The Valley of a Thousand Hills is a tourist destination. Thousands of people come here to look at the view. It’s also where I happen to live. The Valley of a Thousand Hills is almost ridiculously beautiful this morning. I tried to take a picture but I couldn’t capture it. Couldn’t capture the splendour, the expanse, the hill-on-hill stretching to blue. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the day is warm and the breeze is cool.

The sunshine makes the morning seem brighter – grass is greener, bunnies are cuter. There are bunnies at my office. No-one seems to know where they came from but there they are, happily hopping around. Birds flutter from tree to tree with flashes of red wings. It is peaceful and pretty and all against the background of the Valley. I turn a corner and the view from the end of the road or the window of the boardroom takes my breath away.

The pretty morning makes me think of other times. I find myself thinking so often these day about Korea s – this time two years ago. This time two years ago, I was struggling through the deepest, coldest, most miserable part of a Korean winter. The run-up to Christmas and New Years had been beguiled by the novelty of a few days off, several operas and anticipation of the epic ski-trip. January was hard. In my mind, the winter’s back should have been broken and the seasons should have been starting to change. Months later, I finally understood what it is like to live through 8  months of winter every year.

January is always a restless season. That January in Korea was one of trying to adjust back to mundane low-grade misery after the first real trip out of Daegu. Return can be hard . This year, it’s about finding perspective. I am restless, unsettled. In the midst of it, though, I know one thing: this beauty, this sunshine, this morning, is the context in which I want to find the perspective I need. Some people can live anywhere; they want to travel the world and see everything and live other cultures. I want to know my own continent. All of it. Or at least the bit south of the Sahara. I want my Januaries – my seasons of restlessness – to have sunshine and pretty mornings and views as beautiful as the Valley of a Thousand Hills.