Refined: Spring 2014 in a nutshell.

“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver”

Malachi 3:3a 

“Hey Zara, what’s mah-lee-chee?” He chuckled. The boy in my sophomore English class asked a simple question about the word printed on the back of my letter jacket. 
“It’s Mal-e-kai, it’s a book of the Bible,” I replied, wary, eager to avoid more negative attention. Though the boy asking about my letter jacket was nice enough, 10th grade was not my favorite year. I struggled to fit in with my peers, as most teenagers do. He had asked a seemingly innocent question, but having been teased enough times, I was immediately on the defensive. I probably took a deep breath and proceeded with my reply, “It says ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,’ which means that God is always with me through hard times.” 
“Oh,” he responded. I relaxed as he walked away. 


It wasn’t uncommon to have a Bible verse printed on your letter jacket in a suburban Bible-belt town, but most of my classmates went with the classic, tried-and-true verses (see: John 3:16, Jer 29:11, Phil 4:13, etc.). Minor prophets just never get much attention do they? Something about this obscure verse from a little-known book stood out to me.

My chosen letter-jacket verse continues about purifying the Levites, though at the time I didn’t know or understand much about Old Testament law, history, or its legacy in light of the New Testament. I had, however, read an article about silver refining the year I ordered my letter jacket.

In the article, a reporter went to a gold and silver refinery while researching the process. The silver refiner sits next to the fire and, with heat and patience, allows something beautiful to come forth. Taking a raw lump of minerals, he places it in the fire, allowing the fire to burn out all impurities. The refiner himself sits in close proximity to the silver during the entire process. Next to the fire, feeling the warmth, and sometimes pain of the heat. When asked how he knows it’s time to remove the silver, he answered, “When I can see my reflection in it.”

“When I can see my reflection in it.” 

That. That sentence hit me powerfully at 14 years old, and it continues to hit me powerfully.

…

Spring 2014. This semester has been powerful. A refining semester. This spring, I unintentionally took on much more than I could handle. Want to hear about it? Let's chat...

You know by now that I teach English as a Foreign Language at a university in Jeonju. Having a university schedule allows for a ton of free time, as long as I manage my time well during the week (*cough* challenge *cough*). I teach 16 classroom hours, and I can usually pick and choose what other hours to come in to the office to get the administrative side of my job done (lesson planning, records, etc.). There are also committee meetings and duties, which ebb and flow through the semester.

Because of my baller weekly schedule, quite a few people planned to visit Korea this spring! HOORAY! One of my prayers when I chose my (flippin’ awesome) apartment (which I still need to show you on the blog! It took me a year, but I finally did a video tour! I just haven’t put the clips together. Video editing isn’t one of my strengths. Anyway…) ...one of my prayers when I chose my apartment was that people from overseas would come to visit. It was an “if you build it, they will come” type of prayer, if you will. I didn't expect that they would *all* end up visiting in one month, but that’s ok.

Ok so, as of January, I was looking at 16+ hour work weeks with 5 planned visitors, which meant I had an awesome, exciting spring semester ahead of me!

Little did I know…

I had applied for a part-time history position at an international school that’s connected to my university, but I didn’t think I got the position. I found out the 2nd week of February (the week before the semester began) that I did, in fact, get the job! HOORAY!!! I LOVE HISTORY! I LOVE TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL! …whoa this is gonna be intense! Time to start planning!

And so, with two teaching gigs, my nomadic weekend routine, and 5 visitors scheduled in one month on the horizon, spring began.

March came in like a lion. If you’re familiar with the life of a teacher, you know that your first year teaching a new subject takes a lot of planning, and a *lot* of energy. If you want to be a good teacher, you have to put in a good amount of effort. It takes a while to find your stride. History (social studies) was my concentration when I did my student teaching and got my certification through my M.Ed. This is what I have dreamed of!! My own history class at an international school! Dreams come true! I would be teaching a small World History class, and with the primary history teacher to mentor/collaborate with me, I got down to work. Let’s do this!!

I’ll be the first to tell you that the history job was a lot more work than I expected it to be. I wouldn’t trade a minute for the lessons I’ve learned. The experience as a whole has been INCREDIBLE and beneficial, but I arrogantly laughed at warnings from friends who had attempted a full load as a professor while simultaneously teaching part-time at the high school. Arrogance, man. It’ll get ya. Pride goes before the fall, am I right? It was hard. Worth it, but hard. I ate a fair portion of humble pie along the way, I tell you what.

