Walking around town in the rain is not something that I’m particularly fond of, especially during one of those days when I have to visit multiple places or do some kind of exploration. I was hoping that I could avoid having an encounter with the water drops falling from the sky on this trip, but I guess mother nature decided Seoul needed some hydration during one of these spring days.

Grey sky and wet concrete greeted us as soon as we stepped out of our Airbnb that day. We were planning to take my mom and my aunt around Hongdae (홍대) for some lunch and do a little bit of shopping. And that’s also something that I’m not particularly fond of. Shopping for clothes I mean, not lunch. So, during their shop visits, I ended up waiting in front of the stores snapping around the area and observing people walking by holding up their umbrellas.

People walks faster in the rain. Some zig-zag their way through the crowds trying to pass by the slower walkers in front of them, and some just follow the pace of the crowd and trying to keep themselves dry as much as possible under their umbrella. For couples though, I noticed it’s the total opposite. Couples walk slower, as if they’re trying to prolong the closeness between them taking refuge from the rain under one umbrella (well, I’m pretty sure that may well be the whole point). The guy’s arm would be wrapped around the girl’s shoulder, keeping her close while not minding the trickle of water that’s making his other side of the body wet since he’s letting the girl have more coverage under their umbrella.

One guy has a better thinking though. Instead of having half of himself getting wet, he actually carried a bigger umbrella—the ones that look like a golfer would used—which did a pretty good job at keeping both of them dry. I thought that was kinda nice. For them I mean, not for people around them, obviously, cause other people had to maneuvered their umbrellas on the narrow sidewalk around them since his umbrella was so wide.

The day went on and the rain didn’t let up. The steady drops of water kept pouring from the minute we left the apartment until the time we stepped back into it after our whole day of excursion. I was glad to be safe from the rain and ended the day by washing it off of me with a hot shower.