seoul

i couldn't possibly write out all the things that went on in the five weeks i spent in seoul, so here are some of the people and anecdotes i want to remember:

- met honore, the french guy from the ferry, again in front of a random bar later that night. we seperated again after a bit, but the next morning he had a full blackout and woke up in some strangers car
- went to the dmz and saw north korean people go about their day at the propaganda village on the other side of the river
- went to the hostel's korean bbq twice, both times absolute mayhem
- laid down in the middle of the pedestrian area of the party district with alessia from the hostel looking at the moon at 4am, and a bunch of people promptly joined
- had the greatest karaoke session of all time
- participated in a mandatory air raid drill and went to the public bunker aka the metro, but nobody else cared so we spontaneously bought ear rings there and pierced our ears with a hot needle and an apple
- went on a beeaautiful sunset hike (or run) up a mountain but we were too slow and missed it
- almost got scurvy because of my ramen-egg-toast-mayo diet (those were the only foods we got for free at the hostel)
- came home from hongdae at 8:30am for work at 11:00am
- went to a nearby university running track every other night and made some good progress on the 20min 5k and ran my first 30k there

- sam: guatemalan teaching english in china, we met at a latin dance bar in front of the dj booth because we were the only ones actually dancing, from there on she was my go to for at least two weeks
- humza: us-pakistani, met at bar, super unique, genuine guy, you just had to be there
- madeline: us-american, i don't even know how we met but she was amazing, had one or two deep talks and oh boy did it go deep
- shion: korean dude who joined the us airforce, was at the hostel for a whole month and managed to get me a new phone
- etai: nomad yoga guru from new york, possibly the most eccentric person i have ever come across
- zach & jimmy: from washington state, pierced their ears together with me, the kind of guys that are funny without even doing anything
- like a thousand others i can't write about
(i just now realize how many us-americans are on that list, i might have to stop my general hatred towards them soon)

i'm not gonna lie, those were my personal highlights - generally, seoul was alright, no more and no less. i noticed not too long after starting the volunteering position that i could've made better decisions on where to spend all those weeks. the people that came in were great, but the hostel was pretty bad. also, the other staff members never socialised with the guests and sometimes went as far as kicking everybody out from the common area at 11pm because they wanted to sleep. the weather didn't help much either, most days i was trapped inside by the heat and at best, could only go out by night. in hindsight, i would've liked japan or busan much more for a number of reasons, but all in all, i had a really good time.Read more