Anyway.

I love pressure, I love a challenge, so the thought of 16 gruelling weeks ahead of me was both exhilarating and exhausting. I felt overwhelmed from the first week. I spoke to my good friend Egbert as the semester began and he remarked that it would be a refining semester for us both, as he was embarking on a new life as an intern pastor and seminary student in Seoul.


Refined: Adj. 
1. Free of unwanted substances. Improved to be more precise or intact. Free from impurities 
2. With impurities and unwanted elements removed by processing.
Syn: improved, purified, developed


How true it is! A refining semester indeed. It has not been easy, but it has been good.

I said I love pressure and a good challenge, and it’s absolutely true, but I know my limits. I knew, I knew, that I had been given a fantastic opportunity to learn and develop my skills as a teacher, but I also knew that I would need supernatural help to accomplish everything I needed to accomplish without going mad. I felt that a battle was coming, in some form or fashion. Where can I turn when I know I can’t do everything? Why, to the source of my joy, to my Rock, my Redeemer, of course.

Diving headfirst into scripture and staying there is the best way to fight. I googled The Bible in 90 Days, a program my brother and seester used a few years ago to read the whole Bible, and printed the bookmark reading plan. If I was gonna make it through the hard months ahead, I needed support. I am not strong enough to do everything I was attempting to do, by myself.

“But he said to me,“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 

Maybe I seemed busy enough already, “too busy” to read so much every day, but the decision to read scripture is never a bad one. To read a *lot* of it every day might be daunting, but it was the best thing I could have possibly done with my time. It forced me to manage my time well as the semester began, to wake up early and get. stuff. done. My early mornings with hot coffee and the Bible became so precious to me! I also learned a lot more about Levites this time through, as well as more about Old Testament law, history, and its legacy in light of the New Testament. So, high-school-Zara, you chose a pretty awesome letter jacket scripture verse!

I didn’t finish in exactly 90 days (I’ve given myself grace there; it’s not healthy to beat yourself up about things when you’re trying your best and I never want to be legalistic about my faith), but I’ve never read through any of the books so quickly. It gives a fresh perspective to read the Bible in different ways, through different plans, in different order, at different paces. For the word of God is living and active! Beth Moore always says that you’ll never waste a minute spent in God’s Word and it’s so true. It bears so much fruit! This semester has been marked by God’s grace in a way that I’m sure I wouldn’t have seen had I not been diving in to what He says in the Bible.

“So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

    it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

Isaiah 55:11 

As the weeks picked up pace, a routine was established and I started to feel like I was balancing all of the work I had taken on. I was even able to take a few good weekends away to visit old friends around the country. Spring in Korea, I tell you!! Spring is the BEST.

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.” 

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 98

Late-April kicked off my month of visitors, which was AMAZING and exciting and fun, and BUSY beyond belief! The week after Easter, my students took midterm exams, I sprained my ankle, and my first visitors landed. Nicole and Brad and I had a blast! We ate everything in Korea, went on adventures, bonded: it was everything a visit should be! And the best part was Brad’s narration via email updates (which he kindly shared on my blog here and here and here!). I think it’s so fun to read others’ perspective on adventures that you’ve had together!

The next weekend was a church-wide retreat with New Philadelphia Church (NPC has several campuses: two in Seoul, one in Busan, and one in Sydney, Australia. If you’re in any of those cities, hit them up!!). The retreat was incredible. The theme was the hidden wisdom of God, with all the talks and breakout sessions focusing on different elements of the theme.

I can't tell you how much I learned, how much I'm still learning from those 4 days! So much spiritual food!! It also really built on something that God had already been establishing without me noticing.

You see, this busy busy semester received an added punch of LOVE and COMMUNITY with an unexpected deeper connection to New Philly.

Un-ex-pec-ted. 

I’d been visiting New Philly’s Itaewon campus since last summer, once or twice a month, just whenever I happened to be in Seoul for the weekend. I already loved it. I’d met great people, begun new friendships, learned a lot, etc. As I have grown in fellowship with these awesome people, I’ve been challenged and encouraged and, well, refined. 

