One Last Ride

Hello there…is there even anyone left?

It’s been a very long time since my last blog entry, but hey? What do you expect when the experiences written about are now halfway across the world. 

It’s rather bittersweet to be so distant from such memories. Memories of lighthearted ‘trauma’ which have now turned to flutters of remembrance that leave an ever so sour taste in my mouth, with a hint of heartache. 

See, I can be somewhat serious and poetic when writing.

Right now, even though it’s been less than a year, I can’t help but feel a hint of nostalgia and longing to be driven back into moments I once dreaded. Not because I’m a glutton for punishment but because those moments urged me into a creative drive that I struggle to come by these days in the same way.

Well. I can only stop and start myself again and so in order to do just that – to turn the page onto a new chapter of unknown adventure, I need to close this one, right? Something I’ve been putting off for a long time because by saying goodbye to The Bus Blog, I’m saying an even harder goodbye to a part of Korea I cherished so much – my lived and documented creative experience – an experience whereby moving forward means no longer revolving it around Korea but something else…for some reason, that scares me.

I know this piece isn’t anything witty like I would have hoped. It takes this final chapter away from the consistency of the previous ones and makes it its own obnoxious theme – profound thoughts and reflective. Ew.

The character development didn’t come gradually. It simply knocked on the door and demanded I finally sit down and write it.

So here I am – writing it.

Whilst the blogs didn’t necessarily come to a gradual end and it wasn’t exactly a chronological journey from when I arrived to the moment I left, I felt the writing would be most authentic and ‘organic’ (whatever I mean by that), if I simply wrote about the things I wanted to write about.

The thought of writing about an emotional journey back home after Korea was too much, and when thinking about doing it, it left an unidentifiable expression of distaste on my face. I just didn’t want to turn something witty into something soppy and wet. Instead, I would have opted for something more light-hearted, wispy and silly as usual, but my journey home was anything but that. It was mundane and pretty subpar if you’d ask me. The only chaotic and traumatic part about that journey was the endless turbulence that now seems to taunt me on all my flights moving forward.

Since the Jeju plane crash back in 2025 and my first experience with ‘take-off’ turbulence coming back to Korea on my final visit home, I have since developed the irrational fear of stressing the CRAP out when feeling any signs of a rocky flight. Don’t even get me started on the orange juice I spilled all over myself during our New Zealand flight turbulence. That was probably the worst one yet.

I have two possible reactions to shitty flight turbulence. Number 1: I simply close my eyes and sing Kumbaya, My Lord to calm my nerves. Does it work? Not necessarily in the way I’d like, but hey, I’m still here, I guess. Number 2: I raw-dog the flight until the turbulence stops as if any of my sudden or even tiny movements will make a difference to the outcome of the plane bonking around. Trying to read a book or watch a movie? Nope, even that is not allowed. I simply need to sit and stare into the abyss, which anyhow leads me to Number 1’s response.

Anyway, let’s steer back to the initial topic at hand – closing this chapter for good.

The reason I need to close it at all is because I would love to make and self-publish the final volume of The Bus Blog. One last witty adventure in the form of a second physical book…but to do just that, I need to write the final closing chapter – this chapter.

Of course, there’s also the epilogue, but that comes AFTER all this. So, I’m not too worried about it right now. Future me can battle it out when she has to sit and proof-read this mess, only to also get her friend to do it, only to find that there are still in fact SEVERAL painful mistakes left unidentified in the final print. Ah yes, the word Waldos that could never be found. 

I’ll try my best to do a better job at finding mistakes but alas, they do somewhat add to the raw charm of self-publishing, I guess. Who needs an agent or someone to properly check your books when you can spell the word DOUBT without the T or date a 2022 entry as a 2023 one (cries).  I just sincerely hope coming across these mistakes don’t urge you to jump out of a window the same way they urge me to. That, or dig a hole and live in it forever.

***

To anyone who has followed this journey of mine, thank you so much. I cannot fathom I have even had any regular readers let alone new ones, but it’s been so encouraging to know there are people out there that are in fact interested in what I had to write.

I’m sorely going to miss writing about these adventures, but I have since realized that I have others I’d like to write about and for me to finally do that, The Bus Blog and I need to part ways. Of course, the blog will forever live online, and I won’t dare to remove it. However, the blog will grow into something bigger. Something that goes beyond the buses and into a completely new territory.

Whilst I’m a bit nervous to figure that one out, I am very excited to embrace a new theme, story and adventure.

Change has never been my strong point. Change and I at times have an awful relationship. I know many people hate Change, but Change is here to stay and because of that, I think I need to start learning how to embrace Change more lovingly and willingly. The more we fight it, the harder it is to embrace it and I’m tired of dragging out our constant brawls.

I’m ready to befriend Change and hopefully…in the near future, we can become great friends.

With all this said and done, this is it. This is the final paragraph (lol, well that was a lie as I proof-read over this, I see several more beneath it) and so I want to say goodbye to the buses I rode daily. Goodbye to the people walking different paths of life that I was able to see glimpses of on those buses. Goodbye to my neighbour whom I never got to know. (I wonder if he’s still wearing those bright white sneakers…maybe they’ve become a little dirty by now). Goodbye to the interesting smells I would come across daily by taking different buses. Goodbye to the stress that came with having to navigate my way out of the seats that were terribly walled in by minimal space and people. Goodbye to the drivers – both the friendly and not-so-friendly ones. Goodbye to the feeling of finding the perfect seat or landing a spot on the bus during slow periods. Goodbye to the views and shimmers of light I would glimpse out the windows on my way here and there. Goodbye to the group of rowdy middle-school and high school boys I journeyed with during my last year in Gwangju - ya’ll are still not and will never be missed. Ugh, good riddance to that level of anxiety.

Whilst all this may now be a distant memory, I know those memories will never be forgotten because I took the time to document them all (well most of them) – to embrace and absorb as much as I could so that the heartbreak of saying goodbye hopefully wouldn’t have to be so hard. (Plot-twist: it still is and will forever be very, very, very, very hard).

But it’s time.

So, with this final read, I bid you my dear reader, a bittersweet goodbye, too. Whilst I hope you find your way back to the blog occasionally, I hope some of you can also look forward to the next journey, whatever that may look like. (For now, the idea is still simmering). 

I hope you look forward to the physical copy of Volume 2! There is still much to be played with and dealt with before this chapter is closed for good for good. 

But until then, this WILL be the very last entry in The Bus Blog.

So, thank you for choosing to ride the Tay Bus and for enjoying these crazy Korea adventures with me. You definitely made it feel less lonely and more purposeful at times.

With all that being said, we have finally arrived at the very last stop of our journey. There are no more buses to catch on this adventure, so until we hopefully meet again on the next adventure, I will say goodbye one final time.

Until the next witty adventure,

Now Retired Bus Blog Driver Tay