An Unfortunate Event

Tonight as I walked home from my friends home I was involved in an unfortunate event.  I was walking on a sidewalk and a young couple was walking toward me.  The woman had a baby strapped to her chest.  As I drew closer to them something happened.  The women for some reason spun around and made a yelling noise.  As it played out I watched it in slow motion it seemed.  The yell did not seem one of panic.  In a split second a thought came to mind that maybe she was being silly with her husband or something, or perhaps she was trying to play with her baby.

But as she spun it seemed to grow increasingly unbalanced until she was facing me again falling forward.  There may of been a moment where I could of jumped in front of her and prevented what was about to happen.  Unfortunately I froze.  It was like my body would not respond.  She fell right in front of me right on top of her baby.

I was horrified.  I thought maybe the fall could of killed her baby.  Her husband and I tried to help her.  She made some noises of pain but looked okay.  She immediately checked on the baby.  Miraculously the baby seemed fine.  He/She actually seemed like he/she may of been sleeping.  I heard him/her make a fairly typical sleeping baby grunting sound.

I continued walking and as I rounded the corner I looked back to see if everything was alright.  The husband was brushing his wife off and then he looked at me.  I can only imagine what he was thinking as he stared at me in that split second of eye contact...

Long Time No See...

My oh my it has been almost a month since my last post.

Although it has been a good month so far it has also been difficult because I have been sick for pretty much the entire month.  That is a reason I have been absent from the blog for so long.  I just haven't had the motivation to write much.  I just feel so worn out most of the time.

I went to the doctor at the beginning of the month and he told me I probably had bronchitis and prescribed me a 4 day supply of pills.  I have no idea what the pills were.  I was basically told to take about 16 pills a day.  I did it and I have to say that I don't feel like they helped a whole lot.  By the end of the 4 days I was still coughing a lot and blowing my nose a lot.  After a few days it seemed as though things might be clearing up but last Friday my symptoms returned (literally the exact same ones) and I felt utterly exhausted again.

I really had no desire to go back to the doctor again and get another huge binge worth of drugs.  So I have stuck it out this week.  My symptoms have stayed about the same for most of the week.  Usually in the morning and evening I feel pretty good but if I go to work or something I will start coughing lots of stuff up and blowing my nose a lot for most of the day.  Hopefully I don't get pneumonia.

Oh well I suppose.  I will see what happens in the next couple of days.

So that is where I've been for most of the month, in a perpetual state of exhaustion and sickness.  I think culture shock, work, and just some life issues are all contributing to my exhaustion and sickness.

Nevertheless life is still good and I'm still having fun :D

I've gotten to eat some really great food.  In fact I had Chinese food in Korea for the first time tonight and I have to say it was pretty tasty.

The other day I got to see a friend for the last time before he moved back to America.  I felt really happy for him and yet sad to see him leave as well.

I've gotten to help at quite a few orphanages over the last couple weeks which has been exciting and challenging.

This evening my school had two Music and English Festivals (each 2 hours long) in one day that my co-teacher and I had to host.  Preparing for them was often a stressful time for him and I because it seemed as though things would get sprung on us at the last minute and we would have to change our material on the fly.  That is kind of a vague example but suffice to say Korea is a little bit different than America (haha) and sometimes it's hard to deal with those differences.  Some of the time I was preparing for this presentation I felt like I was kicking and screaming with stress while all the while trying to be a good servant for my head teacher.  I'm glad it's all over now and I'll probably be a better person having had to go through the experience in the long run.

Anyways God is good.

The Masan Chrysanthemum Festival

So October is pretty much done.  This past weekend was really fun.  I got to go to a Chrysanthemum Festival in the city of Masan.  It was a beautiful thing to behold.  After that I took part in a dinner of raw fish. That, to say the least, was an interesting experience.  Here are some pictures of this beautiful festival...

Right when you walk in

Pretty cool mask of chrysanthemums

 Me to the side of that mask

Beautifully laid out

This was a bunch of kites connected that went, I would say, at least 100-200 feet into the air.  Super cool.

Moo

 A golden statue in a garden of chrysanthemums

The beautiful sea/ocean 

The island framed.

Apparently that island is a really cool place to go to.

 I believe the next 3 pictures are of characters from a pretty famous Korean cartoon.  Can't remember the name though.

Me in front of a funny little scene.

 A close-up of these beautiful flowers.

 An owl statue in the cultural area.

 The Masan Fish Market where I indulged in raw types of sea life.  The highlight of the whole experience was the whole, dead, raw octopus I ate.

