Cultural exchanges, cultural near exchanges of fists, wishing i could exchange cultures

Well, it's been a whirlwind roller coaster tornado of hurricane-like emotions in the last few weeks. We are only days away from vacation which will hopefully bring back some of the joy of being here. I joke sometimes that the kids are the only reason I'm sticking around (and the $$$)...korea and I are like a dysfunctional relationship, we're sticking together for the kids. Already, it is summer, and I must remind myself that we only have 7 months left, and in that 7 months, only 4 more months of actual work. However, there are things that have tided us over, two weeks ago, we were given an opportunity to travel to Yeongin, near Seoul, to explore a traditional folk village. Check out the pictures HERE. It was a good experience, and I think since we've decided to buckle down and put more significant payments on our loans, we've stopped doing these sorts of excursions. I think that's what made the first year fun enough to convince us to do a second year here. Now it seems like we're only living for the next vacation, and the rest of the time is just walking in place, passing time and not making use of it.

Stupid money and responsibility...wish I could shrug it off and just travel every weekend :). At least we've found a bit of a new hobby. We invested in some cheap snorkeling gear, and have been hitting up the East Sea when we can. Our vacation will have plenty of opportunities to snorkel in some tropical-ish ocean on Jeju-do.

And although we haven't even begun this vacation yet, I'm already counting the days to the next one.