A Summing Up
Trip Start
Mar 02, 2004
1
34
Trip End
Apr 02, 2005
Loading Map
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
Seoul, Korea Rep.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
So I bought an MP3 player. God how I should have bought one when I first got here. No doctor could have prescribed a better sedative. I had gotten hold of a cell phone, and in no time I was bobbing down the street with music in my ears, texting people to make plans, and otherwise content in my own world.
And then a funny thing happened. Somewhere between the text messages and downloading MP3s, I realized, a little to my horror, that I'd done this country wrong. If what I've experienced here was both good and bad, I could have taken the bad with a lot more style and finesse, or at least drowned it out.
I have a stubborn streak in me. It can take a while for me to come round to ideas or actions that at first seem trifling or simplistic. I was content to assume I wasn't missing out on anything. It's not easy to come to the end of a year in my life and realize I could have lived it better.
That said, I have no plans to try again, not in Korea at least. But I can't ignore the fact that there are many, simple things that could have made my experience more well-rounded, if not less trying at times. The MP3 is an easy one, as is the cell phone.
As much as I was against it, and for ten months didn't own one, having a hand phone here is the best way to keep up with your crew, and stay grounded in a social context overall. There were times I missed out. And all I needed was a little mobile phone. My MP3 is even smaller, about the size of my thumb, and has more than paid for itself in the joy of having a soundtrack to my wanderings.
Those wanderings would have been a tiny bit cheaper if I'd bought a subway card. They save you ten cents a ride, and I finally bought one, in February!? Why was I always standing in line to buy a ticket?
I also began to wonder why I'd never hooked up my laptop to get the Net at home. Internet connections are not cheap here, but then again, being on-line at home would have allowed me more access to the "outside world".
Then I noticed my coworker, Tonia, reading signs in Korean. Hangul is not hard to decipher, and my Korean's not bad, but I had focused on learning vocabulary rather than reading. Why, when it's so easy to learn, had I ignored this?
I was even beginning to find new spots in Seoul--a tea shop in Insadong, a tree-lined World Heritage site that would make an ideal refuge in the heart of the city--that were intriguing and fresh. After going to the DMZ I'm disappointed that I didn't go earlier, and more often. That place was incredible, and is one of the things I'd consider coming back for.
But with only a few days left on this tour, I've come to realize some things about it and my approach to life on the road. There will always be things left unseen, unexperienced. But that's no excuse for not trying as many things as possible. I never did try live octopus or dog. I didn't see as much of Korea as I could have, but feel I saw some fine places on the peninsula.
There were times that work drove me crazy, that I got involved too much and too personally in the lunacy that is the private English teaching industry in Korea. I finally learned to shrug it off, to just enjoy my time in the classroom. And as much as I wanted to travel more, there's always next time. I'll be back to Asia.
But as I'm leaving, even as I'm seeing the many things I could have done or appreciated earlier, I'm in the best head space I've been in years. As I get ready to say goodbye, I see how lucky I am to have had real, good friends here, people who will stay with me as long as I ride. I say goodbye to the Koreans I know and see how I've made a life here, no matter how fleeting.
And as I walk down the street to work, on a glorious sunny spring afternoon, I stroll an inch off the ground with the thought of all the things that await me. I've had a great year in Korea, no matter the many ups and downs, and as my exit approaches I'm the happiest man in Seoul, not because I'm leaving, but because in the end I did do it well, and will do it even better down the road.
