Firstly I got 2 gifts on my last day! One from the Korean sound team which was a lovely mask holder embodied with my name and the second from the producers a lovely chop stick set!
So all that was left was for me to return home. Firstly it was brought to my attention that anyone travelling into the UK needs to fill in this form online.
Now I personally haven’t heard anything about this before, but having been gifted the information I filled it (you can do it 48 hours before arrival time). The form was OK, but slightly confusing as it’s a one size fits all solution. So there are questions like who are staying with in the UK (erm.. my house!) and when are you leaving the UK? But you can muddle through it. At the end you get a QR code you can supposedly show or as I did print the form off.
Now all of this sounds much better than the Korean 1000 versions of the same form I had to complete once i’d landed. On landing there are loads of signs saying you must fill this form in if you haven’t already. But when you actually get to the border control no one checks it! If my passport worked properly on e-gates (which is never does for some reason) I would have been able to work through with no one checking my form. Instead I got to a border agent who asked me where I am coming from and if i’d filled the form in but still never asked to see it! Farcical really, the Koreans would not have let me leave the airport until they were confident they knew where I was staying.
So naturally things got busy and I lost track of time to keep this up to date. So here is a brief run down of everything that happened in the final week of my time in Korea.
Job wise, the rest of the team including the sound designer came out of quarantine and we were able to finish putting the show together in time for technical rehearsals. I must say Joon and my Korean team have been absolutely fantastic and made this whole job very straightforward!
Firstly as Korea has yet again dealt with the virus so well our 2.5 restrictions got lifted! So I was able to go out a bit more. I got to visit the Yongsan Electronics Market which is several large stores simply filled with all of the technology you can imagine! A million PCs and accessories, cameras, vintage Hi-Fi there was so much stuff I became almost tech blind. And what did I buy? A £3.50 Korean made cable tie holding gadget I saw the local team using! It’s genius!
We had a traditional Korean BBQ which was awesome (highly recommended). The nice Korean man who owned the restaurant only took away our griddle pan 3 times which means we must be natives now! We got the hang of it in the end and the meat was delicious… that said we did clear 8 bottles of local cooking lager!
My work in Korea is done, job handed over to my replacement and everything is ready for the first day of tech rehearsal. My second time in Korea comes to end a country, and while i’m pleased to be heading home there is a sadness in leaving this amazing country.
I have such fond memories of all of my time here, the people are just some of the nicest in the world, the city is worlds apart from anything in the west and the culture is that amazing double edged sword combo of being stepped in history but embracing the future.
So post run how did I spent the rest of the day off? I drank naturally! I am Brewdog shareholder (Equity for Punks member), and they have an Outpost in Seoul. While there is plenty of Brewdog bars around the world (78 in fact!), there is I think only 4 bars which are outposts. These are bars that have an on site microbrewery attached, and the Brewdog bar in Itaewon is one of these.
We got there via the Seoul Metro which like most things in Korea is beautifully simple and throughout! The ticket machines offer a range of languages including English are are simple (just select destination). You get a temporary Oyster card which you pay a 500 Won (30p) deposit for. At the end of your journey once you’ve tapped out, there are machines you can return your ticket and get your 500 won back.
The trains are regular, spacious and air conditioned, and the stations so well labelled figuring out which train to get and where you are was easy. Even changing lines at Hapjeong it was simple, just following the coloured lines to change platforms. You can live see the train on a map as it travels towards your station, and I also had forgotten they play a little tune when each train arrives! In London someone would have been killed for this, but here it fits perfectly!
Once we’d made it to Brewdog it felt very much like every other Brewdog we’d been in. Itawon is quite American so English speaking was more common, and I still managed to get my 10% discount (even 9000km from home). I had some lovely beer and one of there Burgers (which I was craving!).
They also do the Brewdog Now service, so I was able to take away 4 cans of draft beer (all of which was brewed on site) back at the hotel so I could drink them watching what turned out to be one of the F1 racing of the season!
So after 2 weeks of quarantine where I could only do my dodgy running on the spot exercise I then only managed to get 2 runs in the hotel gum in before they were shut down.
Sadly while cases have been dropping in Korea the level 2.5 restrictions have been extended, so no gym for another week.
However we have Sunday off so I did some recce work on google maps and saw that near the hotel is a river which has a foot / cycle path on it and leads to what looked like a running track!
