Giving Geoff a Proper Sendoff

Well after three years abroad Geoff has opted to head back to Canada for a while to see family and see whats up.

So far his friend's have a solid bet going on where he'll go next-

I say he'll do Spanish speaking South America
Jarrod picked Latin America north of the Panama canal
Mike has him pegged for a return to Korea
Ange says he'll go to Japan

Winner gets a beer from each of the losers.


But for the present he needed a proper Koreans sendoff, because unless Mike wins our bet, he may never be returning to Korea. Geoff had a 9am flight on Monday to Tokyo on his way to Vancouver and so opted to head down to Gimhae on the Sunday night. I felt that no one should spend their last night in Korea alone at a love motel so I opted to head down with him (he also had a record three suitcases, something that I rightly made fun of him for :P). With that in mind I met him Sunday afternoon. We met Jarrod and had coffee and swapped Korea stories. Geoff and I then headed down to Gimhae airport, found a storage locker for Geoff's suitcases and then took the light rail four stops to Sasang, where there are motels a plenty and lots of food choices. Actually I thought it was cool that on Geoff's last night here we were still finding cool little places to hang out, and Sasang is a great little part of Busan that I never would have found otherwise. I had thought about staying overnight, but the last bus back to Daegu was at 1030 and Geoff was talking bed by 11 (a 9am international flight will often make that decision for you) so we just opted to walk around the area, find a sweet hotel and grab dalk galbi (spicy chicken and veggies) and a makgeolli. We then headed out to a large shopping area with a small bench and table set up, drank a Cass and hung out until 10 (yeah, drinking in public, outside after dark when it's still 24 degrees, and no one cares). I then walked back to the rail to get back to Gimhae to catch my bus.

While I'm sad to see him go I'm also excited for the next phase of what he does. I know he wants to stay home until Christmas at least, which I do understand, but I'm interested to see what happens next.

We managed to do a few cool things here, hiking Apsan more times than I can count, our trip around Chuncheongdo with Ange our first winter here, trekking to Haeinsa with Bobby in a tropical downpour. But my favourite part of his being here was our trip to Taiwan. It will rank among the best trips I have ever done. Taiwan itself is amazing, and a place I'd recommend to anyone to go see, but having a good friend there turned a 9 trip into a 10 trip. Had he stayed another year I would have made a push for a China or Thailand trip together, but now that may have to wait until he can afford round trip tickets from __________ to Bangkok.

Anyway it was a great two years in Daegu, and I'm already looking forward to hanging out in Vancouver this fall.