So, without me even paying close attention, God had placed me into a new community of people who LOVE God and LOVE me, a place where the Holy Spirit nudges my heart to respond, a home. The retreat confirmed it and. I. love. it. Brian, a brother in Jeonju, called it my ‘upper room,’ a special place to meet with God and be refreshed, to grow. Especially fitting because Seoul is about 2.5 hours north of Jeonju, so, it’s “upper.” ;)

And so, a few days after the retreat, my third visitor came to Korea! JoLeah, a friend from Texas A&M, backpacked through Asia for 4 months this spring. You know those friends with whom you can go months without talking or years without seeing and it doesn’t make a difference? It’s the best. It was so great to spend time with her and catch up, to hear about her travels, to show her around Jeonju, eat American brunch and Korean dinner, and just hang out.

JoLeah and I went up to Seoul for the weekend, where we got to go to a big Friday night prayer service. So refreshing, so good. She also got to meet up with another friend in Seoul AND THEN ON SUNDAY I went to the airport to pick up MY MOM AND AUNT SARA!!!!

Honest-to-goodness, I was so concerned about their trip. I love (LOVE) being a good hostess, but with ALL THE VISITORS and JOBS and RETREAT and GENERAL BUSY LIFE, I was *drained* by the time they landed. It was the latter half of a busy semester and the very end of a very busy month. I didn’t see how I would have enough energy to be Typical Enthusiastic Zara by the time they got here.

Let’s be real: Having company is awesome, and exhausting.
Let’s be even more real: I love being a teacher, but teaching is exhausting. Teaching classes that are unenthusiastic is even *more* exhausting.
My Monday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon English classes were not the most enthusiastic bunch, so my weeks basically went like this: Monday-Wednesday I was a busy, frustrated zombie, then Thursday was pretty restful and Friday was always really fun, with energetic classes! You know how stage actors receive energy from the audience? Teachers receive energy from the class. It’s exactly the same performance feeling. Teachers are in the infotainment business.

So Mom and Aunt Sara landed on a Sunday afternoon, and even though I was a walking stress-ball from Monday-Wednesday, we had fun in and around Jeonju. I got to share my day-to-day life in Korea with them. They got to see my new normal!! Believe it or not, life as an expat isn’t always flashy. Don’t let the instagram filters fool you. No one wants to see instagrammed pics of my sink full of dishes or my laundry hanging up for lack of a dryer, but the reality is that we go to normal jobs, meet with friends to do normal hang-out things, do normal apartment chores, deal with normal grocery store stuff. It was so fun to share the basic “normal-ness” of my life with my family, and especially great to have them meet many of my friends that they’ve heard so much about!

By God’s good grace, I was able to take Thursday-Friday off (praise the Lord) and we spent a long weekend of awesomeness in Seoul! We went to see the musical Ghost (in Korean, no less!!), we went to Unhyeongung Palace, tried on Hanbok (so fun!), saw the changing of the guard at Gyeongbokgung Palace, hit up a few museums, and ate everything we possibly could. They also got to join me at a friend’s birthday party and Joint Prayer Meeting where churches pray specifically for Korea, and then we went to church at New Philly on Sunday. In a word: perfect.

Monday and Tuesday were busy and normal again, then the goodbyes… goodbyes are never easy. I sent them off on their bus to the airport and ugly-cried my way home in a taxi.

And then I slept, for like, a week.
Not really because I had to work the next morning at 9 am. But I really wanted to sleep for a week.

Let’s be real some more: trying to balance doing your job well and being a good hostess is incredibly difficult. I came out of the month-o-visitors feeling like a failure as a teacher, which isn’t exactly true, but I struggled with it nonetheless. I love teaching. It’s the perfect profession for me in this season of life. I love imparting knowledge about things that I love (language and history are two things I LOVE A LOT) to students, especially to teenagers. (Teaching high schoolers and university freshmen and sophomores means that I teach almost all teenagers and they are SO MUCH FUN!) Unfortunately, I wasn’t super organized for that month, because I just couldn’t be, so I felt frazzled and frantic and stressed about not being the best teacher or department committee member I could be. I really had to sit back and pray, focus and take a deep breath, and rest in grace. All my visitors were delightful. I wouldn't have traded a day of their visits. I lived each day to the fullest and did my very best (which isn’t half bad, most of the time ;) )

Things slowly worked themselves out, back to a normal routine, a typical mix of weekend events in both Jeonju and Seoul. As things settled, I finally managed to find time to do all the chores that had been put off while company came, and then ALLOFASUDDEN it was time to prepare final exam reviews and the exams themselves. Wait. WHAT?? It felt like midterm exams had been, like, yesterday, but NOPE the end was upon us!

