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.