Last night I was invited to an impromptu dinner at the apartment of a young teacher who just moved into the building where I live. Of the six of us, I was the oldest and had also been in Korea the longest. Two of the young newbies started talking about their plans for the upcoming Chuseok holiday. They mentioned trying to travel in Korea, or maybe even going to Japan, more or less on a whim.

“Forget about it,” I warned them. I mean, everyone who knows anything about living in Korea knows you do not try to travel on Chuseok or during Lunar New Year, but they remained undaunted. All it required was some flexibility, they smugged. If they couldn’t get a seat on a train they would stand, all the way to Busan if necessary. If they couldn’t get a motel, they would sleep in the station, or on the street. If they couldn’t get a flight or a ferry, they would just hang around until something opened up. It adds to the adventure, they said. “It adds to the pain in your ass,” I thought.

There was as time when I thought as they do, and it wasn't all that long ago. All the things they described are things I've done at some point in my life. I’ve spent whole nights wandering the streets of a new city because I didn’t have enough money for accommodations. I’ve languished for hours in airports and train stations, and slept in dodgy quarters more times than I care to remember, and loved the adventure of it all. Nowadays though I want wheeled luggage, an aisle seat, a reserved room. In brief, comfort matters. When did that happen?

The guys I hung out with last night are obviously still in the young adventurer phase of their lives, and I couldn’t be happier for them. They will probably return from their holiday with tales of standing toe-to-toe with other travelers in a train car packed to the gills with Kimchi and roasted squid. They’ll talk of missed connections, chance meetings, wild mishaps, foul weather, dangerous reprobates and good Samaritans. It will sound to me like a perfect description of Hell, and yet they will have had the time of their lives. It’s the natural order of things I guess.

Labels: aging, chuseok, Korea, travel