I Got Seoul But I’m Not a Soldier

I don’t regret not moving to Seoul. Though it is cooler by far. So cool in fact, that I doubt I would have the strength to resist spending all my money on cool paper nicknacks and vintage toys and hand made T shirts and import beers in sketchy indie rock bars.

You know in Pinnochio, when Lampwick takes him to Pleasure Island? And there are no adults and everyone smokes cigars and breaks chairs and what. Seoul felt just a little like that. All the kids that ran away from home to live on there own in the big city. Actually many of them are going to the Universities (which are the most prestigious in the country, or so they say). Most kids in Korea don’t experience that kind of freedom though. Of living on their own. They live with their parents throughout college, through early adulthood, until they get married. Then they move in with their spouse and start their own family. They never get to experience the reckless freedom of solitude (that staple of youth). Perhaps that accounts for much of the conservativism and safety of this society. Mostly though, Seoul was fun. Not dangerous or debaucherous (though I’m sure there is plenty going around), just earnestly fun. The way a good lomo photo makes you feel. A little dirty, a little careless, and a little magic.



It rained the whole time we were at the DMZ. A constant light drizzle under hazy grey skies. Rather appropriate I suppose. Last night I dreamed I visited North Korea. I saw a lot of giant space age highways with toy cars driving on them. Great towers reaching to the sky with no one in them.