SELF-STUPIDITY. ONE THING THAT YOU YOURSELF CANNOT FORGIVE

Ever since I traveled with Mia, I learned one thing from her, take as much pictures as you can! As I reviewed my old photo stock, the reality struck me, I never took enough pictures to keep the memory alive. So I learned my lesson, and on the next trip I always tried to capture everything that caught my eyes.

One of the things I like to share from my journey are the foods. No matter how mainstream and lame it is, I still like to take picture of my food before I ruin them. This happened in Seoul, Korea.

I went to this Korean BBQ restaurant that happened to be close to my hostel. It was winter when I came so to sit around the stove while waiting for your meat being cooked was very comforting.

First I took the picture of the stove, then the meat, then the restaurant, last thing was the soju glass that has indicator of how many percent of alcohol you’ll consume in every milliliter you put in your mouth.

In Korea, you eat with a lot of side dishes and while I was taking these pictures the side dishes came, and we needed more space on the table and I had to put my camera away. Not long from that, the meat was cooked and ready to be eaten.

It was our last day in Seoul so we had quite a lot of meal and prepared ourselves for the early flight tomorrow morning. We went back to the hostel early and repacked everything.

The next day, at the airport while I was waiting to be boarded, I wanted to take picture of the plane and the snow on the runway, so I dig in for my camera. Only to found out it wasn’t there. I usually put my camera in a little bag to protect the screen and I also checked the little bag, still wasn’t there. i get everything out of my bag and checked each and every corner but still hasn't found the camera. I asked my mom whether she remembered where my camera was and she said “you had it with you the whole time yesterday.” Now the tears are welling up in the corners of my eyes.

Then it hit me. Like those scene in a movie when everything just went in a slow motion, every memento of it just flashed before my eyes. When the side dishes came last night, I put the camera away to the side, near the soju glasses.

the view of the restaurant that i snatched from google maps

My first time to Japan, my first snow, and every other priceless memories are in there. I even have to gather the courage to retell this story here. Because believe me, losing your camera felt even worse than being broken hearted. Especially when it happened because of your own stupidity.