Countryside Girl At Heart

Skyscrapers. Cabs. Lights. People. Traffic. Rush hour. Those are the words that come to my mind when I hear the word 'city'. I've never been a city girl though I was born in the city. There's not really much of a memory of what my life was when we were still living in Manila (Philippine's capital). My parents told me that we used to live in a very small apartment and the surroundings were polluted so me and my brother always get sick. That's the reason why they decided to move back to the province.

Clean environment. Fresh air. Bugalow houses. Peaceful life. Province it is. Or in other words, the countryside. I grew up in the house of my grandparents located in a small town in the southern part of Luzon. It's those kind of houses which possess an ancestral charm, built with four very strong timber as posts, nipa roof, wooden floors, and windows designed with capiz. It's just beautiful. Spending my childhood in that place and with the people I love is purely a bliss. Years went by and I've lived from province to province (spent my high school days in a province near my hometown then transferred to another province for my university studies and eventually for my work). There were a few times I went to the city, merely to meet my friends and shop. But living there? Oh, I know it's not for me. I am really not a city girl.

Even going overseas, I tend to gravitate on the countryside. I spent two months in a province in Taiwan for my internship. And one of the things I loved most during my stay there was biking along the fields after my experiment. Green fields everywhere with the sunset on the background. Waking up in the morning on the chirps of the birds. I just love all that!

And now, well, what can I say? Things got a little bit different. I am living in Daegu, the fourth largest city of South Korea. Downtown is just a few minutes away from my university, cabs are everywhere, department stores here and there, well yeah it's a city after all. But I still feel like I'm living in a countryside. Good thing it's not as big and as grand as Seoul. It's peaceful and there are really not a lot of people. Parks are everywhere and it's surrounded by mountains so I still feel close to nature. It's like I've got the best of both worlds. It's been almost two years now...and I'll be leaving soon. I'll surely gonna miss this city, my home away from home. But wherever life takes me, be it in a hustle and bustle of city life or the stillness of the countryside, I'd still be a countryside girl at heart.