Enola, a WHV in South Korea followed by another in Japan

My name is Enola. I’m from France and I’m 27 years old. I have a bachelor degree in history and a masters degree in law-history.

I went to Korea on a working holiday. I picked Korea because I wanted to live a year in Asia. Originally I had wanted to go to Japan, but life brought me to Korea instead.

I was based in Seoul for the entire duration of my WHV. I chose a sedentary working holiday, because I wanted to build a sense of routine and daily life on the other side of the world. I worked a bit, but I mostly travelled around the country. My fixed housing was in Seoul, but I would often do trips here and there to see other parts too.

Many things. I learned to appreciate a new country and culture. I gained independence. It also helped me to better understand what I want to do in life, and who I am as a person.

This is the question that all working holiday makers hate haha. It’s very difficult to choose just one. For me, it’s a bunch of little memories that float in my head and that make me smile, bring me joy and nostalgia. I think about the places I discovered, countries that I saw, and moments I experienced with people that I met etc.

Don’t worry too much, don’t stress too much, and don’t try to anticipate every possibility, because the WHV is an experience that is filled with surprises. Live life there day by day!

Continue to travel and embark on other working holidays. I’m taking off for Japan soon.

This happened to me in Japan (where I visited during my Korea WHV), but it could have happened in Korea too. It’s an anecdote that illustrates the mundane difficulties that one can encounter when living abroad, where you don’t speak the language. One time I was trying to buy toothpaste but instead I accidentally bought denture glue… At the beginning of my WHV, I used my translation tool a lot when doing my shopping, but towards the end (when I went to Japan), I had gained more confidence so I started shopping a bit more blindly. My conclusion is that denture glue is not at all a substitute for toothpaste (trust me I tried). This example is about toothpaste, but in reality it has happened with other products too haha.