Goodbye, Korea

We have already left Yeosu behind and are on our way home! Tonight we are in the city of Suncheon, just a bit north of Yeosu, in order to catch an early train east in the morning. It's late now as I'm writing.... we're sleeping in shifts, having left our alarm clock behind as we finished our last-minute packing to the sound of the landlord marching around the apartment and yelling at us to hurry up and leave.

Our hotel, the "Luxury," is quite nice, with a spacious room and bathroom, refrigerator, hot and cold water dispenser, television and computer - and all that for 30,000 won (that's $31.91 US or $37.35 CAD). It's not the greatest neighborhood (what is it about train station and bus station neighborhoods?) but things are quiet - too bad we can't both sleep! I seem to sleep really well on the train though, so I'll look forward to that.

Though I'm happy to be leaving this country alive and in one piece (thank you God) I do wish there had been a little more time at the end to say goodbye to people and places: the mountain near our home, the tofu lady, the ddok lady, the fruit lady, and so on. (Though I did manage to tell the fruit lady when we were leaving, so I'm sure all the market ladies know!) I worked through today, so it's been rather hectic getting packed and ready to go. We're not good at packing... not good at some aspects of living, it seems. It is certainly a reality check to have to put all the pieces of your life in boxes - the scary part is, we left boxes of our life with both sets of our parents before we even came. We desire to be simple but when we look at the mountain of possessions we spend time and money purchasing and maintaining... it doesn't look like we're doing very well. We have vowed to go through our possessions ruthlessly when we arrive back home and sort out those things which are only a hindrance. For now though, we just have to get home!