Reflections on home and abroad

I've been back in Daegu a week now. Back at work and back doing the same things I was before my brief holiday. The first thing my co-workers asked me was how was my holiday? OK I said. And it was. It wasn't great but it was necessity for me at the time. Nice to be back home, great to see family and friends, good to eat and drink whatever I wanted and fantastic to be away from Daegu's Summer intensity. Important too to be away from work, to be able to do what I felt like and importantly, not to have to deal with any children.

Still it is good to be back at work - I am that rarest of beasts, someone who enjoys being at work - and back at my apartment. I've been in Korea for about four and a half years. It's been my home and my workplace for a long time and there are plenty of things I like about being here. Even if I do write some negative things it doesn't mean I don't like it here.

Being home helped blow away some of the cobwebs from my eyes. From time to time I convince myself that home is great, home is the best place to be and to be living anywhere else is a poor substitute. This is not the case. There are some things that I need that are back in England but life is good here. I don't regret being here now, however gruesome this weather is.

There are certain aspects of life in Britain and the people there that I don't like so much now. Travelling and meeting different people with different stories and perspectives on life has influenced me a bit and helped to open my eyes a little wider. I can see clearly things that I don't like, the aggressive nature of a section of the population and the negativity of others. I appreciate different things these days perhaps and think I want different things out of life, though it is hard to both quantify and illustrate these.

I am going home though next year. All things being equal I will finish my next contract at the end of April. Back to living in my home country. Hoping to find a job at some stage. Going back to set up some roots for life with my wife. We are committed to going and greatly looking forward to it, no question about that. It is both exciting and mildly terrifying. Terrifying because I will be leaving behind a job with a contract and nice wage where I am able to save quite well for a period of uncertainty. Should be interesting though to stay the least. As much as I do like it here and the lifestyle is good, I have to get out of the comfort zone that I am in. And finally go home.