Greetings friends! Our new Thailand blog can be found at rakhiandjoelthai.blogspot.com x

Joel: Our last week in Korea has really whizzed by. There's been so much to sort out and luckily, Rakhi is a bit less prone to putting things off than me - we've managed to get done all the boring things and say goodbye to all the people that we've got to know well here.

On Tuesday, it was really nice to be invited round to Hanee's house for dinner. She's such a cool girl and I can see how Rakhi's had such a fun time working with her. On Wednesday, we met up with Sam and Michelle, and Sam was able to give us back our passports that she'd kindly picked up for us, with our Thai visas stapled inside. Hooray! Then on Thursday, we took Bo-Hyun out for dinner at a shabu-shabu restaurant. She'd wanted to introduce her boyfriend to us but when we met she was alone - something had come up at work and he'd had to stay late. Which was a shame. Still, it was nice to see her one final time and get to thank her for looking after us whenever we needed help. Without her as my co-teacher, I really feel we would have had a much more difficult time of things. She's hoping to visit Manchester this coming Christmas or next and I really hope we do meet again.

On Friday, Jeff cam over and took some of our furniture that he's had his eye on and we waved him off in a taxi. Then, on Saturday, it was time for the wine cruise. After lunch in Insadong, we trundled up to the river to meet Shane and Sam before boarding. It was such a top way to spend our last Saturday. Seoul is such a built-up city that on the river is about the only place you can experience any real open space. The sun was shining and the wine was heartily knocked back by all. After, we spent a final evening in Hongdae before making our way home pretty sozzled.

Sunday was a day for final packing for the big move but in the evening we were invited over to Shane's for our last supper. He cooked up a huge roast to which we added our last pack of stuffing and we finally got to taste the North Korean wine we picked up when we went to the DMZ. It's much more a spirit than a wine – blows your socks off! And so we said goodbye to Sam and Shane, our two greatest comrades in surviving life in Korea.

The kids at school have been dead sweet. Loads of them wrote letters to me and some gave me little gifts – I reckon I'll really miss the little blighters. I've given lots of them my e-mail address so maybe at some point I'll get an English message from one of them that confirms what a terrible job I must have been doing this last twelve months. Yesterday was my last day at school and the grade five teachers had got together and each taught their class an English song to sing to me to say goodbye. I might have cried at the sentiment but I find it very difficult to get emotional listening to anything written by Paul McCartney. Still, I did get a bit sad saying goodbye to them. I took lots of photos.

The principal shook my hand warmly and thanked me for working so hard this year. He's a good guy and I do feel lucky to have been working in Bucheon-dong. It's just a shame Rakhi had to deal with such a fool all year. Still, in the end, we were both able to finish at two and by half past four we were on our way to the airport.

So, that's the end of our Korean stay then. It really has been such a great year. I don't know what I expected really but it has surpassed everything. It's offered me new perspectives on life while never being anything less than surprising and thoroughly entertaining. Maybe some day I'll visit again, I don't know.

In the meantime, I'm now sat writing in a hostel room in east Bangkok. We landed last night at about two in the morning. I could write about how our first taxi in Thailand got bumped at some lights and how our driver took us the wrong part of town...

...but that's another story.

Rakhi: So, we’ve come to the end of our Korean adventure. Joel and I will leave this country with so many fond memories- it really has been an unforgettable experience I can’t even begin to sum it up. The past three days have been quite emotional for me; I didn’t realize I would feel so sad about leaving. On Friday, I had the last of my classes with grade 6 and at the end of each of the classes some students cried and they all begged me not to go. After the first class, a group of girls grabbed me and began sobbing which made me cry and in turn my co-teacher! I got hundreds of letters from the students and at lunch time I was hounded for my autograph! The queue was so long the students were falling out the door. Later that afternoon, I had a teacher’s class. I entered the classroom and some of the teachers had chipped in some money to have a surprise party for me. Joel and I have been really lucky that we’ve met so many kind, warm and generous people. I’m going to miss some of my student’s a lot; children really are amazing when they’re young.

Saturday was our last big blow out Korean stylee. To prepare, I had a trim and Joel had all his hair hacked off. Suitably coiffed and in good company with Sam and Shane in tow, we headed down to the river for a wine cruise. The cruise was the perfect finale to our trip, the sun was shining and lots of tasty wine and cheese was flowing freely. I’m glad to say we were perfectly civilized and it was another bunch of lads, one of whom stripped and jumped into the river, who took the prize for being most disorderly. We topped of a brilliant day with one last drink up the 63 building and getting unfairly chucked out of a norebang for drinking a beer.

Yesterday was operation pack up day. After a fair amount of hard work and with Laura and Martin (the new native teacher at Joel’s school and her mate) taking most of our belongings, our apartment is finally stripped to the bare bones. This whole time feels very strange and ever since this morning I’ve had butterflies in my stomach. I’m positive that we’re doing the right though and as one door closes another is opening. The adventure continues...

Goodbye Korea- Hello Thailand!