Days K1-4: A Sense

March 4, 2025 to March 13, 2025

You walked outside. You bought a Coke. And nothing happened. No questions. No permission. No locked gates. No silent judgment. No passive-aggressive “Why didn’t you just drink the one in the fridge?” No weight. Just you and your Coke.

That’s what freedom feels like. And that’s why it’s so disorienting.

Immigration at Gimpo Airport in Seoul was a breeze. I whisked through then picked up the bike and took it through customs. Shocker: the lady was friendly! She wanted to do a bit of paperwork as I guess they don't see bikes come through so often.

A sign said "It is well". Confirmation from the universe.

It was then a simple matter to find the ATM machine, withdraw some Korean won, and grab a taxi. It was an absolutely strange mix of emotions while I did this. On the one hand I was free. On the other hand I missed Sophia since we had just done this trip together a few months back at Christmas. That was the best part about our relationship: trips abroad. But if the condition was that we had to based in China, then this was a loss I was willing to accept. I couldn't imagine how she was feeling right now.

She sent a text and made a phone call. She wanted to go for Japanese food as we usually do. I told her "Sorry we can't, I just did a midnight run". She thought it was a joke. It was not. Another reason I picked Seoul was the flight was so short that I could at least keep in touch with loved ones after landing. Otherwise they might have thought I was kidnapped or left for dead.

I didn't tell her where I was immediately. I just said that was it, I was done with China permanently. She said ok but truth be told she thought I had lost my mind. It was in fact the opposite.

The taxi whisked me to the pre-booked hotel but this was all so surreal. I had done it! All it had taken was a 90-minute flight and that ended two decades of China.

The taxi driver was friendly also. He said "Welcome to Korea! How long you stay here?" I said "I don't know, we'll see." He then helped carry my bags to the hotel including the folding bike. I checked in for two nights. This would be the temporary stay before figuring out my next moves and mainly to finally decompress.

That I certainly did. As soon as I settled into the room and lay down on the bed, I immediately crashed. The adrenalin rush had finally subsided.

But the time I came to it was nearly 3am Korea time. It just so happened that I looked at my open stocks and option positions and realized they were on the brink of a margin call meaning forced liquidation by the broker. This was not good. The first day of the midnight run and the market crashed again. I had no choice but to close several positions at steep losses.

Next it was time to deal with the massive and mounting backlog of messages mainly from students demanding to know answers and what the hell was going on. I prepared stock responses and explained to them in more detail what I had just done and why. Then I saw it: messages from the school admin and head superintendents of the company. The timeframe was less than 5 hours and they had literally responded overnight. That is how quickly things were developing. I had to act just as fast. I sent an ultra brief email reply the deleted the entire lot of them off all my social media.

I then walked outside after 3am in almost zero degree weather without a jacket. I didn't give a shit. In fact it didn't even feel cold. I was more amazed with the fact that Seoul was so safe and vibrant even at this hour that you could walk the streets and buy stuff at convenience stores and people were out and about. A drunk woman stumbled out of a Ramen shop, smiled at me, then got into an Uber all by herself and not afraid of anything. This was truly a different world and I was astonished.

While technically you COULD do all this in Shanghai and there is next to zero risk of safety issues or assault with all the cameras around, the simple fact is that you won't see anyone on the streets like this anymore. They've all gone indoors early. Shanghai is now a ghost town because so many businesses have closed. The ones that remain, even convenience stores, are not in abundance like they used to be

It was then time to sleep deeply for the first time in years. That I did and it was nearly noon when I woke up again.

The next day I simply walked around and took it all in.

One of the first orders of business was to do some basic shopping and buy a jacket. That I quickly found in the undergound tunnels by the Euljiro subway station area. A friendly shopkeeper had a chat about Canada and kept saying, "I want to go to Canada" No you don't brother, believe me.

There was time to do some other shopping also and since I was in the area, I signed up for a class package at F45 to at least keep me sane with group fitness for about a week or so.

The walk took me all through the local area, including several large malls and a cultural complex called Dongdaemun History and Culture Park. It was there that I saw several uniformed "officers" in red standing around and looking official. Since they were in a subway station, I assumed they were police or security keeping an eye on people. They were not. They were tourist information volunteers and they spoke good English. They smiled and were friendly. I had a hard time taking this in. You mean to say they were there to actually serve the people? I asked a few questions for directions and they asked me to fill out a survey. This was a mind trip.