Today I did the route and it was a lovely route! Had to keep my wits about me to avoid cyclists and pedestrians but all in all it was a nice 5km circular route. And I was right there was an outdoor 400m running track! So I did a few laps of that too in the process. Temperature was reduced as well, which as I have to wear a mask while running (not pleasant at all!) was very welcome.
Not a very quick time but considering this is my first outdoor run in over 3 weeks i’m not too bothered!
Next stop after a coffee is Itaewon to go to the Brewdog out here!
One piece of excellent news is that I have found the maker of my quarantine breakfast “Deluxe” sandwich! Which is Paris Baguette which is very much the Korean Pret. They ironically do not sell Baguettes, or from what I understand have any connection to Paris. But there is a branch near the theatre! So for lunch this week i’ve been reliving the lovely Deluxe sandwich.
The craft beer bar we have been frequenting does a rather bizarre Pilsner in a Pyrex option. And they expect you to drink out of it! We all asked for glasses, but seeing people drinking beer out of a Pyrex job is something I thought would only happen in Shoreditch!
I also found some very tasty Korean arancini with a selection of toppings! A nice change from fried chicken certainly!
So due to the bars ands pubs closing at 9pm due to the new Korean COVID restrictions at 8pm I was in quite a rush to get across the main road from the theatre, to the local bar we have been frequenting.
I annoyingly made it to the main road just as the crossing finished. Now the crossing times in Korea are much longer than the UK, so now very thirsty I was keen to get the process going I pressed the nearby button as you would in the UK. This was a mistake. This button does not start the crossing.
I jumped as a loud Korean voice boomed from a speaker above my head followed by beeps. It turns out after later translation the button enables the visual impaired crossing mode. After 5 minutes of waiting the crossing opened and the full audio spectacular of the crossing was unleashed on everyone attempting to cross the road. More loud Korean voices (I presume now telling me it’s safe to cross) plus beeps and tones.
I chuckled under my mask, be it slightly embarrassed as I crossed.
So as I said in my first post from Seoul we are now under even stricter lockdown conditions. Not only is the hotel gym closed but annoyingly the whole floor the gym is on! Which due to complicated lift reasons now means I have to travel from the 29th Floor to the 41st Floor to the 1st Floor to the 7th Floor to then walk 2 flights of stairs to the 9th Floor to reach my production desk! It’s like Mario…
I didn’t go out last night anyway but bars and restaurants are now closed after 9pm for sitting in. I went to the supermarket at the bottom of the building and got some lovely Korean craft beer and retired to my room to watch the F1! The Weizen was my favourite. I have been eating during our dinner break (6 till 7) so at the moment getting food isn’t really an issue but it’s going to make after work beers difficult! The coffee shop near the hotel you now have to sign in, take your temperature and it’s take away only! Probably due to the fact a large cluster of COVID cases in Seoul were linked to a Starbucks.
Currently the restrictions are only for a week, but I can’t see them not increasing that. Hopefully we see COVID cases drop here, the last few days has certainly seen a flattening rather than an increase.
However work is going well in the theatre and we are ahead of schedule currently which is good. I’ve been having some lovely food, which is all pretty cheap! That bibimbap set in the pictures below is £9, and it comes in a sizzling stone bowl still cooking!
When I was last here in 2013 I tried and loved some Korean Pineapple custard cream biscuits! I took loads of packs home but despite looking in every Korean or Asian food shop in the UK I could never find them again so I presumed they were just a limited release and gave up.
But no… THEY’RE HERE! And as good as I remember with my morning coffee!
The original working title of the Killers classic. But yes I am in Seoul! After a 3 hour journey across the country, thankfully not in a typhoon (which ended up heading further North, sorry Kim!), and via a Starbucks at an outlet mall near the airport I have offically entered Korea and landed in Seoul.
We first had to go to a local immigration centre in a newly developed area in the South West outskirts of Seoul in order to complete my application. In order to be allowed to self quarantine in our production company supplied accommodation rather than government supplied ones we had to apply for long term visas which actually give us a local ID card. Once I get my ID card in a few weeks technically I can open bank accounts here! I hadn’t quite realised the high level of visa access we were originally applying for!
Once checked into the hotel I tried to use the treadmill in the gym. 2 weeks of not running (or walking really!) combined with the fact you have to wear mask and gloves in the gym! Meant it was not a pleasant experience. Worse still after tomorrow they are closing the hotel gyms for a week as South Korea has risen to level 2.5 on the COVID response scale. If we hit 3 I think we have to stop work.
