Korea Trip #3-1 – 10 Years Later, & the Dustwel Blog Revival

Dad, are we going to have to take classes on the way to South Korea?

My 7-year-old Sage asked me this puzzling question on the way to school about a month ago. “…uhhh, I don’t think so, why do you think we’re taking classes?” I responded. She continued, ”I heard mom say we would be taking business classes on the flight. Will I get any time on my iPad?”

Suddenly it all clicked. Meghann was adamant we take business class on our flight to South Korea so we would arrive well rested and ready to make the most of our week, now a little more than a day away. Sage on the other hand was pondering why on earth we were learning about business on the way over.

This Wednesday, I’m headed back to South Korea with my family for the first time since two trips in 2012 – when our family was just my then-fiancee Meghann and I. So much has changed since the last trip. We’ve moved into a new home we built, changed I’ve changed companies three times (and we’ve both changed roles at least 10x), gotten married, and had two kids Sage (7) and Vivienne (4).

Ahead of the trip, I decided to revive the dustwel.com blog I’d created in 2011 and used to extensively document the first two SK trips (all the posts are back – click ”All Posts” up top!) – the domain name had expired and I’d deemed the hosting too expensive at the time to continue paying for. Was the old content gone for good? Fortunately – archive.org had captured all of my old blog posts, and I was able to repost them all for some great historical context and take a trip down memory lane. Plus my tech-geek persona enjoyed registering a domain name and setting up hosting services / configuring everything, which took a week or two. My sister Hayley, who’s has made a career in coaching social media presence, had no shortage of incredibly helpful insights. I still laugh whenever I think about her kindly positioned yet obvious suggestion I should probably change my site font to something that’s not Times New Roman.. 😀

So back to this trip – why now? Meghann’s birth father passed away a few years ago, and we learned a couple years back her birth mother is starting to suffer from dementia. COVID caused all travel to South Korea locked down up until April of this year, when they finally lifted the ban (although still require strict vaccine, testing and mask requirements). We hadn’t seen her birth mother since our wedding in 2013, and wanted her to have a chance to meet our daughters before the dementia made a meeting not meaningful.

There’s a lot to be excited about for this trip – in addition to seeing Meghann’s birth family, I get to see an old friend, Min June Kim. He so happened to be my dorm neighbor during my freshman year of college, was originally from South Korea and we became fast friends. I’ve managed to visit him on each prior SK trip, and we even connected recently as I helped him get set up as a banking client where I work. His latest business, 10 Minute Squad, is off to an amazing start and just received the USD equivalent of $3.2M in VC investments, while also being accepted into the 2022 Y Combinator class, one of the most prestigious startup accelerators out there. He’s off to an amazing start!

What does it take to get to South Korea in COVID times? In addition to full vaccination, you must do a special ($129/person!) COVID test at an official provider within 24 hours of flying out, take another test a few days after arrival, and, I’m assuming, masks the entire time. The prior quarantine requirement over there was two weeks in a special hotel in isolation, so certainly hoping that doesn’t happen. All entry requirements back to the US are now lifted at least – no additional test ahead of return departure.

And as far as the plan while we’re there? Meghann created the itinerary (up in the header). We fly out Wednesday Morning at 7am, land in Seoul Thursday at 3PM (!!) and have some time to explore. We’re meeting June for dinner on Friday, and then take the bullet train to Busan (southern coast of SK) Saturday morning. The following week will consist of seeing Meghann’s birth family, visiting the temple where her birth father was buried, visiting the orphanage where she was born, maybe ”take two” of eating freshly prepared (still squirming) seafood on the coast (Sage says she’s up for it, let’s see…). We’ll also visit Shinsegae Mall, which at one point was the world’s largest department store at over 3M square feet. We also have Meghann’s birth mother’s birthday (July 4th) as well as Meghann’s 40th (July 6th) amongst all of this.

So here we are! How do you explain to a 7-year-old, who wondered whether we had to take business classes across a long flight to a country that represents half of her ethnicity, that she’s about meet biological family (that she can hardly communicate to), for the first time? Not to mention, to our incredibly charming, charismatic, 4-year-old Vivienne? I love to structure and plan what’s ahead, but this next week will undoubtedly hit faster than the 190 MPH Korea bullet train. All we can do is hang on for the ride and embrace the moment. Here we go!!