It took three months, but I finally figured out where I was supposed to be living in Seoul. And of course, I only found out in the last two weeks I was here. Better late than never.

After my sojourn in Jeju I returned to Seoul and decided to return to Gangnam.¹ I found a place just off the subway² — I figured that was as good a candidate for the heart of Gangnam as anything — and settled in for about three weeks.³ I got out into the neighborhood a bit,⁴ and was very happy with the 7-11 and the boulangerie in the base of the building.

But I still didn’t get out much. My knee continued to bother me, most of the tourist stuff was still shut down due to the Coronavirus,⁵ and the protests were just breaking out in the United States after the murder of George Floyd. And so I spent most of my time in Gangnam the same way I did when I first got to Seoul: anxiously watching the news, ordering in food, feeling both relieved and guilty for being someplace safe and far removed from the worst of it.⁶

Then I moved to Itaewon for two weeks, and I’ve been a lot happier. I can’t swear it’s just the neighborhood: I’ve been calmer as the violence in the United States has settled down, and I knew I was leaving so may have made a point of just getting out more. But there’s no doubt the neighborhood has helped.

Itaewon is the International district in Seoul. That means it’s got the most “exotic” restaurants,⁷ the most Western-friendly shops and bars, and the most cosmopolitan sensibility. It’s also the most gay-friendly place in Seoul, home to “Homo Hill”⁸ and any number of LGBTQ+ affirming clubs and bars.⁹ A big reason why is Itaewon was the closest district to a large US military base in Seoul, which gave rise to the usual sorts of seedy nightlife you’d expect in and around the base.¹⁰ New rules after 9/11 resulted in a lot fewer US soldiers wandering off-base, and it’s been completely shut down and relocating outside of the city for years now, but that’s turned out for the best as it’s allowed a lot of trendy but cheap places to take over.

The international nature of the place also means there are far more places for a vegetarian to grab a bite to eat. The place I was staying was one street over from Plant, a vegan restaurant, and I could walk to my choice of a half-dozen similar places in about ten minutes.¹¹ Going out to eat means I’m more likely to pass a shop or stop by a bar for a drink on the way back, which means less time staring at a screen at home.¹²

And I’m glad I got to see that side of Seoul before I left. It’s made me wonder how many other places I’ve lived where I didn’t click, and if maybe everything would have been different if I had settled in a place just a few streets over.

I did wrap up all the medical business I had here. I’ve got a two month supply of immunosuppressants¹³ and only a vague idea how I’ll find a resupply.¹⁴ But having a diagnosis and a treatment plan is worlds better than not.

I’m still not walking normally. I can’t even fully straighten my right leg comfortably. But I almost can, and it’s not painful when I do, just stiff and uncomfortable. It’s also started to hurt occasionally on its own, which I’m taking as a positive sign; when it was bad it didn’t hurt particularly, it just wouldn’t bend or twist freely. I may have reached the point where it’s loose enough that the bits which were immobilized is now actually free enough to feel sore or strained. It hasn’t felt reinjured, just healing.

Of course, it may be that this is it the high water mark, and we’re at the peak of a slow, steady decline. I can walk fine, although running seems iffy.¹⁵ Going up and down stairs is fine, if a little slow. I’m seeking out ramps and elevators more often than I used to, which I’m not happy about.¹⁶ But it could be much worse.

Back when it was worse, and not improving, I spent a lot of time thinking about what it might mean for my ability to travel if it never improved. I think it would largely come down to compromises. Ziplining would be out, along with climbing Mayan ruins or swimming in the Mediterranean. Cocktail bars and restaurants would be unaffected. Everything else would be negotiable, a question of how far I could walk on any given day or how nimble I’d need to be at any given moment.¹⁷

I’m relieved it’s not going to come to that, at least not right now. But this is a degenerative disease, and I haven’t found a whole lot of people whose arthropathic health improved over time. Proper treatment will hold it at bay for a while — ideally just past the point when I fall dead of a heart attack — but there’s no way to really know whether I’ll be fine for 40 years or need a knee replacement in 20 or start seeing problems in my fingers or wrists or ankles in 5.

But there’s nothing I can do about that, really: take my medications, switch them up if they start to lose efficacy, try to keep active and exercising. And above all, be grateful for the time I’ve got, however long that might turn out to be.

My visa finally expired after three months, and rather than try for an exemption I decided to move on. I spent my last day in Korea sitting in a bougie boulangerie — my flight was past midnight and I had to be out of my apartment by noon — so I had a couple lattes and a couple pastries but mostly leeched their electricity and WiFi for eight hours while listening to Nicki Minaj and Dua Lipa. After that I went to dinner, then caught the train to the airport.

Travel during COVID-19 is still a depressing, surreal experience. Itaewon airport was finished relatively recently, and it’s won all manner of awards for its design and efficiency: best airport to transit through, fastest arrival and departure times, favorite airport for frequent travelers. And it was almost entirely shut down.

