Today, we departed Daejeon and returned to Seoul! We left Daejeon around 9:30, but I made sure to grab coffee from a nearby shop called “Mega Coffee” first. In Korean cities, I’ve noticed and really like that most of the coffee shops have walk-up windows to order from the sidewalk. This is a small thing, but it makes the shop feel more accessible and aids the walkability of a city, so it’s something I’d like to see more shops in Louisville embrace. I’m aware of Please & Thank You on Market Street (a cookie and coffee shop in NuLu) and a bakery across the river in Clarksville having them, but there might be more I’m not aware of. The ride from Daejeon to Seoul is about 2 hours, and we stopped at another one of the travel stations along the way for a short break.
After we arrived in Seoul, we dropped our luggage off at the hotel (called the Hotel Prima) before having free time for lunch. Seoul is a true foodie city, and right around the corner, there was a Michelin-guide featured dumplings spot we loved. Around 2:20, we departed for our first rehearsal on public busses. We are performing this orchestral concert with a group from Yonsei University, so our rehearsal was back in Yonsei’s Luce Chapel where we sang on Pentecost Sunday a week ago!
The choir is combined with some alumni and current students of Yonsei, and Dr. Hatteberg is conducting Haydn’s Nelson Mass while Yonsei’s Dr. Kim is conducting Bruckner’s Te Deum. Dr. Kim was our own Dr. Ahn’s first conducting teacher, so it’s lots of fun to work with her and fascinating for us to track similarities in gesture and podium persona between the two. The rehearsal was a longer one (running from 3:30-7:00), but it was exciting to begin putting both major works together for the first time with the combined choir nonetheless.
We returned to the hotel for the evening after the rehearsal, and while some people went out to restaurants, I was pretty tired from traveling and rehearsing so my roommate Jackson and I got ramen and sodas from a convenience store around the corner and called it an early night. Tomorrow, we have some free time in the morning before we perform a few pieces in Lotte Concert Hall as part of the Seoul Choral Music Festival in the evening. Thank you for reading!
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