Tuesday, August 11, 2009
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN.
As I post this, we are finishing up Tuesday. Our plane leaves on Saturday at 10:30am, Korea time. We will land in Portland on Saturday at 11:59am. Needless to say, it will probably be a LONG day.
We've been bantering back and forth about the things that we will miss and the things that we won't miss.
Here is the rough list.
We will miss...
-the adventure of traveling.
-learning about a new culture.
-the ability to talk about whatever we want, wherever we want, without people really understanding us.
-how cheap eating out is.
-super fast Internet
-the Jim Jil Bang, which is like a spa, minus the special treatments. It only costs $5 to stay for as long as you want.
-spending so much time with kids.
-using public transportation (We LOVE taking the train and it's only $5 to get to the beach!)
-having time to read fiction
-the wonderful friends we've made.
-I'm sure a lot more things that we can't even think of now in the craze of leaving...
We won't miss...
-kimchi, and for that matter, a good portion of Korean food
-not having an oven, dryer, or dish washer
-not speaking the language well and always feeling bad or ignorant because of it.
-the ability of other people to talk about us while we are in the same room as them, assuming that we don't understand. A lot of times we don't, but you learn the word for foreigner or white-person pretty quickly. (Keith speaks WAY more Korean than I do. He understands about 20% of what he hears.)
-how expensive imported food is. (Example: can of Campbell's soup...as much as $5)
-having to look at the pictures on everything to figure out what is what. (Example: salt vs. sugar, dish soap vs. laundry soap.)
-not having a car or bicycle when going to the store on that one day where you have to buy all the heavy stuff.
-having NO SICK DAYS for an ENTIRE YEAR
What we can't WAIT for...
-WALDO
-seeing family and friends
-being just "a phone call away"
-Mexican food
-grocery shopping
-driving
-having our bikes back
-solving small problems with ease
This is it. We are really leaving. It's been an incredible year.
(Sorry for the lack of pictures. Keith's hard drive crashed 3 weeks ago. My computer no longer has internet capabilities for a reason that I do not understand and thus, cannot fix. Also, I accidentally packed the camera cord and I have no idea which suitcase it's in. So, pictures from this summer, our anniversary, and our final days coming soon.)
We've been bantering back and forth about the things that we will miss and the things that we won't miss.
Here is the rough list.
We will miss...
-the adventure of traveling.
-learning about a new culture.
-the ability to talk about whatever we want, wherever we want, without people really understanding us.
-how cheap eating out is.
-super fast Internet
-the Jim Jil Bang, which is like a spa, minus the special treatments. It only costs $5 to stay for as long as you want.
-spending so much time with kids.
-using public transportation (We LOVE taking the train and it's only $5 to get to the beach!)
-having time to read fiction
-the wonderful friends we've made.
-I'm sure a lot more things that we can't even think of now in the craze of leaving...
We won't miss...
-kimchi, and for that matter, a good portion of Korean food
-not having an oven, dryer, or dish washer
-not speaking the language well and always feeling bad or ignorant because of it.
-the ability of other people to talk about us while we are in the same room as them, assuming that we don't understand. A lot of times we don't, but you learn the word for foreigner or white-person pretty quickly. (Keith speaks WAY more Korean than I do. He understands about 20% of what he hears.)
-how expensive imported food is. (Example: can of Campbell's soup...as much as $5)
-having to look at the pictures on everything to figure out what is what. (Example: salt vs. sugar, dish soap vs. laundry soap.)
-not having a car or bicycle when going to the store on that one day where you have to buy all the heavy stuff.
-having NO SICK DAYS for an ENTIRE YEAR
What we can't WAIT for...
-WALDO
-seeing family and friends
-being just "a phone call away"
-Mexican food
-grocery shopping
-driving
-having our bikes back
-solving small problems with ease
This is it. We are really leaving. It's been an incredible year.
(Sorry for the lack of pictures. Keith's hard drive crashed 3 weeks ago. My computer no longer has internet capabilities for a reason that I do not understand and thus, cannot fix. Also, I accidentally packed the camera cord and I have no idea which suitcase it's in. So, pictures from this summer, our anniversary, and our final days coming soon.)