a very belated postcard

if i don't start writing now, i may never want to pick up the pen again.

because laziness is like a warm bed that embraces you in the wintry cold. once you fall into its arms, you just want to wrap yourself in and indulge in the displacement of time and space. but every sanctuary is in fact only a placenta. eventually you are expelled into a place where everyone knows you, addresses you by a certain name, and expects certain things out of you. they tell you life begins here, but you believe life was over long ago.

that sums up my trip, juxtaposed with how i feel now.

when a friend said that korea was a romantic place, i didn't buy it. as the days went by, i began to find the sense of isolation so comforting. getting lost in space and time, meeting strangers who resemble people you know or once knew, and lingering in an environment where people speak a language that you cannot comprehend, i never knew there could be beauty and solace in alienation.

in the absence of social, spatial and temporal relationships, i grew closer to myself. with every thing i did right, i learnt to treasure my strengths. with every failure, i learnt to accept my limitations. with every moment spent alone, i learnt to appreciate my solitude. i guess my friend was still right. because i did fall in love - with the food (my favourites were bibimbap, gimbap, ramyeon..), the people (especially the friendly ahjussis and ahjummas at the inns and on the streets), the scenery (volcano craters, green tea plantations, mountains and lakes), the shopping ($5 tops, cheap forever21 pants and 3kg worth of cosmetics). but most importantly, it was only when i was truly on my own, devoid of human contact, that i remembered to love myself the most.

so i guess the trip marks the end of my salad days. i will bring with me the remnants of the innocence and exuberance from my youth; and i hope in the years ahead, i can look back and remember the aliveness i once found in a foreign land.