Everywhere I Go

So the song "Everywhere I Go" by Five Iron Frenzy has been my theme song lately. I was just going to put up the chorus, but the lyrics are so great that I had to put them all up. If you don't like reading lots of lyrics then just read the chorus.

I was wasting time
Oh so sure to find somebody who'll
Never go
How could I know
None I'd found was true
None could be but you
The only one love divine
My heart, my mind are yours

Everywhere I go I see your face through the crowd
Everywhere I go I hear your voice clear and loud
Everywhere I go you are the light that I seek
Everywhere I go you have found me

Where could my heart go
Where you wouldn't be
Where you wouldn't know to find me?
Far far from here
Still you are near
Still you are near to me
And I see

I have seen you in the morning
In the guiding light you hold me
Closer than the air around me
You surround me always.

See, this is the kind of worship song I would sing under my breath in chapel when I was feeling slightly stifled by some of the music. Not only is this song musically intense but its lyrics are intense. Better than, pardon me, some of the drivel out there. I don't mean to offend anyone if you like those kinds of song. If you like the music, then I'm very glad for you. But quite often I had trouble singing songs because I didn't like the music or the words. I know that I can worship God anyway, even if I don't like the music, but that is hard for me. Maybe it's something I need to work on. Or not.

Anyway, I've been listening to this song every morning before I leave for school, and it plays in my head randomly throughout the day. I really love this song because it's so true. I don't think I could ever stop following God. Even when I'm ignoring him or being distracted by other things, he's there. Everywhere I go I see him. No matter what country I'm in, whether I'm on the beach in Korea or in a crowded train station in Bangkok, I see him. He's always at least in the back of my mind. I can feel his love for these people and this country. Even if I don't have friends or family here with me, I'm not alone.

Everywhere I go he surrounds me.

Oh, Humidity

It's hot here. You might be saying, "Of course it's hot." You're in Thailand in June. True, true. I knew that it would be hot. And humid. And I came anyway. Still, it's pretty hot. I do think I am slowly getting used to it though. Living in Arkansas has slowly been desensitizing me to humidity (though of course not all the way). Still, Arkansas is nothing compared to this madness. The wet hotness grabs me whenever I walk out of a building, especially after a whole day inside my air-conditioned (often chilly) school. Several times I've walked out of a building and felt my throat starting to seize up and my breaths coming in semi-desparate gasps. I had to tell myself to breath slowly to keep from hyperventilating. My body must think that I'm suffocating or something. I do think I'm getting used to it, though. A little, at least. The constantly drenched in sweat part isn't my favorite, but it's getting better.

On a slightly different note, I am loving Thai fashion! Just tonight I was wandering around the street my school's on trying to find a Staple's to buy school supplies (which has remained every elusive) and I kept getting distracted by all the booths. The first time I walked outside of the school after dark, I was amazed at the transformation. The sidewalks were busy before, but they are booth-lined at night. People are everywhere. Jewelry, t-shirts, dresses, shoes, watches, DVDs, underwear, purses, you name, it's there. Some places even have colored light shows going in the alleys it quite wonderous.

I kept telling myself that I have to wait until Saturday to buy anything. Since I'm going to the big market, I should wait until I see all the stuff there. It was pretty tempting, though, since I saw so many clothing items that I wanted. It's like heaven here after countless unsuccessful shopping trips in the States and semi-unsuccessful ones in Korea. Saturday is only one day away!

Thailand!

So I did make it safely. Tipawan and Jang (the ladies who picked me up at the airport) were so awesome! They helped me get a sim card for my phone, took me out to eat, took me to a supermarket, helped me get to my place (which happens to be kind of far from everything, unfortunately), and helped me settle in. It was just great.

