Seoul Survivor

Our story resumes flying across the Sea of Japan to HFM’s next stop, Seoul, South Korea.

I was leaving Tokyo in high spirits on my evening flight to Seoul. I had a great time in the capital (when not thinking about budget), was feeling productive in the airport, and also anxious at my second new country and how that transition would be for me. Unfortunately, the deck wound up stacked against me, as strange chills and ill sensations started hitting me on the plane. I was surprised when I passed the temperature checks at Immigration. I wasn’t yet feeling fully wracked and managed to find a direct bus that took me on a two hour itinerary into the city right outside my rental in Choennyangni, which was a nice win for middle of the night, dazed and malaised.

Once I finally found my way into my apartment, I collapsed in bed, and spent the next day and night in a stupor, calling out of work a second time. What an intro! As I gained a bit of strength, I eventually got into small wanderings outside my confines in Cheonnyangni. The ‘hood is definitely very Korean, and may have been an error for me to book as a foreigner with no language skills. I ultimately got around okay and it was a safe, functional area that was well connected to public transit. I think I would have been better off much closer to the city center though.

Next to my high-rise was an eight story mall atop the transit hub, and I meandered up and down it enough to find most its nooks and crannies. It was kind of cool to discover like, three food courts, two grocery stores, movie theater, a dozen coffee spots all in one building, combined with a rooftop garden and parking lot. I know these are not at all uncommon in Asian countries, but it felt like a special odyssey to me in my state wandering about it. I spent a lot of time in the grocery stores there, as my sickness would last more than a week, so I cooked often at my apartment.

To buttress my cooking, I also wandered around the Gyeongdong Market, and took in the noise and chaos of the vendors hawking fruit, veggies, spices, and more. I never found any place like this in Japan, so that and the general busy vibe of the streets was a huge departure from the more.. reserved pace I was used to. It was a bit jarring, but I came to find the pace of life interesting and fun to be a part of. I bought most of my vegetables on the street or in the market! If only I could speak even a bit of language and participate more. The intro to Korean on Duolingo was incredibly difficult  and discouraging for me, focusing too much on phonetics and not enough on basic phrases.

This sickness and no Korean language in an area without much English made me quite withdrawn. I wound up spending a lot of time in the apartment, in a mix of quarantine, gaming (yet more Resident Evil 4), and cooking. After two weeks of being sick, barely having energy to go out and feeling inflammation in my tonsils, I finally went to an international clinic in Itaewon, and got a prescription for antibiotics. Instantly, I felt better, and ashamed that I hadn’t acted faster, as a lot of my precious time here was drained. I feel like it’s a uniquely American thing to do to try and wait out a moderate illness in hopes of avoiding a bill. Even with my employer healthcare within the states, I find myself acting that way. At least one perk of this withdrawn behavior was becoming truly nocturnal. I found my overnight work schedule really clicking, which is easier when you’re not doing any strenuous activities and staying up late gaming.

Once I recovered, I did start working some activities in, some light runs, cultural trips to the national museums and preserved palaces and two difficult hikes in the Bukhansan National Park, where I knew I was better by striving and succeeding in nature. It was pretty convenient having a top notch national park practically within city limits. I also made a trip to a climbing gym again on one of my last days to take in the local vibe.

Seoul’s public transit system that enabled these trips definitely impressed me. The buses run everywhere and always on time, and the Metro was clean, efficient and effective. I just wish I had a card on my phone like Suica in my Wallet app in Japan, but I believe that was restricted to locals. I was able to plan trips to walk into Bukhansan on its west end, hike out on the east end and find easy, frequent transit to my lodging. If Seoul had a bikeshare, I never got around to trying it though.

I quite enjoyed learning about Korean history. I had known about its crushing occupations under Japan (only recently really, well depicted in the book, Pachinko), and the bare outline of the Korean war, but I got more of the story viewing its museums and reading on my own. I liked seeing the artifacts dating back to the first millennium that indicated how long the Korean peninsula had been inhabited, and the struggles, alliances, and wars with ancient Japan and China were cool to see depicted.

I discovered some detail of the leap from military dictatorship to functional democracy as well, which interests me as the world continues its struggles with fascism and Korea is one of the few countries to successfully banish authoritarianism even if it struggles elsewhere such as its poor LGBT rights. To achieve democracy, it was paved with the blood of students such as in the Gwanju Uprising or later in mass protests of the June Democratic Struggle that led to the first true elections. America may be in need of similar action if another electoral college fluke leads to Republican rule again as things grow more dire back there.

Veganism was a struggle in Korea. I was definitely hesitant to visit based on what I’d heard. Thankfully, I had the open air markets and mall grocery (which actually stocked some plant based proteins) as restaurants were few and far between. The ones i went to, even in the international districts like Itaewon were often quiet. One in Gusan double checked with me to make sure I was okay eating vegan when I visited, and a sad coda for my trip was finding the closest one to me in Gyeongdong Market closed upon the end of my stay.

Eating vegan is definitely counter culture many places in the world still and while I love traveling to the vegan friendly spots it’s also nice to show up in places where it’s not thought about and raise awareness of the diet. As well as support whatever scene there is. All the places I ate out at treated me well. I’m hopeful for a mostly plant based planet one day, and part of this travel is seeing the steps people are taking everywhere towards it.

Even if Korea is too meaty for my tastes, I found it really interesting in some other steps they’re taking for the environment. There is a very aggressive campaign for composting that is in effect countrywide due to a lack of landfill space that was really worthy of a shout out. Beats me digging a ditch behind my apartment block in Tucson!

Altogether, I feel like I’d give Korea a mulligan here and try another visit whenever the stars align. I think Seoul still has some interesting stuff to see, and is a highly functional city that’s easy to exist in minus the high COL. I still need to see Busan and Jeju for island vibes too.