Tae Yoon: Life from 2006-2021

with my time in korea coming to an end, i thought i'd reflect on my past six months here.

arriving here this past june feels like another lifetime ago---i can't believe it's already december. long gone are the days of oppressive heat and humidity in the summer that forced me to always carry around an extra t-shirt in my bag. it's finally winter now, and it feels great to walk in brisk weather again. i feel like so much has happened in such a compact amount of time, and now i'm leaving for bangkok in less than 24 hours. i've moved out of my place already, said all of my goodbyes, and am ready to transition into the next chapter of my life.

as for korea, here are just a few memorable and random things that i will forever take away from my time here. they're in no particular order:

-for the first time in my life, getting hospitalized on two separate occasions. each time had me blowing through the streets of seoul by ambulance, and the second time had me recovering in the hospital for a week after undergoing surgery for appendicitis.
-visiting the southern tip of the peninsula and checking out the nation's largest green tea fields.
-getting to spend some quality time with my cousin tim.
-lucking out with my timing and getting to see some of my relatives from the states who were all visiting korea for different reasons.
-experiencing an extremely frustrating job search.
-dating... a lot.
-$1.35 bottles of soju at any convenience store.
-bartending at a gay bar.
-discovering different neighborhoods in seoul by foot alone at night while blasting music in my headphones.
-eating grilled pork at restaurants for less than $6 a serving---ain't nothin' wrong with that.
-hongdae.
-getting too shit faced drunk and waking up butt ass naked at random places on numerous occasions (these incidents were usually not sexual in anyway, just embarrassing).
-living in a building that was haunted. during my three month stay there, i had countless ghost nightmares and other ghost experiences.
-bike riding along the hangang river during the summer.
-never having $.
-more dating.
-feeling liberated from being in a new environment.
-meetings lots of great people and making new friends.
-landing my dream job after an exhaustive search.
-improving on my korean.
-emotional freedom from the baggage that awaits me back in nyc.
-interesting, delicious, and inexpensive street food.
-always being mistaken as 24 years old. having been really fat years ago does have its advantages (a.k.a. less wrinkles).
-$2.50 packs of cigarettes.
-dating some more.

goodbye korea, i will most likely not be back for a very long time. thanks again for everything.