Man vänjer sig.

So after buying tickets on Wednesday for a Thursday departure to Seoul, we made our entire itinerary up on the spot. The only things we had booked when we left was:

- a hotel for the first night (good, since it turns out the immigration paperwork asks where you're staying!)
- train tickets to Busan (but not back)
- spots on a guided tour of the shamanic sites on Mt Inwang

The rest of our itinerary we made up on the fly, and it was awesome. We did book a few more things ahead of time (going to Korean BBQ with a local in Busan, train tickets back to Seoul), but mostly we just woke up, looked at the weather, and decided where to head out to from the hotel (we stayed in four different ones over our eight nights).

We were so lucky with the weather! The original forecast was for days of torrential downpours - not unusual in typhoon season - but we ended up exploring Seoul in the rain our first day, and then it stopped right on time for that guided tour? So we got a beautiful sunset, complete with rainbow! And then no rain at all except for a brief afternoon sprinkle.

My health held up despite the humid heat (weather I know my body doesn't like, so I was smart about hydration and breaks in spaces with air-conditioning), and despite walking so much we averaged over 21k steps a day!

And it was so much fun. New country! New language! (Between us Skuld had the three tourist announcement languages of English, Chinese and Japanese all covered, but Korean... well. No. We can barely decipher Hangul!) Busy cities, beautiful nature, absolutely delicious food, and fantastic experiences everywhere. I have so many photos, and there's so much I want to write about, but I am also wildly jetlagged and somehow have to go back to being a normal person with a job and not a tourist by tomorrow morning...?? (The worst part about traveling is always having to come down from that high of constant new experiences and no obligations. Bit at least the kitties make coming home a delight!)

Anyway, in trying not to lose the habit I have tentatively restarted, I decided a short post to say "Hi, we made it, the trip was great and we have no regrets!" is probably better than waiting until I can make The Perfect Travel Post (whatever that may be).

For pics, people with Bluesky can sort the #NayePhoto tag by Latest, and my favorite pics will hopefully slowly appear on my photo blog on Tumblr.

Catching up with all I missed is still on my to do - thank you all who commented on my hasty pre-departure post! It was fun to see everyone's reactions.