Last Updated on March 30, 2022
Sorry, I haven’t posted a weekly update in almost a month! Life has been a little hectic lately. I’ll give you a quick update about my recent trip to Thailand, along with a COVID-19 update and how the recent Coronavirus is affecting some of my future travel plans.
To start, back in Week 31, the hubby and I were getting ready for our Thailand trip. This was all happening right when COVID-19 was starting to become a real problem in China and beginning to spread into South Korea. We were both worried that our trip may not happen with many flights changing or cancelling travel in the area.
Fast-forward to Thursday, February 13 – three days before we were to leave for Thailand. The hubby received a call that our flight from South Korea was cancelled due to COVID-19 and that we would be able to receive a refund or flight credit. We took the refund and were able to find another airline that was still flying out of Korea into Thailand. Fortunately, a bit of good came out of this. We had to push our flight forward, so that we would end up leaving a day early. Rather than arriving mid-afternoon on February 16, we were able to arrive the night of February 15 and have a full day of exploring ahead of us.
**I will not go into any details of our Thailand trip here, but will post a daily journal of our adventures in Thailand each day following this post. What I will say, though, is that our Thailand trip was a trip of a lifetime – probably one of our favorite trips we have been on yet! Make sure you check out my journals and future Thailand posts that will be coming soon to read all about this incredible trip.
The day we were to be heading back to Korea is right when the COVID-19 case count spiked from double-digits to high triple-digits. If it were up to me, I would’ve stayed put in Thailand for a while after seeing this. Unfortunately, the hubby had boring grown-up things to do, like get back to work.
We flew back to South Korea and had no issues getting into the country. Though, we did experience seeing a whole flight being escorted into quarantine. Since then, we’ve been taking many precautions with plenty of hand-washing and wearing face masks when appropriate.
This past week we got back to find numbers spiking to hundreds of new cases of COVID-19 every day. I had plans to go up to one of the large Army Bases, called Camp Humphreys, on the Wednesday I returned this past week. I took the bus from Kunsan Air Base, which usually takes about two hours to get there. We were about 10 minutes away and the bus came to a halt. I looked out the window to see lines of cars every which way heading towards base.
Camp Humphreys is a much larger base than Kunsan Air Base, and has seen many more local cases of COVID-19. After a least an hour of waiting to get to the gate, we had to get off the bus before getting on base and wait in a long line to get our temperature taken and to be questioned. Somehow, our bus driver got questioned and then just took us out of the line to go on base.
A few hours after getting on base, I had an errand to run right off base. I tried to get a cab, but he refused to go off base because of the virus. This was beyond frustrating, because this off-base errand was the sole reason I went up to Camp Humphreys that day. I finally found a cab to take me, but getting back on base was a whole other fiasco.
After running my errand, I had to call the cab company to pick me up so I could make it to my bus back to Kunsan. Unfortunately, the cab company told me they could not go off base. They gave me the number to a local cab company, in which they hung up on me because they only spoke Korean. After some pleading, I was finally able to get a base cab to come retrieve me.
The cab driver arrived and we headed to the gate to get back on base. We had to go through the COVID-19 screening again, but this time just in our car. The military personnel took the cab driver and I’s temperatures and then asked us questions about any symptoms and where we have been in the past 14 days.
I was then asked, “Have you been to Thailand recently”. Uh oh… I should’ve said no but… “Yes, I just got back three days ago!”. “WE NEED A SECOND SCREENING OVER HERE!!!!”, the guy yelled, as if I were contagious or something. The cab driver stopped the meter and followed security’s instructions of taking me to a side building. I was questioned again in the cab before I was asked to go into a building to be further tested.
I opened the door with one finger, trying to limit as much exposure to this area I was being forced into because of the stupid question I answered. I was greeted with at least three or four staff members in full-up masks, gowns and gloves, as if about to perform an operation. I was told to sit down and had my temperature taken again and then asked a series of questions. There was a Korean in there as well being questioned. All I could think was that if I didn’t have Coronavirus before, I did now from being in this room.
I was set free after providing my contact information and was quite surprised to see that my cab was still waiting for me. I bet he was glad he came to pick me up off base. I sanitized everything after being in that room. Once I made it home that evening, I Lysoled everything that I brought with me that day, took a long hot shower, and probably washed my hands a good hundred times. That day-trip was quite the mistake.
After a couple days of getting over my anxiety that I had picked up Corona from Camp Humphreys, COVID-19 was becoming more and more of a real issue being brought to our attention. According to our commander on base, we are to restrict ourselves as much as possible to base. We are not allowed to dine anywhere off base, be in crowds of 20 people or more, or visit specific areas of the region. Even many social functions and work trips were cancelled.
A majority of the other spouses that were out here with their husbands have decided to leave, since we are “non-command sponsored”, meaning that we are unable to receive medical care if we were to get sick. Three of us remain here on base. I am currently trying to decide what my best move is. I can try to go back to the states early and not see the hubby until July, or I can try to stick it out here a little bit longer.
With being restricted to base, we also decided to move back to the dorms. We were planning on doing this eventually, but sped up the process once we realized how big of a deal COVID-19 was becoming. We spent the last few days moving everything from our off-base apartment back on base. This puts me at move #5 in the last two years. Boy, am I ready to settle in one place soon.
In terms of traveling, I had plans to go to Taiwan and Singapore with a friend next week. Unfortunately, Taiwan made it clear that they would be quarantining anyone entering from South Korea for 14-days. So, that trip was kaput. We considered going to Singapore still, but we are worried Singapore will begin placing travelers from South Korea into quarantine soon (and we don’t want to be the Guinea pigs that get to try that out).
The hubby and I were also still planning on doing our honeymoon out here. We got married in August 2018, but life has been so beyond hectic between moves, Weapons School, and other things. We decided to wait until we were out here to celebrate somewhere we both have been wanting to go – New Zealand and Australia. Our trip was planned for the first two weeks of April, but unless this gets drastically better in the new few weeks, that trip will not happen either, and the hubby has no time in his schedule to move his leave back at all.
Overall, life since we got back from Thailand has been super stressful with all of this COVID-19 going around. This virus is causing so many problems with not only travel, but quality of life. We are going day-by-day right now, trying to figure out what my next move is. I will keep you posted with any updates. In the meantime, don’t forget to check out my Thailand Getaway Daily Journals that I will be posting in the next few days. That’s all for now, drifters! Until next time, stay healthy and Go Catch the Drift!
Ta ta for now, drifters!
XO,
Kylie
Missed last week’s update? Check it out right here!
