Well I just finished my last class. I moved out of my desk so the new teacher could move into it. We have moved furniture out of our apartment so we are living out of bags again. Its the end. As with most people who take up blogging when they spend some time abroad, their blogging starts to decline the longer they are abroad until of course it is time to go home. So here is one of my last posts from Korea, probably my last one.
We went on a trip to
Jeju last week. It was our second week of vacation this year
and we decided to stay in Korea and go to a small island south of the main land. It was good. Here are a few pictures from it.
This is the resort area, we
didnt stay here, we just went there to crash on their beach. It
ok, but the lifeguards
wouldnt let us swim out of the roped area, so it was a little boring.
This is the Jurassic Park beach. Nobody was there, so it was really beautiful. Sand, with volcanic cliffs in
the background. Actually all week we were there I felt like if I would turn around I would be face to face with a raptor (this being because
Jeju is a volcanic island so it is really lush with vegetation since there are a lot of nutrients from the black volcanic rock that is everywhere). In any case, i want to watch Jurassic Park again.
These are the squid boats that go out
every night and attract squid by pretending to be the moon. There were hundreds of them at night, interesting to see.
Waterfalls.
Different waterfalls.
Eating noodles on the way up
Halla mountain.
Us at the top of the mountain,
thats right, its the highest part in south
korea (I have now been to the highest point in two countries; South Korea and Great Britain, i feel special). It is rarely free from clouds since it is a big volcanic crater so the
clouds get trapped there. We got to see the crater lake for about 2 seconds when some of the clouds blew away, but basically it was cloudy.
This is a black sand beach which was incredibly hot but supposedly it is good for the body, therapeutic they say. A really nice beach though.
This is the bathroom of our
Minbak, kinda like a really cheap motel. It was a little dirty but it was really cheap. The man was a little crazy. He patted my bottom
every time I saw him, and one time he thought my fly was open so he made sure it
wasn't by trying to put his finger through my closed fly. A nice guy though. My students have told me that a grandpa usually pats their
grandchildrens bottoms, i guess its endearing.
These are the volcanic stone statues found all around the island. They are called
Harubang, kinda like the statues on Easter Island.
Well
thats about it. Whenever my students find out I am leaving they are always shocked and ask me how I feel. I then teach them the phrase, its bitter sweet, explaining I am excited to see friends and family but said to leave our friends here. Rather typical response, I know, but its true. I feel like I always go through the typical emotions when I have lived abroad. Excitement, followed by a slight sadness or homesickness in the 5
th or 6
th month, followed by the homestretch where every thing is fun because you have finally established meaningful relationships and gotten into a healthy routine. In any case, it is sad to say goodbye, but some of our friends and students claim they will come visit us in the next few years. Here's hoping. We are excited to see you all in Canada! See you in a week.
Many people at the beach...
On Sunday we said good-bye to many of the people at our church and afterwards played/watched a soccer game. I watched, Mark played with a group of Connexus students. It was a crazy hot and humid day but I think everyone still enjoyed it.
So, time to say a few more goodbyes.