First day in the theatre was good, was able to meet up with everyone and get a feel for the job. I was also able to do my laundry which was getting to situation critical…
You have to sign a form on entering the theatre, get sprayed with disinfectant and temperature checked. It’s masks at all time, but you start to get used to that out here anyway.
In good news the local craft beer bar I researched from quarantine did exist and I have some lovely local brewed beer. Ironically the beer was brewed about 20 mins from where we were in quarantine… Alanis is retuning her guitar I think.
So today I went for my second COVID test (still not a nice experience!), and tomorrow at midday I officially finish my quarantine period!
One more night to finish off my 2 remaining plastic bottles of Cass, a final Deluxe sandwich and egg in the morning and then Seoul here I come!
Excited to have more freedom (although with the current COVID situation in Seoul I best be careful!). I’ll do one final post once i’ve made it there. I have moved this blog now off the Pi to the magicgenie.co.uk servers as I plan on it coming with me tomorrow! (I did wonder about leaving it here!).
It’s not actually been that bad at all and i’ve tried to make the most of it like I said at the start. I’ve finished my book, done some work (once the UK woke up!) and made sure I am very much ready to start work now!
The final thing to do is dedicate this entire blog to my Cuckoo CRP-FA0621MR rice cooker in my room. Provided with no rice, in an area known for it’s rice growing.
Not sure whether somebody specifically asked for it or it was just easier but we were given the options of Korean favourite Fried Chicken last night. Fro my last trip to Korea I remember Chicken and Beer shops being quite a big thing and as not usually a big fried chicken fan I did end up eating alot of friend chicken.
So when in Rome and all that, so I went for it and was delivered a large amount of chicken! Both regular American kind and the truly lovely (and slightly luminous!) Korean kind. Korean spicy chicken wings are truly awesome, spicy, sweet and so tasty. If your in London i’d highly recommend the Korean chicken wings from Flesh and Buns, they have a couple of locations.
While it was quite a nice change from the usual meals, I must say I ate FAR too much chicken last night, washed down by some of Korea’s finest cooking lager – Cass.
Cass, which scores an unremarkably high 2.6 out of 5 on Untapped, is a 4.2% lager, which I presume involves somebody from the brewery having tasted Carlsberg before deciding to brew a beer. In a shunning of the German purity law of 1516 it’s brewed with rice rather than malted barley which give it a crisp smooth but ultimately tasteless outcome. That said it’s nice and cold!
I’ve already scouted out some craft beer establishments in Korea both near the hotel and further into central Seoul. I am definitely planning a visit to Brewdog’s Itaewon outpost.
Not another rubbish post! Well yes, this time in fact a rubbish post about rubbish.
So as part of the COVID goodie bag I was given on my first COVID test is 4 coloured bin bags (2 green and 2 blue). This is what we must put our rubbish in as any rubbish from quarantine is (I presume) burnt in the fires of Mordor.
You first put rubbish in the green bag, then spray the rubbish with a disinfectant spray (also from the goodie bag). Then you are told to double bag it with the blue bag, before placing it downstairs. Our local production contacts realising 2 weeks of rubbish into 2 bin bags will be impossible (every meal comes with a whole host of packaging) have also provide a communal bin for us downstairs.
I presumed the bin bags were special quarantine ones but according to Google translate the blue one is for normal rubbish and the green one is usually used for recycling!
Otherwise not much new going on, entering my final 4 days. Final COVID test on Wednesday then hopefully off to Seoul on Thursday. There are increasing COVID cases currently in South Korea especially Seoul which is worrying but if any country can bring them back under control again South Korea is it.
So as I step onto my balcony as you may have heard at the end of in my room tour video there is a very loud and interesting atmosphere of sounds!
So decided to do a recording, after all I am a sound engineer, and i’m sure my friends in theatre sound design might find it useful. I’ve recently bought a new microphone for capturing this type of sound so using that and my average quality audio interface i’ve recorded 30 minutes of atmos from outside my apartment.
There is alot of insects and birds, with cars going past and the occasional person. There is some noise from other people within the apartment building but I thought if I did a long enough recording there would be enough content there for people to use. I also get a bit of wind noise which is weird as it isn’t windy and the microphone is sheltered with the supplied wind shield. I guess the supplied wind shield isn’t up to scratch (i’ll have to buy a Rycote) and directional microphones are more susceptible to wind noise.
Anyway I hope there is enough stuff on there you can use.