My CELTA course is going to be extremely time-consuming, so I probably won't be able to write very often. I started Monday morning. There's only six of us, and all Americans except for one Kiwi. A little disappointing, since a mixture would have been nice. Also, I am the absolute baby of the class. I'm twenty-two, while the next closest to my age is twenty-eight. Then they are thirty-one, thirty-two, forty-one, and sixtyish. But oh well. I will definitely learn a ton. We are going like lightening.

I taught my first class today. I was a bit disappointed in how it turned out because I made a lot of mistakes that I knew the moment I did them. The trainers are very encouraging, though, and on Friday I'll have another go.

I'm feeling very comfortable here, actually. Even though I'm staying alone and often go places alone (out to eat, shopping, going home, etc.), I'm not minding at all so far. It's so interesting seeing all the people and buildings, and just watching people's interactions.

Tonight was a nice change. One of my mom's good friends has a son near my age who is teaching English in Bangkok. She flew in today to see him, and I met up with them and his roommate for dinner. Both Mark and his friend Joel are crazy about food, so they took us to this awesome hole-in-the-wall Thai place. They ordered five dishes, and all of them were wonderful! They said that it was actually a little sub-par tonight. It was hard for me to believe that since it was so good! Both of them speak fairly conversational Thai, and we were always stopping to talk to construction workers, foodcart owners, and other people.

They inspire me to try to learn some more Thai while I'm here. It's such a fun language. Although it will be hard with how busy we are with the CELTA course. I have to get up at five-thirty and tonight I didn't get home until ten-fifteen. I still have to write a mini lesson plan, so I probably shouldn't be doing this now, but I figured Life needed an updating.

I'm hoping that this weekend I'll get to go to Jakujut market. It's supposed to be the biggest market in Asia! Stay tuned...

More HK

Today and yesterday have been full of seeing parts of the city and running errands. Yesterday my mom and I tried to find a Fossil store (one of my favorites) with no luck, but we did go to the phone store, the chiropractors, and IKEA. I bought a decent-sized mug at IKEA. I really hate tiny mugs unless I can actually drink from a pot. I don't mind refilling my cup from a teapot, but it's annoying when I make the tea in the mug. We also went to a very sweet lifestyle store called Franc Franc where we purchased a clothing hamper of gray cloth with a wooden frame.

Today we went to a market that a lot of ex-pats live around. The nice thing about that is that a lot of the workers speak English, and the signs generally have English and the dollar amount or items. I bought a small watercolor painting to brighten up my dull walls. I mean to buy several more pictures, but the rest will have to wait until I return. I also bought a beautiful, carved wooden necklace rack. At least I thought it was a necklace rack, until one of Mom's friends informed us that it is actually a rack to hang calligraphy brushes on. Oh well. It works just fine as a necklace rack.

Tonight was the night of my parents' Bible study, so I tagged along as well. Dinner was included (we brought fruit salad). Their apartment was absolutely beautiful. We spent most of the night just talking since they have already finished their study and not that many people were able to come. The people were quite interesting. The host couple are Malaysians, the man a doctor. One lady is a Philippino who has lived most of her life in Hong Kong. Another lady is Korean but is married to a German man. She's lived in Germany for ten years and Hong Kong for fourteen. Yet another lady is Korean but has lived in the States, the UK, Australia, Singapore, and now Hong Kong.

It's interesting to me that most of them have "helpers" a.k.a. maids. Having a maid isn't a terribly common practice in the States. That, coupled with the size of their houses, makes me wonder why they need maids for such a small space. Dad told me that one couple he knows has four helpers. FOUR. And they live in an apartment. Won't the helpers just bump into each other? How much work is there to do anyway? But I digress.

I leave for Thailand on Sunday. I've been a little nervous about the actual arrival (finding my way to the apartment and to the school the next morning). God is pretty awesome! When I went to Dad's work on Tuesday so we could go out for lunch, he introduced me to three of his coworkers who are from Thailand. They jumped into overdrive helping me get ready to leave. They called a friend to pick me up from the airport and take me to my apartment. They read the directions to my school and tried to figure out how I would get there from my apartment. They even wrote out directions to my apartment in Thai that I could give a taxi driver if I get lost (since most Thais don't speak or read English). I have been amazed at how much work they are doing for me.

