One of the greatest travesties in my life is that it took me this long to visit Korea. Frankly, there’s an overarching travesty that it took me about as long to even cross an ocean in the first place, but the point remains as someone of Korean heritage and to some degree, upbringing, it does seem a little not right that I didn’t once visit Korea once until I was 34 and well into my own as an adult.
Admittedly, the idea of visiting Korea didn’t intrigue me that much growing up. Being born in the United States as pretty much as American as American can be, this was always home to me. Neither of my parents really talked much about Korea growing up, nor did they ever really put any ideas in my head of wanting to go. Maybe we were just so dirt-poor when I was growing up that they didn’t want to make any difficult promises to fulfill.
A long time ago, there was an opportunity to go to Korea on some sort of church group; not that my entire family’s been tremendously religious, but it was an economical means to get there. I’ve always been kind of nihilistic about religion in the first place, so it didn’t really interest me that much, and at that age, my priorities were vastly more interested in indulging in my no-school summer vacation, playing video games and being a slug at home. Ultimately, my dad and my sister went, and I’ll always remember just how tan they were when they got home, and there’s a photo of the two of them riding a horse that always stuck with me as symbolic of an opportunity that I probably missed out on because of my youthful stupidity.
I’m also ashamed to admit that like most nerds, I went through a very weeaboo-ey phase where everything Japan did was gold, compared to the shit everywhere else. I took Japanese in high school in addition to all the anime and J-culture I indulged in, and even to a point where I treated their stuff on a pedestal above even my own heritage. Obviously, I grew out of it, and developed a sense of nationalistic pride with age, but I’m not going to deny that there was also a time in which I probably would have preferred to visit Japan over Korea for a first-ever trip to Asia.*
*I should point out that I once said that Korea should be the first-ever Asian country I visited; how often times I forget that just a month prior on the European cruise, visiting Turkey, technically meant I set foot on Asia for the first time there, before I stepped foot in Korea
Thankfully, all was rectified recently. As my six readers might very well know, I’ve just recently gotten back from Korea after a lengthy, nearly two-week stay in the Motherland. I think I’m overcoming jetlag pretty quickly, on account of the fact that I stayed up for nearly 30 hours the day I flew back to the States, and have tried my best to get some good continuous sleep, and I think I’m just generally resilient as balls when it comes to coping with fatigue.
I understand if one wouldn’t be interested what will probably be 2,000 more words and observations about Korea that might populate the rest of this post, so I’ll boil it down initially: Korea was great. This was an incredible trip that I’m so happy I took, and I absolutely loved visiting Korea and being immersed in the culture of my heritage. I enjoyed all of the places we visited, and I feel that I learned a good deal about my parents’ home, the country, and accumulated a great deal of cultural experience seeing first-hand the differences between America and Korea. I indulged in a lot of sights, food and the national past-time of shopping until your feet beg for mercy, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I look forward to the next time I can have the opportunity to visit again.
You’re more than welcome to stop right here with a boiled-down summary of Korea, but what kind of brogger would I be if I didn’t elaborate on thoughts and observations using way more words and clichés than necessary?
Basically, all throughout my trip, I’d jotted down notes and observations on my phone, because I don’t want to forget things, or there are things that I know I’m going to want to write about later. I don’t know if this makes me a dedicated brogger, just an overly thorough nerd, perhaps both, but I don’t regret doing it, and it makes recollecting on the 11 days spent in Korea that much easier to recount and give me some semblance of organized thoughts to barf words about.
Initially, I was going to try to encapsulate my trip into a singular post, but while trying to write it out, I realized that it was going to be longer than Gone With the Wind, and I didn’t feel that I could hash out anything without feeling like I was making too long of a post. That being said, I chose to break down the trip into varying stories about my experiences, and one day, when my brog is back up, they’ll be available for my six readers or anyone else to read.
