Today is Liberation Day in Korea so happy Liberation Day to all!  We're enjoying our last week here in Korea and seeing all our friends one last time.  We had Christina and her husband Philipp in town this week and we had a good time, despite the heat.  We visited Gyeongju on Tuesday to see all the historical sites.  We spent Wednesday visiting a spa and then a temple. Our good friend Kim took us to a temple and we had the very special experience of having tea with a monk.  He was quite the tea expert and described the differences between the Chinese, Korean and Japanese tea. 

We had the pleasure of joining Mr. Lee and his wife for one last dinner last night.  They took us to a nice restaurant and we enjoyed duck and great conversation.  We were so touched when he gave us one of his paintings as a goodbye present.

We've got a busy few days left as we finish up our goodbye's and start the process of packing for our return home!

Our week of vacation is over and I'm sorry to say it wasn't that eventful.  We did make it into Daegu most every day and got Bella's vaccinations taken care of for the flight home.  We are starting an intensive camp this week that runs 12 hours everyday so we've packed our advil and we're almost ready to go!

We had some students over for lunch yesterday and had a delightful time.  Knowing what an effort it is for them to communicate in English it's touching to see them make such an effort.  They brought us two gifts to say goodbye - one was a small snow globe (so we could still see the snow even back in Texas they said) and the other was a travel coffee cup.  It was very sweet.

We've decided to compile a list of our top 10 things about living in Korea - so here goes:

1.           It doesn’t seem weird to bring your own toilet paper to work everyday

2.           You respond to the name Sam (teacher in Korean)

3.           You chow down on the butt of a loaf of bread and call it a meal

4.           You will never think of a squid the same way again

5.           A dixie cup of water is all you need in a day to drink

6.           Spelling simple English words are a challenge - for example, you can no long recall if the word fair is spelled F-I-A-R or F-A-I-R

7.           The bathroom smells like a bad port-o-potty at a construction site even when nobody has used it.

8.           Air conditioners, clothes dryers and dishwashers seem like items of luxery (or is it luxury??)

9.           It’s now second nature to use your elbows to box people out as you hold your place and line and make your way to the cashier

10.       You search for the freshest drink at the grocery store and consider yourself lucky if the expiration date passed less than a year ago.

Alright folks, until next time.

Robin and Brittney (English names they have chosen for themselves)