back on the road again

It's been a whirlwind of a week, and weekend, but here I am in the Incheon (Seoul) airport on Christmas Eve, waiting for my flight to Bali. There's been a 7-hour delay, and I'm missing the two books that didn't make the packing cut something fierce, but honestly I can't remember being more content in months.

It was a sprint to the finish at work, a week of both angelic and hellion children ... and not much in between. Getting through it - especially Saturday school with the little ones - is something of a blur, but by 6:30 Saturday I was scrunched into the Village shuttle amid animated Tagalag (Filipino) conversation, headed toward civilization and adventure. Spent a fabulous night on the town - my first since moving to the mountain - in the company of the best tour guide/translator/cultural ambassador, aka a native friend, and caught a few hours of remarkably comfortable sleep on the overnight commuter train to Seoul. (Tourist note: in Daegu, saw a great jazz/blues band of young Korean guys at a fun club called "That," then hit an upscale bar called "AU.") Then I rambled around in the big city for a few hours, sweet-talking my way into the newsroom of one of the major dailies (which ended up being dead, being as it was Sunday), hit the Namdaemun market and ended up walking in dress boots from there to the Seoul Tower (a mostly vertical jaunt), which wasn't my brightest idea ever, but definitely memorable. Finally dragged myself over to the hostel I'd booked near the airport and found a fairly ramshackle building but clean, comfortable, private rooms/bathrooms, a kind couple running the place, and a value that absolutely can't be beat - I definitely recommend the Incheon Airport Backpackers Hostel.

Then this morning I met a fellow passenger for my Bali flight on the shuttle over to the airport, a worldly Korean doctor from the Gwang-ju area, and the airport time has been pleasant enough, chatting away for the past few hours about language, food, culture and travel.

It's the first big trip I've done, and it's great feeling like I'm finally getting to what I came abroad for ... or at least one of the major reasons - travel. But being out and about has also made me realize I'm feeling more at home in Korea - that comfortable sense of knowing transit lines, landmarks, enough phrases to get around, good friends, and the revelation that I'll miss those Korean staples kimbap and kimchi a little in the next three weeks. Even the markets don't overwhelm me the way they used to. Plus it reminds me of all the things I love about this country - mostly the kind and friendly people, and the perks of being American here (though there's baggage with that, too, but I'll save all that for another post).

And it's vacation, one in which I'll be seeing old friends at the day's end and heading to holidays on the beach. So call me Pollyanna, but I swear life couldn't be better. How did I get lucky enough to be born where I did, when I did, to whom I did, to afford me the opportunity to do this? Thinking on it too much puts me dangerously close to guilt-trip territory, especially the more I see all the lifestyles in the world, but today I feel like it's the best Christmas present ever.