What’s more nerve-racking to do when you’re living in a foreign country where you can only sort of speak the language…..going to the gynecologist to get your vagina probed or going to an illegal underground tattoo parlor to get permanently inked?

After experiencing both, I would say they’re equally nerve-racking with the latter being a hell of a lot less awkward.

Sooooo,  tattoos in Korea.

Kind of illegal.

And by illegal, I don’t mean you’re going to get arrested by the Korean police for having visible tattoos. Tattoos are fairly common among the youth in Korea nowadays. Just stroll around the popular areas of Seoul such as Itaewon or Hongdae, and you’re bound to see some tatted Koreans.

The illegal part lies in giving tattoos, not having them. Whew! Thank goodness, right?

It’s only legal to give tattoos in Korea if you’re a licensed medical practitioner. Otherwise, you risk getting fined or arrested. Although illegal, there’s a growingly large number of non-medical tattooists in the ROK. Fortunately for all these illegal tattoo artists, the law against them isn’t strictly enforced. However, these artists still have to take precautions. That’s why you won’t see a lot of tattoo shops out in the open. Many of them are underground and found only through social media.

I discovered my Korean tattoo artist on Instagram, which I would say is the easiest way to find one in Korea. Just search #타투 (“tattoo” in Korean) and you’ll find a plethora of Korean tattoo artists sharing their work. If you want to search for a specific city or even a specific area, search #(name of the place)타투. For example, #부산타투(#busantattoo) #강남타투 (#gangnam tattoo).

Since I knew what I wanted was to get a tattoo in Hangul (Korean lettering), I searched for #한굴타투. If you live in Seoul, you don’t even have to put 서울 (Seoul) in the hashtag because most of the artists you’ll find on Instagram are located there. If you live outside of Seoul, then you’ll want to specify your location unless you don’t mind traveling.

Upon finding a tattoo artist I liked, I would either DM the artist on Instagram or contact them via Kakao (the Korean messenger app) to ask about their availability and pricing. If you don’t know any Korean at all, it might be a little harder to find an artist since some may not respond if you message them in English. While not fluent in Korea by any means, I thankfully knew enough for basic communication.

Before I found my tattoo artist, I had contacted several others who I had been following on Instagram for a while. Unfortunately, they were all booked out weeks in advance.

Since I only had a week left in Korea at that point, I needed to find someone who could accommodate me within the next two or three days. After hours of searching on Instagram, I finally found an artist who could get me in before I had to leave Korea.

Unlike the other tattoo artists I had previously reached out to, this one wasn’t well-known. This artist only had a little over 800 followers, which is not much considering the more popular ones in Seoul have 200,000-300,000 followers.

Although having more followers doesn’t equate to being more talented, it feels more comforting to go to an artist whom many people have heard of. I’d imagine it’s the same for doing anything else that’s illegal, like buying recreational drugs perhaps. If you buy it from a dealer whom people you know have gone to, you may feel less worried than buying drugs from some rando on the Internet.

Due to my lack of time, I took a chance with this lesser-known tattoo artist.

After getting a reasonable quote, I booked an appointment for two days later. To secure my appointment and receive directions to the tattoo parlor, I had to send a 20,000 won (~$18) deposit. Although not unheard of, it still felt a little sketchy to transfer money to someone before even meeting them. But since it was less than 20 bucks, I went through with it, anyway.

Promptly after sending my deposit, I received the directions.

Now, these were not clear-cut Google map directions by any means. I was sent a simple map comprising a single jagged black line drawn from the subway station to the tattoo parlor. The only things to show location on the map were names of other businesses along the path. Next to the map were written directions in Korean.

The directions were something along the line of “go to this BBQ restaurant, you’ll see this building across the street from it, go to the basement of that building and enter this passcode into the door.”

Yep, super inconspicuous and definitely not a place where you could just casually stroll in. I almost felt like I was going on a secret mission to meet with a mob boss at some hidden underground location. (But sadly, I’m not that badass.)

