I sit at Incheon airport, a place that has become strangely familiar to me over my time in Korea. Even though I normally only spend a few hours here with each visit, I find that there is far less change here than the rest of Korea. Restaurants and shops have largely remained in their same places. The procedures are generally the same. The process of arrive, check in the bags, go through security, go through immigration, find the gate, wait for the plane, then leave gives me some small comfort in the otherwise moderately stressful act of travelling.
For this visit, Kris and I will be returning to South Africa, mostly for her best friend’s wedding. I say mostly so as not to offend all of the South African-based friends and family that we will see while we are there. It’s also to see all of you, I swear!
This will be the second time that we’ve visited South Africa since we left for Korea and I started this blog. Last time was for our own wedding, and for a much longer period of time. With this visit, we will be staying for less than two weeks, and trying to cram in as many lunches, brunches, dinners, board games, Ultimate games, family meetups, and general socializing as we possibly can in that time. In our last visit, we had a much more relaxed social timetable, because we could afford it. We also were lucky enough to see a large portion of the significant people in our lives at the wedding.
While things might not have changed too much at Incheon airport, a great deal has changed in our family and friend situation back in South Africa. My entire immediate family will be working outside of South Africa before the end of this year. Kris’ mom has moved out of their long-time family home. Over our time in Korea, we have lost contact with many of our friends back in South Africa, with each year causing more friendships to fade from vivid experiences to sepia-toned memories. This is the nature of life. Situations change, and you have to adapt to your new environment.
However, we are excited to return and get in touch with everyone that we might have neglected to video chat or message in the past few months, or even years. We will undoubtedly have many a story to share with each other. There will also be those that we cannot meet up with, whether that be because of scheduling problems, distance, or even just sheer forgetfulness. Maybe this will cause a few more friendships to lose their luster, or maybe agonizing over the missed opportunity will be the splash of colour that livens a bond that was dulling.
Kris and I are both excited to be returning to the place that was once the only place we called home. Our lives are more diverse now, and we will be leaving our Korean home for a while to nestle back into our South African one. Oh, and eat our body weight in biltong, Cadbury’s and Gino’s.