Today I had to go do volunteer work at Seoul Forest. It felt really bizarre to be out on such a nice day, surrounded by young families and couples happily taking photos with the fall foliage. These people were totally unaffected by what happened in Itaewon.
Thankfully, as of yet, everyone I know is safe.
Selfishly, I’m sad that I had such a fun night myself (I went to Yeonnam, so that I wouldn’t have to even brave the Hongdae crowds.) and that I don’t get to share it now. I dressed up as the song “20 Eyes” by Misfits and then when I got to the venue, I saw the bassist of the band dressed almost exactly the same as me (thank god at the last minute I decided not to wear my red docs because otherwise we would’ve been the same--he had face paint instead of eyes though, but was clearly misfits themed) and then when they played, they even played 3 misfits covers. I was going to ask for a picture together afterward, but decided to just go home. The news was coming out more and more then, and I had trouble trying to sleep. My one friend I knew’d been in Itaewon earlier for a gig hadn’t seen my latest stories and didn’t answer my text, but it turned out she had gone straight home to bed and was fine.
I still can’t believe this happened. We all know that area well. I blame the government mostly, but this seems to have been a terrible accident. So many people can never imagine that something horrible could happen to them. THat’s the only reason I can think of that people would’ve looked at the crowd and instead of going elsewhere, decided to join in.
