At this very moment, life couldn’t get much better. I’m sitting on a patio, under shade, sipping coffee, while online writing my blog. It sort of looks like this:
Pictured: Perfection
I’m not sure the photo does this situation justice, but trust me, it’s quite lovely. I just finished dropping a couple of couchsurfers off at Changdeokgung Palace, and now have a rare afternoon to myself to enjoy coffee, the blue spring skies, warm breeze against my skin, write, and take in the atmosphere.
I choose not to accompany my guests to the palace; my previous half a dozen visits are probably sufficient for now. With the blossoming of spring, I find myself in the Insadong area of Seoul almost every weekend. As the pinks, purples, and blessed greens returned to the trees, so too have the people returned to the streets. And Insadong was made to enjoy a good stroll. The neighborhood is tucked between the aforementioned Changdeokgung Palace, and the larger Gyeongbokgung Palace.
It’s winding, narrow streets make it a de facto pedestrian zone (or at least very nearly so), and every nook, cranny, and back alley is alive with shops, cafes, and restaurants. After nearly 9 months in Seoul, I’m completely baffled as to why anyone would want to actually own a car here. In most places Stateside, car ownership is all but necessary, but here? it’s just impractical, and expensive.
My couchsurfers are both students from New York. It’s pretty neat seeing Seoul through their eyes; this being the first time either of them have traveled to Asia. While I see Seoul as metropolitan and a comparatively easy city to navigate, they look upon the mundane as exotic, and the exotic as otherworldly. I’ve spoiled myself with my travels, and sometimes it’s nice to have a reminder of that fact.
One of the most startling moments during my year in Japan came one early October evening when I was riding th bus into downtown Nagasaki after work. I saw the sun setting over Nagasaki Harbor, and suddenly the fact hit me: this had become completely normal. I was living life, same as I would be doing back in Tennessee. I woke up, ate breakfast, went to work, worked 8 hours (oh those blessed 8 hour days!), went home, went out to dinner or cooked at home, and then went to bed to do it all over again. Perhaps for this reason, as much as any, explains my bout with depression shortly thereafter; I was no longer traveling, but merely living.
This time, there was no such “moment of truth.” I knew what to expect, and I was not surprised to discover that Seoul had become my home. However, the traveler lives on, and it is days like today that allow me to get the best of both worlds: being able to live my day-to-day life and enjoy the wonderful culture of Korea.