To Travel, or Not To Travel

Being okay with not traveling is probably one of the hardest things to learn when you are living in another country. When you are living in a place where half of the reason you are there is to experience everything you can in the time that you have.

Every time I open up Instagram, I can feel it. The thoughts in my head are telling me that I need to be doing something, experiencing something. Otherwise, I might as well be home with my friends and being a part of their lives back there. I feel guilty when I decide that I want to spend time at home. I wonder if I would be different right now if I had decided to move into an apartment this year instead of another homestay. I wonder if I would be different if I had chosen to move to another city. One that is a lot closer to the other ETAs or just the cities that I haven't yet gotten to see. 

I know I made the right decision to stay for a second year and I know I made the right decision to stay in Hwacheon with my homestay. They are fantastic and I am having a fantastic year. 

But then again. I see other ETAs going on these fantastic trips, doing all these things that I could be doing if I wasn't at home. Right now is winter vacations. Unlike in the US, winter vacation is the break between school years, so it is a bit longer. After school finishes and I have my winter camp, I am free to do whatever I want until school starts in March. This ultimately gives me about a month and a half off. 

Now the total amount of time given to each ETA varies. Some get the minimum, and some get more. I am lucky in that I get a bit more. And in this month and a half long vacation, I only planned two trips. Four days in Busan and Nine in Japan. And while they are fantastic trips and places I have really wanted to go to for a while, its hard to compare to the multi-country, several week-long trips that the others plan. 

I know, I know. I shouldn't compare myself to other people. But it is hard. 

While I am very happy with the trips I made for myself and extremely proud of how brave I  feel to solo-travel both of the trips, I can't help but feel like I need to fill up the rest of the time I have on vacation. 

Last year, I was working towards my black belt test so every day I went to my lesson. I didn't really travel much at all, so I suppose the amount of traveling I've done so far this year is great comparing it to myself. 

But at the same time, I also know that unlike last year, I'm not coming back next year. This is my last chance before Korea is going to be a very expensive plane ride away. 

It will be okay. I know it will. This is just where I am because I've spent the last three days in my house. 

And if I had been away the last few days, I would have missed a spectacular fireworks display and a regular playdate with my host brothers building houses and towers with my Jenga blocks. FOMO (Fear of missing out) is hard but a smart person told me that the best way to fight FOMO is to give yourself something fantastic to do instead. Even if that is just a movie night with the host fam or mental-health veg out session with Netflix and some tea, and that is exactly what I plan to do. Give myself some weekends to go on short trips and some weekends to hangout at home. As for the rest of my vacation? I don't know. I guess I will just have to wait and see.