The title means: “Thank you, South Korea!” as Saturday was the last day we were to be on the Korean Peninsula. The alarm, as always, woke me up early as heck in the morning but the feeling of excitement for a new day of exploration and adventure was gone.

It was the morning that I have been dreading this entire trip—the end.

I woke up, took a warm shower, and then got myself ready for a full day of traveling. I hauled my suitcases to the familiar red bus for our one last ride. They felt heavier than ever.

The engine started. I looked out the window to soak in the mountainous views of the country I have been loving so much for the past two weeks and fell asleep. The ride went by rapid fast and the next thing I knew we were at our final rest stop already. I needed to pee–really bad.

I ordered a bowl of spicy seafood ramen noodles. Bad choice. It was mediocre at best. I was drooling looking over to Emily’s plate of rice and fork or Emma’s bowl of some better noodles. I was sweating, too, Jesus Christ, I was soaked. That thing was very hot!

We got a milkshake afterwards in really cool little bottles. At least those were actually quite decent.

We were at the airport shortly after. I had to check in at a different counter of my airline since I’m taking a different flight–not to Dallas, TX–and I’m glad I did.

My flight was short and brief. It arrived 15 minutes early, God bless, but that’s not the story here. From what I understand, the Dallas people got delayed big time. For some reason, American Airlines flights that were booked for these guys to fly back to their respective states were delayed over and over again, cancelled, and all that. Some I heard had to sleep overnight at airports, some had to fly to Alabama and Iowa and forty some hours after we parted, some folks were still wandering around at airports.

I’m glad everyone arrived home safely, but, wow, I was kind of lucky, I guess?