Vacation

At first, I thought it was too soon to book another trip back home, a two and a half months since I returned to Korea in late August. I figured everything would be the same, my friends would be the same, my parents would be the same, my brothers would be the same, and my dog would be the same.

However, as that mid January date approached in the shivering Korean coldness, I longed for that warm Californian heat.

When I returned home, it was more or less...the same. The sights, sounds, smells, even my little cousins running around. It was like I, to use a nerdy reference, quick saved it and then came back to it six months later. As I expected, every was...pretty much the same.

But I noticed some things were changing, small things, little things. I noticed that a few my friends were slowly moving on with their lives, going on to bigger and better things. It was subtle, it was small things. Different goals in their lives in as much as there were different goals in my life. The trite thing to say is say is that the only constant is change, which is true, however, it's always interesting to see these things happen in little snippets.

After my return home, I went to Hong Kong to visit a good friend of mine from college. It was my first true vacation. Anyone who visits home knows that going home is never a vacation, it's always stressful, always family to see, always things to do, always business to take care of.

Hong Kong was the first time where I brought my bags, money, and simply enjoyed myself and had fun.

In a word, it was... awesome. It was nice simply exploring the city, it was nice reconnecting with my friend and making many more in the process. It's amazing seeing new sights and sounds. It was the same feeling I had when I first arrived in Korea. Everything's so new. It's like new car smell...but everywhere!

Even so, with so much fun to be had, I was constantly thinking about the next step. I've always realized that teaching abroad was my before 30 career before I settled down. As I was approaching my later years in college, I asked older, successful people one question: If you could do it all over again, what would you do? They all replied: I would've traveled more.

I never had the opportunity to travel. That's why I'm doing it now. However, I digress.

I believe now that have stumbled upon what I want to do later in life.