This adventure ended, as all great adventures do, with the long road home. Hence, our last day in Korea was spent traveling, which began with an approximately five-hour bus ride from Busan back to the airport in Seoul. As the hills whizzed by outside the window, it still felt surreal to me that we were in South Korea and now we were leaving. When I know that something good is ending, I always try to notice the little unique things around me and imprint my surroundings in my brain. Even at the rest stops, it was interesting to realize that I had started to take some of the things that had, despite being completely different from the United States, been consistent throughout our travels in South Korea for granted. For example, of course we could pick up some of our favorite snacks, which we would have to go out of our way to find in the U.S., in the convenience store section of the rest stop.

We eventually arrived at the airport, where we said goodbye to our guides. We were led to our gate by a robot that could give directions and sense and navigate the people around it. After we had settled at our gate, we walked around the airport and savored our last true opportunity to Korean food and last-minute souvenirs. The thirteen-hour flight back to the United States ensued and when we landed in Dallas, we traversed customs and then security again where people split off to go their separate ways. Again, it was somewhat jarring to realize after just two weeks how quickly I had adjusted to being surrounded by this group of people but in the blink of an eye we were leaving.

Dallas did not exactly go as planned. When we stepped off the plane I was greeted with a notification that our originally 6:49 PM flight was delayed until 8:30 PM and other members of our group were facing similar delays and cancellations, causing many people to reroute their final leg of the trip. As the time drew nearer to our departure were sent more notifications. Our flight was delayed until 9:00 PM, then 9:17 PM, then 11:00 PM, then 4:45 AM. When it was delayed again until 8:45 AM the group flying back to Philadelphia, of which I was a part, settled at one of the charging stations near our gate for the night. Eventually we were somehow all able to get on a 5:00 AM flight as our original continued to be delayed later and later. Point being we made it home, and somehow our adventures in South Korea were over.