Bullet-train musings (Part god-knows-what)

It took me a long time to figure out why not everyone would want to escape their home and find a new life in this vast world. I'm daily stung by the beauty of this little peninsula. True, as my buddy Bart reminded me, I don't take my backpack and just explore as often as I once did, but I still leave my door everyday excited that I'll probably see something strange, surreal and very un-western. These moments of awe are regular and significant. Sometimes they cause me to write, other times just think. But the problem is I'm taking in this beauty alone. Or, even if there are people beside me, they're not the ones I want to be next to me as we spy this coastline with smoke coming off the mountains behind. And I really can't bring my old world here. Occasionally, with the closest of new life friends, we can share our old worlds through a very well-told story. It reminds me of a discussion I had yesterday about love and marriage. Marriage, she said, depends on the mutual sacrifice of both partners. I agree, I said, but my father raised me to be selfish enough to put my own ambitions first. And it's this selfishness that allowed me to leave everyone behind and come to Korea- the best decision of my young-adult life. It's this selfishness that gave this coastline for my eyes only. And so, this image will die in my eyes.