The above is an AAC stream, but you can download the raw recording here as a 48kHz 24-bit Wave File.
So as I said when you arrive at the airport you are made to install the “self-quarantine safety protection” App on your phones. The app is the registered to you, and your application to enter the country, which will only be approved after your successful completion of the 2 week quarantine period and 2 negative COVID tests.
The app works in 2 ways, firstly using the location data from your home it is tracking you and importantly showing your not going anywhere! I had one case where the app did tell me my phone “hadn’t moved enough” not sure what that was about as surely that was a good thing! Restarting my phone cured this issue.
You also have to enter a self diagnosis of symptoms and take a temperature reading (using my thermometer given to my after my first COVID test). You have to do this before around 11 each morning and again before 8pm at night. I tend to do it when I get up at 9am and again before dinner at around 6pm. Native Koreans use this app if they have been told to self isolate after coming in contact with a confirmed case.
On top of this you also get assigned a local government case worker who contact me via the Korean messaging app KaKaoTalk. At the beginning I got a voice call twice a day and a video call once a day to confirm I was in the building. I managed to miss 2 of these because I was firstly asleep and secondly my wifi for some reason turned off on my phone (which probably also stopped the app reporting my location). This was chased up to our Korean contact who made sure I got back in touch. My case worker is a lovely Korean lady! I’ve seen her children in the background of video calls to check on my apartment and they are cute and interested in what’s going on!
The government (including my case worker) have turned up on several occasions to the apartment building and we all have to go out on the balconies to show that we are in the building! I’ve waved at her to say hello!
There have been some security issues with the app which the government admit is due to the apps hasty roll out. But these have been corrected with updates as soon as the Korean Government were aware of them. Either way certainly be deleting the app once i’ve entered Korea next week!
So it’s all a bit strange, but great to see a government taking this crisis seriously and actually building and using effective digital tools to help combat and control the virus. There has been widespread praise for how effective these have been.
Although surely it’s not as a good as our UK “world-beating” track and trace app…
Also talking of Russian hacking, I noticed in the statistics from the site that I had a visitor to the site from Kaliningrad, Russia.
After searching as to where in Russia it was led me to discover soemthing that was something I was unaware of! This city in the Russian Oblast of the same name, which is actually sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, not part of mainland Russia!
So a bit of research it turns out the City was captured by the USSR after the end of the second world war where before it was called Königsberg. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the area stayed as part of Russia became an enclave between Poland and Lithuania, something further complicated by those 2 countries signing up to NATO.
It was recognised apparently as the best city in Russia in 2012, 2013 and 2014Â and hosted some of the 2018 football world cup matches, including Englands uneventful defeat to Belgium.
So I am now over a week in and only another week to go and it’s not been too bad. I did always set out to try and make the most of it, and so far i’ve managed to stave off boredom quite well!
Yesterday the first of our team who arrived into quarantine departed having completed his 2 weeks. So we all went onto our respective balconies for a photo and a short video was and shot. I’ve asked for a copy of the photo so i’ll post it once i’ve got it! It was nice to see some of the other members of the team (be it shouting from a distance!).
In the morning i’ve been watching the only English news channel that I can find which is Chinas CGNTV which has been a nice little way to start with coffee and breakfast. We also get access to Fox News but I tried watching that and became physically ill. BBC and CNN for some reason are paid extra channels.
I’ve tried to do some exercise every other day in my room, sort of jogging on the spot and generally just moving around like an idiot for 30 minutes to make up for my lack of running. Certainly better than doing nothing, although I owe the person below me an apology and a beer! If anyone is filming me you’re owed £250 from ‘You Been Framed’.
Then at 4pm everyone wakes up in the UK and I end up fairly busy with chatting to people and general admin / work stuff until midnight. It’s good to be keeping fairly busy and i’ve been able to have some Zoom calls with people I haven’t spoken to in ages putting the world to rights which has been great! (Especially now I have had my fridge restocked with some more Korean cooking lager – in 1L plastic bottles too!).
Anyway less than a week to go now and i’ll be in Seoul.
We get a choice of 3 meals a day from the selection below, which we order in advance to get delivered to our door (like our own little Korean Deliveroo!
