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[raynainseoul]

march 16 6:55pm KST // 5:55am EST

we spent the weekend in busan. i am in love with busan. if seoul is parts of manhattan, queens, and brooklyn mashed into one city, busan is philadelphia. it’s a little grittier, more local, and very very beautiful, but if i thought seoul was hilly, it is no comparison to busan, which basically feels like one giant hill at all times.

we did a few touristy things, which included the gamcheon culture village, huinnyeol culture village, and the haedong yonggung temple. we also, at my frantic insistence, watched the grammys on korean broadcast television.

the two culture villages are essentially huge plots of land filled with little shops and food places and gorgeous views of the city. there’s a lot of art and things to see and look at, and people live there too! it must be odd to live directly inside a huge visitor location, but they didn’t seem to think anything of it. there are so so so so so many stairs, and the people here just seem USED to it. i think i am just wildly unfit honestly.

here is gamcheon:

the second cultural village was even more beautiful because it was by the coast, so we could look out at the beautiful beaches and skylines. i preferred this one even though it’s less famous, because it seemed infinitely more intimate. everything was closer together and the beaches were so gorgeous. the beaches are famous, and for good reason.

the last thing we did was go to the self proclaimed most beautiful temple in korea. i can’t speak to whether or not that’s true, but it was certainly very beautiful. a very spiritual, quiet place, and the views were stunning.

i loved busan. and because it’s a coastal city, the absolute best part is seafood. i had some of the most incredible fishcakes of my entire life here—i’ve been running around seoul ever since trying to find a fishcakes as good as the ones i had from the street stalls, and while they are delicious they do not compare. i highly recommend coming to busan for a few days. it’s a gorgeous, vibrant city, and i am totally in love.

[raynainseoul]

march 14, 3:07pm KST // 1:07am EST

hey everyone. i’m back. sorry i’ve been off the map in blogging, but honestly? i can’t feel my legs.

so another week has passed. and my god, everything is just better here. i may stand out like a sore thumb, but i think i am more palatable to the general population (i hope? i can’t tell. i’m quite oblivious) bc i look and dress like a very conventional south asian woman and do my best to quietly assimilate to the customs here as much as i can. but aside from that, the best part about being here is that everything is designed for efficiency and convenience. whatever you need, you can probably find it within a moment’s walk. the only thing that really throws us off is the complete and utter lack of garbage cans anywhere, LOL. however, the insane amount of public (clean!) bathrooms everywhere definitely makes up for that.

i absolutely love shopping in seoul. the fashion here is very monochrome and homogenous, but everyone—and honestly i mean everyone—is so well dressed. that’s reflected in the stores here. whenever i see a place that caters to plus size girls (which is sometimes a rare thing, sigh) i buy things. i am hoping to return to nyc with the same classy, fashionable vibes i see everyone on the streets.

the trains are so speedy. i get places so quickly. the customer service is INCREDIBLE!! they generally care about whether or not i am happy with the service/clothing/whatever it is and i can’t tell if it’s because i’m a foreigner or that’s just how it is. no one ever scams us even though it would be SO easy to? idk why i think this way but things are so so cheap here and if they tried to upcharge us we wouldnt even notice because it would still be cheap compared to new york. taxis rides cost so little money and food is also disturbingly cheap. idk. quality of life here is incredibly high for the low low costs i pay for it.

[raynainseoul]

day 7:

ITS BEEN A WEEK???????

?????????

WELL. it’s a bts member’s birthday this week, and seoul is celebrating harder than it is celebrating anything ever. the city is covered in yoongi, and i am celebrating him even more lovingly. there are no days of the year as utterly wonderful as a bts birthday, and no place better than here to celebrate, so i am making the most of it. there are cafe events dotting the city, and while there’s no way for me to get to all of them if i want to stay in budget, i went to three this day. there’s also a giant installation in the middle of hongdae recreating his music studio, and it’s fucking sick.

[raynainseoul]

day 6:

i did some bts things. if you know you know. if you don’t, don’t worry about it. i bought some fancy jewelry bc my 3$ rings were getting to be in a dire state. and then i went to dinner with shannon and the worlds most adorable person, rebecca [plus her boyfriend lol] and we had a lovely dinner and a genuinely lovely night. she took us to a little neighborhood we never would have discovered on our own. if anyone watches kdramas, it’s an area that has a bunch of those red tent bar type eateries, and while we didn’t eat in one it was nuts to see them for real after only seeing them on a laptop screen for so long.

