The Hardest Goodbyes

I had to post twice in a day. It's my final day in Korea and there are so many emotions running through ma veins, through ma brains. I used to be excited about turning the page and starting a new chapter in my life. But on this day, I just feel sadness that it's ending. This life I'd known and figured out through trial and error is over today. I'm saying goodbye to Korea, though surely not forever, and now I can only reminisce about how I've grown and changed and learned from her. There will be no more new memories and experiences to be made.

All this, too, applies to my ex-wife. Although we didn't work out ultimately, it wasn't due to hatred for each other. We get along splendidly, and continued to live together as roommates these last several months. But our paths must diverge if we are to continue growing and thriving in this life. And so, I am saying goodbye to her today, too, to one of the best friends I've ever had. It's like going through a double break up. The hardest thing I've willfully brought on myself.

I know that time heals all and my excitement about this trip will return. I've been planning it for years, unable to wait for this day for so long. Counting down the hours, budgeting and re-budgeting, spreadsheets full of cost breakdowns, purchases made in anticipation. How long was my nose buried in a map, determining just exactly where and which way I should go to finally complete my trip around the world that I started 8 years ago? Now, I'm all packed. Take a look at the haul:

All that's fitting into two bags hanging from my shoulders. I've sent two boxes of other belongings home, with one more being sent today. My life is now fractured. My worldly possessions are scattered around the Earth. I will be homeless in hours from now. I am already unemployed. It's a strange feeling. All of it. I guess there is solace in knowing that tomorrow I'll be on a tropical beach, the warm breeze eroding my anxious grief into a worn contentment with life. But today is still a hard experience no matter how you cut it.

Anyway, enough blubbering. Keep yer eyes peeled for new posts about jealousy-inducing, exotic locales and experiences. All zero of my readers shall rejoice as I make my way slowly around this great big Earth.

The Rejects

If you follow me on Facebook (you do, religiously), you'll know that I finished up my 30 day countdown photo series yesterday, but there were a few that almost made the cut. I was shuffling around closer to 40 shots that I was considering. Here are the ones that didn't make it.

 This first one was just a random encounter. Out on Dotobori, under the glittering Glico Man, I heard music. That's not abnormal in the sensory intensity of Osaka, but I also heard chanting and grunts from a group of men. Come to find out, there's a J-pop concert going on, and the crowd is mostly men my age or older who know all the words, all the chants. It's a little jarring culturally. I found out that they only roped off the little square of the stage, so one was free to amble almost right up to the performers and get a glimpse into their surreal experience. Osaka, Japan, August 2017.

 Ah, yes, Bagan. There were so many of these long, dark corridors that I walked down. No telling which one this is specifically. There's probably a Buddha statue just to the right of the intersection, its spine arrow straight against the other side of that wall. It was like going back in time, really. I know how people say that about certain places and it's, like, semi-true, but in Bagan it felt more like that than anywhere else I'd ever been. I love it there. Bagan, Myanmar, September 2016.

 There is so much gold at the Royal Palace in Bangkok that I sometimes wondered whether the ground sloped down any from all the weight of metal concentrated in one spot. And not just gold, there are jewels and other sparkly things everywhere. I can only think that coveting such riches and flaunting them as such speaks to a deep insecurity, but we know this is not true in the case of the King of Thailand, may he reign a thousand years. Bangkok, Thailand, August 2011.

 This picture gives a sense of the chaos of nightlife in Korea. There's lights, there's action, there's a butt-ton of people going to a butt-ton of different places who've consumed a butt-ton of drinks and are wearing a butt-ton of makeup. It's intense, and it's fun and unforgettable, especially in this specific place in Hongdae. Party Central, Seoul, Korea, March 2014.

 I like this picture because we get a glimpse into the lives that thrive around the ruins of Angkor Wat. All we normally see is the grand monument to the Angkor people's achievement, which is impressive no doubt, but we rarely get a sense into the humanity that surrounds it. Here, a few hundred meters away from the bustle of Angkor, we have two bike riders on their way to wherever. But I like the people on the left fringe, lounging on a ruin. Even after 800 years, they're still utilitarian constructions, and that makes them even more special. Angkor, Cambodia, March 2014.

