AJ's Iyagi Pages

53 days. one blog. let’s talk.
in 53 days i’m getting on a plane to Seoul and not coming back for a very long time.
that sentence still doesn’t feel real when i type it. but here i am, sitting in North Carolina, watching August 25th get closer every single day, and i figured if i was going to document this whole thing i should probably start now. before the flight. before the dorm. before i figure out what i’m doing over there.
so hi. i’m AJ. and this is AJ’s Iyagi Pages.
if you want the long version of how i got here, buckle up.
i was born in Florida, lived in New Mexico, and now i live in North Carolina. not exactly the most Korea-adjacent place in the world. but somewhere between discovering TWICE on YouTube and falling into a K-pop rabbit hole that never really ended, something shifted. it wasn’t just the music. it was the language, the culture, the way Korean media tells stories. i couldn’t get enough of it.
junior year spring break i went to Seoul for the first time. i walked through Gangnam, ate food i could barely name, heard Korean everywhere, and felt something i didn’t expect to feel, like i was exactly where i was supposed to be. i came home and immediately started researching universities.
that’s how i ended up applying to Ewha Womans University to study Communications and International Studies. that’s how a girl from NC ended up with a one way ticket to Seoul booked for August 25th.
and that’s how this blog was born.
AJ’s Iyagi Pages is where i’m going to document all of it. iyagi (이야기) means story in Korean, and this is mine. the prep, the flight, the campus life, the fangirl moments, the travel, the beauty finds, the study abroad chaos, the figuring it out in real time.
i’m not coming to you as an expert. i’m just a girl who made a big decision and is deciding to document it.
if you’re a K-pop fan, a Seoul dreamer, a study abroad hopeful, or just someone who likes watching people leap into the unknown, you’re in the right place.
i’ll see ya in Seoul.
AJ