What to do for our last weekend in Korea? That had been a no-brainer for months- we went to fan favorite Carne Station of course! Lots of cool folks were able to come celebrate the occasion with us, and I suppose it goes without saying that we followed Carne Station up with a sojulicious time at the doll house norebang, horse heads in tow. It was a "greatest hits" playlist of tunes like "2 Become 1", "Toxic", "Wuthering Heights" and many other cringe-inducing songs and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Our last day at work was Tuesday the 4th (yes, about 15 or so hours before we had to fly out of the country... thanks for all the time, Stella!). It was a pretty typical day, aside from the fact that we had a class off to wire our Won home and close our bank accounts which took a w h i l e ..ugh). My last class ever was "Homeroom" in which I let the kids loose on the dominos while I listened to some music and daydreamed about Canada. After work everyone surprised the lovely Shanda with a birthday cake and we had a chance to take a staff photo (above).
After work a bunch of us went into Songtan for some Thai food, where Shanda, Hannah and Shaun surprised Mel and I with a rearry sweet file (AKA "pile") of various memories, pictures, and funny stuff. It was the perfect going away gift, which they'd been very sneakily working on for a while. Thanks again, guys! Supper was very good even if it was slightly ironic that our last meal in Korea was Thai food. After we got back everyone hung out outside the CVS in our apartment building to eat cake and to help us polish of the last of our old liquor bottles. We also got to have a photo with the lady who works at the CVS. We LOVED her. She was always in the shop 24 hours a day, and although she didn't speak a word of english or even acknowledge us in any special way, we thought she was great.
After some fireworks on the roof and some sad goodbyes we packed up some last minute things and settled in for our last sleep in our tiny apartment. The above picture is how it looked as we were leaving the next morning- finally clean! One of the Korean staff members from our school came to check the place and then called us a taxi van to the bus station with all of our luggage. We each have 2 giant suitcases (which I am still lugging around on my travels) and although I have grown to loathe them, I have decided that absolutely cannot part with anything inside of them.
We had no problem getting to the airport in plenty of time, and even though the check-in line for Japan Air was massive, we still got through with no worries. We travelled in a double decker plane (you can see the second row of windows in the above picture). I'd never heard of double decker planes before, and believe me this thing was massive.
Although we had to get off in Tokyo for a few hours, we actually flew in the same plane all the way to Vancouver. In Tokyo we bought some Pepsi and French Consomme flavoured-Pringles with the five American dollars that Mel had been lucky enough to get from a guy on the DMZ tour... the airport shops only accepted Yen or US Dollars so luckily we didn't have to go snackless thanks to Melo. The flight from Tokyo to Vancouver was about 8 hours, and we were able to watch the view from the cockpit on the TV screen in front of our chair. Pretty cool for take-off and landing. The TV also offered movies on demand, so I watched a few craptacular films I'd never rent. The remote also doubled as a controller so we could play video games, so all in all Japan Air offers a lot of entertainment value. It was HOT on the second floor of the plane but the time passed...
When we got to Vancouver we didn't waste any time in the airport but I did manage to grab a bag of All Dressed Ruffles Chips from a vending machine as my first official purchase in Canada. There was no Ketchup chips in the vending machine, obviously. Those chips were devoured quite quickly during our limo ride to Mel's Aunt and Uncle's place, where we were staying. Her family showed us an awesome time... they knew everything about the city and really went out of their way to show us around and make us feel welcome. We explored the city and lots of suburbs, visited Stanley Park, Granville Market, and just basically relaxed and ate good food!
We also took an overnight trip to Seattle to visit the Space Needle and take in some other sights, like an underground tour of the city and the Experience Music Project, a music museum where Mel and I formed a regrettable band and filmed a performance on DVD .
We stayed in Vancouver for 10 days before taking a bus to Vernon for 4 days. Vernon is where Mel's Grandma and Grandpa live, and it was the first time she'd been able to visit them. We went shopping, went to a winery, and again focused on relaxing and eating!
On the 18th I flew into Halifax to visit my family and Mel flew (in an 18 seat mini plane from hell) to Saint John to visit her parents. We've been enjoying spending time with all the awesome people we haven't seen in a year. Next week we'll meet up with Dayna, who was in Seoul for a while, and the following week I'll be in Newfoundland hanging out with my brother.
It's hard to believe that a year went by as quickly as it did! Our year in Korea is definately a year we'll never forget. A lot of ESL teachers don't have good experiences, but we had a great one. Korea is definately an interesting country, and we enjoyed exploring it. We really want to thank all the awesome people we met for making our time in Korea so memorable, and though it was sad to say goodbye... we will definately meet again! So for our friends that are still in Korea- enjoy the rest of your time, have a blast, don't work too hard and- road trip across Canada, baby! That's it.
Annyong!
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