Of the hundreds of desks at departures, I think about a dozen were staffed. Having checked in, a total of one security line and one passport control station was open, and there was no wait for either. Once through security, I walked the 15 minutes¹⁸ to the gate, past luxury shops and pleasant lounges and children’s play areas, all empty, all blocked off from use. No stores were open.¹⁹

I caught my flight — about half full, with no middle seats assigned — and mercifully²⁰ slept for about 7 hours before landing in Amsterdam. So I’m currently waiting for a few hours for a flight to Dublin, at which point I’ll catch a train to Galway, and that’s where I’m staying with a friend for about a month. If they let me in. Which they should, according to the rules I triple-checked online. But who really knows?

I’m sadder than I thought I would be at leaving Korea. I mean, I’m also ecstatic; I felt trapped for a long time, like I wasn’t ever going be able to leave. But I never got a chance to see Korea without the Coronavirus hanging over everything. I really wanted to see the DMZ²¹ and the Leeum Museum of Art.²²

But what I really wanted to see was Seoul from six months ago, with the restaurants more than half-full and the concert halls open and the club scene throughout Itaewon at full bore. So I’ve been idly eyeing cruises through Japan and Korea and coastal China,²³ and wondering if there’ll be a way to weave Hawaii and East Asia and maybe Australia into my 2021 travel.

That’s all in the future, though. At the moment we’re all trapped in the timeline of COVID-19, and I’m resigned to thread the needle of safe places to go to ground until we’re through the worst of it. Things will get better, and back to something resembling normal, and for most of us it’s just about surviving until they do.

Next: Independence Day, 2020, Galway
Prev: Jeju (CJU) to Seoul (GMP)

Footnotes

¹ Wild how everyone in the world knows about a particular neighborhood in Seoul, huh?

² Like, literally a minute’s walk.

³ Not entirely intentionally. The AirBnB I found was a studio in a new building — lots of shiny new construction in Seoul — and rather than risk getting stuck in a bad place I’ve been booking for about a week and then extending my stay if I’m happy with it. That backfired this time; when I went to rebook the dates weren’t available. So I booked into a different place which turned out to be the identical layout in the same building, just ten floors down on the opposite side of the building.

⁴ If you’re in Seoul I can heartily recommend The Flying Pan for brunch, which does these amazing fry-ups with sourdough bread and mushrooms and pesto around a farmer’s omelet and it’s probably not great I realized I could order a side of warm hollandaise sauce, but I did.

⁵ I actually managed to make an appointment for the DMZ tour only to have someone call me up and apologize that the website was open, because the tours were all canceled.

⁶ I did eventually manage to get a Nintendo Switch Lite, sent by my brother from overseas. So I’ve been anxious, relieved, guilty, and obsessively trying to pay off exorbitant loans from a cartoon raccoon.

⁷ If a poutine restaurant counts as exotic. Which, here, it does.

⁸ A gay club in Itaewon was where the resurgence of Coronavirus stemmed from in early May.

⁹ As well as an “Islamic Street” with a few mosques and an “African Street” with a number of Nigerian expats. Given how homogeneous the rest of Korea can feel at times, it’s nice.

¹⁰ Including a red light district, which I’m given to understand is still there, although in the midst of the Coronavirus the only suggestion of it I saw was a few shuttered but oddly decorated storefronts.

Reading up about the district after wandering through it, the late night slice shop I passed named “Pizza After Luv” made a lot more sense.

¹¹ Including Monk’s Butcher, probably one of the best vegan restaurants I’ve been to anywhere. I went three times.

¹² When I’m by myself I am on my computer all the time and that’s probably terrible, so anything that gets me away from that is great. Although I admit my major distractions are the tiny screen on my Switch Lite and the slightly larger screen on my Kindle.

¹³ And a variety pack of associated medications, like a folic acid supplement and something to prevent stomach ulcers

¹⁴ I am lucky in that my treatment is common and dependent on generic medications. But it’s a drag trying to fill prescriptions in different countries, particularly since it involves finding a doctor and explaining my medical issues like clockwork, once a month.

¹⁵ Running was always iffy, to be honest. I run like I’ve had the process explained to me once, and forgotten most of it.

¹⁶ Like I need less exercise, especially following three months of sitting indoors and eating.

¹⁷ Lash yourself to the mast before any rough seas

¹⁸ It is an enormous airport.

¹⁹ There was no place to buy something to eat or drink. They even shut off the drinking fountains to avoid the risk of cross-contamination. After a couple hours — I always try to arrive 3-4 hours before my flight in case there’s any issues — I finally walked the entire length of the terminal to find a lone 7-11 which was open, so I was able, mercifully, to grab something to drink.

If I hadn’t found that, I was starting to consider drinking the water from the taps in the bathroom.

²⁰ And through the grace of Xanax

²¹ Still closed

²² The last weekend I was in Seoul they finally took down their “Closed due to COVID-19” notices, and replaced them with a “We are in the process of preparing to reopen!” notices, so I think I missed it by about two weeks.

²³ For early 2021, or maybe late 2021, or maybe early 2022. Really hard to predict what the world looks like in a year.

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of great deals on cruises right now, with very generous cancellation policies. Plan for travel insurance, just in case.