[raynainseoul]

day 5:

if i had to socialize for one more day i was gonna explode so i set off on my own, tried the bus system, and rode to a random neighborhood that seemed promising. i went to the korean folk museum and looked at the palace and wandered around to different art galleries to entertain myself. this day was a lovely day.

[raynainseoul]

day 4:

i don’t know why we sought out italian food in seoul but we travelled to gangnam for it, which feels like they shoved every foreign/western store into one corner of the city and said have a nice life. it reminded me of like. flushing into bayside. bizarre. i went to the coex mall, which i’ve dreamt of visiting, and meandered. i looked fucking spectacular this day, and my looks have rapidly deteriorated since this one singular successful outfit.

[raynainseoul]

day 3:

yes i watched the bachelor while traveling to our destinations. i was not about to miss the women tell all for anything. i saw this bizarre halal guys knock off called jilhal bros and it’s DOUBLY funny that there is an actual legitimate halal guys here too. we went to the local harry potter cafe which was cute and spooky and fun. that last photo is the hill i climb every day to get back home and IT IS MY FUCKING ENEMY. when they say that seoul is a desperately hilly city, they aren’t kidding. my body is aching. my butt better be firmer than a rock by the end of this.

[raynainseoul]

day 2

i lived an entire lifetime in my first day in seoul. the second was rainy and harder to do things in. that place with the blue background? that’s an elevator. the store is called “art box” and their elevator is a PHOTOZONE.

[raynainseoul]

i'm free??

9:44am KST [Mar 2] // 7:44pm EST [Mar 1]

this is crazy. THIS IS CRAZY. I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM WRITING THIS. GENUINELY .... AS OF 7AM FEB 28 KST.......I AM REALLY, TRULY IN KOREA!

i don't even know what to say. shannon and i will just walk around staring into space unbelieving that we are really in korea. it's crazy, seriously.

the airbnb is pretty cool. you might get a house tour, you might not, but just know i am desperately missing the hotel bathroom and its heated toilet seat right now, and i probably will miss it for the rest of my life unless i get my own.

March 6 11:30pm KST // 9:30am EST

i genuinely wanted to write you all beautiful posts about my experience here. however, i’ve walked 100,000 steps in 6 days, i can’t feel most of my body, and i am overall exhausted, but very content. so the following six posts will be a photo dump.

day 1:

[raynainseoul]

THE LAST DAY

11:55pm KST // 9:55am EST [Feb 27]

the days have passed. it is officially my last day in quarantine.

we got news that the rules changed a few days ago. my one night in a martha stewart jail cell waiting for covid results counted as a night in quarantine, so i was refunded 121$ from the hotel and i will officially only be spending 13 days here, as opposed to 14.

thank you all for your passionate response to my food photos. i'm glad you found my tenure recording my government rations as exciting and fascinating, but i am very excited to not live this way anymore, ESPECIALLY SINCE THEY DO NOT PROVIDE KNIVES OR FORKS. god, i can't wait to spread nutella on a piece of toast with a knife. i can't keep using the handle end of a spoon, i feel crazy.

i spent some time on korean tinder while trapped here. it's certainly a very different culture. guys will post their BDSM kink rankings as a photo instead of their face. i've seen quite a few weird english phrases set as names-- "mick eemouse, justfor fun, and friends withbenefits" -- instead of just, idk, their name lmao. most people don't seem to have any bios whatsoever, so everything goes by looks. men seem to work fast here: you match, they say hi, you say hi back, and they immediately ask to meet up. i've gotten quite a few friends-with-benefits propositions. i don't know. i've stopped opening the app because it kind of freaks me out, but i've always been really bad at ..... speaking to other people.

i said before that my sleeping schedule was completely normalized and i am running fully on KST. that was thrown off these last few days. i had interviews at 12am, 5:15am, and 2am, all in the span of four days. even right now i am so sleepy recovering from the three hour interview i had in the middle of the night yesterday. please don't ask how i got through brightly telling these people that i was having a "wonderful afternoon" and "sunny friday." i was literally disassociating because i was so tired. ;_;

i finished the mandatory portion of my TOEFL course. once i get the results of my final essay (and if i pass) i will officially be certified to teach english to foreign language students. :] very exciting.

