“I understand your situation, but there is nothing we can do to help you here.” he said in a polite, yet irritating way. 

I was fucked. 

With that last ditch attempt of seeking some kind of miracle from a bank counter in the airport crossed off I was now very deep in ‘I’m fucked!’ territory. 

No person or machine could help me squeeze paper out of my plastic. 

My debit cards weren’t working in any of the ATM machines in this new country and I had no cash except some leftover Mexican pesos on me. 

The excitement and novelty of flying from Mexico to Korea had turned to unease and dread. 

An hour earlier I was buzzing at being on Asian soil for the first time. I had made it through immigration and customs without any unwanted intrusions and headed straight for the smoking area outside the terminal building with a sense of excitement. Getting cash was an afterthought. 

When I finally did leave the comfort and comradery of the smoking area and stuck my card into an ATM, the need for cash in my pocket skyrocketed up my list of priorities. 

The big, cumbersome things looked like they belonged to a developing country in the 1980’s, not to a modern cutting-edge nation like South Korea. But here they were, Korean ATMs, intent on ruining my day. 

The machines worked a little bit differently to anywhere else in the world. It was as if they had their own inner conscience that decided which cards they liked and which ones they did not. They hated all of mine. 

‘I need a plan.’ I thought as I looked around the busy arrival hall. 

The information desk was the last resort. 

The lady at the desk was dressed immaculately, the company uniform, makeup and hair routine momentarily distracted me from my worry. 

She looked the part of someone who could somehow help me out of the situation I had fallen into. 

“A night in the airport!” she said, opening her arms enthusiastically. That was the best she had to offer. 

I smiled and walked away, knowing I was the only person who could solve it. 

As I wandered the airport looking for somewhere quiet to think, I thought back to the receptionist in my Mexico City hostel who days earlier had casually warned me to be prepared for the problem I was now facing. 

At the time I shrugged it off, thinking she probably didn’t have much knowledge of how Korean ATMs worked. Now I was angry I hadn’t prepared for the current problem. 

There were a few occasions when my worn out debit card hadn’t worked in Mexico but it eventually started working fine so I just forgot about it. Now here I was in Korea, fucked. 

These Korean ATMs and their strange engineering wouldn’t be overcome by persistence alone. 

I continued with my recon, now 70% certain I would be spending my first day and night in the country at Incheon International Airport. 

I spotted a corner tucked away behind some escalators with soft sofas and nobody around. I threw off my backpack, sunk into a sofa and connected to the airport WiFi. 

The little break of comfort did me well. I was thinking clearly again. 

‘I have a debit card with money inside it, I have WiFi. I just need to book a hotel with shuttle service and get them to take the money from my card to pay for it.’ 

I found a hotel that looked promising, called them to make sure the plan would work and then booked a room, an hour later I was on my way. Disaster delayed. 

I arrived at the hotel to a front desk of grinning lottery winners. They were some of the happiest people I’d ever seen. Like dogs whose owner had just come back home from a long war. It was a nice feeling, it was also a really fucking weird feeling. 

I took the elevator up to my room, still puzzled by the ecstatic welcome. 

The room was unlike any hotel room I’d ever stayed in, with philosophical quotes printed on wooden plaques hanging on the walls, a sci-fi toilet and far too much space for the price I paid for it. 

I paced around the room taking in the oddities until I remembered I was deadly tired and collapsed on the bed. 

This disaster wasn’t over though, I still needed a wallet full of Korean won, so with the last of my energy I signed up for Western Union and promised myself I’d figure it out after some precious sleep. I turned off the lights and blacked out seconds later. 

Early the next morning I read up on how the Western Union process worked; it would, months later, become my only method of getting cash for the next few years of the journey. 

After checking out I took the free shuttle back to the airport, filled out a form and collected my won. Small things like that, small personal victories in the day to day life of a perpetual traveller are moments to savour. They make you deliriously happy. 

I was bouncing as I took the express train out of Incheon and into Seoul to begin my new life in Korea. 

I arrived at the hostel I was supposed to have checked into 24 hours earlier. It was located on the top two floors of a miniature glass skyscraper in the centre of Itaewon, the expat party capital of Korea. Weirdly it was also located across the street from the luxury hotel looking Saudi Arabian embassy. 

