Americans Abroad

My right leg was so badly broken, the doctor considered amputating it. He didn't. While I was laid up unable to do much more than think, I asked myself what I would have done if I'd lost the leg. Then I realized that something like that can happen anytime, so I'd better get cracking on my bucket list. Only I hadn't made one. Here's roughly what I put on it:
1. Travel around the world.
2. Live in Asia in order to absorb an exotic language and culture.
3. Learn a martial art from a native master (the "Hapkido" I was being taught in the US was taught by a Taekwondoist. He didn't really know anything about Hapkido.)
4. Get out of debt.

And then one day an ad appeared in the Sunday classifieds. "Teach English in Korea. No experience required." Well, I had passed the National Teacher's Exam and the TESL specialty area, though I wasn't teaching English as a second or foreign language at the time.

Hapkido is a Korean martial art. Korean language and culture seemed about as exotic as I could imagine. So less than a year later, I was on a plane over the Pacific, wondering if I was screwing up. Nope. That was in 1996, and I'm still here.