I arrived at Incheon airport in Seoul on August 25th, 2024, exhausted from a very rough three full days of travel, and with practically no Korean knowledge. Korean is a language with a completely different alphabet and no outwardly visible overlap with Japanese, the language I had been studying. I walked into it alone, drained, scared. And it became the best semester of my life.

      Going into Seoul, my goal had shifted from my gain-fluency-framework to something much harder to put a name to: I wanted to prove to myself that I could adapt to anything. And boy did I… South Korea was the test I had not prepared for, and I chose it anyway. Or rather, I suppose it chose me. Kookmin University was the only institution willing to accept me as a late-entry exception student when I made the decision to leave Togitsu, Nagasaki. It was either go somewhere completely new and unknown(the scary part), or a stay in a place that I already knew was not right for me. I chose the unknown. I credit faith and fate for guiding that decision, because I cannot comprehend how differently my life would have gone had I let fear win. (I do not let myself think about it. I just stay thankful.)

      Adapting to Seoul in the first weeks looked like this: arms full of clothes for the laundromat, getting on the wrong bus, not knowing how to pay the fare, and standing in the aisle close to tears; until an elderly lady, a halmeoni, stepped forward, paid my fare without a word of shared language, and waved away my gratitude, but with the kindest smile. I have never forgotten her. That moment kind of became a symbol for everything Seoul gave me: unexpected grace in unfamiliar places. Seoul also has its own transit apps entirely distinct from anything I had used in Japan, its own rhythms, its own unspoken rules. But I learned them, one embarrassing mistake at a time.

      Culturally, Seoul was a revelation. If Japan had felt like a society that had decided on its values and carefully defended them, South Korea felt like a society in vibrant, energetic motion. My friends had described it as an "Asian America," a phrase that is reductive but captures something real about the pace, the openness, the synthesis of East and West happening in real time. I was more comfortable in Seoul than I had been anywhere I had ever lived, which surprised me given that I had immense preparation for Japan and walked into Korea completely blind. The communal warmth of Korean social culture: eating together, going out together, the group-first energy that felt welcoming rather than rigid– made adaptation faster than I had expected. K-pop, global fashion, centuries-old street food beside international chain restaurants: Seoul is a city that synthesizes rather than resists, and I fell in love with it almost immediately.

      I was stared at every day. Blonde hair, blue eyes, I understood that I was visibly foreign in a largely homogeneous East Asian society. In Korea, that visibility felt more immediate and direct. In comparison to my time in Japan, where there were still stares, they were far less frequent or noticeable, shaped by a stronger social norm of minding one’s own business. At first, the attention in Korea affected me. At some point, though, I suppose I was able to let go of those feelings, and after a few weeks, I barely noticed it at all. Now, those stares hardly register as a memory. It was a small shift, but a meaningful one, and I think it marked a quiet kind of personal growth.

      Academically, my Korean Society and Culture course at Kookmin ended up being one of the most thought-provoking classes of my time abroad. One of the things my professor taught was the history of Korea under Japanese occupation and she even shared stories from her own grandfather’s experiences during that time. It offered a perspective that stood in stark contrast to the more restrained narratives I had encountered in Japan, where difficult aspects of the past were seemingly softened or left largely unexamined. The contrast made me more conscious of how differently history can be framed and taught depending on where you are, especially when it comes to questions of accountability. It is something I still think about and have found myself referencing more often than I expected.

      The food in Seoul was extraordinary. It was spicy, layered, and deeply flavorful. What I had not expected was the underlying sweetness in almost everything, which I later learned comes from the Korean use of sugar to balance acidity. It took getting used to, but I did get used to it. 

      The friendships I made were equally unexpected in their depth. There were hundreds of international students at Kookmin University, and we were all very well-mixed in classes, so we were able to meet and interact with students from all over the world, not just South Korea. The American student population was small in comparison to some, but still quite large in my eyes. There were about 10-14 Americans that I regularly spent time with, and we naturally sorted into two loose groups: those in on-campus dorms and those of us in off-campus apartments. There was no drama in the division; we spent a great deal of time together regardless. But the off-campus life gave me an independence and a daily rhythm I treasured. I found my people. I found a sister, too. A Texan who understood exactly what it meant to be far from little ole home and love it anyway. And I fell in love, with the school, the life, the city, and with a wonderful French boy who I met in Basic Korean class. And with a year and a half later as of writing this, I am still happily head over heels in love with.

      The biggest thing Seoul taught me, the thing that crept up on me slowly and then hit all at once, is that home does not have to be where you were born. I had always struggled to understand how another place could become home. I found out the hard way: by having to leave one. Walking through that departure security line, stepping onto the plane, buckling my seatbelt to head "home," I felt my heart being ripped out of my chest; coldly, harshly, excruciatingly. I had built a home in Seoul without realizing it, and I only understood that fully in the moment that I was losing it. The knowledge that you can find home anywhere is one of the most important things I have learned in this semester as well as in my entire life. 












Leaving Seoul was the most difficult moment of my study abroad experience, and maybe even life. It was the first time I truly understood what it means to form a deep connection to a place and then have to walk away from it.







Oh and I didn't even mention how I had to navigate the hospital system while there haha! OOF