China, Korea, Packing, Moving

A quick update with more details to follow.

Kate and I have signed contracts to teach at the Eastern Language School in Yeoju, Korea. It's a city of about 100,000 an hour or so southeast of Seoul. The perks are great--a three bedroom apartment (most couples teaching in Korea only get two) and a car will be available for use in the city if we need it.

So, our contracts are in, but this isn't the end of the process. We still need to send a bunch of paperwork to the Korean embassy for our visa application. When we get back from China we'll do an interview at the Korean consulate in DC and then (hopefully!) we'll get on a plane for Korea somewhere around Feb 12/13th. It's not unheard of for this part of the process to not go exactly as planned so we haven't popped the champagne just yet, but we're feeling good.

But before Korea, we're going to China for a couple of weeks to visit Kate's folks. We'll depart Philly for Shanghai on January 13. We're still working on the details of our travel agenda, but we'll make it up to Beijing and Harbin for their outrageous "International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival." And for their Russian architecture!

We'll have two weeks at the most between returning from China (end of January) and departing for Korea, and we have a lot to get done in that time. On top of our Korea prep, we need to say goodbye to friends, put the boat to bed for a year +, completely move out of the apartment, and--what I'm looking forward to most--do a good cull of all of our stuff so that we can return from Korea with streamlined material lives.

Before too much of that happens, I need to finish up some projects at work (my last day is Jan 12) and Kate is taking the GRE today. I don't think that we'll slow down or be able to establish any sense of the "new normal" for a few months. But it's exciting.