Let's Talk About Quarantine: Part 1

I have been in Daegu for almost a week now, and with the exception of the night I arrived, I have had zero physical contact with another living creature. As I sit down to write this post, I have this feeling of almost manic excitement, like I am getting to tell you the story in person, and I crave the sense of connection that creates. I am not the most social of people on a good day, and yet, I find myself (not altogether unbegrudgingly) very eager for my quarantine to come to an end,

But, before I get too far ahead of myself, let's back up and talk more about the actual logistics of quarantine in South Korea.

So, remember in my last post when I said how simple it is to fly international? Well, that statement directly applies to the domestic portion of the trip only.

Quarantining in South Korea is taken very seriously; quite a bit more seriously, in fact, than I had realized. (Much more seriously than it was ever taken in the States.) Upon arrival at the airport in Incheon, ALL incoming arrivals were processed in a very strict manner. As far as I could tell, the airport and all outgoing transportation options were divided into "quarantine" and "non-quarantine". As an incoming passenger, there was really no option for me to go anywhere except where the airport officials wanted me to go.

So, the first thing all new arrivals had to do was submit their negative Covid-19 test. At the first "checkpoint" I had to have my passport, travel declaration form & health declaration form (which they give you on the plane to fill out), and my negative test results.

Upon submitting all that paperwork, they took my temperature and I was sent to the next checkpoint. This checkpoint was the crux of the quarantine process. Here I had to have some help from one of the officials (who were all wearing full Tyvek suits, gloves, masks, and face shields, by the way) in order to download the "Self-Check Quarantine App," which is used to monitor everyone in Korea who is under quarantine. Through this app, I have to submit twice daily updates on my temperature, as well as any and all symptoms I might have. Failure to do this, and they will immediately contact the director of my school, who assumes responsiblity for me during my time in Korea.

Once the app was downloaded, I had to provide another official with the contact information of my director, so that he could call her to confirm that I was who I said, and that I had an appropriate place to stay during my quarantine.

After these two checkpoints (and so much paperwork!), I was finally able to get in line for customs.

Aside from the multiple checkpoints I had to go through, I had all of the necessary paperwork prepared, so the process was fairly straightforward. The hardest part, surprisingly, was juggling my carry-on, backpack, phone, and all the paperwork all at once. The whole process was very efficient, and I didn't want to be the one who slowed things down. If you are preparing to come to Korea in the near future, I would HIGHLY recommend checking as much luggage as you can so that you can be as hands-free as possible going through all the checkpoints. I think it would help cut down on the stress of the process a lot.

Once through customs, I was able to go to baggage claim to grab the rest of my luggage. After about 10 minutes of standing at the wrong turnstile, and meeting a very nice member of the Air Force, I finally figured out where my bags were and I was ready to move onto the next part of the journey: getting to Daegu.

Getting to Daegu turned out to be a little easier - but much longer - than I thought.

The next step after leaving baggage claim was finding the bus that would take me to the KTX (high speed train) station in Seoul - about 40 min away.

When I walked through the baggage claim doors into the outer areas of the airport, I was (surprise, surprise) directed to another official who placed a giant orange dot on my shirt and then asked me where I was going. Altogether too tired to worry about the giant orange dot, I just said I was looking for the KTX to Daegu. He motioned for me to follow the line of passengers to a sort of waiting area, where I could just make out some English letters that said KTX. I found yet another official in the KTX waiting area and told him I was trying to go to Daegu. He told me it would be about a 20 min wait for the bus. So I found a bench to sit on and looked at the time for the first time since I gotten off the plane. All those checkpoints, customs, baggage claim - it had taken about 2 hours to make it all the way through.

As I sat in the Incheon airport waiting for the bus, I did finally figure out what the orange sticker was for. All the incoming passengers that needed to go through quarantine (which was at least 95% of them), were being identified by their sticker. Anyone with an orange sticker was not allowed to leave the roped off sections of the airport except on sanctioned "quarantine" transportation.

So, my bus ended up arriving a little early, and had I not been paying attention, I might have missed it. I had to double check with the official that I was to follow the line of passengers being led away. We were accompanied by more officials to the bus stop, where we loaded onto, quite possibly, the most luxurious public bus I have ever been one. Leather reclining seats, personal A/C vents over each one, and it didn't even have any weird smells. I did my best to stay awake and get in a few glimpses of Seoul, but after about 15 min, I was dozing lightly.