Amazed and grateful.

New Home

A lot has happened since I last wrote. I'm in Hong Kong now!

My last couple of days in Korea were pretty great. We went to Seoul on Friday which happened to be Buddha's birthday. Bad idea. It was so crowded! We paid for this tour bus that runs by thirty different famous places. We could jump off at any of the places and get back on another bus whenever we're done. The buses were supposed to run every twenty minutes, but the least we ever waited was forty minutes. The most was an hour and twenty.
Besides the waiting and massive crowds, it was a lovely day. We saw the national museum, the war monument museum, a historic village (which had a rice cake cook-off going on), a shopping place where we ate lunch, and a market where I bought some scarves, coin purses, and custard bites. After that we caught the train back to Chuncheon. It was a good and tiring day.

Sunday was my real last day. We went to church, and I just read my Bible most of the time. That afternoon I went shopping with Sarah, and it was actually fairly successful! The thing I hate about shopping in Korea is that most stores don't let you try things on. I'm not going to pay forty dollars for a dress that I don't even know will fit me! Seriously!

That night some family friends took us out to this super nice Korean restaurant. The entire table was absolutely covered with little bowls of food. While Americans tend to have one main dish and a couple side dishes, Koreans love to have five or six side dishes. Well this meal probably had thirty different things, including grilled meat. egg soup, shrimp with onions, squid legs, crab innards (that you mix with rice), tiny fish with walnuts, and fish organs. It was very exciting.

The next morning I got on a bus and headed to the airport. The day didn't go too badly, except I was afraid they weren't going to let me leave in Shanghai. When I had my layover in Japan on the way in, they just checked my passport, and I went to my gate. In Shanghai, they probably checked my at least eight times, and I went through several different security points. I kept thinking I was going the wrong way because I didn't think they'd have so much security for a layover. But they did. I got very thoroughly patted down, and I was taken to the special security offices twice. But I finally got through, thank goodness.

So I'm in Hong Kong now! I'm mostly moved into my new room, which is defintitely smaller than anything I've ever lived in before, but I like it. I walked to my dad's work on my first day being there and didn't get lost! I was very proud of myself. That night we walked around some downtown areas and rode a ferry around. The skyline is simply gorgeous.

My mom got in last night, so we fetched her from the airport. Today and tomorrow I think we'll be shopping for some things I need/want for my room. Exciting times!

JWs and Hitchhiking

Well, before I actually talk about JWs and hitchhiking, I want to say something about the food. I like most Korean food a lot. It's quite tasty. But I don't really like it for breakfast. Think about eating garlic, chili sauce, fish soup, tofu, and fried zuccini at seven in the morning. I don't eat very much for breakfast anyway; generally a granola bar or a small bowl of cereal is enough. The other day Mrs. Kim was making me breakfast and Sarah wasn't around. First she gave me cereal, which was good, except that the milk had somehow gotten a garlicky taste to it. Then she kept making me more and more food! I kept hoping that the stuff she was making wasn't for me, but then another dish would appear. On top of my cereal, I ate fried fake crab meat, kim-chi, tofu soup, some kind of green stuff, and rice cakes in chili sauce. I was so full! And everywhere you go here, people give you food. Sarah and I went down to the church office to tell them something, and she breaks out chips, fruit, and yogurt cups. There's so much food! I guess I just don't eat enough.

