up when he heard us speaking Japanese. The man told us all about his time studying abroad in Japan, how returning to Korea meant army training and the brutal grind of adulthood, and about recently buying his own taxi so he could control his work hours.
Before he was a taxi driver, he used to work at a ticketing service for concerts in Japan, and shared that Korean work culture was much worse (oh boy). He talked about his childhood in a way that made sense to me. “Before you leave your parents house and become an adult, you get to live in your own world full of love and safety. But then when you leave, you have to deal with all the chaos.”
I thought about my grumpy roommate traveling with me and tried to have empathy. They recently started their first adult job. I think they were dealing with their first round of adult chaos at the time.
The driver’s collection of anime figures on his dash were likely a nod to that time in his life before the chaos.
He told us to remember “the crazy Korean taxi driver”.
A Soft Power Shift
Right now, both Japan and Korea are in the middle of a global pop culture movement. Soft power is booming. People around the world are discovering art originally born from local creative groups, friends goofing around, internet silliness, and different traditions.
A few years ago, figure collecting was pretty cringe. I mean, it is still a little nerdy… but Funko Pops and collectibles weren’t as much of a thing.
You could have never guessed that by the amount of Labubus hanging off everyone’s bags. I visited the flagship location of Pop Mart in Hongdae, and it was completely packed with customers and security officers protecting the +$1,000 Molly figures.
At the mall, I heard a song I loved – some OG Vocaloid music.
When I was around 15, I had to hide my love for subculture music.
My boyfriend at the time told me to stop listening to rock. “No one will take me seriously if you like things like that,” he said. Even liking Nirvana was improper for the perfect girl.
To protect myself, I told him I was going out with friends, but really, I was sneaking off to concerts. Looking back, I should have immediately dumped that guy.
And that’s why I still get that pit in my stomach on the way to the airport on the Keisei Line. It reminds me of when I had to hide the things I loved.
My Quiet Revelation in a Seoul Mall
When I was walking through the mall, I heard the same music I once tried to hide playing over the speakers. I saw older and underground media, like from Niconico Douga, suddenly in a public space in Korea. Then I thought,
What if I never stopped liking those things?
Would I be better at music? How about drawing? And even writing?
But – I made the choice to hide the things I was interested in.
Ado and Yonezu Kenshi are two of Japan’s greatest musicians right now, who both came out of Niconico era media. I got told it was bad, lame, and that I shouldn’t go near it before it became “mainstream”.
The experience of walking down memory lane was a violent reminder that it’s OK to like what you like. Especially if you’re not hurting anyone!
I certainly wasn’t hurting anyone by listening to music, writing diaries, and having figures of a character I liked in my room when I was 15.
It’s also OK to take yourself, and others, less seriously.
I didn’t need to go on a magical 24-hour hike through Korea to realize this, but it certainly helped put it into perspective.
If anyone reads this, I hope you keep enjoying what you like doing, too.
I will go practice bass now to make up for lost time.
I wrote that last bit in the Fall – it’s now after new years, and I’ve gotten a lot better at bass and being open about my love for music!
I haven’t posted weekly for the past few months because I moved and started playing with a really cool band.
They help remind me every day that loving music is great. I even got to record a song with them recently that is coming out at the end of this month. I will share it with you guys when it is out.
If you feel like it, share your new year’s goals with me below! Or you can do it anonymously through the contact page. Hope to hear all about your journey and passions as we go through 2026 together!
See you next time!<3
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