BREAKFAST
Chicken salad
Caesar Salad
Cheese Salad
Veggie Salad
Avocado Salad
Mushroom Salad
BLT Sandwich
Deluxe Sandwich
Egg Sandwich
LUNCH
Veggie Salad
Avocado Salad
Mushroom Salad
Veggie Sandwich
Avocado Sandwich
Tofu Sandwich
Mushroom Sandwich
DINNER
Bulgogi With Rice
Spicy Chicken with Rice
Pork Cutlet with Rice
Spicy Pork with Rice
Short Rib Patties with Rice
You also get some fruit with breakfast (Banana and Apple), their is some cereal in the room as well as bizarrely a box of 15 eggs… So i’ve been cooking a single fried egg each morning with my breakfast. Along with a cup of freshly ground filter coffee.
Everything is delivered to our door and placed into a little tray outside. You get a polite little knock once it’s been dropped off! Breakfast is dropped off about 8:30am (I have an alarm that goes off at 9am), lunch between 12:30 and 1pm and Dinner between 6-7pm.
For breakfast I am having the “Deluxe Sandwich” which is basically Ham and Cheese, it’s very good though I must say! I quite look forward to it. Lunch sandwiches / salads are a bit average if i’m honest but the dinners are all lovey and served with traditional Korean side dishes such as Kimchi
All in all while it would be nice for a change, its all good quality, tasty and fresh and it’s only for a couple of weeks.
Just when you thought there was no way my blog posts could get any more boring, I said “Hold my Cass” and am going to do a post about how this tiny pointless blog works!
Bit of background as there are only a finite amount of internet IP addresses available in the world (less than 4.3 billion), one of your home routers main jobs is to issue out local IP addresses (eg. 192.168.0.2) to your devices and then allow them to share one single internet IP address, via a process called Network Address Translation (or NAT). An example of an internet IP address is 50.28.59.200 (which is actually a server of my web hosting company magicgenie.co.uk).
You also generally internet providers in the UK have a dynamic internet IP address allocation, which means you are allocated a different internet IP address usually every 24 hours, rather than a static IP address where you always get the same IP address. If you want to host something on the internet very much like holding an event, you need a fixed address and can’t have it moving around!
If you ever need to know you internet IP address simply stick “what’s my IP” into google.
So each room in the apartment complex has a cat5 outlet which with a bit of digging and to my surprise, not only offered an internet IP address rather than a local one. This is then plugged into a small router that was found next to my TV that is also being used to provide WiFi to the room.
The router in the rooms is an ipTime N104plus-i. ipTime are a Korean networking company and you often see ‘iptime’ open wireless networks all over Korea. However and there is one thing you should take away from this dull article the router was using default login credentials… (admin/admin). So I could get into the settings which allows me to play around with the routings settings…. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE CHANGE YOUR ROUTERS DEFAULT PASSWORD. It’s the number 1 internet security venerability and easy to fix.
As I had 2 weeks of not a-lot on, I brought a spare Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ computer with me that I thought I could do multiple things with, media server for the TV or generally just play around to pass them time. But now I also had an exposed router and an internet IP I realised I could quickly setup the Raspberry Pi to be a web server and forward the web browsing traffic hitting that internet IP address to hit the Raspberry pi, via a router option called port forwarding.
Now the internet IP i’m assigned is dynamically assigned although it appears to always assign me the same IP address. This could be due to a long lease time or this routers MAC address may have a reservation attached to it, either way as this is only temporary if the address does change i’ll simply manually change the details for korea.magicgenie.co.uk.
The Pi was already setup with Raspbian which is a version of Linux operating system designed for Raspberry Pis. From then I installed the required server software to the Pi (LAMP), and then WordPress as the software to run the actual blog.
For those wishing to try setting up a web server on a Raspberry Pi themselves i’d recommend following this excellent article.
(NOTE – mySQL won’t install anymore so you’ll need to issue this command to install MariaDB instead – everything else is correct)
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server -y
It’s slightly ironic that I do actually part own a small actual web hosting company, so am not in short supply of web space on an actual web server! but there you go, that’s how I got a small web server running in quarantine with me and outputting this pointless blog to the world!
So rather than just write about my room I thought it was probably easier to do a video tour! Prepare yourself for the worst episode of Through the Keyhole or MTV Cribs ever! (Delete as age appropriate).
So since i’ve arrived i’ve been receiving Emergency Alerts on my phone from the Korean Government. It seems the Koreans have a national emergency alert system similar to the American system called, Wireless Emergency Alerts.