Does The Phrase "Only In" Korea Apply To This Story?

So as I walk home from lunch I'm passing by a cell phone store. Two employees are standing outside. One is wearing a horse mask, the other is wearing a creepy old man mask. I am made very uncomfortable by both guys and look down to try and avoid having to talk to them. The one in the old man mask proceeds to step in my path, tell me he loves me, then reaches out to shake my hand, then pulls me in to give me a hug, tells me he loves me again, and then, the icing on the cake, plants his mask upon my cheek and makes a kissing noise from inside the mask. He releases me and I say "oh thank you", turn around and walk away, in thorough discomfort and astonishment. I wonder if the phrase "Only in"...Korea applies in this situation. 

My Adventure Through Materialism and Overpriced Clothing Which Lead to An Interesting Revelation

So I made a rather reluctant trip to a place called Lotte Outlet today.  It was an interesting experience walking around all the "trendy" stores, looking at what's "in style".  Honestly the most laughable, and at the same time, depressing thing about this little adventure was gazing at some of the prices of these items...Thousand dollar coats, over a hundred dollar shirts, purses, and scarves etc.  Here are a few pics...

Here's a nice looking shirt...when I saw it I was immediately intrigued  because it is something that I would wear.  I walked towards it, hopeful, but all the while forgetting that I was in a "trendy" store.  I thought to myself "Couldn't cost much more than $20 (or around 20,000 won)"  I just about passed out when I saw the actual price...it was 270,000 won (about $270).  I didnt know whether to laugh or try to ask an employee if they were seriously selling this shirt at such a  price.  Considering that I don't know the language to well I chose the latter and laughed.  Honestly though I was somewhat angered by the audacity of this company to charge such a price for a shirt that was probably made by some kid in a sweatshop in Thailand.  At that price I would hope it was handmade by some white-collar designer in Europe or America.  In the end the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Here is a picture of the price of the above shirt.

 Here's another interesting item.  A very thin, but nice looking, scarf.  I noticed this because it reminded me of some people I knew back in America that enjoyed them.  Nevertheless I touched the material and it seemed nice but thin.  Again, in my naïveté, I figured "Can't be much more that $20-50 (or around 20,000-50,000 won).  Again, however, I received a swift right hook to the face when the actual price was reviled to me...460,000 won (or around $460).  Similar to the shirt event I was sent aback in surprise.  Again I figure the thing was made by a kid in a sweatshop but perhaps it was handmade by someone who charges a few hundred dollars an hour.  At a price like that I would hope that there was gold somehow weaved into the fabric.

Here's a picture of the price tag of that "in vogue " looking scarf.  You'll notice that it says "Bright Yellow" on it.  In that case, given the other picture doesn't seem to show much yellow, I'm willing to dabble my brain in the possibility that perhaps the price was wrong but this was the tag attached to that "fine" piece of cotton.

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Now the experience at Lotte Outlet wasn't all depressing.  There was a Levi store with some reasonably price jeans and outside the Levi store was a little section of even more reduced priced clothing from inside....Perhaps if I had gazed into some other stores I might of found some other reasonably priced articles of clothing.

I long for a Wal-Mart, or a Kohl's in this country but nearly every clothing store I walk into screams of fleece (to defraud or to charge exorbitantly) in my opinion.  I suppose my hopes may be realized in stores such as E-Mart and Lotte Mart which apparently are the Wal-Marts of Korea, but I have yet to really check out the clothing situation in these stores.

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This is probably one of my most cynical blogs yet about life in Korea.  I am certainly aware that such prices for  clothes is not isolated in Korea, but after being here for almost 3 months and seeing so many more ridiculous "fashionable" stores than back home my I'm just about done with any sort of shopping all together.

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The revelation I came to as I typed this blog...

When I ponder clothing styles and the insane prices that must be paid to be within that group it really makes me realize how sinful, fickle, pathetic, and vain humanity really is.  Every 5-10 years the westernized world picks new clothes that it considers to be "nice", "cool", stylin" "popular" (and just about any other adjective you can think of) and people go out and buy those clothes for whatever reason, whether it be to find acceptance or just to fill some empty void with the styles and pleasurable looking linen of the current decade.

But then after 10 years or so humanity realizes that the current styles don't bring acceptance from others like they used to, or that that void that seemed closed before is starting to open back up as all the clothes that were fun and pleasurable to wear over the last few years are not as much so anymore.  So humanity goes looking for new style, and exciting clothes to find that acceptance, to fill that void.  Ultimately however the only one that will truly accept you as you are, and the only one who will ever fill that void is Christ. Outside of Christ, humans will never be able fully accept and love each other, no matter what they do, and that void will never stay full with the temporal things of this world.

