Unbelievably, it came. It came the way Christmas came despite the Grinch’s best efforts at keeping it away. It came like the downward plunge part of the roller coaster, where the build-up seems to last forever as tick-tick-tick your way to the top and then suddenly you are plunging downhill and the whole thing is over in a matter of seconds.
Friday was both our final day in Korea and (because of the time difference) our first day in America. We somehow made it through our long trip back to America with our 4 suitcases full of everything we’ve collected over these years. But before we left, we said good-bye to some of our favorite places and some of our favorite people.
We went to Busan, our favorite Korean city, and said good-bye to the water, and the skyline, and the beach, covered in fully-clothed Koreans hiding under umbrellas.
We ate our last bingsu and our last bulgogi and mandu and (mercifully) our last kimchi.
We went to the noraebang (like a private karaoke room) for the last time and I bellowed out a painful rendition of Colors of the Wind while my friend Josh performed an interpretive dance.
We sold, donated, or threw out all of our things. And we said goodbye to the friends we’ve made who will now be scattered all over the wide world, to Canada and India and South Africa, and good old Kansas, USA.
We said good-bye to our steaming hot apartment, our twin-sized bed, and our wallpaper with silvery butterflies.
We said goodbye to the cutest children and the pushiest elderly people in the world.
We said good-bye to city living, to daily cultural misunderstandings, to the background noise of screeching buses and old people spitting in the street and unintelligible Korean chatter.
We said goodbye to our home.
And then.
We said Hello.
My amazing family!!!!
With my grandparents at their regular breakfast joint.
If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can also click this button to read other bloggers’ adventures. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few. If you missed last week’s adventure about my final days of teaching and my English summer camp, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.
Lily Ellyn 
Welcome back to the US! Let the new adventure begin…
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Thank you! And yes, it already is! 🙂
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oh and joy you guys are home and with your fam and our grandparents who i love and miss tremendously. glad you are home and safe. enjoy soaking up some family love
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It was very brief, but very sweet. Hope to see you soon now that we are back. 🙂
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The French have a saying: “Partir, c’est mourir un peu” (leaving is dying a little), but like Einstein mentioned, life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you must keep moving 😉 Lots of luck back home! looks awesome!
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That is such a perfect saying, I love that. It’s like dying a little and then being reborn because starting over is hard, but it’s also exciting and full of possibility. Thanks for all your encouragement. It’s been a whirlwind and a lot of work, but we are getting there.
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That Looks like the Coffee Depot that my grandparents enjoy going to!
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It probably is! The one in Scott? I think my grandparents go there 4 or 5 days a week.
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It is in Scott! Man, that makes me miss Louisiana!
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Wow, that’s a huge step! How are you feeling?
Hugs 🙂
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I’ve mostly been really excited and just focused on the next thing that needs to be done, and then the next, and then the next. 😉 But in the evenings I sometimes reach a point of exhaustion where it suddenly feels like it’s all too much. We have a few more days of heavy work in front of us to get all set up in our new place, but hopefully after things are unpacked and we feel settled we can get into some kind of routine and that will feel better. Thank you for asking!
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I can imagine, it’s a big change… I hope you feel settled soon!
Hugs 🙂
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