 In this one, we see a full range of human emotion. Determination, upset, frustration, panic, impatience, relief, exhaustion. That is the power of the relay race. This was early on, my first Sports Day at my first school. The excitement of the kids and the enjoyment of their parents was palpable, and I really had a good time on this day. I even got a free polo shirt as one of the teachers. Also, now that I think about it, these kids are now in high school. Wowee wow. Daegu, Korea, May 2010.

Ah, yes, how can I ever forget Ella? I couldn't help from whispering, "stunning," to myself repeatedly at the views here. It was a beautiful day, although a bit hazy, and lounging around like a Lion King was so satisfying. Here, you can see how far people take it. There are those little people toward the top of the cliff who were a little more daring than I could be. Ah, to be young again. Ella, Sri Lanka, February 2017.

Hmm, I suppose that'll be all then. It's time for a new adventure. Goodbye, Korea.

Gear, Pt. 2

Good random Tuesday to you. I'm back with some updates concerning what'll be inside the bag I carry on my back through several countries. The final round of internet orderings came, and I wanna share with you what's going on, just in case I refer to it later or you wanna have a little insight into what your ass should pack if you ever wanna do something similar. Refer to post one regarding gear if you're not caught up.

Let's get the most boring and utilitarian items out of the way. I got a quick-drying towel and a small waterproof pouch. Whoopdie-doo, loser. Alright, moving on.

I'm not sure what a Yookie is, but that big blue bag is also waterproof. You may be thinking, why would you need a 15 liter waterproof bag? Silly rabbit. That waterproof bag is my washing machine. I've been thinking about how best to do laundry as a long-term traveler and I've come across a couple of items that are basically bags you throw your dirty clothes in, fill up with water, put some detergent in, and then sort of deeply massage with your feet while you play on Facebook for ten or fifteen minutes and voila! Clothes so clean you'll need sunglasses to look at 'em. Being the enterprising not-so-young man that I am (read: cheap ass), I thought, why pay fifty bucks for a waterproof bag that's labeled for laundry use when I can get one that's not labeled for laundry use for ten? And here we are. I'll maybe let you know if it was a good decision or not.

Next, we come to that water bottle. That ain't no normal water bottle. That thang comes with a filter.

That filter instantly removes chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, sediment, bacteria, and viruses, rendering any source of fresh water in the world potable. What a time to be alive, eh? Shout out to Drinksafe, who successfully got U.S. Marines to go out into the desert and drink their own urine as a test for this thing. And yes, it even worked with urine. The filter lasts for up to 1600 liters, which is much more water than I'll need for this whole trip. No more polluting the Earth with discarded plastic bottles, nor paying to buy them. This'll pay for itself before I set foot in America if I don't lose it before then...

 Next up, we got a sleeping bag liner.

 Wut wut? If I've learned one thing from my past travels, it's that if you wanna save money, sometimes you're gonna sleep on questionable surfaces. This I plan to use at least for the several overnight trains in India, as well as for its intended use in Nepal, and those are just the foreseeable instances where this'll be useful. In a pinch, this puppy will protect against bedbugs, or put a layer between my body and the mystery stains of some seedy hotel room.

This last one's not gear, but something that I've been very anxiously awaiting since November and arguably the most important thing mentioned today. It's my 2018 World Cup Fan ID.

What a gem of a pic, eh? But that's not the point. Pay attention! In case you are unaware, Russia has a...very restrictive entry policy for tourists. Call it a holdover from the days of the USSR. One must pay a large sum of money to the specific Russian Embassy of one's own country and accompany that sum with a letter of invitation from Russia, which comes at an additional price from hotels or organized tours. It's expensive as well as time consuming and I don't have the luxury of visiting the US just to get a Russian visa. But Putin did something extraordinary for the upcoming World Cup. He waived that requirement for the entire month of the games for anyone holding a Fan ID, which comes free with the purchase of a ticket to any game. That means I can enter the country with only this, and for cheaper than the normal visa cost.