Usually this is used in times of national emergency such as extreme weather or terrorist attacks, but the Korean government is using for COVID 19 alerts, however when you first get one you phone explodes with noise and flashing and they are all in Korean except the words “Emergency alert: Extreme”
Now… when you can’t understand the rest of the message this is quite an alarming thing to see on your phone! Especially in a country very close to North Korea who are known to do rocket launches!
However never fear! In South Korea there is always an app for that, and thankfully an called “Emergency Ready App” which allows me a short time later to see an English translation and to select my local region (so I don’t get too many messages).
It turns out they are telling you direct to your phone where every local outbreak is! It’s amazing that they can get the information to people so fast, and must be a big help in the fight against the virus.
However they are really specific though, and sometimes rather amusing with the translation. One I got said “Regardless of the symptoms of Ganseo-gil, (8.8), we are taking a detour with guns in Gyeongbok-gung house.”. Not sure where Gyeongbok-gung house is but i’d keep my head down if I was there!
I am beginning to find them a little annoying as they are becoming more frequent and i get them twice (once in Korean and once in English) but as a system for keeping people informed in the current situation its a great idea.
After an OK first night’s sleep the following morning my first (and only outside activity) was to go to the local health centre and get the first of 2 COVID tests. I get one at the start and one at the end of quarantine. If I pass them, I get let into the country properly!
So it was back into Won’s COVID wagon and off we go to the local medical centre in Nonsan-si. As we arrive at the centre I am handed a small package with a specific heavy duty mask, and a set of blue gloves (that were slightly too small!) both of which have to be worn the whole time I am at the testing centre.
Once you arrive and are straightaway temperature checked, then (once passed) you are checked in, with your passport being checked off against the list. Then you get your COVID “Goody Bag” this includes a thermometer that you must use to report your temperature with twice a day into the Korean Quarantine app. I’m informed it’s best to do it under my arm (thankfully!) and that I have to return quite fancy thermometer! Also in the bag are hand and general disinfectant, and special quarantine rubbish bags. Any rubbish we generate must be disinfected with the spray and placed into 2 special rubbish bags (first blue and then green), which I presume are then thrown in Mordor somewhere?!
They also take your KakaoTalk ID (Korean What’s App) as I am to expect 2 voice calls and 1 video call a day via the app from my local Korean government contact to check I am still in my room.
So then it’s time for the test. A man goes into a booth and puts his hands into some very industrial rubber gloves (like you’d see in films for handling dangerous chemicals or radioactive materials!). Then you get a swab right at the back of the throat and another so far up your nose you presume it’s from the back of your skull! Neither is painful but also not pleasant! Oh well another 2 weeks before my next one!
The whole thing was quick and very well organised I have to say, excellent work and I received the results the next day to say I am COVID negative!
Now I am back in my room and continuing to try and make the most of my quarantine period! Hence this blog…
After over 2 hours driving we arrive at our quarantine complex in the city of Nonsan-si of the South Chungcheong Province in the west midlands of Korea. It’s an agricultural city with the main crops being rice and strawberries. In fact the city has a Strawberry Festival every Spring. Other local attractions (not that’ll be seeing them) are the large Buddist statue Eunjin Mireuk. Apparently it’s the tallest standing stone Buddha in Korea!
The apartment building is very much like a student accommodation building, other than outside there is a pool (the temperature is currently a very humid 33°C), sadly though i’ll only be able to look at it! The ground floor is a coffee shop and communal space (although it’s all closed), the plan had been that as we were all quarantining together we could use this space to socially distantly meet up, but due to a recent increase in cases from abroad the government is even hotter on quarantine venues and are doing regular spot checks. If we were all found together there would be trouble, so for now we are confined to our rooms.
I’ll go into more details on my room in a further post (as it’s one of the few things I can talk about!), and perhaps a short video tour. But as an overview my room which is also like my old student accommodation is basic, but clean and functional. You get a lounge with a sofa and a little kitchenette, a bedroom with a double bed, a tiny bathroom / shower and a balcony (although in 33°C humid heat i’ve spent nearly all the time inside with the AC!). There is a TV with satellite (mostly Korean channels), and an excellent 100mb internet connection!
You order food in advance and it is brought to you 3 times at day and dropped outside your door in a little tray. I’ll do a further post on this in more detail later, but worth saying the food is lovely.
So once i’d unpacked and touched base with home, I had dinner and settled in for the night to my new home for the next 2 weeks!
Going through immigration at an airport is rarely a straightforward and pleasant experience, but add in COVID and it’s another level. I had been briefed that we needed to download the “Korea Self Quarantine App” on my phone (although there were charging points and free wifi in the airport setup where you could download it there).