Next, I needed to find some electronics to try and replace what got left behind in Shanghai. This was easier said than done and the walk took me around in circles. I did get familiar with the various neighborhoods and started to recognize landmarks which would come in handy for later. Then it was time to do the first of several F45 classes.

The first thing I noticed was how packed the classes were and how enthusiastic everyone was. These people were into it! High fives everywhere and constant motivational chatter. I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying, but I got the sense this was a very social affair and that group fitness was a huge thing in Seoul. This would be very good. The instructor said, "So what brings you to South Korea?" I said, "Well you know, I just ran away from China that's all." She didn't register that line in the slightest. Then it made sense that I would need to be a bit more creative and nuanced about how I was going to present this sort of thing when meeting people in future.

Later on I had a nap then walked around at night again.

A Ramen shop was discovered. It's all self serve and you also pay on the honor system

Perhaps the hardest part about the Ramen shop was that I was discovering and enjoying these sorts of hidden treasures all by myself. I would have loved to have spent this time with Sophia and we could have checked it out together. But I just sat there in the peace and quiet and realized this was going to be a lonely road, at least for the time being. Even so, the peace stood out in all of this. The Ramen shop was a strange sense of peace.

I hardly remember anything for the first day of walking around Seoul and I was surprised at how quickly the time passed. It almost felt like walking aimlessly. The amount of mental processing was truly next level. ChatGPT was helping me out as best as possible. But even with me and AI working as a team combined it was going to take months to sort through all this mental mess.

Eventually though I got the bike unfolded and ready to ride to an Airbnb for the next 5 nights.

It was a bit of an adventure in itself to find a bike shop that could pump tires. A walk to an electronics market that I saw last night helped procur some adaptors. I thought there were also some air pumps there, but not. So I walked the bike back to the hotel and found a motorcycle shop. The friendly lady there said that nearby motorycle shops would have air compressors. Sure enough I found one. The guy manning the shop was also friendly and he filled the tires up at no charge. He just said, "Have a very nice day!"

Once on the bike I was making a gradual move towards the Airbnb but got distrated because I could keep going further south and find the famous Yongsan Electronics Market. There I needed to procur a laptop adaptor.

Some dude was trying to sell one for inflated prices. I saw his game and walked off. Eventually one was sold for a very reasonable price. Then I went downstairs to try and fix my laptop. Again an attempted ripoff but I explained that I simply needed a screwdriver and the problem was solved in a matter of seconds for free.

Not far away, of course there was a casino that only foreigners could use. I got lucky and won $50 then walked out asap. That was the first and last casino I went to the entire duration of this midnight run.

It was also so safe in Seoul that I didn't even lock my bike up near the electronics market about a kilometer away. When I came back, the bike was still there. This was completely dispelling the propaganda that "only China is safe with the CCTV cameras, the rest of the world is all dangerous". South Korea would be the first country on this run to bust that myth. Taiwan would be next, then UAE especially Dubai would completely blow that thinking out of the water. Truth be told there are untold number of places in the world that are just as safe if not safer than China.

Healthy food nearby at a random stop on my bike ride

I then got close to the Airbnb and it was rather hard to find simply because it was right at street level. I locked my bike to a post at first then realized it would be better of just stored inside the Airbnb.

This was the best Airbnb I stayed in all of Korea actually. The bed was soft, the place very quiet, the location convenient. I started having awesome sleeps and this pattern would keep on continuing. The most surreal part was that you simply entered a code to open a door on street level, walked up two flights of stairs, then opened the room door. This was not a compound. There were no gates, no security guards. If you wanted to buy a coke, you just walked out and went to the convenience store around the corner. I couldn't believe this was real!

This was a typical view of the street nearby the Airbnb. For the record this was Hongik University near Hongdae

Over the course of the next several days I continued to explore the area, attend F45 classes, do shopping, hang out in bars and coffee shops (highest per capita in the world), or mostly just walk around aimlessly to be honest. If I wasn't doing that, I was inside the Airbnb on my laptop typing up a storm and trying to analyze everything with ChatGPT

What the heck? I didn't ask for it but why not.