AND NOW,

Final exams have come and gone. Grading and admin at the end of the semester takes for freaking ever (I’m currently taking short breaks to write out this novel of a blog post, over the week-long grading process)(Did I mention I’m still working on my time management skills?). My students surprised me, as they often do, with what a fantastic job they did. All that feeling like a failure as a teacher? Pointless. My world history kiddos all passed their final exam, showing a broad range of knowledge, comprehension, analysis, and application over roughly 15,000 years of history that we covered (EXTREMELY PROUD TEACHER!!!)! My university EFL kiddos (mostly) impressed me, giving themselves a diverse semester grade curve (the highest grade in my most difficult class was a 105, the lowest was a 21. A twenty-one. So. The old phrase “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink” comes to mind…). The conversation class final exam projects were also really fun to watch. I love giving projects! I love to let them stretch their English skills in creative ways. Sometimes they fall flat… sometimes they blow me away! And though I worried that I hadn’t been “present” enough as an educator this semester, though I worried that I “should” have done such-and-such differently, I worried for nothing. I got sweet messages from several students about how much they loved my class and wanted to sign up for my classes again in the fall. Heart. Melt! If that isn’t confirmation, I don’t know what is. I love teaching. I love students. Love.

The University: 

Campus on a cold and rainy day.

Spring means the occasional outside class! 

Student presentations to advertise their favorite music videos using comparatives and superlatives 

Feeling especially teacher-y and professional that day  

#awesomeclass #airquotes 

Another beautiful springtime outside class! 

Noraebang with my students. One of the perks of teaching at a Korean university! 

Conversation partner work 

Final exam review week 

Final projects! This skit was about seasons and festivals, so they dressed up and had props and WERE SO CUTE!! 

Written exams. These were a beast to grade. 

The High School: 

Campus on a gorgeous spring day! 

First weeks of school. Notes notes notes. 

Ancient History is so fun

  

Midterm exam projects! They did so well! 

Last day of school. Make good choices, my precious youths! 

This semester has grown me, challenged, trained, equipped, motivated me, proved me wrong, developed me, freed me, pushed me past the point that I thought I might break, yet I have come out on the other side a stronger teacher, a stronger person, a stronger believer with more knowledge of the Word, more dependent on the Father than ever.

As hard as this semester was, and it was hard, I wouldn’t trade a minute. Hard can be good. Jimmy Dugan says it this way: “If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

Refining fire. The heat is real. Jesus is more. I am weak, He is very, very strong. “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver…” 

Refined. Impurities and unwanted elements removed by processing. Improved to be more precise or intact. 

Absolutely.

When asked how he knows it’s time to remove the silver, he answered, 

“When I can see my reflection in it.” 

Nic & Brad Take Korea: Days 4-5

Nic & Brad have safely finished their trip to Korea and moved on to China, but not without one last update for their days in Seoul! We packed as much in as possible and ate ALL THE FOOD and watched a very beautiful, moving, somber Lantern Parade to top off their trip. It was *so* great to have them here for the past week and I'm going to miss them a lot! Brad is so kind to again let me post his update as a guest post, so without further ado, here you are!

Seoul, South Korea - Days 4 and 5

If you ever seek to be humbled, start talking trash and it will find you.  We got this, yeah, who says that half way through an international vacation?  More on that later.

