When Seoul Surprises: What Kimbap Taught Me About Sticking Together

One of the first things I wanted to try after returning home from Korea was how to make kimbap. We learned how to make one at the Seaweed Museum in Goyang. It wasn’t because I suddenly wanted to become a Korean cook. It was because kimbap had become part of our days in Seoul. We bought it from convenience stores before long bus rides. We packed it for an afternoon at the beach. It was simple, filling, and somehow always satisfying.

So ARMY Daughter and I decided to make tuna kimbap together. For her, it is a survival meal on the go. For me, it was a way to remember the cross-cultural experience having taught by a Pinay guide and invigilator at the Seaweed museum. It is something I want to share with friends at work.

As we spread the rice across the sheet of seaweed, I hesitated. I was afraid of putting too much. ARMY Daughter smiled and said,

“Put enough rice on the seaweed. It holds the rest of the ingredients together.”

I paused. Of course. The seaweed protects. The rice holds everything together. Without enough rice, the filling falls apart.

As we rolled the kimbap, I couldn’t help thinking about how rice has always been more than food across Asia. Whether it is served at breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even dessert, rice gathers families around a table. It accompanies celebrations and ordinary weekdays alike. It is humble, familiar, and often unnoticed precisely because it is always there.

This is the metaphor I keep.

ARMY is much the same, when I think about it.

We are wonderfully different. We come from different countries, generations, professions, and life stories. Some of us found BTS through Dynamite. Others have been here since No More Dream. We carry different experiences, different perspectives, and different seasons of life.

Yet something holds us together because we choose, over and over again, to return to what first brought us here: seven artists whose music taught us to listen more carefully, love more deeply, and become better people. Like rice in kimbap, it is often the quiet things that hold a community together.

Kindness. Respect. Generosity. Patience. Openness. The willingness to make room for one another.

Sometimes the most ordinary things become the memories we carry home. Kimbap wasn’t just a quick meal during our trip to Seoul. It became a reminder that joy often arrives simply and with humility, wrapped in seaweed and shared with people you love.

Looking back now, I realize that travel isn’t only about the places we visit. It’s about the stories we continue to tell long after we’ve returned home. Every time I make kimbap now, I think of ARMY Daughter’s simple reminder.

“Put enough rice on the seaweed.”

Communities are built the same way. Not by making ourselves the center of the story, but by becoming what quietly holds everyone else together.

Apobangpo! Purple and true! 💜

#BTSFESTA2026 #BTSArirang #koreanfood #seoultravel

Heart and Seoul 2026 D2: Namjooning at Festa Season Brings Serendipity

On Day 2 of our Bangtan Pilgrimage 2026, Kuya, ARMY Daughter, and I headed to Gyeongnam Art Museum in Changwon, a city about an hour away from Busan. While everyone else was at Asiad celebrating FESTA on June 13 and doing ARMY things, there we were, bound for a museum to do some Namjooning.

Most ARMYs honor BTS by being present at their concerts. We chose to celebrate them another way, and that does not make us any less ARMY. In fact, this side quest to Gyeongnam Art Museum (GAM) deepened my appreciation for BTS and made my connection to them even more meaningful as I walked alongside my grown-up children.

GAM stands on a hill near Changwon National University. The neighborhood feels like a university town or village. It reminded me of UP Los Baños, albeit without the heavy traffic and with a lower population density. The mountain flanking GAM gave the place a formidable presence, while the river, though dry at this time of year, lent it gentleness and charm.

As we climbed toward the entrance of GAM, ARMY Daughter became emotional. As a museum and cultural worker, this was her first time visiting a museum abroad, and in South Korea, no less. As for Kuya, he approached the experience with open eyes and a generous heart. For 1,000 won, the same price as a bottle of water, we paid the admission fee to what felt like a life-giving encounter with art and culture. We entered hoping to make connections to who we are as Filipino artists and to allow Korean art to inspire us, and perhaps even disturb our comfort zones.

