This moment in our lives was a bit of a bittersweet time. We were leaving familiar Korea behind and heading into the unknown, China. We had grown to love so many people; our friends, students, and the people of Korea. After a year and half, we felt at home amidst the environment, culture and distinct food of our temporary home. The sadness we felt was always underlied by the excitement of getting on the road again. Even before leaving for Korea, we had planned on traveling again, and it felt so good to see our plan come to fruition.
Our trip started in our still messy apartment, as we struggled to get our bags packed and get on our way. We left our apartment still partially stocked and somewhat "lived-in" looking; leaving behind many goodies for the cleaning ladies to peruse and re-distribute. Woody and Erin even told us that they saw them squabbling over a can of Campbell's soup (that Jason Conway had given us prior to his departure). We jetted to the bus terminal, with very little time to spare. The bus ride and ferry check-in were quite fast and uneventful, and we were on the ferry in the Port of Incheon, before we knew it.
We had no idea what to expect from our "Royal Class" tickets, so we were pleasantly surprised when we opened our cabin door. The room was quite spacious and comfortable, with its own TV, DVD player, and private bathroom. After situating ourselves, we headed out to explore the ferry. During the 25 hour ferry journey, we sampled the slot machines, the cafeteria's attempts at food, and the new beer of choice, Tsingtao. The ferry was quite a nice transition for us. It gave us time to emotionally let go of Korea, while mentally preparing ourselves for China. We quite enjoyed the ferry ride, but were excited to be on our way. We pulled into port in Tanggu, China. We were quickly ushered through immigration and customs, and we were left with the task of finding our way to Tianjin (the first stop of our trip).
Outside the immigration building was a swarm of taxi drivers, vying for our business; all in Mandarin of course. We arbitrarily chose one woman and started talking about price. She showed us five fingers and said "Five" in English, pretty clear, huh? Five yuan (70 cents), seemed pretty fair for the short ride to the train station. Ten minutes later, we arrived at the train station. The taxi driver sought payment, and all we had were 100 yuan notes. She handed us back 50 yuan, motioning that that was our change. This was way too high for the taxi ride and this was clearly her intention from the get-go. In any event, we negotiated another 20 yuan out of her before giving up. In hind sight, 5 yuan would have been a good deal; 10 yuan would have been the going rate. Having been swindled on our first transaction made us even more reluctant to attempt to buy tickets at the train station, and we hadn't even seen how crazy it was; but that is another story, altogether.
