The After-Korea: Part One

Ok, it's been a long time. Like, nearing a year. What can I say, this is supposed to be about my travels and I've been uninspired.
But now I am planning! Double planning, really!
I'll be finished in Korea in February, and I'm very, VERY itchy to get out. There are currently two major options for my immediate post-Korea life, and neither of them involve the US for any extended amount of time (something my family is of course sad to find out).

Option number one: Turkey
'What's in Turkey?' You ask?

• Istanbul, where Europe meets Asia - and all the architecture (Hagia Sofya) and art that you can imagine would go with that
• Cappadocia, home of other-worldly landscapes
• Awesome mosques
• Tons of history
• Beautiful beaches (Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas)
• Lots of camping
• Ancient Roman ruins, including the Ruins of Ephesus
• Troy
• Mount Nemrut, home of disembodied heads (made of stone) and beautiful scenery.
• Mount Ararat, supposed resting place of none other than The ARK. You can't climb it without insane permits (nor has anyone lucky enough to do so ever actually found anything), but still.
• Ancient and (more) modern castles
• Beautiful art
• Deserted nature
• A monastery in the side of a cliff

Besides all of this and more, going to Turkey would bring me back to the Middle East, a region I have been longing to return to since my abrupt departure almost two and a half years ago now. The Middle East intrigues me, and the five days I spent in Istanbul before leaving the region has whet my appetite for more.

Finishing here in late February/early March, I would be arriving in Turkey as the snow is beginning to melt. This would give me a couple of months to maybe work and get a bit more money before the ideal time (summer) for travel in most of Turkey. Living somewhere and having a job for a while would mean learning some Turkish and generally hanging about for a while, hopefully in Istanbul, which I could then explore during my non-work hours, enabling me to see more of it than I would passing through. A downside: A lot of the good jobs in Turkey are September (new school year) starts.

What going to Turkey would (likely) mean:
Not going home after this contract
Spending some of my savings from two years in Korea
Maybe do something like a TEFL course in March (Italy? Prague? Spain? France?) before the weather warms up enough for camping (which is both fun and money-saving).

I'm already working on the post for option two. If you know me, you can probably guess what region of the world it might be in. Stay tuned.