Long Day

Party people: I have a few pictures. Enjoy.

An outside shot. I live on the first floor. (for Ingrid)

Pre-School

This morning I gave a call to Eunice's mom (I still am not sure of her name), and we arranged for me to visit her at the church that I will be working at this summer. When I got to the school, she showed me around the church (pictures forthcoming) and then told me that I had come on a good day. The kids were going on a field trip to a traditional Korean Market.

A generic street; probably the street that the market was on.

The kids I'm working with are anywhere from 2-4 years old. They don't speak much English; I'm sort of just there to... move heavy things or something. Regardless, I think I found the experience of the market as interesting as the kids did.

These are the kids that go to the primary school. They found an animal vendor. With squirrels.

Much like many other coastal cities, Seoul has a fish market. I'm not going to lie: some of the things I saw today made my stomach turn. I'm still a trooper though; I figure if it hasn't killed the people here, I won't die either.

Dear NWC and Dordt people reading this: take a look at the tasty food we'll be enjoying.

Speaking of food, one of the most interesting things happened to me today. I ate lunch with the children, and Eunice's mother gave me a bowl of fried rice. Next they gave me some pickled pork with garlic cloves. I had to eat five whole cloves. Next she plopped six pickled eggs on my plate. These aren't the size of chicken eggs, though. They're smaller... like robin eggs? In any case, they were also good. Finally, for dessert, they broke out a watermelon. I was thankful it was something familiar, until I was told that I had to eat the seeds because they were good for me. I don't mind the food here, but I need to get used to eating things that I never would eat in the US.

This is a picture of Lotte World, an amusement park near the church. Evidently, Lotte is a huge brand name in South Korea. Think Wal-Mart. Now picture that Wal-Mart owned its own fast food chains, amusement parks, grocery stores, etc. It's nuts.

LOST

I got lost today. I had to take a taxi to the church in the morning (I was running really late), and so I had really no idea how to get back. I rode the subway back to the right station only to realize that I had no idea how to get anywhere from the train station.

I freaked out and walked around for about two hours. Finally, I found a familiar road and found the bus stop I needed to wait on to get back. Now, keep in mind that I always had plenty of cash and my transit pass to pay for a taxi to take me where I needed to go, but I thought I wanted an adventure. Big mistake

After my wasting my whole afternoon, I had nothing to show for it but a little bit of know-how. I didn't even have any good stories. Discouraged, I decided to get something to drink from a local coffee shop.

Tired.

Maybe it was the air-conditioning, maybe it was the soft-rock American music in the background, but I sat in that coffee shop for almost an hour just reading and enjoying the rest of my afternoon.

Post Smoothie

So that is my day in a nutshell. I also played soccer and at fruit. I'm super tired now, though, and am going to take a twenty-minute nap.

Peace out!

---CJ