It's 7:30am here, and Thaddeus is out (hopefully) hailing a taxi to take us to the bus terminal, where we hope to find a bus that will take us to the airport, where, we hope, a plane awaits to take us to Japan, and from there to Chicago, and from there to Northwest Arkansas, where hopefully our car awaits us to take us home!
We're very ready to leave; Malachi even packed his monkey. And unpacked it, and packed it, and unpacked it. And he knows he has new books he hasn't read yet, and crackers he hasn't eaten, so he's looking forward to his day.
My strongest regret is that we are leaving just as our area of Korea is discovering the existence of real cheese. Over the last eight months, we've given over to calling the fake, floppy, watery fare here 'cheese' - but then, last week, we found real sharp cheddar, and monterey jack, and then we found a fancy pizza place that served (extra sharp) cheeses with names I couldn't pronounce (to clarify that we're not genuine cheese snobs; we just like cheese).
And I'm concerned, given the pattern of past Western products that we've found here, that this trend will be over by the time we return, and that all the specialty cheese in our little supermarket will be out of stock because some other foreigner bought them up, like we would do if we were staying...
But we are going to a place of cheese. That is what people say of Americans, isn't it? That we smell of cheese.
So, a temporary farewell to Korea (isn't the scene from our balcony lovely in the Winter?), and...we'll see you soon!
