And My Trip To China Ends...

Well, it's over.  After almost two whole months, I have official bid the People's Republic of China goodbye.  On the plus side, this means I am now completely free to go to any website my little heart desires, including facebook and my blog.  But I had to say goodbye to my aunt, uncle, and cousins, and I won't be learning any more Chinese for a while.  Shoot, just when I was starting to get good, haha.  This morning my uncle was teaching me the general idea behind character reading, which is a ridiculously complicated system.  Thank God written English is phonetic (even if it does break every rule it lays out for itself).  My last few days in China were pretty laid back.  After all, once you've visited the great wall, what else is there to do, right?  We visited a place called the Temple of Heaven, where emperors used to offer their yearly sacrifices, and we did a lot of shopping.  The other night we even went to go see Chinese acrobats do various strength, skill, and flexibility tricks that are pretty unfathomable to me.  We walked around the Olympic village and the Bird's Nest, and ate shish kabobs from a street vendor.  This morning my aunt escorted my aunt and uncle to the airport for their early morning flight to Anshon, in northern China.  My uncle, cousins, and I watched TV and ate noodles till it was time to join her for my flight and theirs.  They saw me safely  past customs and immigration, then I was on my own.  The flight to Seoul was pretty short, less than two hours.  The plane was pretty full, but by some stroke of luck I managed to not have anyone sitting next to me.  The man in the aisle spoke Korean so we didn't talk much.  I went through customs and immigration here in Korea without a hitch and got my official Korean entry stamp.  I'm actually allowed to be in Korea 3 months without a visa, but I think I'll stick to my original plans and fly home tomorrow.  I got to my hotel easily, where I have a very cute, very well set-up room with far too many beds, free sodas, and a huge jacuzzi tub.  I think I know what I'll be doing here!  But first I'm gonna check out the restaurant and see about some dinner.  You know I have a lot of pictures, and before I go to bed tonight I'll post another update with some of my best.  As for the rest, I can't wait to show everyone!
~Monica