This study utilises the 'small story' approach to investigate metaphor in mobile students' narratives of intercultural experience. Metaphor in narrative is seen as a dynamic, discursive, and sociocognitive phenomenon. The narrative accounts presented in this paper derive from interviews conducted for mobility project evaluation. The participants were South Korean student teachers, and English was used as a lingua franca. The segments demonstrate how metaphor emerges in the flow of interview talk; for instance, using oppositional image schemas, the exchange students tell how they experienced school education and people's identities in their host and home contexts.