I remember growing up in Colorado and never really understanding why people made such a big deal about the mountains. Whenever family or friends came to visit, they'd spend half the drive staring out the window.
"Wow,” they would say, eyes glued to the skyline. “I can't believe you get to see this every day."
It’s not to say I was numb to the beauty surrounding me. But as time went on, the mountains weren't a destination to me. They were just... there. A backdrop of drives to Boulder for swim practice. The thing dotting homecoming photos or family excursions.
They had soon become a picturesque background to my everyday comings and goings.
Living in Korea has made me realize people probably feel the same way here. The palace that I stop and marvel at as crowds in traditional garb flock to its gates is something someone walks past on their way to work. The neon-lit streets I find mesmerizing are just where someone forgot to buy toothpaste. The tiny alleyways with restaurants tucked into every corner are simply where friends meet after work to complain about their boss.
Even the breathtaking sunsets, which turn the sky pink and orange over the building-heavy skyline, are probably similar to the thousands I’ve seen back home in Fort Collins.
It felt like the sky gave me a gift after walking home from my final midterm, and this was the view. Top 10 sunsets I have ever seen.
And it’s starting to become apparent that once a place starts to feel like home, it automatically shifts. Because, at first, everything feels cinematic.
Every subway ride feels like an adventure.
Every meal deserves a picture.
Every walk turns into an excuse to explore one more street.
Then, little by little, life settles in. You stop getting lost. You figure out which subway exit is closest. You know which bunsik has the best kimbap and which café has enough outlets to study for a few hours. The extraordinary quietly becomes routine. Not because the place became any less beautiful. But because it became yours.
Even before coming here, I realized that we all romanticize places. Whether we’ve been there or not. Social media gives us sunsets, skylines, and carefully curated cafés. Travel guides tell us where to go, what to eat, and what not to miss.
Nobody posts about spending all day trying to do laundry because every available washer gets taken before you get to it. Or slipping and falling on a set of stairs during a torrential downpour and getting familiar with the Korean healthcare system before getting approved for health insurance. Possibly even sprinting across campus because you overslept before your midterm – definitely not my proudest moment.
The back road I take to get back to my dorm to avoid the hills, which has recently gained more padding in yellow and red leaves.
But those are the parts of a country I couldn’t possibly imagine before coming. Realizing that a country isn’t solely a collection of landmarks. Rather, a collection of ordinary Tuesdays. The ones with delivery Jajjangmyeon among friends on campus as the hot sun beats down on picnic blankets. Days spent entirely in the library only taking breaks to sit outside on a bench with a snack to watch as people walk by. Sitting outside a club with your friend to escape from the deafening music inside and feel the cool fall air.
As cinematic as some of those moments seem, this is real life, unfolding in a place that is home to millions of people. I'm simply lucky enough to experience a small part of it for myself. The language is different. The food is different. But people are surprisingly familiar.
Because life has a usual rhythm. People wake up too early. Commute to work. Meet friends for dinner. Worry about paying bills. Laugh at inside jokes. Call their parents. Fall in love. Miss home.
It’s taught me something I had missed in my glamorization of this place from afar. The world is wildly different, but wonderfully ordinary. And its real moments come from finally recognizing it.
Because if beauty can become the backdrop of your life, then maybe the goal isn't to keep searching for a more beautiful place. Maybe it's learning to notice the backdrop again. To finally step back at the place you have come all too familiar with and take in its beauty.
This field was what felt like smack dab in the middle of a metropolitan city. Though it's getting colder, the flowers were still in bloom.
I think about Colorado differently now. I miss the mountains I barely looked at. I miss the sunsets that felt so normal that I never thought to take a picture. I miss my friends and family whose faces would curl into smiles as I saw them. And living somewhere new has made me realize just how extraordinary my ordinary life was.
The one filled with walks home from basketball games. Leaving class as people swarmed to the cobbled walkways. Seeing familiar faces not because you know their name, but because you’ve seen them in the same context a thousand times before.
Years from now, I hope to look back at Seoul the same way. Not remembering the famous landmarks first, but the walk home.
The convenience store down the hill.
The street cats who slowly crept out of bushes to ask for food.
This orange cat always asks for food, and I always give it. Maybe he clocked me as an easy target.
The little routines that, over time, stopped feeling remarkable because they became so familiar. You begin to watch your perspective shift as you settle into everyday life, realizing that the mundane things you once took for granted back home are the very things you find yourself missing. All the while, you're building a new life, knowing that one day you'll have to say goodbye to the people and places that have become part of it.
Maybe, years from now, I'll find myself missing these ordinary Tuesdays just as much as I miss the ones I left behind in Colorado. I'll remember the streetcorners I used to photograph, the hills that eventually became part of my routine, and the little moments I never thought would be the ones I wanted to return to.
Because one day, Seoul will be somewhere I used to live. And I think I'll miss it most in the moments that didn’t feel inherently life-altering, but mattered more than I knew at the time.