The weekend trip to Seoul was a trip that I had long thought of during the week. While sitting at my desk watching the clock slowly tick away as I planned my lessons for the week or when I stood in the classroom lecturing classes of students who most likely had a stronger desire to be anywhere but the classroom more than me. It was an event that was weeks in the making. It would be the first time I would be meeting with the people I met during orientation in quite a while. We were going to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in style. We were going to laugh, travel and drink together in the largest city in Korea. Seoul could do nothing to hold us back. Good times were ahead.
Friday finally came and together my Friday traveling ritual of leaving the school as soon as the bell rang, finding a taxi and getting to my town’s train station as fast as possible began. 15 minutes later I was on a train out of my little town and on my way to bigger city of Daegu.
The plan was to meet in Daegu a large city that had trains that went all the way to Seoul. We would end up traveling a little longer than taking the speedy KTX but would end up spending less money in the end. I didn’t mind along as I was in good company, the train ride would most likely pass quickly.
We passed the time by talking about our teaching experiences, sleeping, staring out the window and walking around the dining car to stretch our legs. The dining car was where I found myself spending most of the time during the trip. Plenty of room to walk around and even a bar to sit down and have a beer. It was a places that was strangely peaceful and relaxing, more so than the cramped passenger seats. I sat down at the bar stool and stared out the window watching the city lights and other trains pass us by. As another train passed next to us and I caught a glimpse of the other passengers going about their business. A felt a smile creep across my face. Seeing so many random people, zipping along on a speeding train towards Seoul reminded me just how big Korea really was, and at any moment, the sheer number of people going thousands of directions doing thousands of things.
I felt comfort by this. For I knew that whenever I reached this point, this realization in a new places that I had truly become comfortable with my new surroundings. It’s the realization, the moment of clarity in which you understand how big the world is, how you are just a speck on its otherwise grand scale that you know how your experiences and expectations mean little if anything to the world. Your life, your experiences and how you experience them are all your own expectations. Like the poem Invictus said: “I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.”
Our trip was about to come to an end. Soon we would be in Seoul and resting for the night, ready to face the day tomorrow.
I was incredibly lucky to have this opportunity to see a new part of the world and to see it with great people. My life and experiences may mean nothing to others, but to me, they meant the world. They were opportunities that I did not want to go to waste. They were mine.
So I wasted no time. I traveled and I explored.
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