The current exhibit featured the works of modern and contemporary Korean artists under the title Within and Without, as well as ceramic works by Pablo Picasso from the collection of Lee Kun Hee. The latter came as a surprise, as I did not expect Picasso’s ceramic works to be so extensive and varied.

The most unexpected part of our visit, however, was discovering Park Chan Gap’s public installation titled Arirang, rendered in black and white granite.

It felt serendipitous and deeply relevant. To encounter Arirang at this particular juncture in time felt like the universe was telling me something I have yet to fully understand.

I stood before Arirang longer than I expected. The sculpture seemed simple at first: black and white granite arranged around a bell-like form suspended in space. Yet the longer I looked, the more tension I felt within it. Between black and white, weight and openness, permanence and movement. Was it a bell? A mountain? A gateway? A song rendered in stone? I was not sure. What I knew was that it moved me.

I walked around it and in between. From one angle, the granite appeared heavy and immovable. From another, the opening at its center seemed to invite passage. The sculpture resisted easy explanation.

I am going to carry Park’s Arirang with me as we continue our tour. For now, I am content knowing that I found Arirang and that it found me during FESTA 2026, not in a stadium in Busan, but in an art museum, an archive of memory where inheritances and remembrances are preserved and passed on.

Perhaps that is enough for now. 💜😊💜

#BTS_ARIRANG #bangtanpilgrimage2026 #Namjooning #Festa2026 Savedbythebest Travel and Tours 

Heart and Seoul 2026 D1: The Road to Busan, Galbitang and Bulalohan

We lingered at Incheon International Airport, to wait for a while until daybreak. The sandwiches at Tous Les Jours looked appetizing, and pairing them with banana milk felt satisfying. Doing some quick mental math, I decided to get some snacks at the nearest CU, South Korea’s popular convenience store. Our welcome meal consisted of tuna mayo and bulgogi kimbap, banana milk, yogurt, and onigiri. It was filling enough to tide us over until breakfast at 8 AM.

And there we were in a Korean barbecue restaurant in downtown Incheon a few hours later, being embraced by the aroma of galbitang—clean, clear, a little tangy, and, strangely enough, a comfort food that reminded us of home. This dish of boiled beef, complete with tendons, bone marrow, scallions, and enoki mushrooms, is South Korea’s equivalent of our bulalo. The only difference I can think of is the rich and savory flavor with which we season our bone soup. Ah, and we put in a lot of vegetables too: potatoes, cabbage, pechay, sometimes corn and saba, even string beans. My Mama would put in all the vegetables I mentioned, especially when she was feeling generous on salary day. I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic and appreciative of this cross-cultural connection as I sat beside my grown-up children.

ARMY Daughter smacked her lips while Kuya raked in the side dishes that justified the bland but bracing clear soup of beef bone and tendons. I was sniffing halfway through mine when ARMY Daughter asked:

“Are you crying?”

“It’s the hot soup,” I replied. “It clears the nostrils.”

Our Tita ARMY friend, who seemed to have been reading my mind all along, spoke up.

“This dish is like our bulalo,” she said. “Did you see that one of the staff looked Pinoy?”

“What if he’s the cook who has learned to cook Korean dishes?” I wondered.

Tita ARMY quipped, “Taga-Tagaytay!”

I laughed and added, “Baka Batangueño?!”

It was then that ARMY Daughter asked, amused and curious, “Bakit Tagaytay?”

“Maraming bulalohan sa Tagaytay at bakahan, pati na rin sa Batangas,” I said.

Tita ARMY affirmed, “Punta ka sa Tagaytay!”

And I agreed right then and there. Galbitang, this humble and bracing dish, welcomed us weary travelers to Korean soil, only for us to talk about and remember bulalo, a dish that reminds us of hearth and home. If ever we can’t make a day trip to Tagaytay and dine in one of the bulalohan restaurants there, I will cook the dish the way my Mama cooks it, with all the vegetables I loved to eat then and now.

This is the inheritance I hope to share with my children: not merely a recipe or a food trip, but the memory of home carried from one table to another.

#BTS_Arirang #bangtanpilgrimage2026 #Festa2026 #foodtrip #southkoreatravel