I love Japan. And yet Korea has blown me away, different, somewhat similar, and special. Part 1.

Yesterday I met Seoul and Seoul met me. It wasn’t love at first sight. Seoul is a big, bustling, sprawling (oh my god, how it sprawls) city of 10 million souls (two million more than New York), and it is my first time in the city, not to mention Korea itself. It’s also late August, and this traveler, who can tell you a thing or two about hot summers and high humidity, found the climate quite dizzying, and I mean that literally.

I’d done as much homework as you can before you travel someplace so very new to you. I’d gotten recommendations from friends and colleagues who knew the city. I read everything from travel blogs to stories published in the Guardian and the New York Times. I hunted down books like Lost in Seoul, which I found in my hometown’s used book store.

And I watched.... If I’ve never really cottoned to K-pop, I’m still fascinated by how this city represents a major cultural awakening, from music of course, but also movies (“Parasite,” the first foreign flick to win best picture from the Academy Awards) and, less reverently but also quite fun, “XO, Kitty,” Korea’s answer to “Emily in Paris.”

As many of my fellow travelers know, homework’s an important exercise but it is no match for the actual experience. And yet – on a difficult day when my plans were perhaps too ambitious for a first day in the chaos of a city of 10 million, I found peace. Sure, there are temples galore, here, but this place – Cheonggyecheon – a stream that winds its way through the city, from east to west, and the park that’s been developed alongside, gave me a chance to pause, breathe and reboot.

I can't wait to get back out there tomorrow, in a more relaxed fashion. I'm not sure why, as a writer who travels, I feel like I need to fully figure everything out on the first day. It's silly. It's impossible. And I'm working on that