Since I returned from Korea, I’ve done a fair bit of travelling. I’ve travelled by bus, by car, by plane. I’ve visited the Western Cape and KZN. I’ve spent time in Somerset West and Durban and made several trips to Grahamstown. Most of the travelling has been purposeful, if not always successful.

In a week or so, I’ll be on the move again. I’m off to Cape Town to see friends I haven’t seen in ages. I’m looking forward to it. A homecoming of a different kind. Many of these friends live on other continents. What strange, scattered lives we lead.

It has me thinking about travel and distance and challenge. Wednesday is Chuseok in Korea. As per tradition, tomorrow and Thursday are also holidays. Chuseok is probably the most important holiday in Korea. The whole country shuts down for three days. This includes shops, restaurants and – bizarrely – hotels. Everyone travels to ancestral family homes for traditional rituals of respect for elders and ancestors, family celebrations and the sorts of special foods generally associated with Autumn harvest festivals.

Last year Chuseok was in October (the date is based on the lunar calendar). I had been in Korea for 3 months and was just starting to settle down. Some friends, whose trip to the Philippines had fallen through, decided to go paragliding. On the spur of the moment, I joined them. In all the excitement of a year in a foreign country, I sometimes forget that one of the things I did was to face down my fear of heights, high-risk activities and general adrenaline-related things and jump (well, run) off the side of a mountain. It was an amazing, exhilarating, mind-blowing experience.

And yet, ultimately, it was just one day, one experience. An experience completely unique to me. Shared, on the day, with two friends. Shared, through writing and images with many others. But ultimately, an experience and a memory affecting only me. Conrad was right: “we live, as we dream – alone”.

This trip, the rekindling of old friendships, rehashing old memories, will be great, but I start to feel that there should be something more, that I should be doing more with the travel and experiences. I begin to feel restless. When was the last time I did something to match the sweet, terrifying, life-affirming challenge of running off the side of a mountain?