Today was a hiking day together with 7 others. It was Ian, and 6 women from the children church I'm teaching and the children center. One of my best friends from the church/center is Joy! She's in some of the pics. Her English isn't super great, but her pronunciation is stellar!! So no problem understanding her mind :)
We planned to hike Bukhansan, which is a huge mountain. But by the time we got up the first big hill and sat down, we decided it was lunch time. So we had an apple snack, talked about animals, and headed back down. Haha! We never left the pavement!! Oh well. It was still a fun time.
I had a kidney stone Monday this week, and I had thought I was "back to normal", but after doing taekwando and teaching this week, I was not doing good. So doing a short hike and just enjoying the company was a real blessing to me. Mongryeon (Magnolia) Ian and 3 other teachers--one's hiding Joy, Children's center teacher, Megan (Eun Kyeung) Joy and I!! Bangeul is "Bell"
So(l?) is "Pine Tree"
Pine cone is "So(l?) banguel". Isn't that cute? Literally "pine bell".
Today was my birthday celebration day (even though it's not for another week or so), so Ian and another guy in the office took me to a really fancy galbi restaurant! Yumm!! Galbi is one of the best parts of an animal (it's somewhere in the rib area...not sure) and it's one of my favorite foods in Korea. One of them :) I love almost EVERY Korean food!!
This restaurant I've seen many, many times but looks too fancy and expensive to go to. So what a lucky girl I am to be taken here for a birthday lunch!! The food was delicious, and the tables were really neat. They look like the typical short tables where you sit on the floor. At first, I was really disappointed that I had to sit on the floor to eat because it's so uncomfortable. BUT, the table had a hole cut out under it so you could hang your feet like a normal chair! It was so great!! It looks neat becuase it's a short table, and it functions well for Korean people, but it's convenient for sitting. If I ever get to design my own house someday, I'm going to make one of these special places to sit.
So this afternoon in class I was playing a game with my students. I tell them a category, and they list off all the things they can think of inside that category.
The category was: things you put in tea. The first thing they said was "Water!!" No, that wasn't on the pre-determined list. Next, they waited for a long time thinking, ... "Oh! I know! Butter!!!"
The funny thing was that he was serious :)
The next category was: what women put on their face. "Skin!!" Hahaha...
Last night I was teaching an adults class, and they were describing the emotions of different cartoon mice in some pictures. One mouse was a girl, wearing a pretty dress, and putting lipstick on (bright red). To be honest, I have no idea what the real emotion of that mouse was supposed to portray, but was just going with the lesson. The students said, "Scary!" After asking why, I found out that in Korean legend, if a woman has bright red lips, that means she was eating mice. Funny that our cartoon person was a mouse wearing red lipstick. And funny they instantly thought a "cute" mouse was scary!
So after the wedding today, I headed to Techno Mart. The grand-daddy of all technology shops. And a place to have fun talking down prices with store clerks. It's HUGE!! 12 floors of nothing but technology. I asked where the camera section was, and I was told to go to floors 2, 3, 4, and 5! And it was true, there were cameras on each floor filling at least 1/2 of each of those floors.
I had gone with a list prepared of cameras I wanted to check out, and ended up getting one that wasn't on my list. Maybe that was a bad idea, I don't know. But I guess I'll have to wait and see. Each of the store vendors I talked to had individually recommended this particular Olympus for indoor pictures (that's what I mostly wanted a new compact camera for). The one they recommended was the Olympus fe 5020, and after trying at least 20 different cameras out in quite a few different stalls, including the cameras on my list, this one caught my attention most. Since I hadn't done research on this camera, I ended up paying a little more than I'd pay online for it, but adding in the shipping, it would probably have come out about equal. Plus, I got a carrying case, all the package "stuff", and an extra battery. Mostly though, I'm just happy to have a new camera that I can feel good taking casual pictures with!
I've been toying around with it all afternoon, and hopefully will get a few shots of it to put up later.
