A Fat Purple Fig

Following the great G-Dragon tour of Jeju Island, we visited the cafe he opened before Untitled 2017, the fortuitously-positioned Monsant.

What you can’t see from the photo above, is that Monsant sits on the corner of a stretch of coast that gives you a view out to sea, and of the coastline in either direction. The position alone makes it worth the price of admission.

And those seats above might look empty, but there are so many of them, you would literally need hundreds of people there, all at the same time, for it to be considered full. The flow didn’t stop the whole time we were there, and G-Dragon doesn’t even own it anymore. It made me wonder if they calculated a special rate for goodwill in the sale. How do you calculate the ongoing worth of mass adoration?

The bloomin’ flowers featured again, both outside and in, as did the G-Dragon lyrics, this time in neon.

And, as I have come to expect, the building was pretty spectacular. More industrial chic, and with glass from the ground up, to make the most of that coastline.

The menu was curious. It scored a thousand points for two top-notch cakes. I knew they were the pick, because they were tray-baked numbers (with slices being cut or broken from the larger whole) on the top of the counter, as opposed to languishing (although I doubt anything here languishes for long) in the glass cabinet. Orange cake and pecan scrolls…scrumptious.

Then, they lost that thousand points, because Mary couldn’t buy an espresso. They literally sold all the drinks that originate from the espresso, but not the espresso itself. Go figure.

I had a moment here. The combination of sun and sea made for reflective times, as it hit home that this was our last moment in South Korea (transport transfers don’t count).

It’s been grand.