Falling for Seoul

“Because when I fall into the abyss, I go straight into it, head down and heels up, and I’m even pleased that I’m falling in just such a humiliating position, and for me I find it beautiful.”

– Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I tripped on my run today. 100 kg of an old person hurtling toward the pavement. Some far off place in brain recalled the wrestling drills from decades ago. I rolled, my headphones flew, and I bounced up with a slight graze on my elbow.

The significance is not the fall, but the fact I am running. Outside. In a park. The weather is cool and the air is clean. My eye is clear and all is well.

It has been a few months since my last post so there is some catching up to do.

After a summer in Europe, we landed in Dubai. Two nights later, we were packed and bound for Seoul.

I have no regrets in leaving and plan never to return. I refuse to drape the place in positivity. It is what it is, a hot, sandy, shithole built on the back of modern slavery.

“The violence of positivity does not deprive, it saturates; it does not exclude, it exhausts.”

– Byung-Chul Han

Somehow, through a magical manipulation of flyer points and the expense of excess baggage, and the addition of bikes, we end up in Business Class. Flying is now ruined forever, as I do not have the funds to travel anything but Economy.

The first month of Songdo was not entirely smooth. The bureaucracy is exhausting, from banking to shopping. And then it all connects and works with a wonderful efficiency.

Shell has furnished the lounge room. A week of near depression at the banality of our apartment was difficult. A sofa, a bookcase, rugs, plants, coffee tables, stools, and lamps. And on it goes. We now have a space that feels like home. The lights are connected to an app on her phone, and they turn on and off at her whim.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

There is a robot vacuum that does everything while we are at work.

School is a refreshing change from Sharjah, and I will leave it there.

Our bikes are assembled, and we ride everywhere in the cool autumn weather. To school, to the shops, to the brewery.

It rained on Sunday, and we lost a day at our coffee shop.

“The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a brewery, Playground Brewery, far too close for our health that sells a long list of pale ales and the most delicious, salty, spicy, squid.

A bottle shop two blocks from our apartment that has an expensive but eclectic range. Between Playground Brewery and a local bottle shop, we have had maybe too many anibreated weekends.

The school has a gym we can use anytime, and there are parks in every direction.

I have been doing plenty of reading. I am currently working through Steinbeck, having finished Of Mice and Men and started The Grapes of Wrath. I switch from Steinbeck to Who’s Afraid of Romanée Comte? by Dan Keeling and his magazine, Noble Rot.

Coupang is the preferred delivery service here. Imagine Amazon, but faster. Each morning we wake up, and our front door looks like Christmas.

There has been much more, but that should do for now.

With the Chuseok holiday a few days away, expect more regular updates.

For now, I will just enjoy the parks and food.