Our goal was to wait out the rainy season before we started on our trip. And if the weather is going to be anything like it is this morning, the day we leave Gwangju, we did a great job. It was a particularly long rainy season in Korea this year, with the puny drizzle and depressingly gray clouds continuing all the way up until yesterday. I was sure it would be done several weeks ago, and man was I wrong. But today, on the first day of September, it’s like Korea decided “OK! Enough with this vitamin D deficit. It’s time for fall.” We walked out of the apartment at 7:30 to completely clear skies and a big happy sun, just like the one I drew on the white board all the time at the Kindergarten.

We were told not to inform our students we were leaving until the day our replacements arrived. I hated to keep the secret from them; it felt like every time I made them laugh or talked about upcoming events, I was lying. But if the students told their parents, their parents might call the boss and complain, and the boss would get inconvenienced and cranky. So wait until Thursday we did. I saw our head teacher showing our replacement teachers around to our classrooms, and went to go see my 5-year-olds and immediately lost it. They remind me of my dog back home who never knew I was leaving until I started packing my bag and then just had to watch helplessly, knowing she might never see me again. One girl in particular, who had taken some time to come out of her shell and warm up to me but had recently seemed to be blissfully happy when I was in the classroom, could not stop crying. All I could do was hug her and kiss her and just tell her I Ioved her, hoping she would understand that I wish it didn’t have to be this way.

Yesterday was a day of many tears. Seth and I  cried, my homeroom teacher cried, friends cried, students cried,… But now I sit on the bus headed to Busan, and they are memories and pictures, like the makeup I now realize that I forgot on the bookshelf, and the letter in Korean that I believe I might have accidentally thrown away at the post office, from my homeroom teacher. Or maybe not. Oh jeez.

Seth and I are now officially pooped out from crossing a sea with our 45lb. backpacks and walking around downtown Fukuoka, and maybe a bit emotionally exhausted. More on what happened there next time. Right now is sleeping time.