Anyway, yesterday was interesting. Since Sarah and I are both interested in education, we wanted to visit an international school and learn about its system and how it runs. We were going to go to one school, but it was four hours away, which is a little far. Instead, her dad recommended that we visit a Jehovah Witness school that was only two hours away. I called, hoping that my Westernness would soften them to us, and asked them if we could come by sometime that day and visit the school. The lady I talked to said yes, come. So Sarah and I took a train to one city in order to hop a bus to the city where the school was. We missed the bus we were trying to catch because it wasn't marked correctly. Then an old man told us we needed to get on a bus that was leaving. We ran after it and got on, but then Sarah found out that it wasn't the right bus after all. She asked the driver to let us out, but he wouldn't stop until she started yelling at him. She went back inside to ask at the counter. The lady there said she'd look for it and then began making phone calls. Finally we saw the right bus which was also pulling away. We ran after it and made it. The school site said that the bus would stop right in front of the school, so we kept waiting until then. Sarah also asked the driver, and he said that we should wait until the very last stop. The last stop turned out to be a hospital at the top of a very tall hill. Sarah was pissed. One of the men on the bus told us that we should walk down the hill, which we started to do, but a man we ran across told us that the school was too far to walk to, but there was a shuttle we could take. When we looked at the sign, the shuttle didn't arrive for two hours. We finally broke and got a taxi.

When were driving down the hill, we saw a huge white building with a giant dome on top, sitting way up the mountain. We thought that must be the school, but the taxi driver told us no, it was the house of the founder of the JWs. It's crazy to think that that humongous house was for one man. The school ended up being just below the white house, and it was crazy as well.

When we were dropped off, we were a bit awed by the building. This was just a high school, but it had marble-like steps and huge pillars. It was four or five stories tall. Flowers were everywhere. There wasn't an office like most schools. We followed the directions that the lady had given me, climbing up to the fourth floor and going to an office at the end of the hall. The man there, Steve, was the director of study abroad trips. He told us that it was highly irregular to have visitors like us who hadn't gotten written permission from the principal, but since we'd come that far and the person told us wrong on the phone, he'd show us around.

That school is the scariest thing ever! The kids are like super robot kids. It has six hundred kids and is a 7-12. All of the kids have to speak at least conversational English, be musical (they have to take one kind of instrument while at school), take a third language, and achieve a black-belt in Tai-kwon-do before graduating. Between eight and three they have seven classes. From three until six they take electives like music, horse-riding, SAT prep, broadcasting, or research projects. From seven-thirty until nine they have a school-wide study hall (with a special study room with desks), but they can opt to take more night classes if they want to. Middle school students must be in bed by twelve, and high school students must be in bed by two. Oh, and they get up at six-fifteen to have (what we're guessing is) group devotion times. Besides all this, most students travel to conferences, debate tournaments, research councils, mock UNs or congresses, etc. And there are fifty clubs that they participate in.

I just don't understand how they can do it. How can they do all of that? How can they get the homework done for the million classes they take? How can they survive off of such little sleep? That can't be healthy for growing high schoolers. But oh well.

After the tour, Steve told Sarah and I that we could catch a shuttle back to the hospital where we could get another bus. Surprise, surprise, the shuttle didn't get there until five-thirty. It was three-fifteen. We started walking down the mountain, and then Sarah decided we should try hitch-hiking. A car did stop for us. It was one of the staff members at the school. He told Sarah that he was going through the town where we got off the train anyway, so he took us the whole way! My first real time hitch-hiking. Although Sarah's mom wasn't too thrilled when she found out about it later.

Well, tomorrow we go to Seoul. Should be tiring, but fun.

Picnics and Railbikes

So much has happened since I last wrote! I guess I'll just focus on the main things.

On Sunday, we went to church. It's not terribly exciting for me, since I don't understand anything, so I took my Greek bible and tried translating some verses. After church, we all drove to a treeful park for a picnic. They set up picnic mats with small grills (think lidless, round George Foremans) all over. Four to six people would sit around each grill. Older people and families would have thier own mats, but the thirty or so college students all sat together with lots of grills. They would grill this meat that looks like really thick, really fatty bacon that doesn't crisp. When it was cooked, we'd dip it in a red sauce, put it on a leaf, add some rice, and shove it in our mouth. It was pretty tasty.

