My Trip to the Bank

Ok, let's get some things straight before I go into this. First of all, today was the best day for me to do this and I was concious of what I was wearing before I set out.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me begin. So, I decided to go to the bank today. This may seem like an odd decision seeing that it was raining fairly consistantly and hard all day long, but I had to be at a certain place at a certain time for approximately 1 hour today, so today was the day.

Now, going to the bank might not seem like that big of a deal to many people... remember, I'm in Korea and I don't speak the language. I also did not, at this point, have any Korean money with which to hire a taxi or take a bus to the bank, so I walked. One more thing... I didn't exactly know where the bank was... I had a very vague idea and some suggestions... that was it.

So, I set off. It's not really raining when I went, but I did carry with me an umbrella. Thank you, Mother for packing me one. I also carried a back pack with my cash to exchange my passport and some other forms of I.D. a map of Seoul a travel book and some toilet paper. I felt rather prepared if I found myself in an emergency.

I walked rather confidently and well for about 15 minutes and then I came to a place where I had not been before. By this time, it had started to rain so I was trying to watch my step and trying not to get the dumb umbrella caught in my hair (it broke at the first breath of wind) so much that I thought I might have already passed the bank and decided to try and ask someone if they knew where this bank might be ( I had a little piece of paper with the bank name on it written in English and Korean). So, I went into a little computer shop that had English on it and asked these two nice fellows. They spoke some English and gave good directions with their arms and hands. Even though they mixed up their words for left and right I understood what they were saying.

I go a little further and there was the bank. By this time I had been walking for about 45 minutes and I was rather wet. Not a drown rat yet, but pretty wet. So, I go into the bank. I have no idea what to do. There are a lot of people and there seems to be some sort of line, but I can't really tell where it begins or ends so I just stand around like an idiot for a while and try to decide what to do. Fortunately, a man who works at the bank came up to me and asked me something in Korean. I asked if he spoke English, he didn't but after a few minutes a woman who did seemed to materialize out of nowhere. She directed me to the upstairs and there I was able to exchange dollars into Won.

It's funny how spoiled I am as an English speaker. I know that if a Korean were to be in my position in America, they would not be so fortunate to have someone at any random bank speak English. I felt so dumb standing there saying "Dollars to Won?? Exchange??" And sweating profusely because I was so nervous. Just underneath the surface I could feel my ignorant self beginning to panic as all of these people gave me blank stares and gabbered at me in Korean. Before long I might have just as well been standing there shouting "I NEED MONEY! MONEY?? DOLLARS, WON, MONEY??" So spoiled.

Anyway, the lady who helped me was probably just as nervous about dealing with me as I was with her. She was trying to get me to understand some things at first and I just stared at her and shook my head. My hands were sweating and I was shaking a bit, but finally I took out my money and she typed on her computer and somehow the whole thing went down without any problems. I remembered at the end how to say thank you in Korean and she was very pleasant and said something back. It was a nice exchange.

Walking back I began thinking about how dumb I felt and must look. I was in flip-flops...dumb because it was raining and when flip-flops get wet, they're not easy to walk in, I had a dumb umbrella that kept snagging my hair and flopping around, I was wet all over except for a spot on my head right under the umbrella and I had just blundered into a bank and started jabbering about "Dollars Won Dollars Won!" It's a wonder I made it at all.

The walk back took less time than the walk there, but when I got to the hill (more like the HUGE MOUNTAIN to us flatlanders) that the Hyundai Center is on, I honestly didn't know if I was going to make it. Finally, I got up the "hill" and into the Center and just stood around for a while on the stairs. Eventually this guy came down and was like "Are you ok?" I said "Yeah, I'm fine!" But I was honestly just standing on a step looking like an idiot. The guy said, "Oh, cause you look a little confused." I was. The whole experience was great, but for some reason, I was confused. I guess I'm just confused that I felt I could just waltz into this random Korean bank without knowing any Korean and be able to walk out with exactly what I wanted... no questions asked. Am I arrogant? Am I foolish? I feel like I'm both. I felt confused.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience. I had an umbrella which helped a lot, even though it broke on me. 2 men who didn't know me at all helped me, I was able to do exactly what I needed and wanted to do at the bank and I never got lost or hurt along the way. This experience just confirmed for me that God really is holding me in His hands and is taking care of me every step of the way. It's only my stupid, foolish, humanness that causes problems.

Well.... that was a super long post! Until the next adventure!

Hil

Jesus and Cereal

So, I'm going back a few days so that I can tell you about the church service I attended on Sunday. Now, I want to preface this with some things. First of all, my one and only experience worshipping outside of the U.S. was a very cold experience. I went to church in Germany and I couldn't understand anything, no one there, besides me, was under 30 or over 10 and overall the general feeling and atmosphere of the place was very cold and sterile.

Worshipping in Korea was one of the warmest, most genuine experiences I have ever had. The people were so full of life and love for God and each other that I could feel the overflow of it as I walked in. The worship was very similar to what I'm used to in the States and the sermon, though a little redundant, was solid. I feel so blessed that I have the opportunity to experience this amazing culture and see how God is at work here. I am excited to continue seeking Him while I'm here and sharing His love with people around me. I've already connected with a lot of the other Christians that are here as native English speakers and I think, if I am intentional about it, I can have a good solid support network here as well as at home. Thank you, God for Your good works.

This morning, I woke up at 6 and couldn't go back to sleep so decided to get up and ready for the day. I'm not lying, I really did get up at 6 in the morning! I went down to breakfast expecting to find the usual mystery food and rice and found this fish soup... bones and all included. It was too disgusting to even try.... but... in the next line there was CEREAL!!!!!!!

Needless to say, I had 4 bowls! It made my day!

Until next time!!!

I went into this session thinking I was going to learn how to bang on a drum....

So after a trip to church, some more kimchi and rice, and a change of clothes it was time for the new teachers of S.M.O.E to begin their first seminar.... Rythmic movement I believe was the name of the "session".

There was this Korean gentleman who taught us this "rythmic movement." Ok, let me just explain that I was going into this session thinking that I was going to learn how to bang on a drum properly.... Oh No!

The first thing we do is sit on the floor in rows of fifteen. I can't even remember what we did there but after a few minutes we received these sleeve like things.. one for each arm. Then we were told to get into a circle, put the sleeves on and follow this man... say what he said and do what he did.
A few minutes later I found myself shouting at the top of my lungs and dancing around in some horribly strange fashion.... basically we all looked like fools! I couldn't stop laughing. It was so funny to hop and dance around and shout and have no idea what you're doing and then look and see everyone else looking just as ridiculous as you.

The Korean gentleman turned out to be a very good teacher and so much fun! We learned a traditional dance... I think and had to perform it in small groups in front of the whole group. The teacher told us that if we didn't do it right, we would have to do it again.

My team--team I--was so good! We worked together so well and when it was time for us to perfom, we were flawless. BUT WE DIDN"T PASS!!!
We performed again a second time and did much worse but passed that time around... I was still laughing at everything.

Then, after the first dance, some people learned how to play a Korean instrument... I was not one of them, but got to wear a scary face mask and dance around while they banged on their drums!
Then, we learned another dance and I learned how to say right and left in Korean... don't ask me how, I have no idea how to spell it! But, in this dance we all held hands and then at the end of the dance we had to dance with a partner and keep intense eye contact.... I got to know the color of this guy named Greg's eyes very well! He was nice.

After that we were all so disgustingly sweating that we had to go change and be alone for a while. It was a really fun day! I'm excited because today we really start training and the day is going to be full.

I'm getting better with the chopsticks and my stomach hasn't hurt me at all in the past two days! It's been fun meeting new people and learning the language a little bit. I'm excited to really start my Korean education.

Well, I miss you all and am constantly thinking of you. Mom, as soon as I find a phone that will work, I'm calling home!

Until next time!

most boring morning EVER!!! waking up at 4 and then waiting around until 7 for breakfast, like a true American eating in less than 20 minutes and then having, again, nothing to do for hours until it's time for church! I hope life picks the pace up a little bit here soon!

so exciting... at breakfast they had milk and toast!

It's interesting when sitting eating breakfast the most important thing on your mind is getting the food from the plate into your mouth without dropping it all over yourself. I'm definately getting better at the chopsticks!

So bored this morning and so ready to be done with BBC News that I almost had a melt down! I wanted to watch something else so I searched my room to look for a dvd player... no success!

Oh well. Jess and I ended up watching this program about a boy band in Korea. All of their songs sounded strangely familiar.... hmm.

ok, time for church!

Well, I learn so much so quickly. I know how to blog now. Or at least Jessica teaches me how to blog now. It's so funny to me. The woman seems to already know everything about South Korea. She already knows where some markets are that we could shop at. What a nut!

So, it's 5 in the morning and I'm really hungry! We'll see if the food for breakfast is edible... I'm not sure that they'll have pancakes, but that's what I'm craving!! Somehow I don't think they have them.

I'm going to church today. I'm a little nervous that I'm going to look like a total bum though seeing as I haven't unpacked at all and my clothes are..... wrinkled looking.

Ok, I'm sick of internet!