Heisenberg and Travel

First, I should report that I have just returned from the farewell party for a married couple working at the school. It was a learning experience and I generally enjoyed it. I learned a Korean drinking game which is similar to the American "name game" that some of you may be familiar with from camp. There is a beat and one person starts the beat and then on the 3rd count of 4 names someone and on the 4th count of 4 names the number of times they must say their own name (within a range of one to four). If you mess up anywhere in the 4 count you take a drink. I look forward to introducing this to friends.
Jammed in the entrance of my apartment is what I think, in my addled state, is a coffee table. I should say that I find it extremely pleasing that in my current mode of existence "nesting" consists of perusing the neighbors' trash. I am hoping to purchase Settlers of Catan in the near future and that the table that I slightly drunkenly selected and carried to my apartment at 2:30am will be good for gaming. We shall see what the morning brings.
Finally, I am, every so often, struck by the fact that I am living in Korea. It isn't that I don't realize this but that there is a difference between going through the motions of everyday life and that of stepping back and considering the context of your actions. I much prefer living in other countries to merely visiting them and I think I have figured out a good framework for explaining why.
The HUP (Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) states, roughly, that you can know an electron's position and its momentum, but not at the same time. You cannot know both simultaneously because to observe and object is to influence it. I think that travel is the same way. You can develop a point-in-time understanding of a country by visiting for a few days and develop a very limited perspective on the culture or you can live in a country for an extended period of time and get a feel for the culture (its momentum). Living in a country is so necessarily different from visiting because of the differing demands. So I am, strangely, able to forget the sheer magnitude of the difference between living in South Korea and the U.S. because on a day to day level I still have to cope with eating, paying bills, and working. You get lost in the force of the momentum of your existence rather than having a strong, singular impression of where you are.
So that was my big epiphany on the way home from the going-away party. Hopefully it won't seem totally foolish when I crawl out of bed tomorrow.