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.