Here's how it all happened.

Late in 1999, Margaret brought home an advertisement torn from a travel magazine. "Asia Bargains!", it shouted. The ad, from Pacific Bestour, offered cut-rate tours to Asia. Maybe we could take our next vacation this way, Margaret suggested. We could see Thailand, or Indonesia, or Korea.

I knew that these were places in which she had some interest. She'd taken Korean in college, 20 years ago. We'd talked about these countries for years, but we'd never traveled there.

The magazine ad was a sign of things to come. Just a few weeks later, Margaret spotted a classified ad in our local newspaper: "Teach English in Korea." And a couple of months after that, she was on an airplane, her one-year contract signed and accepted. She was on her way to Kang Nung, Kangwon Do, South Korea.

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