We arrive at the train station in Jeonju to catch the fast train to Seoul with not a moment to spare.  The train arrives and Nic and I look for the car with our seats by turning right.  The train attendant stops us, looks at our tickets and redirects us to go left.  We start to sprint to the other side of the train and when we arrive, the other train attendant sends us back the other way.  Now we’re ping pong balls and everyone on the entire train is waiting for Baldilocks to figure out how to count to four…..in English.  Only a slight hiccup, we find the car with our seats, hop on and excitedly settle in for the bullet train to Seoul.  Earlier, I had made the joke of being on the Seoul Train and after mine and Nic’s deep guffaws had subsided, we could see by Zara’s reaction that this joke might have been fresh and funny to us, but it was definitely not “new material”.  Nonetheless, we arrive in the world’s fifth largest city and hail a cab to take us to our motel located in the heart of tomorrow’s event, The Lotus Lantern Festival which celebrates the birth of Buddha.  Feeling confident, we disembark from the taxi and begin our search.  Now I’d like to take this opportunity to describe Nicole.  This remarkable woman is a fawn in a meadow and lives in a world where bluebirds perpetually chirp about one’s head.  Her kindness is abundant and her inability to dismiss others is a gift…..and a curse.  We’re on the grounds of the Jogyseo Temple and she asks the English speaking tourist information attendant if he could help her locate our motel.  He immediately explains that it closed down not long ago and then proceeds to inquire of her knowledge of Buddhism and demonstrating what different things symbolize in the temple.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch where I’m guarding the sheep,  I am pleased to see that Nicole is receiving 10 minutes of  what appears to be invaluable information.  Finally, her inquisition complete, she heads over to me and slightly dejectedly tells me that our motel is out of business.  Ya’ll, I don’t take anxiety medication for nothing so my world starts spinning as I realize that we have all of our belongings on this side of the planet in tow in the middle of a huge city with nowhere to go.  The great location of this so called motel for the huge Lotus Lantern Festival is now the equivalent of thinking you’ve got a balcony room on Bourbon Street the day before Fat Tuesday but that hotel just burned down.  Good luck finding lodging now chumps.  Slightly trembling, I tell her that I saw a motel sign a couple of blocks away and we head in that direction knowing that it’s a futile effort.  Nic is, of course, taking in the sights on the way and abruptly stops.  I see her fumbling with her bags and realize that her attention has been diverted by a group of  kindergarten boys dressed like Korean monks and Momma needs a picture.  And this is where she and I are different:  When I panic, I go into focus/freak out mode and she continues to see the world through rose lenses.  When the danger has subsided we laugh about how quickly our electrons can shift to opposite sides of an atom in certain situations and that is what makes our friendship so special.  We always laugh in the end.  Fast forward to the motel that I had seen; we stood outside of it for at least 15 minutes trying to figure out what to do before we decide to go in.  Not only did it seem quaint but they had rooms available and for a very good price of $60,000 won per night!  (equivalent of $60 a night)  We’ll take two rooms for two nights please!  We’re both visibly relieved as we reach for a card to remember the motel by when we suddenly realize….this is the motel we traveled halfway across the country to find!  We had the name of this motel in Korean and the sign outside was in English so we didn’t put 2 and 2 together.  In a city of nearly 23 million people, we stumble onto the very small motel that we had been told wasn’t even in business.  What, I ask you, are the odds of that?

After settling in, we are off to see a couple of local tourist attractions and decide that lunch should be first on that list.  With the planets already in alignment for this day, we choose to throw caution to the wind and walk in to the first restaurant with a red pepper on it and inform the waiter that we’d like for him to bring us whatever he recommends.  Now, we may be world travelers, but Anthony Bourdain, we are not.  In fact, our palate is so tacky that we proudly boast that we’ve eaten at Pizza Hut or Domino’s Pizza on four continents.  Don’t judge.  Clearly, we are pushing our luck now.  They bring out some appetizers and both of us look at each other and nearly lose our breakfast.  This looks disgusting.  We are now discussing by telepathy how we can bolt while keeping our dignity in tact when we realize we are just going to have to dig in and hope we can keep it all down.  To our surprise, we actually liked a few of the dishes so we feel we’ve escaped embarrassment and then the main course arrives.  It’s a 20 gallon communal bowl that we are pretty sure they cleaned the fridge out of their leftovers in and melted some cheese on top.  We do recognize the cut up pieces of weenies and some pasta gummy worms.  Our stomachs are turning again.  So we eat the cheese and dip some of the rice balls in the spicy sauce it all sits in but the other 8 unidentifiable ingredients is back in their leftover shelf for someone else who are either more adventurous eaters or just as big of fools.

