update 1

You probably have no personal connection to this place right now so some context would probably help: Korea is the home of Samsung and Gangnam Style.

It’s also about 12 hours away.

My parents live in a city called Paju, which is about 45 minutes away from Seoul, the capital city. Paju feels like the Inland Empire. Kind of undeveloped in parts but it’s quieter, less dense, less hectic, home to more families and older people, and unexpectedly nice.

It’s also weirdly close to North Korea. The border, which is the black line, is less than 7 miles away:

On the way home from Incheon International I see the laser eye surgeon, and the next day he performs the 10-minute operation.

Strangely, the operating room is sectioned off by glass:

After the operation I can’t really function for several days because the operation requires a few days of recovery time, and my eyes are so bad they can only correct my vision to about half way to 20/20. So for the next few days I just sit in a dark room by myself listening to CPA exam prep.

Five days after my operation they remove the protective contacts and I get the okay to get glasses. Immediately my parents take me to get Asian glasses and an Asian haircut (sorry, the picture doesn’t quite do it justice). My sister gets a perm as well:

With my eyesight recovered, I’m taken to the Asian Diagon Alley,

where we go to see the Asian Ollivander,

who divines that something’s wrong with my sister’s liver and that I sit all day for a living. We give him the special ingredient with which he will make our new wands.

I mean foul-tasting herbal medicine.

Later that night my sister and I go sightseeing, during which we find this thing:

We can’t resist our genetic programming. We immediately turn into tourists:

Not much else so far. Tomorrow we head to the countryside to see the cousins we grew up with and spend two nights in the woods.

The weather has been perfect so far. 80/60, no humidity.

The view tonight from just outside: