I’m stepping away from busy city life and living the country girl (island girl?) life for a week on my mom’s side grandma’s island. She turned 90 this year and she’s genuinely the smallest yet most active woman I know—like, she was cleaning at midnight, again at 3 a.m., and then she’s outside working by 6 a.m. This is my first time seeing her in almost 10 years, and I really wanted to be here in her space—eating with her, cooking for her, cleaning, and just observing what her daily life actually looks like on the island. In this Korea Diaries vlog, I tag along with my mom and aunt to do real island work: cutting plants, learning how perilla seed oil comes from literal hard work, and harvesting clams/oysters when the tide goes out (you have to time it right—if you don’t, it can be dangerous). We pick for about three hours and I’m dying, but it gave me so much respect for how the women here used to do this all day, carry it back, and sell it to make a living. We end up making Korean pancakes with what we harvested, and honestly, the biggest takeaway is simple: take care of your loved ones, hold them close, and don’t wait until it’s too late.