It’s probably worth mentioning here that in order for us to be put in accommodation provided by the shows producer for quarantine (instead of government accommodation) we have had to apply for specific VISAs, and the producers have had to apply for government permission to have the apartment complex they’ve rented designated as an official quarantine location.
After they have confirmed the app is loaded you then go through several sections, with each section filling in another batch of forms. Each form basically just asking your basic details and the address where you will be spending quarantine in a different order! One desk phones your Korean contact (the lovely Won) to check I am expected. It turns out I am and I move to the next desk!
At the final desk which is the actual immigration desk it turns out that despite writing the address of the quarantine building 10 times something is now wrong. Other members of the crew who arrived before me are already staying in the building so I know it’s just a formality and after a 45 minute wait in the integration room a phone call (from someone!) eventually confirms all is good and I’m in! And get a nice little yellow certificate to prove it!
I must say the whole process while frustrating with the excessive forms and delays was very thorough and well managed. There was no way they would let me into the country unless into a cleared quarantine venue with a working COVID app on my phone (more on that later). Wonder why they have so few cases and deaths??…
I find my bags waiting on the floor of baggage as i’ve clearly despite being one of the first off the plane been the last to leave after the extra checks, but makes them easy to find. I’m pleased to discover my slightly heavy (30kg) Peli case toolbox has survived intact!
Finally I meet up with Won and we jump in the quarantine transport van, which has been adapted with plastic shielding setup between Won, the driver and myself to head to the accommodation, which it turns out despite writing the address so many times I hadn’t realised is not near Seoul…
As someone who is used to flying for my job, I haven’t been near an airport now since October 2019 which, with the added strangeness of flying under COVID, made me feel like it was my first time.
I flew from Heathrow, and other than slightly more paperwork at check in (mainly checking my quarantine details in Korea), it was a very painless process. The airport was the quietest I’ve ever seen it. Security was incredible! There were no queues, straight to a scanner, and then I didn’t have to take anything out of my bag (I carry 2 laptops and quite alot of electronics) – they just scanned the whole thing! I am not sure if this is a COVID thing or if Terminal 2 has the new CT Scanners. Either way, it was a dream.
Once in the terminal itself, it was very quiet as the picture here shows. Everyone was wearing masks and obeying social distancing. Most of the bars and restaurants were closed and the one bar I went to that was open had recently opened. All operating under COVID conditions (masks, contact details taken etc). Interestingly they were offering people (as I travelled on a Wednesday) the government “Eat out to help out” scheme. Didn’t think that would work airside!
From there, I went straight to the plane, which was very empty with plenty of room. I wore a mask the whole flight (except for eating / drinking) which actually was totally fine and not uncomfortable, or weird. The staff all wore goggles, masks and gloves, but generally, it was business as usual. I flew Korean Air and a video from their Safety and Security manger explained all of the processes they took prior to me boarding (followed by the safety video featuring KPOP band SuperM)
All in all, the experience was smooth and straightforward. Entering the country however was a bit trickier….
So my name is Ian and I work in events, TV and theatre in the UK.
Well I used to work in theatre but the year is 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic has gripped the world. London’s West End and all regional touring theatre in the UK closed their doors in March this year and as I write this in August, only outdoor theatres such as Regents Park have been allowed to recommence. The situation is the same in the other theatre powerhouse of the US and Broadway, with all theatres dark. However… in South Korea they have managed the virus very well and have developed a way of working which has allowed theatres to remain open, the world tour of Phantom of the Opera is still open in Seoul (sadly the London West End production has recently closed after running for over 30 years).
I first came to Korea in 2013 to do a production of Ghost the Musical and had an absolutely amazing experience so when I was asked about a year ago if I would like to repeat the job, I was thrilled. As the pandemic hit, I hadn’t held out much hope of the job remaining, but due to the Korean’s excellent COVID response the job was still going ahead! However, as foreigners from the UK, we would need to quarantine for 14 days prior to starting work.
So here I am… Stuck in a room in an apartment for 14 days with a fridge, TV, rice cooker and 100mb internet connection! So to pass the time I have loaded up a Raspberry Pi I was carrying with WordPress and thought I’d do a blog (remember those?).
So this is actually run on a server in my room with me in quarantine! I felt it was apt that not even my blog can go outside 🙂
Korea COVID Travel Blog
