Last Days

On Sunday, for the first time since we have arrived, we have a bout of bad weather. Considering that we have been here slightly over two weeks at this point, we consider ourselves very fortunate. It is not raining terribly hard, but it is enough to keep us indoors. So we rearrange our plans and spend the day doing laundry, making cookies and fudge, and binge watching a KDrama on a large screen TV. I knew there was a reason that I packed that HDMI cable.

It is very common in Korea for people to watch episodes together. I can understand why as we huddle together with our snacks and collectively get absorbed in the show. We collectively howl with laughter and frustration at different scenes. They make fun of my when I start crying at a very sentimental moment.

Yesterday we spent the day at the botanical gardens. One of the things that I loved most about it is how they work with the natural lay of the land and existing flora rather than trying to change it. The place is nearly abandoned and we have free reign to explore uninterrupted. I find a stone formation that is shaped like a mushroom and I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland as it towers above me. The streams are barely a trickle now, but their banks are obvious and I can imagine what it must be like after rainy season or when the snows first melt and fill them to capacity. I lament having eaten before coming here instead of having packed a picnic lunch.

We leave much too early in my book but we have to go home and get ready for dinner. We have chosen tonight to go out and hit one of the seafood buffets. On the surface, they are quite expensive ($40+/person depending on which one you choose) but the food is excellent and we sit there for several hours as we devour plate after plate of every imaginable type of dish prepared from the bounty of the sea.

We are leaning back in our chairs at the end of the meal completely sated when someone makes the comment that we have only one day left before we have to depart. I make a hissing noise and tell them to hush. There is part of me that is ready to go home and sleep in my own bed. There is another part of me that is not yet ready to leave. I walk off the reality of that fact with a night stroll along the boardwalk smelling the sea air and feeling its breeze through my hair.