i remain desperately obsessed with the view from my hotel room. the gorgeous splotches of morning color all the way to the twinkling lights of incheon airport at night are enchanting. i love this window.

i have 35 water bottles on my window sill currently acting as a humidifier substitute, along with my portable actual humidifier. i am not going to show you a picture. the situation makes me despair.

so that's my quarantine coming to a close. i can't wait to actually have something vaguely interesting to say to you all instead of weird iterations of "i may be trapped but i am vibing." til 7am on Feb 28th though, you will find me rewatching the tatbilb triology and getting intoxicated while watching pride and prejudice for the 23rd time. much love.

[raynainseoul]

it’s going.

7:20pm KST / 5:20am EST [Feb 23] 

i’m writing this because i feel like i should probably update you all, since the most you really see of me is my food posts. so, here are some updates. 

i am now in possession of a portable humidifier. from what i can tell, it’s working. my skin feels less unbearable. 

the food remains palatable. they really give us WAY TOO MANY JALAPENOS (why tf do they think that is a breakfast item?!) but otherwise are fine. tuesdays appear to be the one unbearable day, between the DIY sandwich for lunch & grilled fish for dinner. the sandwich ingredients are never the greatest & i just don’t really like fish at all. but otherwise, a solid 7/10 overall for my dining experience. 

i have never been this balanced in my entire life. it doesn’t matter when i go to sleep, i shoot up at around 8am ready to start my day. i eat regular and healthy meals. i get a decent amount of things done for someone who is unemployed and trapped in one place. kind of crazy. can’t wait to absolutely destroy this routine march 1st. 

i am honestly floored by the response to my daily instagram meal posts. i have never had this kind of response to anything i’ve ever posted, ever. people describe them as “calming,” “enjoyable,” “something to wake up to.” ???? like????? well everyone, i am happy to be this source of consistency for you. if you would like me to continue to document every single meal even when i get out of quarantine, let me know and i am happy to do so. 

the time difference btwn here and america means that from 3pm-10pm KST, i’m generally by myself because everyone is asleep. while this means i can get a lot of stuff done if i really want to, it also means i am very alone. my mom keeps asking me if i’m sad or uncomfortable or whatever, and of course i would never tell her anything because it would send her into some sort of immigrant mom spiral that i would like to spare her from, but in truth, i guess i could say i am a little....meh. 5 more days though :D 

which leads to me talking to my lamps sometimes. i have four lamps. they are named henry, kimmy, angel, and trent. they are my friends. please do not ask. 

i also accidentally came in contact with a hazmat suited hotel staff while trying to put my trash out. i recoiled into my room like a shocked hamster when we made eye contact, because the daily announcements generally BEG us not to cross paths with any staff. he grabbed my trash, waved, and walked away. i wrote an entire romcom in my brain in the 3 seconds it took for this to transpire: the quarantined girl meets the pandemic worker .... the title is a work in progress. my friend wrote a tiny fanfic about it already, please message me if you would like to read it, LMAO. it’s absolutely vile. yes, i’m aware of how pathetic this is. 

speaking of the daily announcements, they are the devil incarnate. they play like 6 times a day in what feels like 10 different languages, and they are annoying and repetitive and worse than any alarm clock in the world. they say things like, “your meal is coming” and “here is the protocol for leaving,” and “don’t smoke or drink,” and “basically if you breathe wrong you will get deported.” i get it, grand hyatt. i truly do. i am sitting here and minding my business and i can’t wait to never hear another quarantine announcement ever again. 

anyway, so that’s how i’m doing. i’d attach some pictures but i don’t have anything new to show you. hope you all are doing well on the other side of the world :) 

[raynainseoul]

hotel life

2:30pm KST / 12:30am EST [Feb 19]

so i am officially 1/3 of the way through my quarantine. it’s been 4.5 days. how has it been going? well. 

i haven’t lost my mind yet, obviously, but this is definitely different from anything i’ve ever done before. for starters, this hotel room is so high up it doesn’t have any windows that open. i would honestly end it all to smell a drop of rain rn. to feel the sun on my face. to get hit with a gust of wind. anything. it’s apparently been like 17 deg celsius outside for the last few days, but i would not know. i’ve kept my room at a cool 68.7 degrees since i got here. 