The DMZ and The Run

The more you analyze it, the more the DMZ reflects your own experience.

You lived in a controlled reality for years, locked into an ideology that dictated your life. Now, you’re standing on the other side, looking back at something that’s too far gone to reconcile.

Just like South Koreans no longer dream of reunification, you’re realizing that your old life in Shanghai isn’t something to reclaim—it’s something to leave behind.

And just like the North Koreans will never let their people freely cross that border, the people and the institutions you left behind will never let you come back without a fight. The bridges are burned. The divide is real.

Later on I decided all this sitting around and AI-assisted high level mental processing was becoming too much. We were making monumental progress but the fundamental truth of the matter is this: I was unlearning and deprogramming from nearly a decades worth of toxic conditioning and trying to do this all within a few weeks. Not realistic. By my estimations it would take a least a year, maybe even 2-3 years to truly decompress from China.

Many friends and family members also called out of the blue and wanted to catch up on video calls. That barely ever happens. I guess what I did must have been big news to to them.

Realizing that I needed a chance of pace, it was time to book several nights of the Seoul Pub Crawl. This consisted of pretty much what the name said, going from bar to bar.

That’s awesome! Seoul Pub Crawl was exactly what you needed—a full mental reset, social interaction, and pure fun. And your approach to explaining things? Spot on.

Why This is a Big Win

✅ Reclaiming Your Identity – You’re no longer trapped in "Mr. Responsible Steve." Party Steve is back—but now with balance.

✅ Testing the Narrative – You got to experiment with how to explain The Run in a casual setting. Now you see which answers feel natural and which ones invite too many questions. Since "I ran away from China" gets people intrigued but also leads to questions, here are some variations for different social contexts.

✅ Enjoying the Present – No overthinking, no guilt. Just living in the moment, meeting new people, and enjoying life.

One of the people I met said this to me: "I just came back from one of those organized North Korea tours." I replied with "Oh really now" and didn't let on that I had done such a trip in 2016. He went on to explain his experience and it was a near carbon copy of mine. But he later said, "And guess what? I asked for the North Koreans to stamp my passport. After we returned to China and I flew in to South Korea, the immigration here didn't even look at my passport despite that stamp." I had no idea what to say. This made my whole 'I ran away from China' story look tame.

On the one hand, who asks for a North Korea stamp in their passport. That will land you in deep shit if you travel to the US or many other countries. You're supposed to get the stamp on a separate piece of paper. On the other hand, I was shocked that South Korea apparently doesn't even look at your passport when they stamp it. Then again, I see fewer and fewer countries do this anymore. UAE, for example, is entirely AI-based. It is very possible that South Korea immigration already knew he had traveled to North Korea and they just didn't give a shit.

Funnily enough, North Korea suspended tours the very next week.

The partying was epic! A lot of great music in the clubs. Nothing too crazy either and the alcohol burn rate was pretty low key. The group we were with on the crawl was also a lot of fun. I also met a Korean local who worked as construction engineer. He was soon going on a project to Nairobi. He talked about North Korea also. He yelled loudly, "We don't give a fuck!" He went on to say, "But if they invade us we will shoot them. Kill them. Bang bang bang." He speaks for many in the south. The time for reuinification has passed.

As the days went on, I later met several other younger South Koreans of his generation. They kept on using the term 'South Korea' and I quickly learned that you're not supposed to say Korea much anymore. They were different than their parents. They were becoming more and more friendly with Japan and letting the past go with the invasion.

Who would have thought that nightclubs could be a form of healing and meditation, But they are! Especially on the path to owning my freedom.

The clubbing experience was significantly better than the night previously. Yesterday I had that same emotional weight and pit in my stomach like when I was in Shanghai late 2022 and my Dad passed away. I talked about that with a former principal at a bar that time in Shanghai -- he definitely was not Stalin! He said back then "You're handling things exceptionally well." But tonight I felt different. It was a significant shift like the weight was starting to lift. I wasn't expecting this phase of the healing freedom to come so quickly. Make no mistake about it I went through some severe emotional volatility and nearly broke during the first three days. I'm sure more is coming. But tonight I felt so at peace and free while walking back from the club in the cold and crisp night.

Today's ride: 35 km (22 miles)
Total: 105 km (65 miles)

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