So a week and a half ago, I hurt my wrist sparring (fighting) in taekwando class. It was my fault, so I'm not complaining. But every once in a while, I'll do something that will shoot pain up my arm and I cringe.
No joke, this same exact situation I'm about to explain has happened at least 5 times with different people...
Amy: "Ah..." [I cringe] Korean: "What's wrong?" Amy: "I hurt my wrist a while ago." Korean: "You should see a Korean doctor." Amy: "No, it's ok. It's getting better." Korean: "No, I mean a KOREAN doctor." Amy: "Every doctor is a Korean doctor." Korean: "NO, Korean doctors do this..." [poking motions] Amy: "Oh, accupuncture." Korean: "Yeah, real Korean medicine."
Today was the day of Little Tiger's wedding. He is my friend who works in the office at KBU. I was so happy and excited for him, and for the chance to go to my first Korean wedding!! About 8 of us took a KBU van to the Wedding Hall.
Korean people typically get married in these huge "halls" that push couples in and out in about 30 minutes. We got to the huge building where we walked up to the 4th floor with one floor for each wedding held at a time. And 1 floor for buffet. Passing 3 other wedding parties, we came to Little Tiger's floor. It was huge and ornate with a "Bride's Room" that had a pink, fuzzy carpet and a huge chair that the bride was sitting on before the wedding. People could come and look at her and take pictures of her there. The groom was standing in the middle of the entry area with his parents greeting people and taking money envelopes.
When giving presents (only money, nothing else) to the couple, traditionally $30 is the minimum, and it goes up in intervals of $20. So odd numbers. $30, $50, $70, or $100 (not an odd number, but it's acceptable).
We said hello and looked around, then headed for the buffet. While at the buffet, I asked when the wedding was, and was told that it had already happened while we were eating! What??!! Oh no!! I'd missed the wedding for the food...I was so disappointed, but couldn't do anything about it since it wasn't my idea to eat, I was just following the flow. Hmm...I guess it's not rude to miss a wedding for the food. When we finished, we walked downstairs to see them taking pictures. They were a beautiful couple :)
While they were taking pictures, there was another wedding couple and their guests replacing Little Tiger's group already. It had only been 30 minutes!! They must make tons of money ushering people in and out in their pre-arranged wedding packages. When you rent a hall, you pay for a package of food, videographer, photographer, pastor, decorations, set-up, clean-up, flowers, makeup...Pretty amazing to not have to worry about any of that stuff. Just pick what you like!
After working at the Children's Center today, I had a lunch appointment with the CC manager and Ian (my friend who works in KBU's office). We went for spaghetti lunch, and I sat there the whole time knowing absolutely nothing that was going on except an occasional nod and smile or "Is it good?" Haha ^^ That's my life...
I figured since lunch was free, I should just be happy that I was invited to come along. Afterwards, we were walking back, and we were passing a bunch of clothing stores. Well, I got pulled into one and a sweatshirt thrown on me! Good thing it was a US one!! There were 2 sweatshirts next to each other. One was a Canada one, and the other said Indians across the front with the Cleveland Indians baseball team logo on the sleeve. Yay!! I have a new sweatshirt, and a really generous Children's Center manager ^^
After getting back, I spent 2 hours on the roof garden at school making tests and organizing papers. What a beautiful day it was today! And how blessed I am to have such a nice place to relax and work. There are new magnolia blossoms just blooming now outside, and they're one of the most beautiful flowers here! I love them...
Getting back to my room, a few students came by with hot chocolate and yogurt. Yay! One student came by who's been staying after lately, and he and I talked for a good hour or so about "mission". I found out that it basically means handing out tracts.
Walking down the road in Korea, you might meet 3-5 people each day handing out papers about their church or tracts telling you how to become a Christian. At first it was very awkward since I don't speak Korean, but I got used to it after a while. Anyways, KBU students are required to go out in groups and hand out these papers once a week. He was so surprised to find out that there aren't so many people who do that in the states. Yes, some people hand out tracts, but not like they do here. You can literally look down the street and see at least one person doing this each afternoon. He was curious as to how people knew where to go to church or how people came to know and find out about Jesus. Hmm...I guess they just go to church if they choose to make that initiative of finding one themselves. Maybe since Korea is more of a collective culture it works ok to hand papers out.