so when you’re locked in a room like this with no natural air, the room begins to get ridiculously dry. like. my head always kind of hurts a little and my skin is so dry i lotion myself 3 times a day. this means i had to get a little ....... creative. i don’t have a humidifier, so i googled some alternatives. 

here are all of my finished water bottles, filled with tap water, hopefully evaporating some moisture into the air. the internet suggests you use a bowl or something with a bigger mouth, but i have no other options. i am the only person i know that can turn a 5 star hotel experience into whatever this is, but i have learned now that you should bring a humidifier whenever you stay somewhere new. I FEEL LIKE A PALE DRIED RAISIN. AND ALSO KIND OF DUMB WITH 10 WATER BOTTLES ON MY WINDOW SILL. ;_;

as i said before, it’s also deathly quiet. i have a white noise app to help me sleep at night, but i keep the television running 16 hours during the day because the background noise keeps me afloat. i am so accustomed to it at this point, even if i’m on the phone, watching something on my laptop, or playing music....i keep it on. it’s like.......my friend.

my fave part of watching korean tv is the nonstop parade of famous actors i recognize from my many years of watching kdramas, all of them advertising very ridiculous household items. yes, i do consistently giggle every time i see park bo gum’s adorable ad, even though i’m so distracted by how cute he is i still do not know what he is advertising. 

i’ve also equipped my computer with a VPN to ensure i can watch all my television shows. i tested four vpns to find the one that would stream ABC properly so i wouldn’t miss the bachelor, and while i’m spending $13 a month for it i have absolutely no regrets, because it unlocks hulu, disney plus, viki, every american television livestream, and amazon prime with no issues. you can take me out of america, but you absolutely cannot take the need to watch the bachelor out of me. 

also readers, a moment of shock. i used to be the person to sleep at 5:30am and wake up at 1:30pm....and i am now sleeping at 12:30am and waking up at 7:30am. who am i?? WHO AM I? i just love basking in the sunlight that pours into this room from the huge window. i essentially lose the will to live the moment it hits 7pm and it gets dark, but i lowkey feel like i’m having an identity crisis. ;_;

during the third day of this, i discovered gmarket, which is essentially korean amazon. you can get things ordered to the hotel, which means the first thing i did was find a cheap portable humidifier. yes everyone, i will soon be properly moisturized and less like a stale slice of bread!!! very excited about this development, as well as the hydration serum, stuffed animal (to sleep with. i miss my teddy bear), and five bags of shrimp chips i added to my order. gonna get started on my crusade to find the best kbeauty products and turn myself into the beautiful glowing butterfly nykeia is begging me to become. 

all in all, i’m very productive in quarantine. i’m still working on my TOEFL certification to get certified to teach abroad, reading books, tutoring students online (my side hustle, lmao), getting work outs in, spending unnecessary amounts of time enjoying my heated toilet seat (EVERYONE DESERVES ONE OF THESE!!!) and watching a lot of tv. i’m excited to get out, but i’m making the best of this now. and of course, i always have this beautiful view to look at whenever i become particularly stir crazy. 

[raynainseoul]

food days 1-3.

6:35pm KST // 4:35am EST [Feb 17] 

the highlight of being trapped in here, aside from the beautiful view, is definitely the food deliveries. at 8am, 12pm, and 5pm, i receive food gently plopped outside my door from the hazmat suit people who scurry away from our potentially diseased doors as quickly as they can. i’ve been posting them religiously on instagram, but here are the first three days compiled. 

overall review: for cafeteria produced food for what i assume is hundreds of people, everything is honestly quite good. i feel like i’m doing some strange version of intermittent fasting because i eat crazy amounts of food between 8:30am-5:30pm and then just...stop. i haven’t really even touched all the snacks i brought as a contingency plan if the food was gross simply because they give us such outrageous amounts of sustenance. i’ll provide ratings for each meal below, but i think they all average out to around a 7/10, which is much higher than i anticipated. also, the food is usually warm or clearly fresh which is a relief.   

MEAL ONE. 8/10. we got it late bc of late checkin so it was cold, but it was delicious. i inhaled this.

