CHAPTER 1

As I stepped off the airplane I thought to myself, ‘This is it. This is actually IT!!'.

I couldn’t believe that I was actually there at the Incheon International Airport, that I was going to be absolutely free to do anything and everything that I had wanted to without any restrictions for the first time in the nineteen years that I had lived.

It was pretty sad that this arrangement would be applicable only for a week but *damn* I was going to savor every minute of it.

It wasn’t easy to pay for this trip but hours upon grueling hours of tutoring kids, a small little loan from my father and I had finally made it.

It was very unfortunate that I had to agree to get married, or at least to get engaged when I went back home but that was the only way. For my parents this was like a favor they were doing on me by getting me married. I knew it was inevitable. I had been taught about my roles as a woman from an early age, so that trip was the only way for me to feel even remotely okay with my own life situation, to come to terms with it.

The sacrifices that I had to make were okay with me but the compromises that I had to, weren't. But I wouldn’t let that destroy and spoil the only good thing that was happening to me for the first time ever.

I can still remember as a kid I used to go to this park every evening and I was never invited by others kids of my age to play with them, so I spent my time talking to the gardener there.

He had shown me this plant that had soft, needle like leaves all over it.

He used to say, "pick one, break it in half and then try to put it back together. If you're successful in doing that all your wishes will come true."

At the age of five, these words coming from a sixty year old man who was like a grandfather-figure to me, were very comforting and exciting at the same time.

I'd make sure to wish every evening, multiple times even, the same thing over and over again

Let me grow up soon and go travel the whole wide world alone.

I guess something's do work out.

All those years of wishing upon a leafy needle and there I was.

My first ever solo trip.

Actually scratch that, my first trip ever more like. I wasn’t scared of being all alone in an unknown country, in fact this feeling was amazing, exhilarating and frankly even if it was a completely unknown territory for me it felt much safer than my very own neighborhood.

The flight was scary though. I mean it was my first time ever on an airplane so what can one expect? I was pretty freaked out. How I feel sorry for my co passengers. The poor guy sitting right next to me had to endure the entire journey with me chanting mantras and squeaking at every hit of turbulence. I still thoroughly enjoyed my time being high up above the clouds.

Now I know why people in novels describe flight journeys as irritating and exhausting and why in almost every book there is that one irritating passenger. Maybe finding out about that by being the living proof wasn’t the best way to go about it but what’s done is done and now me and all my fellow harassed passengers need to move on.

Oh and I believe I forgot to address the pressing question, why South Korea. Well that would be thanks to one of my friend's, *Songs*.

Cheap internet and MTv introduced me to the Hallyu wave and once I’d heard a kpop song there was no going back and well I didn’t want to go back either.

The minute I stepped foot into the airport I was like a kid in wonderland. Taking pictures of everything.

Every single thing.

From my flight ticket to the small plants around the airport, the shops, the cafés , the … the … the everything. I was probably for the ummmm 10th time in my life extremely thankful for cheap smartphone's with bomb camera lenses.

There was this beautiful glass façade on an entire side of the airport from where I could see the runway, then there was a huge deck area with real plants and seating arrangement's. It looked less like an airport and more like the lobby of a five star hotel to be honest and the café right next to the deck area was also very posh looking. Nothing like I had ever seen in town back in my country.

The airport was beautiful but it was just the tip of the iceberg, there was so much more beauty to be explored but so little time.

'I guess I would just have to make the most of it as best as I can' I thought.

It was a bit difficult navigating through customs and security, trying to ask people how to get to baggage while not knowing the local language but I successfully managed to grab my bags and then get to the exit and get a cab to go to my booked AirBNB.

The only thing on my mind as I sat in the backseat of that cab was,

South Korea beware here I come!!!