So Saturday night was my special night out on the town! I'm so privileged to have a friend like WanSeok who takes me to fun places around Seoul doing things I'd probably never have a chance to do on my own. Plus, he's one of my favorite people to hang out with here!
We walked through the main streets and then into smaller and smaller alley-ways...it was starting to get kind of creepy since it was really dark and dirty. No way would I have gone down a place like that without my 2 guy friends!!! (WanSeok and his friend who I'd met a few weeks ago) Having one guy on each side definitely gives one confidence!!! :) So we were walking alone through an alley when all of a sudden, it broke into a bigger alley full to the max with people!! There must have been about a hundred people standing outside one particular restaurant. It was a restaurant famous for "Chicken Soup"-samgyetang. We waited in line only to find that we were 45 in a line still at number 4...
We decided to go to the empty samgyetang restaurant next door instead of waiting, and it was so delicious!! At first it was kind of strange:a pot of boiling water filled with kimchi, pepper sauce, soy sauce, mustard, rice cakes, and a whole chicken. But after a while, it smelled so good that I couldn't resist. Yum!! The chicken had been filled with ginseng, onions, and potatoes.
But the best part wasn't the food.
I don't know why, but whenever I get together with WanSeok and this one particular friend, they have a lot of questions about the Bible and being a Christian. And my point isn't to force anything, but if they ask about God, of course I'm more than willing to talk about it and help them understand! Easter came up, and we started talking about God.
We talked about baptism, salvation, the difference between Catholic and Christian, the difference between Jesus and Buddha, why Jesus couldn't have just been human with good ideas...Wow! It makes me so excited that one of my best friends wants to know about God! While in the army, he and his friend had gone to church and were baptized to get bread (apparently they weren't being fed well in the army). He asked if that would get them into "paradise". I said no, but explained about accepting God's gift of love and forgiveness and believing that He is true. I think that was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to say to someone. That they aren't going to heaven. Especially to one of my best friends. I didn't really think about it much until I got home. Then I had a long time to think and pray for him. He said that someday he will be a Christian. But what better time than now?
Whenever I talk to people about Christianity, it's hard to tell if they're really interested or not. I know Wanseok is interested because he's brought up several times things like this. But his friend, I wasn't sure. He was staring intently at me when I was talking, but didn't say anything. I couldn't tell if he was just not understanding the English or what. At one point, he got up to go to the bathroom, and when he came back, he asked WanSeok in Korean to explain everything that had been said when he was gone! Wow!! He really was interested :) It made me so happy to share something so special to me. Something that makes me who I am.
Afterward, we walked around downtown a bit and then took a taxi to a local Jazz club. Not really club, just a really neat place to sit down and listen to music while eating. Really fun! And an amazing night!!
Happy Birthday Mom!!! I hope that you have a great day and an exciting week. I wish I could be there, but know that I am thinking of you and praying for you! You've been an inspiration to me, and have been a good role model. I hope that I can develop a hard work-ethic like you...it's coming...in time :) Thank you for being my mom and for caring for me so much. I love you!
At the Children's Center each week, I've been enjoying getting to know the new little kids. The 6 year olds moved on to bigger and better things, and so we have new 4 year olds and everyone got bumped up a level. So my old 4 year olds are the big kids now and think they own the place. It's funny how each of them have such distinct personalities.
I was talking with one of the girls who works at the center with me about the kids, and they each have little funny things about them. There's the boy who looks like he's going to cry all the time. There's the boy who is tiny and all the girls treat like one of their dolls. There's a girl who talks like she's been smoking for years (poor little girl). There's the boy who 90% of the time has a runny nose.
