Saturday Night Blues...actually...Jazz

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!!