However, I have enjoyed keeping this blog. And I'm happy to be writing in it again.
It has been a month since my last post. And I wish I could say that's because I was out and about and so busy being and living. In truth, July was a month of recovery. It has been one of the hardest months I have ever gone through in a long time, and I wanted nothing more than to go home. No matter how much I dislike my job abroad or how uncomfortable and out of place I feel while living in another country, I have never felt the need to go back as strongly as I did last month.
Thankfully, it's over. August is here, and I'm back on track. Back to living, back to writing, back to the routine.
A trip outside of the country definitely helped.
Which is what I want this blog to be about.
For the first plane trip outside of South Korea, we headed towards Mongolia for five days. And it couldn't have come a better time.
It's outside of the city where things truly get beautiful. There was a lot of Georgia that came back.
* The suicidal cows crossing highways
But there was also a lot of uniqueness about Mongolia. There were yaks and camels and horses; wild horses and domesticated horses. There were birds, massive birds that would set themselves wherever they wished without worrying if there were people close by; there was sand, there were sand dunes; there was silence and there was music from an instrument made of horse hair. There were yurts on backyards, yurts on the city, yurts everywhere but never overcrowding. There were people who move, the land of the nomads, children under the age of six riding horses, there was an ancestry of the one of the most powerful conquerors that have ever lived. There was a rock shaped like a turtle; there were women monks, and there were mountain temples. The land of the big sky they call it, and boy oh boy, it truly is.
Not enough time there. Never enough time.
It has been a month since my last post. And I wish I could say that's because I was out and about and so busy being and living. In truth, July was a month of recovery. It has been one of the hardest months I have ever gone through in a long time, and I wanted nothing more than to go home. No matter how much I dislike my job abroad or how uncomfortable and out of place I feel while living in another country, I have never felt the need to go back as strongly as I did last month.
Thankfully, it's over. August is here, and I'm back on track. Back to living, back to writing, back to the routine.
A trip outside of the country definitely helped.
Which is what I want this blog to be about.
For the first plane trip outside of South Korea, we headed towards Mongolia for five days. And it couldn't have come a better time.
I enjoy cities, I do. But personally, nothing compares to the vastness of land with nothing but plains, mountains, trees, sky and the absence of civilization. Cities have all the comforts I have grown used to, and true, it would be very hard to give that all up in order to live in the country, but the more I've been exposed to these kind of places, the more I believe this is where I could be the happiest.
Even in Ulaanbaatar, not necessarily a small city for my standards, but definitely smaller than Seoul - the absence of people and noise was a welcomed blessing. People walked as if they weren't rushed, people walked looking ahead and not down to their phones. Even in the capital, there was a sense of tranquility you rarely find in Seoul. Don't get me wrong, it's there, but not as obvious as in Ulaanbaatar. There wasn't an overwhelming much to do in the city; we went to the National Museum and to the Dinosaur museum where they have a full fossil of the closest relative of the Tyrannosaurs Rex - the Tarbosaurus.
Even in Ulaanbaatar, not necessarily a small city for my standards, but definitely smaller than Seoul - the absence of people and noise was a welcomed blessing. People walked as if they weren't rushed, people walked looking ahead and not down to their phones. Even in the capital, there was a sense of tranquility you rarely find in Seoul. Don't get me wrong, it's there, but not as obvious as in Ulaanbaatar. There wasn't an overwhelming much to do in the city; we went to the National Museum and to the Dinosaur museum where they have a full fossil of the closest relative of the Tyrannosaurs Rex - the Tarbosaurus.
You don't go to Mongolia without appeasing your nerdy-dinosaur-geek-kiddie-but-not-really-self and go to see the dinosaur museum. You just don't. There were also a bunch of neat little restaurants and shops around the center of town.
However, if I find myself back in Mongolia (which I fully intend to), I would not go back to the city. You don't go to Mongolia to stay in the city.
It's outside of the city where things truly get beautiful. There was a lot of Georgia that came back.
* The suicidal cows crossing highways
* Crazy AF drivers (honestly, up there with the Georgians)
* The vast absence of buildings and houses along the roads and highways
* The friendliness of people
* The vast absence of buildings and houses along the roads and highways
* The friendliness of people
But there was also a lot of uniqueness about Mongolia. There were yaks and camels and horses; wild horses and domesticated horses. There were birds, massive birds that would set themselves wherever they wished without worrying if there were people close by; there was sand, there were sand dunes; there was silence and there was music from an instrument made of horse hair. There were yurts on backyards, yurts on the city, yurts everywhere but never overcrowding. There were people who move, the land of the nomads, children under the age of six riding horses, there was an ancestry of the one of the most powerful conquerors that have ever lived. There was a rock shaped like a turtle; there were women monks, and there were mountain temples. The land of the big sky they call it, and boy oh boy, it truly is.
Not enough time there. Never enough time.
Oh. And there was a Georgian food restaurant.
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