Our last few days in Hat Yai were a whirlwind of goodbyes and loose-end-tying, punctuated by a crazy day of playing dress-up. Pitt had the grand idea to get us all done up in Thai costume and have pictures taken. For the guys, this involved about 5 minutes of costuming. For the girls, this was a nearly two-hour process, with costume and jewelry selection followed by makeup and hair. Basically they used an Emily canvas to create a Thai-Barbie end product. It was a lot of fun, and the pictures will always be great to have. A lot of folks turned up at the bus station to see us off at 7 a.m. for an only slightly weepy goodbye. We'll miss everyone!

After approximately 13.5 hours on the bus, we caught a quick taxi to the airport for our red-eye to Korea. Our lengthy layover allowed us to get out and see a bit of Seoul on the 29th. Unfortunately, the palace we were aiming for was closed for the day, but we did have a nice wander around before meeting Kara (a friend I haven't seen since high school!) for lunch. She's teaching English to middle school girls there, and managed to shuffle her schedule and get the afternoon off. She treated us to some fantastic Korean barbecue, and we had a great afternoon visit over coffee and dessert. We were having such a good time, we pulled it a little tight getting back for our flight, and arrived just in time for boarding.

A speedy transpacific flight later, we were ready to start the 29th all over again. Trev's parents picked us up at Sea-Tac, and we headed straight for Gorditos (how long have we been thinking about burritos????). Dave and Vanessa joined us, and we thoroughly enjoyed our second lunch of the calendar day.

Now we're starting to think about things like cars, cell phones, a laptop, driver's licenses, and all the other practicalities. It's enough to make a person want to hide in the hot tub for a week. And did we mention we're FREEZING? We have officially left the tropics. But overall we're really, really happy to be home. We're so excited to see everyone in the coming weeks! The air is clear, the sun is once more our friend, and the PNW is indeed a beautiful, beautiful place.