Good Bye For Now!

Who would have thought that you could go to another country and see family more often than at home where you both live? Well, that's been true for me. In the past four months, I have seen my aunt and uncle from Virginia five times. That's more than we've seen each other in the past five years! Our first visit was the Seoul City Bus Tour in September when uncle Bob came to the city for work. Then, uncle Bob made a short stop in Suji to see where I live, help me find the basic necessities at Lotte Mart (detergent, hand soap, Sung-pyeon, etc.), and got a chance to eat at our favorite local Korean restaurant. In October Britney, Shauna, and I spent Korean Thanksgiving (Chusok) at Bob and Shina's doing lots of fun activities (site seeing, hiking, shopping, eating, eating, and more eating). We also visited Shina's family's who prepared an amazing Korean meal for us and generously gave us a tour of the main attractions in their city. This will be on of the most memorable weekends for me in the entire year, I'm quite sure! Then, I visited Bob and Shina once more in November and December. They took me to the Jeonju paper museum, a traditional Korean drum concert, a fun market, the movie 2012, and Korean church. On Sunday evening, I had to say good bye. They are going back to Virginia on December 27th. I thought it was going to be harder than it was, but I could hardly be sad after being so lucky to see them so often in such a short time. My relationship with them has grown tremendously and I feel blessed to now be so close with relatives who are soon to be far away again. While I am definitely sad to see them go, I am now motivated to take a trip to Virginia when I get home to see them again. So...I know it's only good by for now.