MEAL TWO. 7/10. the curry was not great, but the rest of this meal was a banger. i especially wept a little when i saw the lychees bc i grew up eating them & it was nice to see this unexpected touch of home.

MEAL THREE. 7.5/10. i inhaled almost every bite of this. i am obsessed with korean side dishes.

MEAL FOUR. 8/10. i think the most disconcerting thing is how un-breakfasty this was. i looove fish balls though & the chocolate croissant satisfied a craving i didn’t even realize i had.

MEAL FIVE. 5/10. shrimp egg salad is weird. the soup was cold. the tuna, or potato, or whatever it was, was weird. the concept of this was glorious, but for me execution was meh.

MEAL SIX. 7/10. the tomato chicken curry reminded me of a very watery chicken tikka masala and that made me kinda nostalgic. everything else was okay though, and that cake took this from a 6 to a 7.

MEAL SEVEN. 8/10. i changed to western cuisine just for fun (we can switch whenever we want) and the TATER TOTS ALMOST SENT ME TO JESUS. WHEW. i slapped a bunch of nutella i have on hand on the croissant and i was very very happy.

MEAL EIGHT. 6/10. western meals do not slap yall. aside from the spring rolls and bread rolls, this was a miss. the sheer amount of mushrooms in this dish was kind of incredible though. i did enjoy that.

MEAL NINE. 3/10. this was highkey horrifying. the fish smelled so bad i almost chucked it out the door the moment i opened the container. bananas disgust me so the smell of the salad likewise almost had me throwing things. i don’t like grape juice. the side dishes were fine as usual but i would like to give a special shoutout to those ROLLS!! they are GLORIOUS. i nearly wept the first time i tried them. i will miss them when i’m back to asian cuisine tomorrow, but not even a good roll can force me to continue dealing with the struggles of asian western food. 🤢🤢

so besides that ONE tragic miss...i think we’ve done alright here. i’m definitely eating well and elaborately, and from what i understand everyone at home is enjoying seeing what mystery food box i uncover each mealtime.

i’ll of course continue logging food on my instagram (@/rrrrayna) and i’ll be back with food reviews in a few days. thanks for reading, and please let me know if there’s any specific aspect of quarantine life you’d like me to talk about.

[raynainseoul]

room tour!

4:32pm KST // 2:32am EST [Feb 15]

everyone has been asking about this. a room tour. now to give some background, the korean government mandates you quarantine for two weeks if you enter the country. you self check your health on an app that tracks your location, and if you leave the government mandated facility, you face deportation and fines of like…$10k? $100k? idk, i don’t concern myself with those things because i am not in the business of doing nonsense like that.

quarantine costs anywhere between $1500 to $2100 of your own money. the people that quarantined before me have all said that one hotel is somewhat of a disaster, and one hotel is the one everyone aims for. the difference between these hotels is $1500 and $1680, so when you’re spending so much anyway, the difference is close to negligible. we have no control over where we get sent, so when we loaded ourselves onto the shuttle to play hotel roulette, we simply manifested with our entire beings that we would manage to score the bougie hotel of our dreams.

fast forward 8 minutes: we watched, wide eyed, daring to dream, as the bus pulled into the parking lot under the shiny letters of GRAND HYATT. we had done it. somehow, some way, the trials and tribulations of the last 36 hours  were finally going to end in a resounding win for us: checking into a 5 star hotel none of us could have afforded in any normal circumstance. and my god, is she beautiful.

the first thing we did was get yet another covid test before even entering the lobby. if you’re keeping track, that means just to enter a proper living space in south korea, i’ve taken 3 covid tests in the span of about four days. they do not fuck around here.

the people here are very nice, and it’s obvious that in normal times, this hotel is meant to serve foreigners. they checked us in and handed us keys to the 11th floor, which as it turns out, is home to the “grand club.”

readers, this bitch is BOUGIE. it doesn’t make any sense that i’m getting three full meals a day and a room like this for $120 a night, because i looked it up and it’s usually over $200 a night just for the room. there is a HEATED TOILET! QUEEN SIZE BED! MARBLE DESK! SPACE FOR DAYS! FULL LENGTH MIRRORS EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK! A BEAUTIFUL VIEW! guys. i feel so expensive i don’t even know how to act.

here is the bathroom, which includes a huge window facing the tv so you don’t miss your show while bathing.

