What Would it Be Like to Have Jung Hae-In as Your Travelmate?

By Jae-Ha Kim
Kocowa.com
January 29, 2020

Jung Hae-In is known for acting in popular K-Dramas such as “While You Were Sleeping,” “Pretty Noona Who Buys Me Food,” “Blood,” and “One Spring Night. But he’s also a documentarian who produced and starred in the reality series, “Jung Hae-In’s Travel Log.”

With his soothing voice and zest for adventure,  he makes it fun for viewers to follow along. New York City was on his bucket list, he said, so it was a thrill for him to visit the Big Apple for the first time. In order to immerse himself in New York, he chose to explore the city on foot.

In Episode 1 of the series, another tourist — a spiritualist from India — strikes up conversation with him. The latter tells Jung that he’s very handsome and asks if he’s married. When told no, he goes into matchmaking mode and suggests India as a lovely place to get married. He asks the actor to visit his country and says he will make an effort to visit South Korea one day. The part I really enjoyed was when he told Jung he’d meet a woman in 2020, who’ll be very important in his life:

As a U.S. resident who has visited New York often, it was so much fun to see the beautiful and vibrant city through the eyes of someone who wasn’t jaded by the experience. Everything was new to him and he took the time to marvel in it.

Some of the most interesting moments don’t take place on the street but in quiet locales. Hungry from a day of sightseeing, he parks himself at a counter of a restaurant and orders some oysters (local to the city) and craft beer. In the U.S., the legal drinking age is 21, but looking as young as he does, he gets carded.

“I’m 32,” he says, embarrassed. That’s Korean age, by the way, and not his biological age (which is one year younger). But the point is, he could easily pass for an underage college student.

By Episode 3, two of his friends join him in New York. Lim Hyun-Soo, who also co-starred with him in “One Spring Night,” is the resident maknae. Actor Eun Jong-Gun, the eldest of the three, is a bit more jaded about New York, having lived there previously when he attended Pace University’s acting school.

I think I speak for all Koreans when I say that no matter how good the food is in a foreign country, there are times when we have to eat Korean food. His planned meal for that evening is kimchi jjigae and tteokbokki. But he can’t resist buying a few packets of  ramyeon and frozen mandu.

Not gonna lie. His meal looked really delicious and made me hungry watching this particular episode.

These eight hour-long episodes end all too fast. If you still want to see more documentary-style work from him, be sure to check out his work on “Bears.”

The wildlife series follows the majestic and powerful animals in locales around the world such as Siberia, Kamchatka and the Swiss Alps. Jung said he was excited to work on this documentary, because it was helmed by producer Kim Jin-man. Jung is a fan of Kim’s work, which includes “Tears in the Amazon.”

Jung Hae-In Trivia: Did you know that Jung got his acting start in music videos? In 2013, baby-faced Jung appeared in AOA Black’s music video for “Moya.” (The following year, he made his K-Drama debut in “Bride of the Century” and followed that up with “The Three Musketeers.” He also acted in indie film, “The Youth.”)

Be sure to subscribe to KOCOWA now and watch “Jung Hae-In’s Travel Log“! Let me know in the comments below which was your favorite episode!

Be sure to follow @GoAwayWithJae, where I tweet about all things Korean.🇰🇷