Finishing Off Another Month

Hello! Long time no see! :-p Really, I haven't written much here in awhile... so here are a couple things I've been up to lately... Last weekend, we went to a party with a bunch of foreigners (only a couple who I'd met before, but Tracy had met most of them... many work in different cities). The party started out with a soccer game, and we were instructed to wear something supporting our home country. Well, none of us Migukans had such clothing, so Friday night we made some! We went to Wellness, bought some plain white t-shirts, picked up some permanent markers at Manito, and voila! Here are the finished products (they say "Miguk Saram"- lit. "America Person"): It was kinda fun to hang out with some new foreigners and talk about our Korea experiences and where we're from, etc. One of the other girls there is from Minnesota and went to school in Eau Claire, so we could talk about Wisconsin :). After soccer we played ping-pong, although a real tournament never got underway (that's what happens when everyone starts drinking.... a lot of nothing. Nobody cares enough to make any decisions. That gets old when you're the only one sober...). Anyway, finally we headed downtown for some food and a bar and then I left. That was the excitement of last weekend. This weekend has been nice so far, too. I wanted to do SOMETHING like go to the sea or whatever, so I made plans with Jane to go to a nearby island. However, when she arrived I learned of a young adults event at the sea later in the day, so we revised our plans. Instead, we (Jane, Abra and me) went to eat nang-myon (cold noodles) at a super busy restaurant (they're having a sale!-- they even had dancing girls out the other day). Then we went up to Namsan and saw what's blooming and the new patio area that was just finished (got rid of the last sizable patch of grass in this city). The flowers were pretty: Then we did a bit of "eye-shopping" (aka browsing) to kill time before 4:30 when we were supposed to meet at church. At 4:30 Abra headed home and Jane and I went to church where we loaded a bus with a bunch from the young adults group, and headed for the sea. We ended up in an industrial area where you could see the sea and the famous Sehoe Grand Bridge. I was amused that there was such a large picnic and park area where your main scenery is HUGE factories. But someone else pointed out that it's a nice place for factory workers to go on their breaks. First we sang a couple songs (in Korean) and then there was a mini-sermon (in Korean), and then it was time to eat! :) In small groups we laid down mats and newspaper, and then little gas ranges with grills on-top for cooking Sam-gyap-sal. We took off our shoes and crowded around the grill, sitting on the ground, and put out all the accompanying sidedishes around us (very close to my knees and feet- had to be careful!). It was quite a spread, and a fun grill-out experience for me :). That's such a great group of people, and a good number of them know a lot of English. A few are even English majors at university. I know I would enjoy being good friends with a lot of them if there wasn't such a language barrier between us... And after all of this fun, Abra and I went to the DVD room to watch a Korean flick. I wonder what tomorrow has in store? Tracy left today for her 9 day vacation. She's headed to a variety of places in Korea, just backpacking and relaxing and wandering. It's going to be really weird not to have her around for that long! I'm so used to her being here! Speaking of vacations, everything is official- we're going to Japan June 1st-6th. The plane tickets and our accomodations are booked and we've scoured Lonely Planet and talked to Ben Schleif about what to see while we're there. Most of our time will be spent in and around Kyoto. I'm really getting excited about seeing something new. I'm sorry if things have gotten rather boring on here lately... I think it's probably because I'm feeling rather boring, or bored, lately. It's not that I don't find things to do, it's just that Korea isn't all that new anymore. And I'm certainly tired of aspects of it... Well, next weekend I'm off to the Seoul area. We have Friday off, so I'm going to "Prayer Mountain," a sort of retreat center run by Yoido Full Gospel Church. I may do a bit of sightseeing and souvenir shopping while I'm around Seoul, too. This will most likely be my last trip there before heading home (isn't that weird?). On Saturday night I hope to visit the English young adults service with YFGC, and then on Sunday I'm meeting Kim Dawit! It will be a very solo weekend, but I'm looking forward to it.