Finshing Up

Things have been coming to an end here, in Korea. I'm excited to see whats next, but that excitement in no way overrides the sadness I feel in leaving. The past few months have been so amazing, and yet so sad, at the same time. I've had tons of adventures, I've made amazing friends, and I've experienced so many new things, I'm not ready to give all that up! But the time has come to start something new, so I must say goodbye. Nowadays, every time I do something, I'm always thinking....is this the last time? Lately the answer has been yes, and it's breaking my heart! 

Wednesday was a public holiday, and some friends and I decided to spend the day climbing. We drove our motorized vehicles out and spent the afternoon clambering all over the rocks. Since the weather was a bit drab, no other climbing group was out, so it gave us the whole area to ourselves. Perfect!

Just round one of snack-buying!

On the way home, one of the scooters needed a bit of rest, so we stopped in this extremely small town, barely a spot on a map, just a name on a sign pointing the way back to Pohang. Without thinking, we all pulled into a relatively big area to park, that just happened to be the parking to a big hardware shop. We were taking up most of the space, just standing around while the bikes cooled off, when a woman walks out of the shop. Instead of telling us to get out and clear her shopfront, she hands us all a bottle of cold tea!! And just goes back inside! We are all pretty much dumbfounded, but we drink up. After a bit, I notice a candy shop nearby. Feeling a little hungry i go to check if there is anything worth eating inside. its a very small shop, barely enough room to walk in, but there is a selection of strange candies and chips all around. The shop owner was a little old lady who was excited to have me there and was telling me the prices and what was most delicious. Since i was curious, i just grabbed one of everything that looked interesting and asked her how much. 80 cents. WHAT!?!?! I brought it out and among my friends, we laughed about good fortune, gobbled up the snacks, and went for more. We all took turns, going in and coming out with less than a dollars worth of treats, just sitting on the sidewalk outside the hardware store eating. After a while, we noticed the lady from the shop was gone. We laughed, thinking that after our big business of 4.50 for the day, she was going home to celebrate and relax. That is, until she started heading our way....with a bag of corn on the cob!!!! One for each of us!

Delicious Mealies!

After this afternoon of good fortune, I know that I will truly miss this lifestyle. Working, but not hard. Spending time with friends, and being amazed by the chairity of the people around me. Spending my free time driving around and looking for excitment. This adventure wasnt the kind of thing you can plan, or even expect to ever happen, yet it did and it was probably the highlight of my day. Knowing that these kinds of moments in this country with these friends is almost over...its hard to be excited to leave....


...But then again, I just bought my ticket for China.......