I’m here in Incheon Airport again waiting for a flight. This time I’m going to Japan. It was around the same time two years ago that I went there, last time to Fukuoka. I remember it being a clean, neat well organized place with cute little houses and an atmosphere of culture. This time I’m going to Osaka, a bigger city and it will be nice to stay for a few days instead of just an afternoon as I did in ’04.
As fun as international travel is, I hate doing it for little stop-overs. I can’t find myself completely excited about going somewhere briefly. I like living in Korea you see, however being just a tourist means that I have to go somewhere every three months and then come back to renew my visa. I don’t feel I have particularly deserved a holiday, seeing as I just had one back in November when I went to the Philippines. When I go somewhere I like it to be a real tour, not just a few days here and there, but it seems like all my tours recently have been just that. Next time I swear to go and stay somewhere for a month or two to really explore.
In fact, I had always planned to go to Japan and not Korea originally. I had always had a fascination with Japanese culture and planned to go there and stay for a year or two. But then when it came time to choose a place to teach English, the schools in Korea wooed me with their offers of free air tickets and apartments, plus the possibility of saving more money, so I went. Then I started to like living here and that was that.
So here I sit, an hour before my flight wondering if I’m going to go there and realize that I made some horrible mistake 2 years ago by choosing Korea over Japan. Or maybe I’ll find that Japan, while bigger and more cosmipolitan, just doesn’t have that down-to-earthiness that I love about Korea.
I guess I’m about to find out.
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