There are a couple of reasons for the anxiety though. The website for obtaining the Fan ID is less than helpful. It's definitely set up like a website from the early 2000s: everything is bulky, and some of the info is outdated or incorrect. They state that they send out the Fan IDs upon receipt of the application, which most definitely is not true. I filled that application out in early November. Then, it sat under the category of "unprocessed" until January. Then, it sat in the category of "in print" for another couple of weeks (that's a really slow printer) until I received a text telling me it was sent to the post office about two weeks ago. And of course there's no way to track it after it leaves Russia.

That's not all. The application itself is wonky. They control what characters one can input into certain fields. The address was particularly frustrating. Korea changed its zip code system a couple years back, but of course the Fan ID website only allows one to put in the old Korean zip code, yet also requires one to fill out the fields labeled " building number" and "apartment number," which is particularly troubling for those who live in a house with no additional apartment number. On top of that, they botched the address I entered anyway. They forgot to include the building number, which is pretty important in finding where to specifically send a package.

I gotta give Korea some props here. The deliveryman must have seen my name and remembered that I was the only foreigner living on my street. Even with the old zip code and a missing building number, he brought that shit right up to the correct door lickedy-split. No muss, no fuss. And my heart rate can now slow to normal again. Everything is going according to plan.

Heartbreak in Seoul

Some emergency button was pressed in Seoul that, as far as I know, is still blaring from our weekend there. I am not even joking.

After work on Friday, I caught the slow train up just in time to grab a burrito for dinner and then head to the venue, which was a small basement accessed through a hole in the wall called Channel 1969 near Hongdae. My boy was playing the drums again, this time in his other band. (You can check them out here. Warning: MATH ROCK ALERT!)Their show was fairly succinct, as they were opening for a Korean band called Dabda. I can't find any additional info for them, but it was clear that most of the people in the audience came to see Dabda judging from the reception they received. I guess it didn't help that my friend's band is based in Daegu and they were playing to strangers in Seoul.

After the show, the night carried on into late-night barbecue with both bands, coupled with waaayyyyy too much soju and beer. There was a mart stop at some point, and then a continuation at our AirBnB, where some strange dude and one of my dudes got into a heated argument about fascism. I got involved, as did another of our group, but it was working on 4 AM, everyone was drunk, and no dents could be made in the steel walls we'd all put up behind our glazed-over eyes. I went to bed before the others had finished their slurred arguments.

Saturday morning/afternoon was pretty rough. We got lost on the way to breakfast/lunch/early dinner, but meandering through the rolling hills of Seoul was nice. The neighborhoods look slightly different than in Daegu. There are more hills. The buildings butting against the street are arranged a little differently, a little more dilapidated in general. Seoul has a few more wrinkles on its face, some from laughter and some from sorrow, like its highs were higher and its lows lower.

We ate some bomb Indian/Nepali food at this place called Everest. The tea, the samosas, the momos, the curries--everything was awesome. We overdid it though, and spent the next couple of hours in a Starbucks blowing up their bathrooms and recovering.

The main reason we came up for the weekend was to attend a concert. We were seeing Tricot, a Japanese math-rock band playing their first show in Korea. I was introduced to them the first time I went to my drummer friend's apartment for a small gathering. He had their DVD playing on his laptop for background noise. They were immediately noticed--tight, urgent, energetic, technically proficient. I still have no idea what they were singing about, but it doesn't matter when they put on a show like this.

It was even better seeing them in person (and so close, too!). These tiny Japanese girls jumping around in front of a tiny Japanese dude just destroying it on drums, nary a mistake in sight or sound in any of them. It's hard not to move your body with such contagious energy spewing from the stage. I'm glad to have experienced it.

The other highlight of the night was this bar that was hidden, signless, in the basement of some apartment villa. It was amazingly decorated with homemade art and wood and amazingly soundtracked to create an amazing atmosphere. (Why didn't I take a picture of it!?) I feel lucky to have found that gem. It was definitely a good day, despite the hangover.

Sunday was much more bittersweet. My friend started it off right by pushing the wrong button in our high-tech apartment, prompting some loud emergency alarm to go off incessantly. We couldn't turn it off, so we just left. Nobody seemed to respond or care or maybe it was attached to nothing. That's Korea for you.