here is my bed and tv set up. i’ve had korean disney channel on since i got in because this room is deathly quiet. currently, a dubbed version of UP is on.

i have a fancy desk that makes me feel like i am a business woman or something.

here is a very spacious corner featuring the hotel bathrobe that makes me feel like i am in a movie.

here’s the view.

my first hour in this room was spent in my imagination as though i’d suddenly become rapunzel singing “When Will My Life Begin?” because i feel so pampered i feel like a princess. a trapped princess, since i can’t leave this room, but a gloriously spoiled princess nonetheless. this place is ridiculous. sometimes i just look around and giggle.

if i have to spend two weeks anywhere, i’m truly glad it’s here. i hope nothing goes wrong and changes my mind in the next few days, but so far, i am utterly delighted.

if you have me on instagram, you’ll have seen a sneak peak of my next post, which’ll be all about the food they serve us. i’m gonna give it a few meals before i deliver my final verdict on that, but we seem to be doing okay so far.

[raynainseoul]

offboarding

1am KST [Feb 15] // 11am EST [Feb 14]

i will not lie to you all. everything after getting off the plane was hell. after toddling my way to temperature check with my oversized carry on bags, i was told my temp was .2 degrees too high, which was a conversation between me and a very enthusiastic man who did not speak enough english to understand me, and i not enough korean to understand him. he waved me past to the check in desks anyway, where two women told me to cool down before they tried my temperature again.

only one of the people in my group managed to clear the temp check, and they waved goodbye as the rest of us four fanned ourselves and tried not to overheat anymore. this was very difficult because we are four clowns that will laugh at literally anything, and apparently that raises your blood heat or something. idk. doctor vaish when you read this please fact check because regardless, not a single one of us managed to pass that temp check, all of us with a temperature about .1 degree too high. yeah, they’re THAT strict here. so, off we went to get another covid test.

there is something to be said about how endearing everyone here is in their attempts to communicate. my friends and their americanisms flew straight over the heads of mostly anyone that was trying to talk to us, and so the workers would often type out their responses into papago and show us the english translation on their phone so we’d know what they were trying to tell us. for four bumbling idiots, it was very nice that everyone in that airport tried their best not to let us flail as much as we accidentally insisted on doing.

when we finally got everything done, we prepared to be sent to a little holding facility next to the airport to wait for our covid results. they gave us little bulgogi burgers as dinner, and of course, i immediately dropped mine. this poor hazmat suit worker immediately dropped to the ground to get it for me, and it truly looked like he was proposing to me with a burger. day one in korea, and the men are already falling at my feet. who’s doing it like me? hah. hah. ha. ;_;

the airport holding facility is something akin to a very white collar jail cell. nykeia called it a martha stewart cell when she saw it through facetime and i suppose she’s right. it’s extremely sparse, but there’s a cot, a clean bathroom, a desk, and a tv. as far as holding cells go, it’s quite nice. they have anyone waiting on a test result stay here overnight while the swabs get processed, and if you’re negative, you return to the airport and are finally deposited to your two week quarantine hotel.

1:10am KST // 11:10am EST

I AM NEGATIVE!!

8:18am KST // 6:18pm EST

i am so hungry. i think my stomach will eat itself. but literally seconds after i wrote these words, the shuttle showed up. ON TO THE HOTEL!! HALLELUJAH!!

[raynainseoul]

on the plane

11:30am KST [Feb 14] //9:30pm EST [Feb 13]

as it turns out, boarding a plane in a panini is a very easy, very simple process. aside from the flight attendant that came chasing after me after i checked in, shouting to double check my pcr negative covid test (yes, my life literally flashed in front of my eyes at this moment), everything has been smooth sailing. if you fly anywhere, i honestly suggest getting two covid tests like i meant to do but got too lazy to bother with. perhaps then, you’ll have enough confirmation that no one will come running through the airport for you. otherwise, we were through security in about 5 minutes.

i’ve been in flight for about 10 hours now. 5 more to go! korean air has this hilarious policy that until internet speeds on airplanes are as efficient as they are on the ground, they simply won’t offer wifi because they think it’s too plebeian if it’s not fast enough. look it up. it’s true. that means, as your average human addicted to the internet, i have been absolutely spiraling on this plane.

i have gone through every possible doomsday scenario possible in my brain. i won’t name them because i’m too superstitious to even risk jinxing myself while i’m still in the air. even though i’d been running on approx 4 minutes of sleep (i exaggerate. maybe it was like 10 minutes), i could not get my brain to shut up for long enough to knock me out. i resorted to a melotonin to put me to sleep, but LITERALLY. and i mean LITERALLY. one minute after it dissolved into my already exhausted system, the flight attendants showed up with our travel declaration forms. it’s a good thing i had everything written in a notebook for easy access because i almost wrote down that my birthday was in 2021. help.

