On Korea, and other places...

So, this is about the time that I declare my deep and undying love for Korea. But, in truth, while I really do love Korea, what I really love is simply that other place, where everything is different yet understandable. I love the feeling of having slipped under the water and suddenly seeing with a whole new perspective that which I had only glimpsed from the surface. I love being in the state where a previously foreign language stops being gibberish and starts making sense. Even if I don't understand it all (and often I never understand very much), there's a titanic shift between "this is just noise" and "no, wait, I can do this". After that, it's all just a matter of learning to talk, and who hasn't done that before?

I love all the subtle things that come from swimming in another world. The way I might pass someone in the hotel in Jeju and we make eye contact and both bow, imperceptibly to anyone else in the room, a tiny bit of relationship-building that I might never have noticed if I didn't know to look for it.

I love the way you can spend two minutes talking with someone and not have said anything at all - nothing except all the little relationship-building transactions that go into opening a communication channel. I love the feeling of adaptation. Learning to think a different way, communicate a different way, move a different way. I like going going to different places a returning a slightly different person than the one I was before.

I love, most of all, the feeling of different rather than weird and the notion that any level of culture shock is simply a matter of time and perspective. I love not knowing and then finding out , even though I'll never get to truly finding out everything.

So, what do you like about travel?