But the thought crept back into my brain in the taxi ride to the station: these were my final moments in Seoul for a very long time, perhaps forever. With that sort of finality, I thought of all the mixed feelings I've had for that city over the years I've known it. The things I caught a glimpse of but didn't fully experience, the things I experienced too much of, the things that were once there but are now gone, the things to come that I won't be around to experience. I don't think I've ever really felt that way before. I was genuinely sad to leave it.

I felt like if I had it all to do over again, but with the knowledge and experience I already have, I'd live in that concrete mess. I've had a lot of fun in the random corners of that city, most of it forgotten or weathered away by time, incapable of being replicated ever again. I felt nostalgia, I felt sad at aging and life changing in the way that it always does. I wanted to trap that city in a snow globe that I could visit whenever I want. But that's not how it works. I just have to look back at what little I've written about it and visit the fuzzy pictures I took and try to transport myself for a moment back in futile hope. It's like a form of heartbreak, isn't it? Till we meet again, Seoul.

New Year, New Eyes!

Happy New Year! Yay! The apocalypse has not rendered us all non-existent! Okay, a lot has happened so try to keep up. I got LASEK. "But Steve," you say in italics, "isn't it LASIK? With an I?"
To which I reply, "Uncultured swine! There exist several different kinds of corrective eye surgery! LASIK is only one option in this bright future we live in!"

The option most choose is LASIK (Laser-Assisted In-Situ Keratomileusis [betcha didn't know what it stood for, eh?]), wherein they slice the cornea to create a flap, then peel it away so the laser can get all up in yo' eyes, and finally replace the corneal flap to eventually heal and reconnect itself as one uninterrupted solid. The option I chose, No-touch LASEK (Laser-Assisted Subepithelial Keratomileusis), does not create a corneal flap. Instead, it removes the epithelial layer with some solution and then the layer is somehow replaced afterward under a protective lens one must wear for 3-4 days afterwards (as far as I understood it from someone who speaks English as a second language).

The reason I chose the E instead of the I is that in the end, the cornea is more stable. If someone punches me in the face, which with the way I operate in life is likely, there's no chance of rupturing the flap created through LASIK, because that shit lasts fo' lyfe. It's slightly more permanent with less chance of complications is what I'm getting at. But also the recovery time is mad longer. I still have yet to recover fully a week and a half later.

I'm going to transcribe the journal entry I wrote recounting my experience:

My final pic wearing glasses, only hours before surgery. Note my enthusiasm.

I went under the laser  and began the transformation to cool Steve. Today, I'm so cool I'm wearing sunglasses inside, but that's because my eyes are like a burning hell pit inside.

Let's back up. Yesterday, I nervously awaited the arrive of 3:30, my scheduled time to arrive at 누네안과병원 (Nune Eye Hospital, for when I'm old and senile). I got off the bus closer to three and walked through the doors about 3:20. Just so anxious to go through this unique, painful experience.

My handler seemed unperturbed at my early arrival and accepted me gracefully. She made me sign a paper stating that I understood what I was about to do, (hopefully not go blind!) which was strange because I actually had to check a box affirming that I did not have "unrealistic expectations."

Like, who would check yes? The very wording sort of weeds anyone out who should check yes.  I mean, getting superpower x-ray vision isn't unreasonable to expect, right?

She walked me through the post-surgery regimen, which basically sees me constantly dumping shit into my eyes for the next month. Then, she had me pay the most expensive bill I've ever paid. I must be a masochist to pay that much for constantly burning retinas. Nah, my baby greens are worth it.

With everything settled, she asked, "Are you ready?" I didn't answer. She handed me some necklace thing I had to wear so that my next of kin would be able to identify my remains, and we were off, whisked away to the mystical land of smiling laser beams.

When my turn was up, I took off my shoes and emptied my pockets and put on the blue hospital gown (gettin' SERIOUS!) We stepped into the blood-taking area. Taking blood? For what? Vampire mafia, I'm guessing. You want Vlad's protection, you gotta PAY!