Since the map I received wasn’t very detailed, I searched up the name of that BBQ restaurant on my phone and used Naver maps (the Korean version of Google maps) to navigate there. It said it would be a twenty-minute walk. Once I got to the restaurant, I realized there must have been another with the same name because the building that was supposed to be across the street wasn’t there…

After admitting I was lost, the artist kindly sent me an exact location of the building on Naver maps.

It took another twenty minutes of walking to get there from where I was. Once I finally arrived,  I entered the building and nervously descended the set of stairs that led to the underground tattoo parlor.

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, I peered into the basement and saw two guys sitting behind their computers.

“Wait…is this the right place?”, I wondered.  I had expected to see a female tattooist judging from the online username and Instagram aesthetics.

As I walked inside, one of the guys stood up from behind his computer to welcome me, and holy smokes was he attractive.

I’m not sure if it was his nicely grown beard (which is very rare for Koreans to have) or tatted muscular arms that made me swoon, but there was something alluring about him that made my ovaries flutter. To be honest, I wasn’t even mad that he wasn’t a girl like I had originally imagined.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how nice the underground tattoo parlor looked. The interior design resembled rooms I had pinned on Pinterest — white and minimalistic.

The tattoo artist had me sit down beside him at his computer to show me the different font options for my design. I narrowed it down to three and ultimately took his advice on what looked the best. He also convinced me to change the placement I wanted for the tattoo. I had originally wanted the tattoo to be done horizontally across my wrist, but he said doing it that way was out-dated.  He recommended I have it done vertically down my arm instead. After seeing the vertical placement on my arm, I agreed it looked nicer.

He printed the design out and transferred it onto my skin. I could tell he was a perfectionist because he fixed the tattoo placement on my arm three times to make sure it wasn’t crooked.

I thought the tattoo would only take 10 minutes at most because that’s how long my first one took, but boy was I in for a surprise. Despite being the same size as my last one, it took at least half an hour longer. He explained that Korean lettering takes a long time because of all the small angles and curves.

Fortunately, my arm tattoo was much less painful than my ribcage tattoo. The additional time didn’t feel horribly long.

Unlike the last time I got inked, this time I could see the whole tattooing process. It was strangely enjoyable to watch as he etched each tiny stroke delicately onto my skin.

Once he finished the tattoo, he asked to take pictures. I agreed since I knew Instagram was probably how he got most of his clients.

The whole process took almost two hours from the time I arrived there to the time I left. Although it took longer than I expected, I had a great experience with the tattooist and left content with my new illegally done tattoo.

Since I’m not sure if I should publically mention where I got it done, DM on Instagram if you want to know. 🙂

BONUS STORY!

A few days later, I almost went back to get another tattoo done with one of my best friends.

We had been planning to get a matching tattoo together for a while already — just something small to signify our newfound friendship in Korea. However, we could never decide on what to get because we’re painfully indecisive.

While browsing Pinterest two days before leaving Korea, I stumbled across this cheeky tattoo that read “stay wild”. I sent it to her and half-jokingly said it should be our friendship tattoo. It was fitting considering all the wild experiences we had been through together. She responded enthusiastically.

We wanted to get it done before I left Korea,  but due to time constraints, we postponed it until we both got back to the states.

After getting back home, I did more thinking and decided that “stay wild” didn’t fully vibrate with me. It seemed more like something a chick from Girls Gone Wild would get, so I suggested we change it to “kinda wild”.

 

And that, my friends, is actually the story of how my blog rebrand as “Kinda Wild Wanderess” came to be.

 

We are the “kinda wild” girls

 

The good girls gone curious

Not bad

Just curious

 

Curious about what lies outside the rules we have always followed

Curious about what we have yet to experience

 

So we flirt with danger from time to time

And we sneak onto the wild side

 

For a second, a minute, an hour, a night

We never stay there too long

 

Because at our core

We will always be the good girls

 

Good girls with a dash of wild

 

-Jasmine Win