Farewell Korea

I write this reflection sitting at a hotel in Seoul the night before we officially leave Korea for our European adventure. The feeling is bittersweet.  Andrew and I feel that a piece of us will always be in Korea. Between the year we spent in Ulsan and the year in Pohang, we both did so much growing up. We learned about ourselves in ways that only traveling can teach you. The cultural situations we exposed ourselves to helped us to grow professionally, but more importantly, it helped us to grow as human beings and citizens of the world.

I had tears in my eyes as the taxi drove us away from our humble Pohang home, and we both couldn’t help but laugh when we thought about the first night we spent here back in August of 2012. We were literally dropped off to an apartment that had a single bed and nothing else. We had no food, water, toilet paper, bedding….nothing! We were so frustrated and then we were told, “School starts tomorrow, see you in the morning,” That first morning we woke up with kinked necks as we slept on sweatshirts as pillows; and to the sound of our first experience with a typhoon. Remember the whole shower cap thing? Ugh…that was our welcome to Pohang.

As the weeks went by, we grew to love this city and the people we were blessed to have met. We both made some really great friends from all different parts of the world making it that much harder to leave. It’s crazy to think that people from all walks of life are just PEOPLE! We all want the same things and strive for similar goals no matter our backgrounds.

We returned to Korea to live and work abroad again. The ultimate goal was not to come home with a larger savings account. It was to make the money we needed, to see more of the world. So we took those earnings and experienced amazing things in Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines. We will continue to enjoy learning and immersing ourselves in this grand world as we spend the next seven-weeks traveling around Europe. Look for blog updates along the way. I will do my best to post a blog when we leave each great city. Our path is as follows: Istanbul, Turkey – Rome, Venice, Italy – Paris, France – Vienna, Salzburg, Austria – Augsburg, Munich, Germany – London, England, - Dundee, Edinburgh, Scotland – Dublin, Ireland.

“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” –Proverbs 16:9