3pm KST // 1am EST [Feb 14]

this has been the most unproductive flight of my life, honestly. i brought three books & downloaded a bunch of netflix episodes and instead i’ve just slept and listened to music. i don’t think i mind though, because with my already bizarre sleep pattern, i think i’ll beat jet lag pretty quickly. i had three seats to myself to lay on and slept on and off from 4am-2pm korean time, so here’s hoping.

here’s a picture of the korean meal i opted for (the other option was western beef stew). i got a real kick out of the squeeze tube of gochuchang paste.

we just got our second meal, which was. some sort of sweet and spicy beef? idk, it was pretty good though.

i also offer you some pictures i took in between my sleeps.

the route is pretty cool, right? over canada and alaska, and now we’re passing directly over japan. we land in 2 hours, so i’ll be back soon to detail what i imagine will be a very elaborate and stressful pandemic offboarding process.

[raynainseoul]

so, it looks like this is really happening.

hi. this is my first post. 

i can’t say i’ve ever really blogged before. i have 12 years worth of daily journals in a drawer in my room, but i’ve never put my thoughts to keyboard and allowed them to flow out into the internet like this. this blog is specifically for four people who harangued and whined and pleaded until i said i would, and because i love them, i’m sitting here at 2:11am the night before my flight typing out this introduction to you all. 

so...i’m going to korea. this has been a huge dream of mine for a long time, ever since i saw my first korean drama in bangladesh with my cousin at age 17. i’ve dreamt and wondered and imagined traveling to korea for years, and that peaked at age 21, when i fell in love with a group of musicians called bts. it made me want this trip even more. i dreamt of seeing the places that inspired the music and lyrics that literally give me reason to breathe in and out every day. 

if i’m being completely frank, i did not think this day would ever come. my friends describe me as the person who tells it like it is, a ‘prickly cactus,’ and ridiculously nocturnal. all of those things are true. however, i’m also the person that doesn’t really drop everything and make spontaneous, potentially life altering decisions. i’m content to sit in my room all day and watch period dramas for hours straight (which is 50% of what i’ve been doing this entire panoramic). and yet....here i am. 

i ended up here because i watched the movie soul on disney plus. i really wish i were kidding, but it’s the truth. it made me think about this year we’ve all spent at home & what i managed to change about myself. what the fuck is my purpose? i’d accomplished nothing, i’d done very little self-reflection, and i was sitting on all these fantasies of traveling, living, making a positive change in the world, and doing absolutely none of it. so i asked myself what i wanted to do with my future, and i decided: i wanted to teach english in south korea. 

why? honestly, my experiences as a middle school educator were one of the most fulfilling in my life, and the idea of traveling and teaching at the same time feels like a perfect blend of everything that i want. it just feels like the perfect fit. 

i began the application process--getting a TOEFL, scouring proxy application agencies, finding the right program, etc--and realized, if i committed to this, i would be spending a year in a place i’d never been. even if it is my dream to visit south korea, visiting is ridiculously different from living there. but i put that aside and went back to the process, because obviously i’d love it there. haha. right? 

enter: my tumblr bff from harry potter’s past, one of my closest online friends, shannon. i found out she was going to korea. i expressed my jealousy. fifteen minutes later, she had sent me all of her flight details, offered me a space in her airbnb, and gave me an opportunity i could have never imagined. so i would get to visit this place, scout it out, before i gave my all to applying to teach. two birds with one stone: i get to visit the place i’ve longed to go for so long, and i can figure out if i could possibly see myself living there. 

and here i am!! i am doing this! my flight is in 9 and a half hours at the time of writing. i really, really, really, can’t even wrap my head around it. i’m more excited than words can express. if you stick around for my journey, i hope you enjoy it through my eyes :) 

안녕,

rayna