After eating, they had a bunch of games! I participated in a sack race relay where we had to eat flour-dipped candies at the end! My team lost every game we played until the tug-of-war at the end. We were the smaller team but somehow managed to win! They gave away prizes like tea-pots, kleenex boxes, and giant packages of toilet paper. I won a lunch box.

Then it was time for the married men to play the college guys in "soccer volleyball." It looks really fun! I would like to do that instead of volleyball at my next picnic. I talked to a guy named Sang-no for a long time, which was nice. His English was very good! He wants to be a doctor and maybe go to America, since doctors aren't as respected in Korea. Most of the people don't know very much English. They'll say "hi" and "nice to meet you" and that's about it. A couple of them can say a little more than that, but they're pronunciation is very interesting. I'm not always sure if they're speaking Korean or English, and I have to concentrate very hard.

I'm very impressed with the way the church interacts here. The building seems to be open most of the time, and there's always people running around doing things. A bunch of guys are working on building up the front railing and walkway, and they work all day! We (me, Sarah, and her dad) ate lunch with all the workers one day. They also have a dorm for college guys on the third floor. It's a very active church.

Yesterday (Monday) was a very active day. Sunday night after the picnic we drove two hours to the coast. We went out on the beach that night to take pictures and run around in the sand. A bunch of people were setting off fireworks, and there were several fortune teller booths. We spent the night at Sarah's aunt's house. They are very nice people. For breakfast, they tried to make me special food so they gave me sweet potatoes, apples, milk, and grape juice. I like Korean food, but I don't especially like eating it for breakfast, so I was happy to eat the other stuff.

We first visited a fish market. They have a lot of fish, of course, but my favorites were the octopuses! They have buckets and buckets of octopuses around, ready for sale. I tried to take a picture of one, but the lady stopped me. Sarah didn't know why she wouldn't let me, but another lady did the same thing. Finally, one lady explained that there's a superstition that if someone takes a picture of your products that the store will do badly. She didn't believe in it, so she let me take a picture of her octopi.

After that we drove a couple more hours to this little mountain town. Korea is extremely hilly/mountainy. It reminds me of Colorado sometimes. I haven't seen a single flat place since we've been here. Anyway, a couple that lives there is a friend of Mr. Kim's. They got us a reservation on the Railbike. Apparently you usually have to reserve at least three days in advance, since it's so popular, but the couple called for us and got us tickets.

The railbike was really fun. It runs on an old rail line, and we have to peddle to make the little car go. It winds through the mountains and is pretty great. Just wait for the pictures.

Afterwards we went to a restaurants with the couple and ate some mixed rice wich is a specialty of the region. Mr. Kim and the couple got in a fight over who paid. The old man grabbed Mr. Kim's foot while the old lady ran up to the front to pay. We went down the street to get coffee, and Mr. Kim won that time. Sarah told me that the old lady told her husband that he wasn't being polite because he let Mr. Kim win.

Then it was market time. We drove another forty-five minutes to go to another town where they have a traditional market. Stuff was crammed everywhere, and there were all sorts of interesting things. Dried squid, all sorts of roots, leaves, beans, mandrake roots, fish, etc. We bought some fry-dough with brown sugar in the middle.

After that we went to a free performance. It was a drama about three sisters, and it used the traditional songs to sing a lot of it. The songs are really minor and wailing, and Sarah said that the purpose of them was to help the people forget their sadness or their hunger. Sarah would translate a bit of what was said so I would know what was going on. It was so sad! The main actress was so good that she made me want to cry even though I didn't really know what she was saying. In the end, the two younger sisters were on different sides, North and South Korea. They were fighting each other, and the oldest sister stepped in between them, getting killed in the process. The two sisters hugged each other, and the whole cast sang a song about their longing for reunification. Lots of people were weeping at the end.

Well, that was really long. If you get through all of that, I congratulate you.