Curtis Wharton ’10 left South Korea when he was three months old for an adoptive family in Maryland. He jumped at the chance to return when his family signed up for a “Korea Homeland Tour” for adopted children.

“South Korea didn’t feel like home-home, but I felt like I could be there for a while and be comfortable,” he said with a sure smile.

Wharton and his family, along with five other families, visited bustling cities that he likened to Manhattan's Times Square. But it was the border between South and North Korea that surprised him the most. Instead of the war-torn area Wharton expected to encounter, he found a peaceful, and serene and forested Demilitarized Zone. The area was created at the end of the Korean War to serve as a buffer between the two countries.

“At first it was a shock because I read about the war, but didn’t understand. There are soldiers, and there was security,” he says. “But both nations decided to keep the area a nature preserve, and it was relaxing to look out into the forest. Far away, you could see the other side of the border.”

The trip piqued Wharton’s interest in South Korea, and he hopes to return for an extended stay in the coming years, perhaps to teach English.