Actually, kind of interesting...if you always have a runny nose, that means that you will be intelligent and wise when you get older. Also, if you're pregnant and dream of a tiger or dragon, you will have a baby boy. If you dream of fruit or a rabbit, you will have a girl.
Ok, on to the point of this story.
So I went into class today and asked the students my name. "What is my name?" One little boy speaks up and yells, "Sausageee!!!" in a very Korean accent. Apparently my new name is Sausage :)
If I could invent something in the future, it would be a chewing gums, changing taste according to what you think. For example, if you what to eat galbi (beef) then this chewing gum will make you feel the galbi on your tongue. Did you think it was too salty to eat galbi flavor chewing gum? Then think of rice in your head. Then the galbi taste will reduce and then you will taste the rice. Is it too boring to eat just rice? Then think of kimchi, fish or eggs or anything you want to eat then you will be able to taste that food on your tongue. It may have side effects if you eat it when you are hungry so take care.
--Emily
I don't think that I'd ever choose to think of galbi, rice, kimchi, fish, or eggs as a chewing gum flavor...Would you??!!
We were talking about names the other day, and I learned that in Korea most of the grandparents give the grandkids names! I thought that was really interesting. Mom and dad, do you want to name my child someday??
Here are 2 student essays on the meaning of their names:
Noah--My English name is Noah and the meaning of Noah is walking with God. It comes from the Bible. Because I want to walk with God for my entire life and to be the light of the world.
Sider (now changed to Joshua)--Joshua is appear in Bible. He is inheriter of Mose. He was leaded that Israel's the people go to the ghanan. Finally, his carrer is that destoryed to jeorigo castle.
I thought "Jeorigo Castle" was so cute :) I think he meant the gates of Jericho...
Sunday last week, I went to a new church in Ansan (1 1/2 hours south of here), and for being a newcomer got a rose. Well, 2 because my friend didn't want his. So after church, I went to meet Liz at Seoul Station, and got to give her a rose! It was fun walking around together and trying to find a place to eat. We finally decided on a cute, little Korean restaurant.
It had the tables where you sit on the floor and the tables are really low. We were in the middle of dinner when all of a sudden, I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye and back around Liz...then it moved to the other side, and it was a rat!!! I couldn't believe it!! I'm not normally afraid of rodents as I've had hamsters and rats as pets before no problem. But never in a restaurant! We kind of laughed it off and then quickly left.
But not before I was reminded by Liz to write "this" in my blog:
Last month or 2 months ago, Liz and I were at dinner when I cracked my knuckles. Probably more out of habit, I wasn't nervous or nothing. When she asked what I was doing, I said, "Cracking my nuggets." I don't know what was on my mind...maybe chicken...
It's great being able to work at a University with people my age. The hard part is that most of students are making big, life-changing decisions that can be hard on them, and consequently on me. I love them each though, and that's part of what makes them special to me. I'm happy they feel comfortable coming to me with their situations.
One student, Tom, was in one of these particular life moments that was troubling to him, and spent a lot of time talking with me about it this last week. I'm thankful that they want to share their problems with me, and want advice. I just hope and pray that I give them the words that God would have them to hear and not just "what I'd do if I were them". After the week was over, he made a decision about school, and we went to Yonsei University to walk around and grab dinner as a "thank you" for my time. It was a beautiful campus, something I'd never seen before in Korea. It was like stepping into Europe for a brief moment. I was so disappointed at not having a camera with me, but hopefully I can find that place again...someday... :)
Even through the pain and joy that the students bring to my attention, I'm so blessed to have them in my life. This last month or 2 has seemingly been endless in my negativity towards Korean people (especially those I meet on the sidewalk/in the subway), and it bothers me that I feel that way. But the moment I step on campus and see the students, my heart melts. I know that this is where God wants me to be. And I know I've said this many times, but I think that saying it again and again helps me be thankful for the precious moments I have been able to experience here.
Mongryeon (Magnolia)
Ian and 3 other teachers--one's hiding
Joy, Children's center teacher, Megan (Eun Kyeung)
Joy and I!!
Bangeul is "Bell"