The nurse then drowned my eyes and the skin around them in liquid, which rendered them numb. Then, it was go time. We stepped into the operating room. I was told that I had to look at the green light NO MATTER WHAT. This was the part that I had actually lost sleep over. What if I looked away? At least I'd get a badass seeing eye dog, I guess.

I laid my head under the big honkin' machine and locked my eyes with that green light long before I needed to. Ain't no way these eyes were gonna falter.

First, they dressed up my left eye all pretty-like in one of them braces that keeps your eyelids open. The doctor put a bunch of stuff in my eye, thoughtfully explaining what he was doing in English. I just stared at that green light. No stopping this Mr. Farenheit.

Then, he said the fated words: "Let's go." The laser machine came to life like I was directly beneath a flying saucer. Keep staring at the green light! To the sides, lasers shot into my eye, distorting the green light to more of a green blurry area somewhere in front of me. Keep looking! It became huge and blurry, and the flying saucer looked more like it was burning up trying to enter Earth's atmosphere. I could feel the laser, or more accurately, the pressure from it. No pain, at least, but there was a smell, like burning hair caught in a cauldron of melted sulfur. I was later told it was the burning of my eye proteins. Sweet! All in all, that laser shot into my eye for about fifteen seconds. But then came the most painful part.

The laser heats the eye, so after it's finished obliterating the quaint little villages inside your eye (I assume it's like Independence Day) the doctor's gotta cool it down. Put out the fires.

He basically ran a mini-faucet of ice water over my eye. The contrast was stark, but at least the green light became clear again. I never looked away.

He finished by putting the temporary lens over my cornea where it was dissolved to allow the laser to pass through. I gotta keep those puppies in until at least Friday.

The procedure was repeated for my right eye and it was finished. I was under that machine for probably five minutes total.

I sat in the recovery room for about ten minutes with a cold ice mask over my eyes, and then it was back out. I had to give the gown back. Boo!

My vision was slightly better than before the surgery, but everything was also slightly foggy. I had a hard time focusing on printed words and as the day soon turned into night, a corona formed around every source of light. But still no pain.

I woke up at about 5 AM the next morning extremely reluctant to open my eyes. When I did, so much water escaped from them I thought it was because my eyes had in fact melted and were now spilling down my cheeks.
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I return a humbled man. It was around nightfall, just over twenty-four hours since surgery when some demonic invisible onions began to get chopped in front of my eyes.

These were special onions, because they set my eyes to nonstop crying and burning and my nose to nonstop running. I had literal piles of crumpled up toilet paper that had been tossed on the floor after absorbing my facial fluids and brushing against my irritated skin. I went through three rolls of TP in about twenty-four hours.

That second night, I'd wake up intermittently to empty my eyes. Yeah, tears built up so much that it woke me up, and as soon as I opened my eyes, the massive build-up would spill out. The dam had broken, flooding out down my cheeks. I cried and snotted so much that I was chronically dehydrated. Light was always accompanied by pain, best friends inseparably skipping down the dirt road into my eyes.

All I could do for the past two days was lay in agony, eyes clamped shut, listening to podcasts while intermittent bouts of random burning surged and retreated. The surges came less and less frequently, though, and by the third morning I could once again open my eyes without wanting to die.
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Hoo, doggie what a ride. I went back to the doctor on the third day to check my progress and get the lenses taken out. Everything was shaping up as it should. I am almost two weeks out now, and although my vision is still not perfect, it is much better than it used to be. But I've got various eye drops I gotta keep using for at least two more weeks, so my eyes are definitely not fully healed yet. Such is the choice I made. But I'm happy with it. The money spent on this is an investment that will pay for itself eventually. No more shall I buy glasses and contacts.

Anyway, it was now or never. The price of the surgery in Korea is undoubtedly cheaper than the price in America, and probably with a smidgen of additional free services added on. I get free checkups for the first three months after surgery and some supplementary items to help with the healing process. They cured my astigmatism, too, which I didn't know before scheduling the surgery.

That's all I got for you folks right now. I'm less than fifty days out from my trip of a lifetime. Holy moley.