Dodging the food bullet, we are touring the town and have one more stop on our list:  The Seoul Tower.  We take the subway to what we think will get us close to it but when we come above ground the tower is nowhere in sight.  We see a bench to rest and regroup our strategy and a kind old lady pats the bench motioning for us to sit with her.  We exchange pleasantries.  I have an enormous soft spot for the older generations (which I like to believe evens out my disdain for children….just throwing that out there) so I am eager for some conversation with her.  It was then that we made a futile mistake:  We told her that we needed help finding the Seoul Tower.  As her eyes roll back in her head, she is now obviously receiving a message from Buddha that her life’s mission is to ensure that Brad and Nicole get on Bus Number 2 to Namsan Tower.  And off she goes, dragging us along with her.  She leads us into several lanes of traffic and proceeds to bang on the door of a random bus shouting at the driver to let us on.  He shouts and waves her off like the crazy that she is but she is not discouraged.  The next bus comes along and she wades back out into traffic insisting that he let these two mortified Americans on and he too shoos her away with all his might.  She figures out that there is a new rule about not being allowed on a bus in the middle of 8 lanes of traffic and leads us over to the actual bus stop on the side of the road.  All the while she keeps looking at us and shouting “Bus Numba 2” and nodding.  She occasionally enlists the encouragement of all the locals around her and they giggle but nod in agreement.  For the second time that day, we’re contemplating bolting an uncomfortable situation but she has been so kind and persistent on getting us onto bus numba 2 that we just can’t let her down.  Finally, bus numba 2 pulls up, and she shoos us up onto it.  We turn and bow deeply to her (a tradition of respect in Korea) and thank her in English profusely.  She just waves it off with a half smile as if to say, “I was sitting on this bench today waiting for you, you came, and I fulfilled my destiny.”  Bus numba 2 cost 95 cents and drove us all the way up the mountain to the Seoul Tower.  I got a picture of this bat shit crazy angel and it will be pasted right into the scrapbook next to this paragraph always eliciting smiles from me.  

The next evening, thanks to Melody and company,  we acquire front row seats to the parade of the Lotus Lantern Festival.  It is truly a spectacular event and we’ve been informed this year there is only Buddhist chants and a somber reverence in honor of the victims of the capsized ferry.  Hundreds of lantern bearers walked past with yellow ribbons commemorating the many youths lost on that boat.  This tragedy has struck South Korea’s very core and that grief is palpable throughout the event.  However, in true Korean fashion, lives are remembered and honored by prayers, beauty, and light and I, for one, am moved to have been a part of it.  

We arrived last night in Beijing, China where we will be for the next few days before returning home.  Wifi is sketchy at best and face book, twitter, and youtube is blocked by the government altogether so pictures will be posted when we return to the States and updates will be sent when a signal is strong.  We love you all.

Nic and Brad

Jogyesa Temple

Seoul! My friend Jacques met up with us for the day

Hitting up Korea's most boring museum, and looking fabulous doing so! 

The National Museum of Korea 

Prayer banners 

Lion lantern float

Hanbok and Hangul 

We scored lanterns to take home at the end of the parade! 

Lanterns at Jogyesa Temple

Nic & Brad Take Korea: Days 2-3

Today we're continuing the guest post series from my houseguests! They've conquered jet lag, but they're not here for very long so we are packing a LOT into each day! I sent them off to my favorite fortress on Day 2, then we went to a busy area of the city for dinner, and by the time the day was over, they were too tired for Brad to finish his Day 2 review. Days 2-3 got condensed, with very little info about our afternoon out in the Hanok Village (which is my FAVORITE thing about Jeonju! Come on, Brad!) ...maybe I can write about that later, when life slows down... HAHAHAAAAAAaaaaaaa slows down... when might that be?

Anyway~

Fun fact: Brad and I both LOVE dad-jokes. Enjoy!

Gochang Eup Seong and Jeonju Hanok Village South Korea - Days 2 and 3

안녕하세요 ANNYEONGHASEYO !!