I will say, I was actually very surprised to see that Seoul had quite a bit of smog. I'm not sure why I was so surprised, I've seen the smog in L.A. before, so this must have had more to do with my expectations of Korea, and I simply hadn't been expecting this.

I arrived at the KTX station in a little under an hour, where - you guessed it - we were escorted by another official to the ticket desk. There I paid for my ticket to Daegu and for the bus ride I had just taken. The combined total of both was roughly $53, which I thought was a pretty fair price! I had wondered briefly about the "free" bus ride, but there really wasn't any other way for me to get to the KTX station except for that bus.

The one bump in this fairly smooth process was that I had to wait about an hour in the KTX station for the next train, which would be leaving a little before 9PM. I was bleary-eyed, exhausted, and ABSOLUTELY STARVING at this point, so it was a loooong wait.

Oh, wait, I lied. There were two bumps. The other bump was hauling around all my baggage. I had a pretty efficient system set up, but I had 2 medium suitcases, 1 carry-on, a backpack, and my jacket that I was carrying with me. I had to load and unload them off the bus and the train, and they weren't light. I did struggle getting them on and off the KTX train as the steps leading onto the train were quite steep and, quite frustratingly, I was not strong enough to lift them up with one hand. To make matters worse, there were quite a few people getting in to the "quarantine" compartment on the train, so time was of the essence, as it seemed the train would leave whether people had finished loading or not. (I don't know if this is totally accurate, strictly speaking, it just seemed like the officials who led us to our compartment wanted us on the train as quickly as possible.) I was still standing in the space in between the train compartments when the train left the station.

On the train, a considerate man was telling the couple in front of me that the seat assignments didn't really matter, as long as it was just one person per pair of seats, and all of your baggage came with you to your seat. So, thanks to a healthy dose of eavesdropping, I was able to get seated without too much trouble.

After a few minutes of looking around, I realized you couldn't really see out of any of the windows, and so I settled in, knowing I had about an hour and a half until I reached Daegu. Sleep remained elusive, however, as I worried about sleeping through my stop. So I settled for a sort of dazed awareness as we sped across the main expanse of Korea under the cover of darkness.

Almost exactly an hour and a half later, the train stopped in Daegu.

Myself, and one other passenger who was disembarking in Daegu, were greeted on the platform by a train attendant who grabbed one of my many bags, and proceeded to lead the two of us directly out of the station and across the street to a collection of taxis.

This was my first glimpse of Daegu, and how I wished I could have stopped to take some pictures! But the attendant leading us was walking so fast I literally had to jog occasionally to keep up - the bag he had taken felt like a hostage he was using to force me to keep up. It was so bright outside of the train station, thanks to all the neon lights from the surrounding buildings, and there was still a decent amount of traffic on the streets despite the fact that is was now approaching 11PM.

When I arrived at the cluster of taxis, I was met by a man who, surprisingly, knew my name. I was quite expected, it seemed. I had to put all of my luggage in a pile, take my passport, and get a Covid-19 test done then and there in a little field tent. They took two samples, one from the back of my throat and the other from my nose. The woman who did the test was VERY aggressive....

I had been updating the director of my school as I got through each step on my way to Daegu, and she was going to be meeting me in front of the school when the taxi dropped me off. My two weeks in quarantine were going to take place inside an old classroom that the school had converted into a tiny apartment. After the two weeks are up I will be moving to the apartment where I will actually be living during my stay in Daegu.

If I had to hazard a guess as to why I am quarantining at the school, I would say it has to do with accountability. I obviously can't leave during the day when the students are here, and the school is locked up at night. I suppose I am also easier to manage here. If the director had to come talk to me in person for some reason, she has much better access to me if I am at the school.

In summary, South Korea has one of the most streamlined and efficient quarantine systems I have ever seen (not that I have much in the way of experience here). I can't even really be upset at the almost 7 hours it took for me to get from the airport to the school in Daegu because the whole thing ran like a well oiled machine. I was, in no small measure, quite impressed.

I know this post was a little tedious and there were no fun pictures to look at, but manhandling all my luggage across of most of South Korea left zero time to stop and take pictures of anything.

If you are planning to travel to Korea anytime soon, feel free to message me about the quarantine process, and I can answer your questions in more detail!

'Till next time!