Yes considering fashion and all the "things" of this world make me all the more ready for the return of Christ so that all this "stuff" can be utterly destroyed and the new heaven and new earth can be upon us...Revelation 21:1 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone."

A Lost Tooth...

One of my students lost one of her teeth in my class the other day.  I thought I would take a picture of her with it.  :D  Cute kid.

Little Yun-Jin (I think)

Bi-eum san Again!!

So last week I went on another hiking adventure.  This time it was a bit different in that I had a companion with me.  The guy I hiked with is from New Zealand. We hiked about 4.5-5 kilometers up, along the ridge, and back down on two mountains.  Most of the hike we did I had done before but it was nice to have someone to chat with.  Him being from New Zealand and me from America allowed for lots of good conversation about our prospective homelands.

The good thing about having a fellow hiker is that you can have them take pictures of you in places you want to have your picture taken, such as this one...

JOY!!

Finally "cooked" something

So a couple of weeks ago I finally "cooked" something.  I made spaghetti and also prepared a nice dressing-less salad as well.  While the spaghetti and salad were no real challenge to make it marks a turning point in my life away from home.  For the most part my meals at home have been little more than processed foods such as pouches of fake chicken that you have to boil and pore onto rice, cereal, processed spaghetti that you microwave etc.

But now I have actually "made" something.  I felt pretty good about it.  I bought a full head of lettuce and a full head of cabbage and three peppers, one green, one yellow, and one red.  They all lasted for quite awhile and added a certain health to my diet which was not there before.  Although I have eaten lots of apples and carrots since arriving.

I recently started using the rice maker that was in my apartment when I arrived.  It is a nice thing to have and is much cheaper than buying 5 packs of microwaveable rice once a week.

Here's is a picture...Please understand I'm not trying to brag or anything, I'm just glad I'm starting to move away from all the unhealthy junk I've had since arriving :D

Having a stove would be a wonderful thing so I could cook some lasagna but nevertheless I'm stove-less...

A Journey In The....Second Month

Gosh it is just so hard to believe that it has been another month since I arrived in Korea.  It is just going so fast I really can't keep track of what's happening around me it seems.  I really haven't been doing a very good job of blogging.  Life gets in the way it seems sometimes or perhaps I just get lazy :( LAME.  I guess I don't always know what to talk about.  If anyone reading this has a question on something they would like to learn more about feel free to message me or something, or comment on the blog.

So far this last month I have:

become more acquainted with my job

gone to a huge (and polluted) city, Busan

 -Saw a cool aquarium
 -Saw a strange ice cream shop
 -Saw a wild fish market
 -Had what may of been Cuban food
 -May have developed a respiratory illness from the pollution :D (Can't prove it)
 -Saw a pretty neat beach (Hae-Un-Dae)

got a cellphone (although there may be some problems with that)

learned how to say "don't do that" in Korean (which can be a lifesaver when dealing with little kids)

read a few books (Deuteronomy, the Fellowship of the Ring, Star Wars: Vector Prime, Anthem)

ate some good pizza

saw an old temple (Gilsang Temple)

climbed a long staircase in the mountains

saw an unfinished interstate

enjoyed good company with good Christian folks

saw some amazing football matches

and probably more I can't remember.

Its hard to believe that after this next month is over I'll already be 25% thorough my year here.  It's just flying by.

I think I'll add some pictures of this last month:

A nice looking bulgogi pizza...

...the crumbs of that bulgogi pizza

A Chuseok gathering at church :D

That long staircase in the mountains

A tree on the mountain trail

The unfinished interstate

Gilsang Temple from above

(I searched the mountains for a few hours to locate this place only to find it at the bottom of the mountain)

Eastern architecture at it's finest

I went artistic

A close-up

Extremely detailed

The Busan subway (with my friend Wes)

Some of Busan in the distance

Skyscrapers in Busan

Posing on a rocky part of the shore of Hae-Un-Dae

The original carving from the man who gave Hae-Un-Dae its name

May be around 1000 years old

A really cool and funny no smoking sign

My friend Wes posing in front of an aquarium at the Busan Aquarium

Me in front of a rather large shark mouth 

Inside a bubble thing

The strange ice cream shop.  Am I the only one who sees some potential copyright issues in this photo?

A cool sign of Busan Aquarium

The sign for the fish market (wasn't really just a fish market I guess) 

The large market.  Was really cool.