I rang the bell and was met by a smiling young Korean woman. She was pretty with long black hair featuring a dyed red highlight. 

“You’re Brad?” she asked, “I was wondering where you were!…” 

Inside the hostel I felt like I was in a friend’s apartment. This clearly wasn’t a corporate setup or anything close, this was a passion project built with a DIY punk attitude. 

We sat down at the kitchen table doubling as a reception desk and went through the check-in. 

“I booked the tent.” I said, already sensing something had been lost in translation. 

“Do you have a tent?” she asked, knowing the answer. 

I had booked a tent parking spot and arrived without the tent. I switched to a dorm room, handed over some of the new fresh bills in my pocket and laughed it off. 

Red Highlight gave me a tour of the hostel, it was small and cramped and chaotic but had one extraordinary feature, a rooftop with a priceless view of Itaewon. 

I was always lucky when it came to these special rooftops, wasn’t I. 

The picture in front of my eyes was stunning. The beauty and mess of Itaewon, with old buildings set at angles that made no sense. In the distance on a hill above the mess stood the Hamilton Hotel, a large brick building with the presence of a grand palace. N Seoul Tower was also in frame just left of the hotel and rising into the sky atop Namsan Mountain. 

I grabbed a soft drink from the fridge and laid back on the rooftop’s comfortable grubby sofa. As I lay there soaking up the sun it hit me that nobody knew where I was. I video called my family in Mexico and told them I was leaving soon but I didn’t tell them where to. 

I came to like the feeling of nobody knowing where I was in the world. It meant that all of this was solely mine, my own experience in a new place, not sharing the details kept it that way. I decided to keep my location to myself from then on. 

I got up off the dirty sofa that was far too comfortable for the way it looked and set off to hike up to N Seoul Tower. It was best to get a big tourist attraction ticked off my list on the first day in Seoul I decided. I was being a good tourist for once. 

I asked Red Highlight for directions and she gave me a simple yet confusing way to the mountain, something involving heading towards it and then making a turn when I saw two big plant pots. 

It took me three times longer than it should have and I never saw those plant pots. 

The view from the top was worth the struggle though. 

I sat on a wooden fence holding back the treetops, overlooking the concrete jungle. 

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and took a moment to reflect on the journey so far. 

I was six months in now. Half a year of world travel behind me. I still didn’t know how much longer this adventure would last. Travel fast through Asia and then hit Australia was the plan, after that? Everything was open. 

A group of Korean kids playing nearby brought me back to the present. I refocused my attention on the metropolis below me. It was a giant of a thing. 

It was good to realise on my first day in Seoul just how gigantic the city was. Concrete stretched out for miles in all directions, fringed with patches of green, and studded with mist-veiled lights. 

This was a serious playground and I was more than ready for the play. 

When I arrived back at the hostel I was met by a guest who had been waiting for me, “I’m so sorry about what happened yesterday.” he said meekly. 

I had no idea what happened yesterday. 

He went on with a string of varying excuses for why he hadn’t opened the door for me the day before. 

“It’s fine.” I said, cutting the embarrassing encounter short. 

He was so invested in the apology, but he had just wasted a good five minutes of oxygen on the wrong person. I was knocked out in a hotel room in Incheon while he hid from the doorbell. 

Later that day I met more of the hostel’s guests, many of whom had been resident at the apartment turned hostel for weeks, some months. 

It was good vibes and instant friendships. 

This quickly readjusted my plans for Korea. I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. 

_ 

During those first weeks in Seoul I created a plan to begin my takeover of online media. I would be a great travel vlogger and record all of my adventures for the world to see. 

The alcohol and girls and skyline of the rooftop would be a reward for long days spent recording my videos. 

                                                   _

I jumped out of my bottom bunk dorm bed, determined. 

’I WILL BUY A GREAT CAMERA. I WILL MAKE GREAT VIDEOS.’ 

I threw on some clothes and covered myself in various sprays and then walked to the gigantic Yongsan Electronics Market. 

The large building was empty of customers and I had the nagging feeling I was in the wrong place. It looked like a shopping mall, the stores were all open and techy-looking people sat behind their counters fiddling with chips and wires, but was it? Maybe it was just some giant backroom, or a warehouse of manufacturing I had stumbled into? 

I did some circling, some reconnaissance, before deciding to just jump in the waters. I eventually found a Sony camera store, chose my camera and got a free bag and camera case for my custom.

I strode back to Itaewon confident, the takeover was on! 

But it wasn’t. 

With the exception of talking to the camera on the forested slopes of Namsan Mountain over several visits, I wouldn’t be making any great strides towards world video domination anytime soon. 

The girls, the alcohol, the skyline, the Seoul! These are my excuses. 

°

As for the excuses for all the other countries to come on the journey… I have a lot. But. The truth is better, so I’ll give you the truth instead – I kept trying, kept playing, kept planning and ultimately kept running into my own perfectionism. 

°

The girls, the alcohol, the skyline, the Seoul! 

The nights were spent on the rooftop, drinking bottle after bottle of Soju, Makgeolli and Asahi beer as well as any other poison that guests had brought along. 

There are too many stories of manic drunkenness to write about from those first weeks in Seoul, to single out one or ten would do a disservice to the others. 

I’ll sum it all up here…

MANIC, lustful, BRAINLESS, fun. 

Seoul Pub and Gold Bar 

Itae-fucking-WON 

Gee Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby. 

As the partying continued it became clear who the core group of long-term rooftoppers were. 

Mash was a fellow long staying guest, a young Malaysian guy selling cars in Japan but for some reason spending months at a time in Seoul. 

The regular special guests were Angelo, Fash and Cho Ara, all friends of Red Highlight and her brother who were the hostel’s owners. 

Angelo was a chubby, thick glasses wearing college student who possessed a personality that rendered all physical detractions irrelevant. 

Fash was quiet, slight and affable. 

Cho Ara was the most beautiful woman I’d seen since California, with a sweet face, perfect body and aura of mystery. 

The drinking routine with the core group of rooftoppers continued over the next few weeks. 

I loved the constant rooftop party but I needed to get away from it. Fucking rooftops. I needed space from the monster the rooftop had become. Fucking rooftops. 

Just as I began to feel the effects of my nightly drunkenness catching up with me, I found out that Red Highlight was looking for a new flatmate. I didn’t think much about it, I just told her I’d move in and then did. 

The apartment was in a building tucked away on one of Itaewon’s many snaking backstreets. My room was sparsely furnished with only a large king size bed, a small wooden bedside table and a mirror. It was all I needed. 

I would be living with Red Highlight and her French flatmate. 

The Frenchman was as close to a French stereotype as you could ask for, he would drink red wine solemnly by himself at the kitchen table with a lit candle, sprout his philosophy at every opportunity and be arrogant in a comical but still strangely endearing way. 

A few days after moving in, The Frenchman invited me for a drink on my new building’s far more peaceful rooftop. 

“What is the most important thing to you?” he asked me, dribble falling down his chin. 

“Freedom.” I said without thinking much about it. I’m not even sure if that was the most important thing, I was just humouring his drunken philosophical moment. 

“Ahh ah freedom,” he shouted, staring off into the distance and trying to stay up right, “freedom Yes, FREEDOM, ahh, ahh but freedom isn’t free!” he lurched over the railing then fell back, tripping towards me before throwing up on my shoes. 

I didn’t drink much with The Frenchman again after that. 

Alone in my new room with all the peace and quiet I wanted, I found myself growing irritable within days. 

We never want what we have, once we get it we either want what we used to have or want something else entirely. The human animal isn’t designed for standing still content, or maybe it’s just me. 

So I headed back to the hostel rooftop most nights before lighting up the bars and clubs of Itaewon with my magical dancing skills until the morning, then I would wake in the late afternoon and do it all again. 

One morning after another night of chaos The Frenchman confronted me, “I’m ten years older than you and I am much healthier than you!” he belted out in his usual dramatic tone. 

It felt particularly hypocritical coming from someone who I only ever saw drunk. I knew I was much healthier than this bloated French sack and dismissed the intervention.

But I had already known for days something else was also true, I was looking sick. 

Each afternoon after waking up I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror and find a face of deterioration staring back at me. 

The stomach and a half of alcohol a night and the pack of 20 cigarettes that went with it had become a problem. 

I was 21 years old though and I only got to be 21 years old once in my life, a 21 year old living in the center of Seoul on a MEGA journey around the world. 

So fuck The Frenchman. I continued. 

I was without brakes. Nothing could prevent another night of Brad The Roaming Drunk of Itaewon.