We're not sure if our previous world travels have advanced our international skills or if Zara's brilliance at pointing first timers to Korea in the right direction is what has made for a seamless transition to a time that is 14 hours ahead of our own.  It's probably a combination of both but the short version of our first few days in South Korea is this:  we got this.  Neither of us are jet lagged in the least and our day trip to the Gochang Fortress could not have been any less drama.  Granted, Zara's exuberance for her home away from home coupled with her keen eye for detail has made the South Korea portion of this trip so incredibly easy and that, in turn, makes it easier to enjoy.  However, six years ago when Nicole and I began our voyages, even with instruction, we would not have masterfully caught a taxi to the bus station, purchased tickets to a city outside of home base, toured a site, and done the same in reverse...in a land where they don't even use the same alphabet.  uh uh - ain't no way.  Nicole and I were discussing this when I looked at her and said, "Now I can call you Virginia Slim."  While waiting on her usual laugh to my outrageously corny humor all I heard were crickets.  I said, "You know, You've come a long way baby!"  More crickets.  Later when I ran this by Zara her response was...yep, you got it - crickets.  Ya'll, I realize I'm not old but traveling with a hip chick in her 20's and a groovy chick in her early 30's can make a dude in his 40's feel like the crypt keeper.  

Our day trip to Gochang was so perfect and the azaleas in full bloom made for some beautiful photographs.  The traditional Korean architecture has lived up to my expectations as well but what I had no way to prepare for was the Korean people.  They are truly the friendliest of any country to which I've ever been.  Granted, me and Nicole stick out pretty well so when we look confused, people literally dash over to help us out.  This is true at the airport, bus stations, on the bus, etc.  Since Brad and Angelina are Brangelina the bald Brad and tall blond Nicole have now been dubbed Baldilocks.  And boy does that elicit some stares.  People almost always try to speak a few words of English to us without our ever having opened our mouths.  In fact, while at the Fortress, a school group of kids about 5 years old were about 50 yards from us and one little boy saw us and began waving and shouting at us, "Hellloooo!  Hellooooo!"  It was so sweet and that's when we realized that America's Baldilocks could be picked out of a crowd 200 paces away.  Not long after that older groups of school kids saw us and collectively began shouting to us "Hellloooo Helllloooo, What is your name?  Nice to meet you!"  Shortly thereafter  we ran into the same group where one kid remembered my name and called to me "Brad!!!" as if I was a friend he hadn't seen in years.  It was so endearing.  Later when we were waiting for our return bus, an older gentleman sits down next to me and I see him eyeballing my watch.  Now, in other countries, including my own, by this time I'd be up and moving somewhere else.  I'd already begun to develop a trust for South Koreans so I didn't flinch when he took my arm and held it up getting a better look at the watch.  I don't travel with anything but cheap watches for obvious reasons so I was perplexed by his fascination with it.  He took his off and compared it to mine and finally decided his Seiko was better so he put it back and asked me a few questions about my watch.  Not knowing how Wal-Mart translated into Korean, the exchange ended abruptly but pleasantly.  Just then a boy on a scooter races by, stops when he sees me looking at my ticket  trying to match the symbols to determine if it was the right bay to catch our bus in.   He doesn't speak English but we charaded our way to figuring it out and he disappears.  Moments later he appears with a jump rope and proceeds to parade his jump roping skills by us and disappears again.  Before we knew it, he was back with a tennis racket and giving us his best rendition of Andy Roddick on the tennis court.  Putting on the variety show that Sonny and Cher could only dream of pulling off as successfully, he returns again for the grand finale.  He breaks out in song and belts out every note to at least 2 songs in the movie Frozen....in Korean.  He was probably 9 or 10 years old and he wouldn't let me take his picture but he had no problem grabbing Nic's phone and taking a selfie.  I love the picture and can't wait to paste this paragraph into a scrapbook page next to it.

Throughout our walk in Jeonju Hanok village today I observe everything that I mentioned in the previous paragraph and smile.  I told Nicole and Zara tonight that I expected to like Korea but I never expected to fall in love with it.  I like reporting during travels when my heart is moved as much as I do the zany, quirky, and flat out crazy that we encounter.  There hasn't been much of the latter but after Seoul on Friday and Saturday, we fly back to Beijing for a few days.  That's when all the bragging will come to a screeching halt I'm afraid.  ;-]

hugs and love,
Virginia Slim and Lazarus

Gochang Fortress w/ azaleas... sigh!! 

Galbi

Bipimbap

Jeonju Hanok Village

Traditional games 

Gimp on a walk 

Punammun Gate