How A Walk Through Seoul In The Rain Rescued Me

by Terry Heick

The COVID pandemic has changed many of our behaviors and norms as a society–one notable alteration being a tendency to be and feel more isolated.

Though the idea of ‘feeling isolated’ is a complex one (obviously neurologically-based and thus possible at any time and not just during a pandemic), it is at least partly connected to our ability to use the physical spaces around us.

When that isn’t possible, we seek digital means–videos, movies, and social media, for example. But more often than Netflix, during the last year, (in addition to reading) I’ve turned more to virtual reality, Google Earth, and YouTube videos.

Here is a 90-minute walk through Seoul, South Korea in the rain. There is no talking or scene edits or narrative–just the experience of going somewhere else and being somewhere else and see somewhere else all while surrounded by people who aren’t really there. It’s a very surreal thing we take for granted in the 21st-century.

I had my children use Google Earth to trace the man’s walking journey and part of that was using landmarks from the video to identify his location but you don’t need to create a learning blend through combination learning. The idea is digital movement through physical spaces–to ‘visit’ places, for now, through a screen: walking through an alley with small restaurants as a kind of witness, the sound of rain on the umbrella a soothing rhythm of its own.

A 90-Minute Walk Through Seoul, South Korea In The Rain

Using Google Earth To ‘Travel’

Of course, the big idea here is movement. Connecting–one of the instinctive primary human drives. So it’s not limited to walking or cities. How about a behind the scenes tour of the Grand Palais in Paris, France using Google Earth?

Snow Falling In A Bulgarian Village In 4K

Or watching hours of a dusk snowfall over a snowy village in Bozhentsi, Bulgaria?

A 60 Minute Drone Flight Over The Alps

You can take hour ‘flights’ through the Alps, too: