There and back again

It's been too long. I've been thinking about what to say about my reverse-culture shock, but my mind just keeps getting cluttered with too many thoughts for anything to really become clear and in-focus. So since I can't think of anything at the moment, I'll just write about what I do know now: my short, but sweet, visit home.

The first two weeks of November I had a chance to see my family for the first time in a year. I also got the opportunity to see some of my friends who were around home or in Ottawa at the time. Some were unexpected, but all very enjoyable encounters getting reacquainted with everyone.

Having already done the 20+ hour flight from Canada to here, I knew somewhat to expect flying back home. I spent a lot of my time reading on the plane and between flights, waiting for my connections. As opposed to my flight here when I watched just about every movie available on my personal monitor.

One book in particular I really enjoyed was The Zanzibar Chest, lent to me by my good friend Brian.

At once a modern and a historic love story The Zanzibar Chest is also an epic narrative charting the fates of men and women who interfered with, embraced and were ultimately transformed by twentieth-century Africa.

It was a very good read and really made me interested even more in traveling abroad and expanding my journalistic endeavors. Adventure, passion, life lessons, who wouldn't want to read it? Anything with that much emotion and intensity put into it is bound to be good.

My time in Canada was split between my two homes: Ottawa and Cape Breton. In Ottawa I finally got to see my sister who has been away for almost as long as I have. She's been off battling for the greater good in the distant country of Afghanistan.

I didn't actually get a chance to speak about it with her, but I figure when she wants to, she'll talk about it. I have the utmost respect for what she's done. I didn't want to bring back any possible bad sentiments during what short time I had with her.

While I was in town I was treated to some free tickets to an Ottawa Senators game by my brother-in-law Jamie, who won them in a raffle at work. Not only were they free, but they were six rows back from the ice. I was ecstatic.

Here is some nice rebound work by Senators' captain, Daniel Alfredsson, to tie it up in the first period:



Even better was Jason Spezza's first goal of the season in overtime to win the game.



My sister also prepared an amazing Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner while I was staying with her in Ottawa, which we aptly named "Thank Christ" or "Christgiving"...I'm still not sure which one sounds more appropriate. Like most people while they're on a short visit home, I stocked up on food, new clothes and filled the rest of my time doing nothing productive.

As for my time at my actual home, I got to meet some new additions to the family. Lucy, a cute black puppy, seen here with her new best friend (and my parents' other dog) Nika.



The other newest arrival was a kitten found by my brother, which he named Buttons. She doesn't look it, but she's a feisty and fierce little ball of fluff.



This kitten is so cute I had to throw in another video of it:



Everyone at home was filled with questions about how my time in Korea was so far and what I've got planned for the future, which is to be expected, but I think I enjoyed things more when I wasn't the focus of attention.

I forgot how much I missed the small things. Waking up to a frosty morning, grabbing a cup of tea and sitting, staring out the kitchen window to a lake that's so calm it could be a giant mirror.



That image will be imprinted onto my brain forever. Waking up day after day as I kid I never realized how beautiful it was, and how lucky I was to see it everyday. Just thinking about it now calms my mind and puts me into a state of tranquility.

Walking around the property with my mom I got to see the other changes that have taken place while I was away. My cousins' families are growing. They're building new homes, renovating cottages and making new roads around our shared ancestral land.

I look off into the woods where my cousin and I had once built a mighty log cabin, of which nothing remains. My mother recollects how everything used to look when she was small, recalling that there was plenty of farmland.

My grandmother has told me many times how there used to be nothing, not even trees, which until recently, used to engulf the property. Only now is the forest slowly starting to be cut away, as my extended family grows and the land is divided amongst us even more.

I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, my family is getting bigger and we'll all have somewhere we can be close and share our time together. On the other, I'm seeing my childhood realm of imagination being transformed into an increasingly busy suburb.

Having visited as many people as I could, and gotten all the supplies I'll need for the next year (I hope). I drove down to Wolfville to visit my younger sister, whom I enjoyed dinner with before my flight back to Seoul the next morning.

I was a little concerned when people told me about their reception of United Airlines, considering all my flights from Halifax to Seoul were with them, but was surprised to find that it wasn't so bad. I don't know if it was because I read more, or that I was taking gravol, or that it was because I was going back to Jeju, but I felt at ease on my journey back to Korea.

Touching down in Tokyo I was welcomed by a spectacular sunset:



Always a good sign in my opinion.

Flying back into Jeju the next morning I had a feeling of coming home. I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, seeing my friends again, eating Korean Food, and getting back to teaching.

"Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. "

-Oliver Wendell Holmes